#jackson!joel

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Run Rabbit✨

A/N: This idea literally came out of nowhere today, so I had to hurry and write it real quick! This idea is based off the song “Run, Rabbit Run!” by Flanagan and Allen. The song would not leave my head, and then I got this image of Joel chasing reader through an abandoned mansion. This one is a tad bit dark, but I hope you enjoy! If you liked this work, please think of reblogging and leaving me comments 🩷 Thank you to @ozarkthedog for being my beta 🥰

Summary: At the beginning of every month, you meet Joel to play a little game of hide and seek at the abandoned mansion near Jackson. It’s not just any game of hide and seek though. It’s dark and it’s twisted. If he catches you, he gets to do whatever he wants with you.

Pairing: Dom! Joel x fem! reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY MDNI)

Word Count: 4.1k

Tags: Possessive Joel, hide and seek, cat and mouse, Joel chases reader until he finds her, Jackson! Joel, outbreak! Joel, smut, fingering, oral, unprotected p in v, cream pie, dirty talk

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The air is suffocating, the black walls are covered in regret and years of cigarette stench. The dim lights seem to shine down on you like a spotlight as you run as fast as you can through the lavish house. You can hear him calling you, stalking you in the dark shadows like a starving dog hunting to devour fresh meat. 

   “Can’t run from me forever, darlin’. You keep on runnin’, but I’ll eventually find you,” he chuckles as his deep voice reverberates around the echoing halls. 

   You cover your mouth, keeping your body down as you run run run past the expensive statues and monumental paintings of the abandoned mansion. Your throat is on fire the longer you run, your body aching like that of a dying man on his last breath of life. Your legs feel like they’ll give way at any second, but you have to keep going. You can’t give up. Not yet. Not when he’s right on your tail. 

   Tired. You’re so very tired, yet you keep running. Dragging your hollow body down the vine covered corridors of the wide hallways as you gasp for fresh air in your watered down lungs. 

   You fly around a narrow corridor and nearly trip yourself on a bed of dark green vines that bite at your ankles, threatening to take you down as Joel draws closer to you. 

   You can feel his overbearing presence, can taste the whiskey that bleeds inside his thick veins, can feel his large body already crowding yours as if he’s already caught you. He hasn’t caught you yet, but you know he will. He always catches you. 

   This was all a game. A dark, twisted game that started on a cold night in December. You remember the first time he chased you, the first time he tore through all your clothes the minute he captured you and devoured your entirety on that pitch black night. Now, every first Saturday of each month you’d meet him back at this abandoned mansion to play his little game. He called it hide and seek, you called it a deadly game of cat and mouse because you were the mouse, and cats always caught their prey. 

   It’s like you two are stuck in a never ending dance, two souls completely consumed in the other as you spin in circles until one of you collapses. You shouldn’t keep coming back, shouldn’t want to play his dark little games, but yet you come. Every single time, you come, unable to face the reality of a month without his touch, his taste, his growls. You’d let the man do as he wanted because how could you resist those charming, big brown eyes? You couldn’t, you just couldn’t. You were a moth drawn to a flame, and he was the brightest, most dangerous flame of all. Something you wanted to forever be branded by.

   Joel Miller was a fucking menace of society, but he was your menace. So you’d continue the game until one of you stopped breathing. 

   “Where are you, little lamb?” he calls as your breath scorches the vine covered walls. You continue running, twisting around dark corners, running down stone steps, and hiding behind crimson curtains. 

   The next wooden door you come upon is locked tight. No amount of shaking the golden handle or hurling your body into the door will make it budge. You turn your head from side to side. The only way out is from the way you came. The hallway that he is in. Fuck. 

   You gulp down a silent breath and make a run for it, even though you know he’ll be there waiting like a prowling wolf. 

   You take careful steps down the marble hallway and sneak around the cold corner until you see his dark silhouette shining against the reflective flooring. You gasp as your eyes go wide, but before you can run he reaches out a long arm and clasps tightly to your wrist. 

   “There ya are, little lamb. Thought you’d get away from me this time?” he smirks as he wraps his calloused fingers tightly around you and tries to pull you in. 

   “Haven’t caught me just yet,” you laugh as you somehow manage to slip out of his grip and make a run for it. 

   You run down some slippery stone steps and end up at the back of the mansion with vine covered long corridors and twisting mazes of green bushes. You run as fast as you can as the wind sweeps through your long hair, letting the brisk wind set your adrenaline on fire. 

   You manage one glance back and see just how fast he’s creeping up on you. He’s like a lion running after a gazelle, the hunter about to attack the prey with its bare claws. And he will destroy his prey. 

   You take a few more steps, but then you feel a hand claw at your shoulder. He takes you down on the hard floor as you come crashing down to the pit of your doom. Pain radiates through your body, but you brush it off as you crawl forward, trying to escape the man that will take you as his own. 

   “Where do ya think you’re goin’, pretty thing?” he asks darkly as he wraps a hand around your ankle and tugs you in his direction. You hear a squeak escape your mouth like a trapped mouse that just got caught by a giant cat. 

   “I’m running away from you,” you answer back as you kick and try to squirm out of his reach. 

   He obviously has other plans because he drags you back underneath him and turns you flat on your back as he pins your hands above your head, his hips and large thighs caging you in so you can’t break free. He won this round, like he always did. 

   “Didn’t think I’d catch you so soon, little lamb,” he chuckles deeply as the weight of his body hangs over yours entirely. 

   “You just caught me off guard,” you sigh as you see his dark chocolate eyes honing in on yours. They’re so captivating, so damn pretty that you can’t look away. He’s so gorgeous even when you should find him intimidating. 

   “Now you’re mine,” he smirks as his chocolate eyes become darker, more blown out as he hovers his plush lips over yours. “Just what am I gonna do to you tonight, hmm?” he asks as lust fills the void of his dark eyes, making you squirm with anticipation already. You know what you want. You want him. 

   “Maybe I should be a little rough with you, hmm? That what you want?” he asks with the tick of his sculpted jaw, his thick eyebrow raising as he looks at you like he just won the most valuable prize in town. 

   You shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t be feeding his sick mind as he plays his dark games, but you can’t help it. You want it just as bad as he does. You want him to be rough with you. 

   You look at him with wide eyes and smirk right back at him, challenging his dominant side to give in. “So be rough with me,” you whisper back. 

   You see his dark eyes grow large with need as he huffs out through his nostrils. “Open,” he demands as he grabs a hold of your jaw and squeezes, just enough for your lips to part open slightly. He bends his head down and inhales deeply as he spits into your mouth as you feel the warm spit cover your tongue. 

   “Swallow,” he growls as you fully oblige. You close your mouth and swallow as you taste his spit slide down your throat. All hot and moist as you taste him in the back of your throat. And somehow you think it’s so goddamn hot. 

   “Good girl,” he praises as he shifts his weight down and starts unbuttoning your faded denim jeans. 

   “Now, you’re gonna be a good girl for me, right?” he asks as he starts to drag the denim down your legs, feeling a wave of slick slide down your lace panties as your adrenaline kicks in. 

   “Mhm,” you nod as you watch him strip your legs bare, next going to tear off your sticky pink t-shirt while he hovers over the fine lace of your bra, his calloused fingers circling your back as he slowly undoes the clasps. 

   “Gonna let me taste every inch of you, little lamb? Gonna let me fuck you till you can’t take anymore?” he asks as he undoes the last clap and slowly starts to slide the bra free, leaving your full breasts exposed to the chilly night air. The only thing left is your slick covered panties, and then you'll be completely bare. 

   “Yes,” you breathe as he cups your breasts and slides his tongue along the crook of your neck, all teeth and tongue as he nips and bites at your flesh. 

   You can’t help the burn, can’t help the absolute need that courses through your body as his weight encompasses your chest. His hot breath bleeds into your lungs and it’s as if you can breathe fresh air for the first time. His woodsy, whiskey scent makes you dizzy as he slides his wet tongue along your bottom lip as he hovers his weight above you. He’s like a wolf that comes to feed on you in the night, and you’ll gladly let him devour you whole. 

   He snakes his hand down your abdomen and slides his hand underneath your ruined panties as he presses his thumb in between your folds, collecting slick as you groan at the feel of him spreading you wide. 

   “Open up, darlin’. Wanna give you a taste,” he whispers. He slides his thumb in your mouth, and you press your tongue around it, tasting the sweet saltiness of your own arousal as you let it slide down your throat. 

   He opens his mouth and sucks the rest of the slick off as he moans at the taste of you in his system. “You taste so fuckin’ sweet, darlin’. Wanna just eat you up,” he groans as he hovers his lips back over yours, inching closer and closer until you’re practically begging him to drop down on your lips. 

   “Please,” you whine as your hands fist at his green flannel shirt, desperate for him to get closer to you. 

   “Please what?” he smirks as his dark eyes weigh into yours, pools of lust overflowing the edges as his pupils now expand into complete darkness. A predator about to eat his prey up entirely. 

   You have to use all your strength to get any words out, desperate for his touch. “Take me, all of me,” you plead as your eyes search his black pits that burn you alive. 

   “Oh, sweetheart. I’m gonna take it all,” he smirks. 

   Before you have time to respond, he drops his lips on yours and fists your hair as he tugs hard and pries your lips apart as he slots in his wet tongue. He glides his tongue against yours and circles your mouth as you moan against him and drink his whiskey breath down. 

   He breaks apart from your mouth and nips playfully down your neck as he kneads your breasts together. His tongue comes down to circle each nipple, bringing them to life as they harden and pebble for him as you writhe underneath him in pleasure. 

   His experienced hands are everywhere, burning your skin alive as he skates his calloused fingers up and down your glistening body that’s now caked in sweat. He shoves your legs apart and slides the lace down your legs as he sits back and examines your entire naked body that’s on full display just for him. Glistening skin and slick coated folds splay out in front of him, and he looks like a mad man the way he’s looking at you. 

   His nostrils flare as his eyes grow wide, the big black pits scavenging your body as he drags a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper scruff as he groans out a heated response. “Goddamn, little lamb. You’re so fuckin’ wet and ready for me. I can hardly stand it,” he moans as he slides between your legs and pushes your thighs apart, his calloused fingers spreading your folds apart as he spits down in between them and starts running meticulously up and down your open folds as he starts circling your clit slowly. 

   You moan and writhe underneath his fingers, but he just presses a big hand to your stomach and holds you still as he works his fingers up and down your soaked pussy. And it feels so good that you want to crawl out of your own skin as the flames alight in your lower regions. 

   “Fuck,” you moan as he licks a thick strip from your dripping hole all the way to the top of your clit as his nose brushes against the coarse hair that sits above your clit. He inhales a large whiff of you as he groans and wraps his arms around your thighs as he holds you down against the cool ground. 

   “That’s right, little lamb. Gonna have you screamin’ my name by the time I get done with you,” he chuckles darkly as he dives back in. 

   His tongue devours you as he slides it up and down, drawing tight circles around your throbbing bundle of nerves as he sucks you deep into his mouth. He glides his middle and ring finger into your dripping hole and works them in and out as he curls up and hits your spongy walls again and again as his tongue feasts on your clit and his fingers go knuckle deep into your pussy. 

   Your eyes start to roll back as your head hits the hard floor, your body feeling like it’s floating on a cloud as hot heat starts to slide down the base of your spine. Close, you’re so close. Almost there. 

   He growls up at you as he demands your attention right now. “LOOK AT ME,” his voice echoes off the vine covered walls as his dominance sheds through the dim light of the hallway. 

   Your eyes snap up to find blown out dark pupils looking up at you as he sucks you in his mouth expertly. His nail beds dig into your thighs as one of his fists sit knuckle deep in your pussy. You’ve never seen him so wild, so much like a starving wolf that it makes more slick slide down his fingers as he pumps in and out of your drenched walls. 

   He pops your bundle of nerves out of his mouth as he gives you one more long lick as he growls up at you with pure dominance in his words. “Come for me, little lamb. Want ya to scream my name, tell me just who’s makin’ you feel good. Come on, darlin’. Show me how you break,” he smirks as he quickens the pace of his fingers and drops back on your clit as he circles circles circles until you’re seeing stars in your vision. 

   “Joel, I’m gonna… gonna,” you whine as you feel your orgasm start to break apart. 

   “Go on. Come for me. Be a good girl now and obey,” he growls as he pulls you back into his mouth while his fingers press up into the spongy walls as you feel yourself coming hard for him. 

   You clench up around his fingers and feel slick start to rain down his fingers onto your thighs as you throw your head back and scream his name as your moans echo through the long, dim lit corridor. Your body feels like white noise washing through it as your toes curl and your fingers slide through his tousled curls. 

   He groans as your fingers dig into his scalp while he licks up every inch of spilt slick in between your thighs. You feel your high start to come down as you take nice, deep breaths and focus on the buzzing in your ears. 

   Joel sits on his knees and views the mess that he made in between your legs as you splay across the floor with your legs still wide open for him. He must enjoy the view because he can’t keep his hungry eyes off you. 

   “Such a good girl, you know that? Now, gonna let me take ya all the way? Gonna let me fuck ya now, sweetheart?” he smirks as he starts unbuttoning his green flannel shirt, undoing the buttons quickly as he slides it off his thick arms and throws it in a heap next to the vine covered wall. His rock hard abs sit glistening in the night light while a happy trail of dark, coarse hair sits just above the waist of his jeans in a v shape. It makes you want to get on your hands and knees and crawl to him as you beg to have just a little taste of him.

   “Yes, please. Fuck me,” you moan as you push your breasts together as your center feels on fire for him. 

   “Oh, I’m gonna fuck ya deep, little lamb,” he smirks as he knits his eyebrows together in concentration. 

   He unbuttons his dark jeans and threads the leather belt through his belt loops while he shoves his jeans and boxers down his legs while he stands and hovers over you with his hard cock hitting the base of his hairy stomach as the tip sits weeping and swollen, just waiting to get inside you. 

   You lick your lips together and stare at the swollen tip as saliva starts to coat your mouth. You can practically taste the salt on your tongue, can almost feel the precum sliding down your throat as you beg him for just one more taste. He looks so delicious, and you want to just eat him right up.

   He smirks down at you as he sees you staring at his thick cock that screams your name. “Want a taste, little lamb?” he smirks as you nod your head mindlessly. 

   “Get over here then and do somethin’ ‘bout it,” he demands as he pulls you up by your hair and plants you on your knees in front of his large body. 

   “Go on then. Let me see how good you can choke on this cock, darlin’.” He flashes his pearly whites at you and wraps his fingers around your hair as you take your hand and start sliding it up and down as you spread the precum all over his thick length. 

   You lick the tip lightly and swirl around slowly as you tease him while your hand works up and down the base of him. “Fuck, there ya go,” he groans as you take him inside your mouth as you taste salty goodness drip down your throat. You take him deeper as you choke on him, feeling the drool coat his cock as you go back and forth on him slowly. 

   He grabs tighter to your hair and starts to fuck up into your mouth as you feel him bottom out at the base of your throat as it constricts around his thick length. You choke and gag around his length as he deep throats you over and over again. Your vision blurs as the tears lick at the corners of your eyes, but you don’t care. You love when he chokes you out, when his cock is deep in your throat as you hear his stifled moans get caught in his throat the more your mouth deep throats him. 

  “Fuckin’ Christ,” Joel growls as his thrusts become rougher and deeper, enough to where you’re gagging on your own drool as it coats your mouth as he slips deeper inside. 

   Before you think you can’t take anymore, he releases his cock from your mouth as a bead of drool connects from his tip to your lower lip as you choke for air with his fingers still firmly wrapped around your hair. 

   “Good fuckin’ girl,” he praises as he releases you and shoves you back to the ground as your back his the cold floor. “Now spread those legs, sweetheart. Gonna fuck ya nice and deep now,” he instructs as he spreads your legs and gets down on his knees.  He throws your legs over his shoulders and lines his cock up with your folds as he slowly slides the tip up and down your folds as your spit on his cock collects with the messy slick in between your legs. 

   “Jus’ relax now, darlin’. Let me help fill this pretty pussy up,” he smiles as he shoves his cock through your folds and fills you up. 

   You gasp at the stretch, he’s so fucking big that you never quite get used to the stretch. There’s a tinge of pain, but mostly you’re so full of him that all you can focus on is how good he’s making you feel. He fucks up into you deeper as he bottoms out inside you over and over again. 

   His body hovers over you as his lips nip against your neck as he slides in and out of you faster faster faster as you start to feel wildlife burn through your whole body. He folds your legs in half like a pancake as he fucks deeper inside you, making your walls squeeze his large length tight as you get close to your second orgasm. 

   You study his appearance, focusing on his knit eyebrows that are sewn together in concentration as he loses himself in you entirely. Sweat sticks to his forehead as his curls stick together in the glistening sweat. His broad back is flexing and tightening around you as your nails claw his tan skin, making him moan into the shell of your ear as he licks against the edge of your ear with thick pants leaving his mouth. 

   You kiss along the edge of his jaw, nipping at his scruff as you moan his name eagerly into the base of his ear as he speeds up his thrusts, bottoming out again and again until you can’t take it anymore. 

   “Joel, I’m gonna… fuck, I’m gonna come,” you pant out as he presses his forehead against yours. 

   “Come for me, pretty girl. Let me feel ya,” he commands as he thrusts up inside once twice three more times until you’re squeezing his cock with your walls and pouring yourself all over him. You moan his name and scratch your nails down his back as he moans back in satisfaction. 

   “Oh, that’s a good girl,” he praises as he continues rutting up inside you until he’s choking for air with his own tongue. 

   “Christ, I’m gonna come. Fuck, I’m gonna…” He doesn’t take long till he’s shooting thick ropes of come inside your walls as you feel warmth bubbling all inside you. He takes a minute to let it all out, releasing all his spend inside you as you breathe in his whiskey coated scent. 

   “Fucking hell, sweetheart. Can’t get enough of that sweet pussy,” he groans as he pulls his cock out of you and lets his spend slide down your milky thighs. 

   He collapses onto his back and pulls you into his side as you wrap a leg around his waist and inch your head up to the crook of his neck as your arm wraps around his broad chest. 

   “Some game, huh?” you pant as your exhausted body splays over the entirety of him. 

   “Some game,” he agrees as he rakes his fingers through your messy hair and kisses the top of your forehead as you relax all your weight into him. 

   “Think there’s ever gonna be a day where you won’t catch me?” you ask curiously as he smiles down and shakes his head at you. 

   “No, sweetheart. I’m always gonna catch you. Even if I have to run a couple miles to get to you. I’ll always catch you, my pretty girl.”

   You smile as he pulls you tight against his body, and you spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor in the abandoned mansion where this all started in the first place. A twisted game that ended in two lovers running back to each other again and again. 

   Maybe some games aren’t meant to be played, but this one was specifically made for you and Joel. The cat and the mouse who started off running away from each other, but it ended with both of you falling apart together. 

Tagging some mutuals who might want to read🩷 @milla-frenchy @vividispunk @littlevenicebitch69 @jasminedragoon @morallyinept @mountainsandmayhem @dugiioh @pedrostories @syd-djarin @laurrrra @joelmillersblog @joelmillerisapunk @amyispxnk @msjarvis @lotusbxtch @untamedheart81 @littlemisspascal

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel x female reader #joel the last of us #tlou fanfiction #joel miller pedro pascal #joel tlou #dom!joel miller #pleasure dom #joel miller one shot #run rabbit run #outbreak!joel #post outbreak joel #jackson!joel #the smut hits hard with this one #joel smut #smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedrostories #dark!joel x reader #dark!joel miller

[macfrog]

psyche and cupid | one shot

happy valentine's, beautiful people. i love you with all of my heart. xx shoutout to @familyvideostevie for putting joel's slutty little thigh holster into my head and, well. yeah. pairing: jackson!joel miller x fem!reader summary: valentine's day with joel doesn't go to plan. warnings: part two never happened!!!!! abby who!!!, established relationship, cursing, half joel pov, unspecified age gap, hints to reader having a sliver of ptsd, jesse is alive and well because he is my prince and i said so, reader has dark pubic hair, masturbation, somnophilia (not discussed in this fic but she is a-ok with it) and therefore dubcon, sprinkle of praise kink, oral (f!receiving), someone comes in his underwear, these two goofballs are big in love word count: 5.5k

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It’s not in his nightstand.

Not hung over the newel post, either.

He said he left it on the kitchen counter yesterday, right after he got home; said he woke up this morning and it was gone. And then he muttered something of an accusation that someone had tidied it away and forgotten where, and that started a whole new argument.

You know what, Joel? You’re following his tall figure as it sways down the hallway, his strides longer and considerably smoother than your flurrying shadow in his wake. Maybe if you weren’t going out today, we wouldn’t be having this problem.

His chin tilts upward, salt and pepper scruff angled to the ceiling with a ha slung from his throat. Yeah, he tosses a glance over his shoulder, we’d just be havin’ it tomorrow, instead.

You scoff in response, stepping where his boots lift off from, following the heavy thud thud thud like a cat at his heels until he’s rounding the corner towards your bedroom.

You pass over the messy trail of your jeans and Joel’s pajama bottoms, your underwear and his leading in a trail to the unmade bed – sheets like a rippled wave painted golden by the dawn.

The two of you split off – Joel lifts the cotton and watches it float back down over the flat of your mattress. Nothing.

You take the closet – the squeal of metal on metal harsh in your sleepy ears as you shove the hanging clothes aside, swiping around at the floor. Also, unsurprisingly, nothing.

Deflated, you straighten, stars peppering your vision and a tatty sleepshirt pinched in your fingers. Led Zeppelin – some band Joel was into before everything went to shit. You’ve listened to him out on the porch before, plucking strings in time with the record wobbling on the turntable inside.

The collar torn, sleeves pecked with holes, print lost to the years and the dryer – but each time you drape it over your shoulders, he smiles and hums some song from a world you’ll never know.

It’s sweet, when you’re in the mood to be wooed.

Which, incidentally, is not right fucking now.

His eyes flit down to the peeling, grayscale image – and that same smile attempts to bloom on his lips. That’s cute, but it ain’t my holster, pretty bird.

His smirk dampens quickly when he looks back up, snuffed by your stony expression.

You whip the tee down to the foot of the bed. You are a piece of fuckin’ work sometimes, do you know that? you growl, storming by him for the en suite.

Joel’s rough hand slips around your wrist, tugging gently but letting you drag him through to the bathroom.

Just go, Joel, you groan, the chill of the room prickling goosebumps on your naked legs. Give  me some peace and quiet. ‘s not like I’m gonna be seein’ much of you today, anyways.

Is that what this is about? His voice echoes in the morning blue, round in your ears as you hang your head over the sink. Pickin’ a fight ‘cause you’re pissed I’m goin’ out?

I didn’t start the fight, you protest. You’re the one who lost his holster.

Didn’t lose it… he mumbles, lips closing around the sentence when he catches your glare in the mirror. He crosses one ankle over the other, toe of his dusty boot on the cracked tile, and sighs. What do you want me to do, baby? I gotta do my job.

On Valentine’s Day? When I worked extra to get it off, and you can’t even get your brother to swap one shift?

Joel’s expression seems to stiffen, tense with a realization that you know, and now he knows, too – he should’ve had days ago. A weighty breath falls from his nostrils, admitting some kind of defeat, and then he’s wandering carefully over to you, two hands curved over your shoulders.

He lowers his forehead onto the nape of your neck, a slow breath which flutters the loose collar of the flannel you’re wearing and sweeps down your spine. I’m sorry, pretty bird. I didn’t know it meant that much to ya.

It doesn’t, you admit, adding, usually. I just thought we could have a day to ourselves, for once.

He’s nodding, sweep of his fringe tickling the slope of your skin. It’d be a lot more romantic than spendin’ it with Jesse, that’s for sure.

Your bodies fall together with a shared laugh, a bright and charming thing in the dull bathroom light. Joel kisses the soft cushion of your shoulder and hooks his chin over, beard grazing your skin.

I’ll be back before you know it. ‘n then we can do whatever the hell you got planned for us, hm?

He’s steady behind you when you lean back, turning to place a damp kiss to the hinge of his jaw. A reply, a plea – a promise.

In the echoing dripdripdrip from the faucet, Joel pulls apart from you, two fingers pinching the hem of your shirt to pull you back into the bedroom.

You wanna walk me to the gate? he asks, pulling the zipper on his jacket.

What about your holster?

He smiles. I’m sure I’ll survive without it. C’mon. Put some pants on.

February is bitter even by Jackson’s standards – a bite of ice in the air which numbs the tip of your nose and stings the helix of your ears. The chill slips a long, sharp finger down the collar of your – Joel’s jacket, and you wrap the baggy canvas tighter around yourself.

Told you to wear som’ thicker. Joel sighs, grip light around the strap of his shotgun. His elbow nudges into yours, a wide arm wraps around your shoulder and draws you flush against his side. Head on back if you’re cold, he says, rubbing until the friction warms your upper arm.

I’m fine, you lie, eyeing the line of horses up ahead. The eager crunch of their hooves in the frozen ground, the pinkish light on their backs from the sky flooded crimson overhead – a warning from the horizon, you think.

It seems to agitate the animals as much as it does you, their heavy heads tossing nervously, ears flicking and inky eyes blinking.

Jesse meets you by the paddock, slipping Joel the reins of his horse with a curt nod, before hoisting himself atop his own.

It bleats from your lips before you can hold it back. Be careful.

Your frozen fingers claw around the zipper of his coat, tugging it upwards until it brushes against his bottom lip. The weather gets bad, you turn back. Okay?

He’s nodding, paying half his attention to your words, the other half to the little crease between your brows. Sure could use my holster against the cold, baby, he mutters, smirk lifting his cheeks and folding similar creases at the corners of his eyes.

Your eyes narrow, palms landing flat against his strong chest. Home soon?

He hums a little laugh, lips ghosting across your temple as he shifts by. Home soon, he mutters, breath steaming against your cold skin, and he leads the mare off towards the gate.

There’s a lot about Joel you admire.

Each part of him like a pebble stolen on a hike; some more jagged, a little more weathered than others, some well-rounded and smooth to the touch. Each one turned and turned and turned between your fingers until you’re fluent in every pore and vein, then dropped into your pocket alongside the others you’ve collected.

Clacking against one another until you arrive home, coat heavier with the happy burden of how much you love him. The same weight you feel behind your ribcage when you think too much about it.

He takes good care of you – has done since you first happened across one another. As if hanging his hunting jacket over your frail body was a wing over your shoulders; as if, from then on, you would never make a single move again without your grizzly bear of a man making it first.

Quiet about it, sure. Subtle. Opens the crook of his elbow for you to hook your wrist around as you wander through town together, and waits until you’re under the cover of nightfall or behind the close of your front door to do much else.

Asks with little more than a fleeting glance if you’re okay; a squeeze of your knee under the table in the dining hall. A conversation shared between closed lips and the meeting of his honey-flecked gaze, and yours. A language which lives and dies with the pair of you.

He’s guarded – and for all that he’s been through, you figure you can allow him that. Allow him his private peace. For all that he says without saying, all he does without making some big song and dance of it – there hasn’t been a second since you arrived here on the back of his horse, that you haven’t known he loves you.

It’s in him like it’s in you. A fever which broke at the first touch of his hand and yours, the first meeting of his warmth and your chill. Two opposites – cooling the painful sear in his heart, warming the barren frost in yours. Something sewn deep into your flesh, carved right through to the hollow of your bones.

And Jesus, if it doesn’t drive you fucking insane.

The front yard needs tidied up after winter, you notice, as you scuff your way up the path towards the porch. Once the last of the snow dries up, you two can get to repairing the damage done by the blizzards and the gales: fitting new shutters, planting new bulbs.

A cycle you’re still getting used to: the upkeep of a place called home. The strange feeling of having someone you call the same thing.

Your extra shifts at the stables and Joel’s long mornings out on the trails mean your home has gone neglected for a few days. Dishes and cutlery left in the sink, a pile of laundry slowly sprouting to new heights like a wild plant each time you cast a wary glance at it.

It’s not like you’ve much else to do, given Joel won’t be home for at least another couple hours. So you shuck off your jeans, letting the tail of his shirt dangle from your behind, and pick your way around each room – wiping counters and dusting corners, humming along to the crooning old records as they spin in the background.

Playing house at the end of the world. Pretending to listen for the tired exhale of a yellow school bus, mimicking the electrified babble of radio presenters between each track.

The bedroom is arguably the worst offender. Bedsheets used a few days too long, clothes strung across the floor – the relics of a late one at the Tipsy Bison. It’s no wonder you’re so fucking tired.

Echoes of stumbling footsteps and hushed, drunken giggles loop your ears, the groaning bedsprings and blunt thud of the headboard. You pluck the underwear and socks one by one, your body wincing around a satisfied ache still lingering, and shuffle over to the laundry hamper, lifting the lid to –

The dopey smile on your lips dissolves instantly. You gotta be fucking…

The buckle glints in the light, silver blinking up at you from its bed of dirty laundry. The tan strap coiled and neatly slung through its fastener; the pouch empty. Awkward and ashamed, lying there in front of you. Apologetic, almost.

Your eyes roll closed; a short, hot breath seeping past your lips. A silent promise embedding beneath your tongue to take him by the sleeve as soon as he crosses the threshold, force him to lift the lid himself. An I told you so already brewing in the pit of your stomach.

The holster’s actually pretty heavy when you lift it up in the light. Leather a little worn, stitching frayed where it should clip around his belt.

It’s the size and width of him: a thick, toned thigh slotted inside the loop of leather, fixed by fingers long void of feeling when he’s been riding to the outpost, chasing infected, plunging his knife deep into their necks.

Patrol was never your thing. Joel took you out just once – but there are cracks in your past which threaten to split you in two, it seems, the longer you spend outside the settlement walls. Phantoms which follow close behind in the form of snapping twigs, of the wind rustling in the trees overhead. Shadows living in your periphery with curled sneers and spits of filth.

You lasted twenty minutes, that first and only day, before Joel had your horses tied together and your body shelled in his own, taking you straight back home.

But the thought of this around his thigh, the thought of him adjusting it to the waistband of his jeans; his hand floating down to settle gently atop it when he’s listening for danger approaching, two fingers slipping into the trigger guard.

It…stirs something.

You pad over to the bathroom, hopping as you step into the strap. He wears it on his right leg, right? You pull it past your ankle, ball of your foot slamming clumsily back down on the tile.

Adjusting it to fit your thigh, you bunch the hem of his shirt in one fist and stare back at your reflection. Her nervous stance, hips swaying left to right as she peruses the figure opposite.

Who is she, this mirage – naked thigh decorated with her man’s leather, fingernails tracing the messy stitching and imagining the weight of his gun, keen in the pouch?

A strange aura of possession about it, like a part of him locked firm around a part of you, from however many miles away. You swear you can feel the ghost of his warmth on the inside of the strap, wrapped around your sensitive skin.

Yeah.

Stirs something, alright.

Joel’s been gone little over an hour. He’s probably at the outpost by now, logging All clear and pretending to let Jesse take the lead. Wide shoulders swaying as he wanders from room to room, a careful scope of the valley from each window, tongue tracing the bottom of his teeth.

Ridges of his knuckles white around the grip of his shotgun, squinting down the barrel. Lines drawn between his brows and at the corners of his eyes like scores on parchment, focus and concentration tight on his face.

You sink back into the cradle of your bed, that divot where his body and yours meet each night. Each part of you intertwining with a part of him: the place where you become one. His smell and your touch, your giggle and his teeth.

A sudden, powerful thing which hammers through your veins and jumps your body for a few seconds – you pull the first orgasm from between your legs within a matter of minutes. The sight of his shirt disturbed over your stomach, the feeling of blood squeezing past taut leather enough to throw you under by itself, never mind the fast snap of your fingers deep inside your body.

Another – slower, lazier, still vibrating from the first – then almost a third, but the crinkle of sheets at your ears, the pillow-soft landscape beneath your heavy body, begins to sweep you off somewhere.

And in as little time as it took to entice you into the water in the first place, you slip beneath the waves.

The house is quiet when he finally makes it home.

Jesus, Joel thinks, what a shift.

Not one infected the entire run, he can’t quite believe – but Jesse caught his palm on some warped sheet of chain link fence, then almost passed out when he looked down and saw the scarlet seeping from his shredded skin.

The pair sat for half an hour, unsheltered in the unforgiving wind, waiting for the kid’s head to stop spinning and the cold to rob the feeling from his hand.

All Joel wanted was to get home to you. You, and your hips swaying as you stand by the stove, and his hands kneading into the velvet plush of your waist, and the smell of burnt sausages and spatter of angry oil from the pan.

He’s so late. He said he’d be as quick as he could, said you’d barely know he was gone, and he’s so fucking late.

But he’s here now, at least.

He’s home.

As he kicks off his boots, snow sprinkling from the soles onto the doormat, he notices the absence of your arms around his waist. The missing weight at the back of him, no ear flat against his spine and hands interlocked above his belt. No relieved, I missed you, no nuzzle of your head under his arm.

The house is still and dim. The turntable spins in the corner, a dead crackle playing nothing for no one. Joel sniffs, eyeing the room and its new, orderly form: the books slotted neatly on their shelves, the rings of coffee wiped clean from the table.

Lifting the needle from the record, Joel calls out, Baby?

Maybe you’re in town somewhere. Maybe you’ve gone to spend the morning with the horses. But then, you would’ve been watching for his arrival. Would’ve skipped out from the stables and swung around his body, a gleeful smile and an outstretched hand. Take me home, cowboy.

And you wouldn’t have left the lights still burning, the player still turning. Your coat is still on its hook, smaller and brighter and where it belongs on the right of Joel’s. The cushions on the couch are fluffed and smooth, perched contentedly in place; the curtains draped in their tie backs.

You’re home. You’ve been home all morning.

So where the fuck are you?

Joel crosses over to the bottom of the stairs, blinking up at the painted cowboys and horses staring down from the landing. Calls your name, a faint singsong as he slowly ascends the stairs. You up there?

Down the wintery dull hallway to the bedroom door, figuring he knows the answer. And he’s right, isn’t he, when he nudges the door open and peers inside, spots the tiny lump of you in your double bed. Sunk deep into the mattress – covers you’d come in here to change, swallowing you whole.

A crooked, exhausted smile pulls across his lips; his thumb hooks around a belt loop, knee cocking.

You’re so…perfect. So heavenly, so still like this – stretched out on your front, breathing in the scent of his pillow and breathing out little puffs of air.

Joel leans over you, a heavy hand pushing into the mattress above your shoulder, and runs a featherlight knuckle over your cheek.

Pretty bird? he whispers, lighter than the long breaths from your sleep-swollen lips.

You don’t stir. No movement, save for the rise and fall of your shoulders wrapped up in his flannel.

Joel feels a pang of guilt, numbed only by the chill still through his body: he woke you this morning, before even the sun had lifted her head. Had you hunting all over the house with him, for some dumb holster that he wound up not even n–

His eyes trail down the shape of your body, draped in the sheets like white marble carved into the round shape of something beautiful, hands following the curve of your thigh. His wrist freezes when it meets the odd bulge of something, an awkward bump beneath the cotton.

He peels the sheet back, lifting it from your shoulders, your waist, your hips – until your angled thigh lies on full display for his feasting eyes.

His fucking holster…wrapped tight around your fucking thigh.

A disbelieving laugh at first – a She told me so, before he notices the indents in your skin, the stretched leather snug around your leg, riding higher than it should at the doing of your slumber.

Christ, baby, he breathes, stare glued to the folds of plaid hooked around the belt loop. Following the tatty hem down past your hip, along the underside of your ass – riding up some, right where your legs part.

And between them, all sheer and thin, twisted around itself and slipping between: your underwear. The threading of pubic hair peeking over the frilled hem of it; the sight filling Joel’s mouth with saliva.

A heavy heat forms in his jeans, an irritable weight which aches when he moves; which hardens when he pictures the image of you in his bed, his shirt, his holster wrapped around your thigh – playing with yourself while he’s been gone.

Fuck. Fuckin’…shit.

He lowers, running lips he knows are freezing cold along the burning surface of your skin, tongue slipping past his teeth to drag a wet trail along your thigh.

Your leg shifts under his touch, the startle of his chilled fingertips behind your knee, nuzzling of his nose where the holster sits smugly on your thigh. Smelling like leather and salt, the sticky sheen of sweat still glowing on your skin.

Joel takes your waist in two hands – he can’t fucking help himself, can he? – and turns you, patiently, watching as you roll onto your back so he can drag you further down the bed. Tongue flicking at the corners of his lips, thirsty for something he only wants you to feed him.

Slow, slowly. Every effort put into not waking you, to keeping you in this peachy haze between asleep and awake; your movements long and staggered, held firm against the mattress by the weight of your doze.

With a sigh, your jaw turns to one side. Joel pulls you in, kneeling at the edge of the bed with your socked feet resting on his shoulders. His shirt gathers around your waist; your hips and the thin twine of your underwear spotlighted by stripes of weakened sunlight spilling in through the blinds.

Oh, pretty bird, he groans, slipping his open palms under your ass, rough and squeezing the pillows of flesh in his hands. This all for me?

A moan wrapped in a hefty breath twists from your lips. Your knees fall limp; legs open almost eagerly, like your body inviting him in. And he accepts, takes it with eyes blown black and hungry lips parted – leans in and nestles his nose against the thrumming heartbeat pounding through your clit.

Such a good girl, he whispers, closing his lips in a kiss over your clothed mound, and your hips jolt.

You’re so fucking warm. So wet; sticky and so ready for him. He kisses your folds, suckling gently and letting his tongue dart along the inseam of your lips in flicking movements – collecting the taste of salt and feeling his cock throb against rough denim.

Off? he asks – you and the room and himself – fingers hooking around the underwear rolled on your hips.

When your back arches, body feeling the loss of his tender kiss, rolling like a wave seeking to crash against the steady rock form of his – he smirks to himself.

Joel nods. Off.

He takes his time peeling them from your body, watching as more and more of his paradise is revealed. The waves of your folds, the sheer glisten of arousal along them; the dark hair peppering either side as damp and slick as the skin beneath it.

Your panties drop from a hooked finger without a sound and he turns back, hovering over your waiting cunt with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Out front, voices call back and forth to one another – some neighborly greeting and affable conversation – but Joel doesn’t hear. Deafened to anything but the sound of your sighs and his own blood hammering through his ears.

It’s a little rushed, a tad rough, the way he presses his lips back to yours. The way his beard grazes against your most sensitive spot, and the gasp he swears he hears lift from your tongue.

But fuck, he’s missed this, the way he always does – without knowing, without actively thinking about it, without knowing it was even at home waiting for him. If his mind weren’t on an entirely different planet right now, he’d curse that goddamn chain link for holding him up, for keeping him away longer than thirty seconds from the sweet little angel resting in his bed, and the sweet little pussy between her legs.

He parts your thighs wider, tongue dipping lower and deeper as he laps at your core, almost fucking panting against it.

You squirm lazily beneath him, shoulders tensing and untensing, a half-limp wrist lifting to pet his hair and an attempt at his name between your lips. Joel, you whimper, thick with sleep and something more dangerous.

I know, baby, he’s telling you, I know, and his tongue slips inside again. His hips grind into the mattress, cock an agonizing stiff against the sturdy edge. He can feel the wet in his boxers, the precome sticking to the inside of the cotton.

Fuck, he wants to be inside you so badly, so desperately.

Another gasp sputters across your lips, cut short in your throat when his teeth bump against your clit.

Too hungry, too brash, he thinks. You’re too soft, too open for him to let it go to waste. Not like this.

He pulls back, a filthy thread of arousal and saliva between his open lips and yours, and places a sodden kiss to the inside of your thigh.

But you whine, you poor little thing – your head twisting to the other side, a second hand now blindly surfing across his shoulder, past the brush of his beard and sifting through his still-chilly hair. The loss of attention to your pussy aching between your legs; your hips lifting weakly to meet the scratch of his chin again.

And that same sound – that same Jo-oel – a sound like song, like saccharine dripping over his shoulders.

So, he lifts a hand – two middle fingers coming together to push open your cunt, instantly sliding in knuckle-deep. Sucked in by the wet mess left behind by his lips, stretching you out with slow, round movements.

You’re slowly stirring, blossoming from your sleep and turning slowly back into this world. The cold edges seeping in, the warm flush of pleasure sharpening at their meeting. He’d do anything, he thinks, to keep you here; keep you teetering on the edge, tangled up between your world and his.

J– oh, fu-uck, you whine, and he can tell you’re still blinkered by sleep. But you grind on him again – a long, languid movement which seems to spatter out at its end when the coarse hair of his beard catches against your clit.

The breath stops in your throat, punching out in a shuddered moan. Joel could come just from the sound of it.

You gonna give me one, baby girl? he pleads, forearms clamping down on the underside of your thighs. Desperate – desperate to feel you, hear you, taste you as you come undone. Just one.

You’re writhing around beneath him, as needy as he is. A winding which matches his, coiling at the bottom of your stomach; a feeling which pulls at the corners of your lips and shocks them into a smutty, half-conscious smile. Your eyes roll back, fluttering open and then snapping shut when the light floods in.

There, you say, clearest so far, movements the strongest he’s felt. Your fingers root in his hair, rough over his scalp. Keep – keep doin’ that.

Joel smiles against your mound; a cocky thing, emboldened by the sound of that little Texan twang, the curl of an accent which doesn’t belong to you. Rather, a result of your years spent with him, watching the way his mouth shapes the words, learning the low swing and swirling melody of his tongue.

As if he’s as alive within you as he is within himself; every little thing Joel knows is him, injected into your bloodstream – his dry wit, his blunt honesty, his thick fingers and his insatiable tongue.

He slips in a third, flicking them perfectly inside of you. Beckoning your release; tongue sitting in wait, a resting point for you to grind your clit against.

And he wants it as much as you do: wants to feel the clamping of your body around him, wants to taste the flood of your orgasm as it shocks through every bone in your body.

Wants to pull three soaked, pruned fingers from your pussy and slip them over your tongue, letting you clasp your fingers around his wrist; watching the half-dozing flutter of your eyelashes as you suckle on them and make those pretty little sounds for him.

Your hand knots tighter in his hair, pelvis circling steady against his suckling lips. He can smell it on you: smell the need seeping from your pores. The sleep spilling from the corners of your mouth, the happy whimpers and quiet cries for more, more, Joel, more.

And – Shit, he breathes against you, feeling a sudden rush of electricity he knows all too well between his hips. Not now, not now not before he’s been inside – Shit, baby, gotta let me go.

You whine in refusal – a petulant sound, all stubborn and greedy. ‘m so close, I –

Pretty bird, he groans, lifting his jaw. He places a messy kiss to the crease between your core and your thigh, wrist stammering with his sudden movements. You gotta – you gotta let go, you’re gonna make me come –

You’re echoing him, mumbling the words gonna, gonna come – fuck, Joel, ‘m gonna –

Shit.

Not – Fuck – not right n– Christ, baby girl, you’re gonna – you’re –

Your walls spasm, clamping and relaxing, squeezing around his huge fingers. But it’s not that – it’s not the gush of warm fluid which seeps from between your legs, coating his knuckles and dripping into his palm.

It’s not the arch of your back, the way your breasts lift to the ceiling and his shirt slips below one nipple. Not the way your head rolls back against the mattress, a broken moan tearing in shards from your throat.

No.

It’s the way your hands leave his hair in an instant, and grip around the leather on your thigh. Skin stretching thin over your knuckles, thumbs between the strap and your sticky skin; hips still riding out your high as you ground yourself, holding onto his holster.

And it makes Joel come. Hard.

Harder than he knew possible, grinding against a mattress and the inside of his fucking jeans.

He falls forward, breathing a guttural moan into the soft swell of your stomach below your navel, fingers hooking into the baggy shirt around your arms.

Shitshitshit, he pants, feeling the warm ejaculate spurt from his cock and all over the inside of his boxers. Oh, fuck, baby. Fuck me.

His hips shudder a few more times, pressing hard into the edge of the mattress before he’s coming down, slowing to a stop – still a leaden weight on your stomach. His cock almost painful, overstimulated and oversensitive.

But then – something gently tittering. A bird singing, cooing above his head. The ground beneath his temple shakes, tremors with laughter. The dust twinkles in the sunlight, now brighter, golden, streaming through the window.

You’re awake.

Joel drags his gaze upwards, bleary and glazed with sex, and catches your eye.

Feel good? you ask, sifting hair away from his damp forehead. When was the last time that happened? Fourteen?

I don’t wanna talk about it, he mumbles into your belly.

Your chest jumps, a laugh which echoes into Joel’s ear. Tastes that good, huh?

It takes a mighty effort for him to push up on his palms, slowly crawling up the length of your body until his elbows plant firm into the mattress either side of your head. He groans as he lowers his lips, parting them to let you slip your tongue inside.

The kiss is slow, tender. Your bodies melding together, teeth clacking and jaws moving in sync. A sharp taste, sweet with a singe of bitterness to it. Perfect, you think, smirking against Joel’s cool lips.

He pulls away, lips tickling the tip of your nose deliberately.

With a giggle, you push on his chest. You should shower. You smell like patrol.

Joel cocks an eyebrow. You comin’ in with me?

Nope. I got even more laundry to do now, old man.

He entertains the quip with a subtle smile, a thing which softens the creases on his face and lights a twinkle in his eyes. Quietly, genuinely, in a way which makes your heart ache a little, he whispers, Sorry I was workin’, pretty bird.

You shrug. ‘s okay. You made up for it. And – I found your holster. You lift your knee, letting the buckle shine in the sunlight.

You did that, Joel agrees, nodding and glancing down at the thing. He hooks a finger around the strap, giving it a little shake. Maybe I oughta lose it more often.

Hm, you shrug, or I can just keep it safe for ya. Looks good, don’t it?

He feigns a disappointed smile, a resigned sigh before he looks back up.

Better ‘n when I wear it, he admits, and his lips crash down to yours again.

#same universe as 'wish you were here' - if you want #joel miller #jackson!joel #joel miller fic #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller smut #tw somnophilia #tw dubcon

[motherofagony]

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 1

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 5.6k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: life goes on after raiders infiltrate a routine patrol. you're a shut-in, and jackson residents tiptoe around your trauma. joel found you after the accident, but you don't know what to make of it. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, mentions of trauma (no s/a, i promise), blood, bodily injuries, death, shitty men, dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension if you close one eye, the softest enemies to lovers you've ever seen vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: longtime listener, first time caller. yes, there will be smut — in due time. probably a slower burn than you're used to on tumblr dot com, but there will be porn galore, i promise. heavy on the hurt + comfort trope in this one. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy.

“Get the fuck up!”

The boot connects with your side again, the rounded toe slamming into ribs you’re sure are already broken. You’re trying to play dead, but it doesn’t exactly work when yelps are being kicked out of you. Old Yeller, of all fucking things, comes to mind.

But you’re not sick, not infected. Just wrong time, wrong place.

Blood pools sticky under your head. Voices are filtering in like an untuned radio, gathering static and making you nauseous. Like it’s all one bad hangover or a lucid dream in a realm too far.

“Where are the others?”

Someone else asks the question that you’ve been concentrating on. The knob turns, clearing the radio fuzz just so. You strain to hear, but you don’t dare open your eyes.

“Dead. Not shit on ‘em that was worth stealin’. We gotta fuckin’ go — just leave her.”

A vague twang of Boston wraps around his words. You’d forgotten what it sounded like, how the rs get caught in the back of the tongue and dropped. How the voweled aws are spit at you, the shell of your ear growing numb against the icy concrete. 

Yes, you think. Fucking leave me.

The raider that’s been torturing you for what feels like hours groans as if it’s an inconvenience, an interruption to something he was thoroughly enjoying. Whatever he would’ve done, continued doing, taunts the crevices of your mind. He digs through your bag one last time, and you don’t know what he’s looking for or if there would have been anything at all that would have satisfied him the first time. 

You remember a sliver of skin where his sleeve had bunched, revealing a shitty coupling of star tattoos on his wrist. You can feel your icepick heartbeat behind your eyes, and you wonder if it was a dare over a few beers. A matching tattoo with a lover. The thought lifts you up and out of the crushing burden of pushing air into clenched lungs, only for a moment. It’s no name to grab hold of, but it’s an identifier if you can make it out alive. 

He’d crept up behind you while you were clearing a warehouse that you swore you’d be fine doing by yourself, pushing the cold barrel of something painfully familiar into the back of your head. He was tall, unflinching, unworried, too practiced. He helped you slip the straps of your backpack off your shoulders but staggeringly violent and unkind. Feeling you up for weapons with a disgusting leisure. As if you’d be hiding something gun-sized in your small back pocket.

You’d heard panic and screams outside, and you already knew. Voices outnumbered your friends, and it was almost – almost – funny to think that Tommy said the three of you would be one too many for patrol.

So, when exactly two gunshots hit their targets, it only took you seconds to figure out the score. 

Something significant cracked in you then. Started in your chest and splintered to your heart, head, down to the tips of your toes. There was no fighting back, and you were next.

Now — fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, bloodied face, broken wrist, and one concussion later, here you find yourself. The tall one has a thick mustache, something sinister and villainous that seems too stereotypical even for this. At some point there had been a shift, and what started as a robbery now felt like killing for sport.

“Fine. Think she’s dead anyway.”

He kicks you one more time for the cinematic pleasure of it all. 

This time you don’t wince, don’t feel a jerk or twitch betray you. The muscle in your jaw is so tense, the teeth grinding so hard into one another that you expect to open your mouth to a cloud of dust.

An agony you’ve only ever seen in movies is wringing every cell dry. It’s seizing, unrelenting, almost an exorcism in the tensing and writhing of it all. But you keep it beneath the surface, barely clinging to the little control you have. 

You try to count the footsteps that are finally retreating, to breathe around the blood in your nose both dried and fresh. It feels like measuring the closeness of thunder and lightning, some kind of correlation with the distance of a storm. 

The group trails outside, and heavier footsteps of your stolen horses lead them away. Onto the next. Breath idles in your chest, and the clarity that you think will come when you finally unstick your eyelids doesn’t. Everything feels swollen, scorched, raw. Nerve endings clipped and lapped up by the unrelenting lick of wind. A scream climbs up your throat, but the pain isn’t worth the exhale. And you don’t want them to come back for round two.

You drag the dead weight of your limbs out to inspect what you know to be true, and it’s nothing but bloody snow angels and twisted, awkward angles of your friends. You can’t even look at them, turning your head and squeezing your swollen eyes shut when you check for pulses that aren’t there. 

Snowflakes collect on your lashes and drip pink down your face.

—

Daylight wanes, languid and impatient. It’s been hours trying to retrace your steps back to Jackson, the blood loss slowing you to a stop every five dizzying minutes. Your feet trick you into standing, only for your knees to buckle and bring you down into the snow. Teetering on the cliff of willfully alive and mercifully dead. There isn’t pain anymore, not really, and you’re grateful for the numbing cold, but you can feel your body threatening to cave in on itself. 

Tears don’t come as much as you beg for them, for any type of release that’ll ground you. Enough time has ticked by that someone has to notice an absence of three, but you can’t be sure that you’re even on the right path anymore to meet them in the middle. 

When they find you, if they ever find you, at least they’ll know you tried.

There’s a comfort in that, a warmth that reaches out and grabs you and folds you in like a blanket. It’s safe here, it says. Just lie down for a minute. And you don’t fight it.

Someone’s calling your name now, and it’s a gentle tug back into consciousness. There are frantic hands on your face, delicate and urgent when they take inventory of your wounds. When they say death greets you, maybe it’s this. 

But there’s a Texas drawl that’s murmuring you’re okay, I’ve got you and I know, I know it hurts and shouting instructions to someone else that’s lifting you up, up, up. 

Your fingertips scrape a stubbled jaw when you’re pulled away. The light dims like a blown-out candle. And you’re falling, grasping at anything, everything, nothing. 

You forget the rest.

—

Ten months pass, dripping into spring, then summer, and meeting autumn at its doorstep.

Everything has healed, down to the last scratch. That day feels hazy, and you’d assume it was a hallucination if not for the two friends that didn’t come back with you. The recovery was just as strange, trauma shielding you from the gory parts but not the guilt. Never the guilt. 

Sometimes, you test the memory, prod at it, but nothing new comes to the surface. No recollection of who they were, where they were going, if they were anything more than nameless thieves. It’s probably better this way, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true.

Fistfuls of flowers collected on your porch, and they seemed to appear out of thin air because no one ever came with them. Anonymous condolences that didn’t want to be seen, and it was an easy guess as to why. You heard rumors, retellings of what happened without much accuracy, but there was nothing to say to correct them. Some of them were angry, and you let them be. Call it penance, undeserved or not. 

Ellie would visit occasionally, sometimes Tommy. You let her play guitar without saying a word, let him bring you books to keep you occupied. Everyone else dodged you, and you didn’t know if it was discomfort or because you were the only one left alive to blame. Probably both.

Since then, they’d kept you busy elsewhere. Projects that hadn’t been projects before suddenly popped up. More hands in the stables for getting horses ready for patrol. Planting vegetables and flowers for food and morale. Playing doctor when the patrols would come back with minor injuries from staving off infected. Being underfoot at the Tipsy Bison, picking up shifts when there was a movie night or some string-lit illuminated get-together. 

Slinking into the shadows and being the ambient background noise in everyone else’s conversations. 

You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you had the farthest thing from a green thumb, that you couldn’t bartend for shit, that the most nurse-like thing you’d ever done was slap a band-aid on a skinned knee. 

An otherness that weighed so heavy you thought it would be better to crush you. Poison that bloomed in the belly of a tight-knit community that didn’t know what shelf to put you on. Who felt like collective trauma was part of the deal, and this was just yours. 

But it softened the blow of your abrupt uselessness. You let it happen. Becoming competent was better than peeking out from drawn curtains. Better than sleeping with your eyes open, watching everyone around you move on while you couldn’t.

While nightmares claw their way up your chest at night and leave you in a cold sweat, flicking on every light that’ll burn to make sure you’re really, truly alone.

The roar of laughter snaps you out of the trance, breaks the eye contact you were making with your fireplace. You wonder absently if you’d tuned out the rest or if everyone had finally huddled together in front of the projector down the road for tonight’s showing of whatever DVD was looted during this week’s patrol. You didn’t usually mind — sometimes even joined when Ellie had enough of your sulking and all but kicked your door in — but tonight feels like an organized, cruel punishment.

You pry yourself from your couch, knocking over the stack of books on your way to the coat rack. Anaïs Nin pierces you with a glare, rotting where you left her. You slip each arm into a heavy coat, tucking one of the books into your bag with a lone cigarette as a makeshift bookmark. It’s cold as fuck tonight, but maybe you’ll linger a little longer after closing down the bar. Maybe you’ll wait until the crowd outside dies down to sneak back into your house, light another fire, and count down the hours until your shift at the stables.

Bartending tonight should be quiet, hopefully only encountering a few regulars that usually kept to themselves and tipped you for doing the same. 

You steal one more warm moment before opening the door and stepping into the flinching cold, taking note of the way words stutter and lose traction when your face registers with the nearby crowd. There always seems to be a vacancy of pleasantries. And you don’t exactly invite them.

Tommy gives you a sympathetic look, tipping his chin up in a half-nod. Ellie lifts a few fingers in a wave, knowing you don’t want the pity but hate the suffocation of nothing at all. You will the corners of your mouth to quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes and force your legs into a normal pace, almost locking your knees so you don’t break into a run. The debt of an overdue visit with them burrows in your chest. 

The Jaws theme song hums ominously, and you think it’s only fitting.

A few people litter the bar when you meet the cozy blanket of peanut-shelled air of the Tipsy Bison. A pool cue cracks against a ball and sends it clattering into a group of others, a low crackle of some country something crooning out of the jukebox. You shed your coat and your bag in the back, washing your hands under scorching water to shake some feeling back into your bones.

“Just a few tonight. Been slow – you’ll probably be out early. What’s playin’?”

You smile at the thick, syrupy Southern mama accent by your side. Cheryl is no-nonsense, usually slips you a little extra at the end of your shifts, and feigns ignorance of anything about the ugly parts of your past. All she cares about is that you’re eating. There is an undying gratitude for Cheryl. 

“Ah. Jaws, I think.”

She seems to read your mind with a laugh, patting your shoulder affectionately like only a mother can.

“Maybe I’ll go join the sharks. Joel just got here, wants a whiskey ‘fore I head out. You know him,” Cheryl tuts, almost rolling her eyes but you know she likes the caretaker role if you’re any indication.

And you do. You do know him.

Joel keeps to himself almost as much as you do, maybe a little less when it comes to Ellie and Tommy. He’s sort of your catty-cornered neighbor, but not the sugar-asking kind. More like the kind that glances in your direction, holds your stare for a beat too long, and abruptly looks away before anything discernible can appear. 

The closest you ever come to saying anything of substance to each other is when you ready his horse for patrols and intercept it when he’s back safe and sound. You try not to let him catch your gaze shifting to that shiny scar on his head, and you stifle down the question that’s none of your business. 

Maybe he does the same for you.

And maybe he was there and saved you that day, but neither one of you has ever mentioned it since. You don’t know how, and there’s a brick wall around the subject that won’t let you. Enough time has passed that you figure he’d have said something if he gave a shit.

Yet, there’s a deep yearning for his approval, his attention. It’s a mystery even to you, when you think about how savagely indifferent you are to anyone else’s. But you think it’s the magnetism of having him as a witness. The way he could vindicate you and give you an alibi, a heroic complex, but he doesn’t. 

So, the idea that he’s one of the patrons that you can count on one hand tonight… you can’t put a name to what it’s doing to you.

Cheryl makes sure that you’re okay, but she doesn’t linger. She packs up her things with haste, jogging through the cold to join her wife in front of the bonfire.

No one really pays you any mind as you start your closing duties early, and it’s doubtful that the seats will fill any more than they are as the party picks up outside.

Joel sits at the corner of the bar that faces you, and he’s down to a knuckle’s length of whiskey. If he were anyone else, you might wonder why he’s not at the bonfire — but it’s Joel. Social anythings are like a second plague to him.

The thought of having to refill his drink vibrates in the back of your mind, and lead fills your stomach. Small talk that you never quite have with him. It dissipates just as quickly, when you see the way he’s fixed on the sweat gathering on his glass instead of anything else, and when a gust of wind comes in as the door opens.

Max. Anxiety snaps in your rib cage like a rubber band. Something acrid hits the back of your throat and you think it might be blood the way your teeth connect with the soft tissue of your cheek. 

Max had been a recurring character in your bed once. Before. It was never more than convenience, and the way you fucked wasn’t love, not even close. Liberating to think that you never neared the edge of feeling anything except his hand pressing your face into a pillow, performing orgasms that never came. 

There’s no carcass of affection left, so devoid of emotion for him that it feels like a severed limb.

He’s all ego and athletic strength, sauntering up to the bar with a gait that reeks of hours of pregaming. There’s a permanent sneer when he addresses you, a coldness that has nothing to do with the weather.

“Tequila. Two doubles.”

He’s the type to twist the knife of your tragedy in even deeper, making sure to hit all vital organs. The first to question what more you could have done to save his friends, blaming you for leaving them there to die as if they weren’t dead the moment raiders showed up. As if you weren’t almost dead. Anything you’ve said in defense is inconceivable, an excuse, an admission of guilt. He mourns at your expense and often.

Jackson trudges forward, but Max forces you to stay in grief and remember.

“I think you’ve had your fill this week. Drank through your ration on Tuesday, remember?” you say coolly, but a twinge of fatigue colors your tone, giving you away. You aren’t in the mood, and Max finds it easy to light flame to your resolve as-is.

Maria spends hours of careful inventory, and there’s been more than one occasion where you’ve been instructed to cut off a greedy drunk. The vice, the urge to drink in an apocalypse doesn’t really align with the limited stock, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly see Maria around, do you?” A jeer at face value, but you decide in the beat of silence that follows that rule enforcement isn’t worth it tonight. “Sounds like you’ll think of something. And you fuckin’ owe me one, don’t you? Or would you prefer I collect on that another time?”

It’s not worth it. You’re dropping your glare, squaring your jaw, lining up two glasses so that the rims clink. But the way your skin prickles, there’s an unwelcome visitor in his stare, an x-ray vision that you wished Max didn’t have. 

Somewhere down the bar, glass slams against wood and something you know to be amber-colored sloshes.

You try to steady the angry tremble that overcomes your hands as you upturn the liquor bottle. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

He holds the ration card to you, taunting you by pulling back when you reach for it, only to smirk and flick it toward you, uncaring of where it lands. You shove it into the mouth of the register with the violence you wish you were brave enough for.

“You can leave now.”

“That so? Mouthy now that you have an audience?” Max gestures cruelly to the grand total of four patrons, five if you counted Johnny Cash.

It stings, but dully. You’ve heard worse – even if not to your face – and it’s all kind of anti-climatic if you considered the low-budget production they always try to make out of you. The words eventually all sound the same, nothing punches quite the way they intend. Still, your cheeks burn as if on cue, and —

“She told you to get the fuck out.”

A low timbre erupts, easily mistaken as pure venom. There’s a sway in the way your senses glitch and then still, and reality swirls at the edge of your periphery. Pool balls stop their roll, murmured chatter ceases, and even the fucking jukebox settles on an instrumental to lean in and listen. 

You dare to look over at Joel, whose demeanor looks more akin to statuesque and threatening than his curved slouch when you first clocked in. He’s standing, flexing his fists so hard that you think they might shatter.

Max backs off but subtly – you can see the way his puffed chest deflates even though his glare doesn’t. He finishes off one tequila before backing up with the other dangling in his fingers, both hands turned palm-out in mock surrender. 

A deep annoyance plucks at his brow, but he knows he’s flirting with a black eye. 

Max flashes a middle finger, lets his grip relax after downing the glass in his hand, and it crashes to the floor with a wincing shatter. He’s gone before you can string together any curses, and would it have mattered anyway?

Then, there’s scattering, the bar flies wordlessly agreeing that anywhere is better than the awkwardness of being here. Cards thrown down, beers drained, and there’s an uneasiness with the way they shuffle outside towards the rest of the group. A dance around the broken glass that isn’t their problem. You pretend not to notice, though you try to hide the redness that stains your cheeks as you bring a dust pan over to the mess.  

You feel eyes on you and, all too suddenly, you realize that Joel didn’t follow them.

“Careful. Here, lemme do that.”

He’s kneeling, taking the pan from you. Knuckles brush yours a little too long and electrify, zapping you. You mutter something like thanks and it’s too ungrateful, too tired. A woodsy scent fills your nose, and you’re hard-pressed not to lean into his collar and bookmark it.

Glass slips into the trash with a tinkling, shimmering sound. You’re already back behind the bar, hands busying with something else, tidying up the already-tidy. Letting him slip outside with the crowd, heavy with satisfaction that he came to your rescue yet again. 

But he’s sat back down, watching you with an odd intensity. He’s never assessed you like this, at least not that you’ve seen. A different sort of undressing than what Max gives you. You meet his eyeline warily. Vulnerable, waiting for your predator’s jaw to unhinge and devour you whole.

“He always talk to you that way?”

A quiet, lethal question hangs in the air, so quiet that you could’ve chalked it up to your imagination. But evidenced by the white-knuckled grip Joel has on his glass, the measured way he brings it to his lips, it was real. Controlled, scary even. But real.

Your mouth opens to answer, then closes. You consider in a beat’s time how it would sound to laugh it off, then stop yourself. It would be too forced, too desperate of a sound to be convincing. You’ve never been the unfeeling, unaffected type.

It’s clear that he knows the answer, has probably seen it with his own eyes, but it’s like he wants a green light to set his sights on some other more sinister and deserving prey.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s been through a lot,” you say, half to yourself. It’s easier this way.

“Does matter. So’ve you,” Joel says, even quieter, like he’s trying to contain an angry edge that threatens to bleed out. The calm is almost worse. In a way, you wish he would loosen the leash on his rage. Or break something to satisfy the urge in you that wants to do the same – you’d give him permission to do that. This is too unreadable and ambiguous, too much room left for agonizing interpretation in how he grits his teeth and pulses that muscle in his taut jaw. You want to yell, let out what’s long pent-up. Yes! Yes, it does fucking matter!

But you don’t. You keep the rag tight on the lip of the pint glass in your hand, rotating it past the point of needing to be cleaned. The rub of the microfiber cloth makes you itch, and your teeth scrape again at the inside of your cheek.

It leaves your mouth before you can catch it and shove it back down.

“Why do you care?”

Joel looks up at you now and you think that you’ve already overstepped during your first, real fucking conversation. He finishes off the whiskey and puts it back down carefully. He stands up, each slow step over to you spiking your blood pressure, your breath shifting into neutral. 

It’s the way he’s fixated on you, a litmus test for any sarcasm. The way a chill creeps into the base of your spine and slithers up each vertebrae despite the warmth you feel below your waist. And when he comes behind the bar, reaches for the glass in your hand and puts it down gently, you wonder if that tug has always been there. 

Fuck.

“You think I don’t care?”

Tiny hairs at your nape stand at attention in a near-salute. The web of intrusive thoughts tangles between you, and you’re acutely aware that this is the closest you’ve ever been to Joel Miller – that you’ve been conscious for. That feeling rushes back and bursts in your chest, the comforting honey in his voice that’s been haunting you since he found you crumpled in the snow. 

The omnipresent, sharp tang of whiskey sticks to the slightly graying stubble that you want to reach out and touch. That you want to feel the scrape of in places that makes heat pool deep in your belly. His flannel is unbuttoned at the top, the column of his throat ridged and tense. 

Focus.

“Why are you saying this now?” you say, and you want to hold your ground but his admission is akin to mesmerizing.

He thinks for a minute, his eyes smoothing over every angle in your face. They look past you, just over your shoulder, like he’s asking himself the same thing.

“Knew you could handle it. ‘Til you couldn’t anymore.”

There it is. You let it sink in, clicking that last piece into place. Always observing you from a safe distance, the buzz of something unsaid ringing in your ears when he’s around. How he listens to your interactions, but never too closely. Watching for weak spots. And tonight was the weakest of them all, letting yourself be humiliated by the only person that knew where to bite just right.

You feel laid bare, too seen. Pissed that he can witness your struggling, thrashing, drowning with outstretched arms and kicking feet and decide when and if he’ll pity you.

And this time, a laugh does slip out – humorless and breathy.

“The same way you can handle whatever’s making you drink alone on a Friday night? Don’t act so holier than thou, Joel. I’m the wrong one.”

“Watch it.”

You don’t mean it. Not really. But you’re so angry, a wasps’ nest that’s been taunted and poked at after being left to its own devices for too long. Sometimes violence feels more intimate. Safer.

And he’s using that gravelly, terse tone with you of all people, and you want to fucking lose your mind.

When he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at you and waits, they leave their home in a wave. Burying stingers where you know they’ll hurt. Once more, with feeling.

“Are you looking for a ‘thank you’?”

Joel’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a smile. It only stokes the fire, and you know what he’s doing. Letting you win, begrudgingly because you’re being an ass. But you haven’t had a win in the last ten months, only loss after devastating loss. He’s throwing you a raft.

“No. Just tryin’ to help, ‘s all.”

Your nostrils are flaring in sharp inhales that you can’t control, and you physically jab at him, your own tightly wound chest dragging in the hive for a final, practiced nosedive. “I don’t fucking need your help, Joel.”

He’s snatching your wrist, holding it in a vise, but there’s a flinch in his expression. Joel hardens, sliding that cool armor back into place. Sizing you up one more time, committing you to memory. A curt nod, plucking that chord of roughness in his tone that makes you ache.

There’s a glare you’ve never seen from him, like disappointment and disdain wrapped up neatly in one package. Delivered with a dagger straight to your heart.

“We’ll see. Not s’good at that, are you?”

And it’s a KO you allow, one you’ll lay with. But he’s leaning in, invading your space. You move to retreat and cower, the way you’re accustomed to, but Joel’s grabbing a fistful of your shirt and fastening you in place. His mouth’s at your ear as if he’s telling you a secret. 

“Good luck bein’ a fuckin’ martyr.”

The pressure loosens, as does his grip, dissipating like some ghostly presence. He leaves without another word, and something inside you snags and unspools. 

—

You don’t see Joel for days. 

Three days to be exact, torturous and fluid days that feel like trickling sand, but blend together in an indistinguishable slideshow when you zoom out. You time your breaks perfectly at the stables so you don’t run into him, and you ask Cheryl to cover for you on Tuesday, ignoring the strange look she gives you – the resident workaholic. 

It’s a sort of avoidance that you don’t want to acknowledge or look directly in the eye. If you did, it would mean that Joel affected you more than you want to admit. Or that he’d sized you up in an expert way that a categorical stranger shouldn’t be able to.

You should be livid, and you are… in a way. But mainly you want to shrug your skin off, your unease for being so dissected by him. Just unzip it all and let it pool at your feet, stepping out of the pile one leg at a time. The pinch, the untethering of you and the man that could read you without translation.

And when it’s 9 o’clock and you’re making tea as you trudge through a book without really reading anything, you glance outside at the house across the street and it’s so dark that you think it may have swallowed him whole.

Or he’s hiding from you, too.

—

It’s finally Thursday, and you can’t put it off any longer. You’re running out of food, you promised Tommy you’d lend a hand with feeding the horses – and there’s a dull itch to see Joel again. You don’t even know what you’d say, if he even wants to bother with you after the other night. Part of you hopes that you fall backwards into the acquaintance of saying nothing, that you have permission to rewind past whatever this nagging feeling is.

It’s quiet outside – a lazy day. The snow on the ground is melting, patchy in spots where sunlight or kid-feet caught it at just the right angle. The greenhouses are so fogged and frosted over that you’re grateful you can’t see the death-rot inside. It’s not quite growing season yet, but close, and you long for the added distraction in your day if this is the alternative.

Anything to pass the time and not think about Joel and his hands touching yours. The fabric of your shirt oozing between his knuckles when he forced you chest-to-chest. 

When you make it over to the barn, his horse is gone and there’s almost – almost – a twinge of relief. You’ll be done before he gets back from patrol. You won’t have a chance to swallow the apology that will rise in your throat like bile, but maybe it’s for the best.

You’re elbow deep in feed when there’s a yelling that cracks in the air. You freeze, waiting to hear a suffix of children’s laughter, but it doesn’t come. There’s a confused sort of shouting, and the gate at the border of Jackson slams and rattles like you’ve never heard before. 

Shaky hands wipe at your pants, and you step out, a hand shielding your eyes from the glare of the sun.

Joel is slumped atop his horse, upright but hardly. There’s a cut somewhere on his head that streams a blurry red, and the horse whines when Tommy sprints to meet it.

“It’s Joel! I need some fuckin’ help here!”

And without fully connecting the dots or measuring the severity, you just run. Colliding with the crowd that’s formed, shoving elbows and shoulders as if in a trance. Like something’s pressing you from behind, throwing all its weight into pushing you forward. 

You blink and you’re helping Joel down, Ellie’s tattooed forearm somewhere in the jumble of limbs. Tommy’s jean jacket stiff from the cold.

You don’t have to look in a mirror to know that you’re pale as a ghost. The moisture strips from your mouth, joints moving as if by marionette. Blood is already drying and caking in the creases of your hands. Knowing it isn’t yours makes you feel sick.

“‘M fine, Jesus Christ,” Joel coughs, a jagged edge in his throat that sounds anything but. There’s something underneath his coat that’s soaking through, blossoming a dark stain on the front. 

Images keep shifting every time you blink, like you’re losing time in between and someone’s slamming the fast-forward button until it jams. Joel groaning on a makeshift stretcher. Ellie’s frenzied feet following as they take him to his house.

The tall one on top of you, squeezing your windpipe. 

Your head cracking against the pavement. 

Two gunshots firing. 

Snow in your bloodied, matted hair. 

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I know, I know it hurts.”

Ringing grows loud and shrill in your ears. Tommy’s in front of you, calling your name. Shaking your shoulders. 

“– need you to go fix him up –”

And you’re falling back into the present, vision shifting back into focus. You’re nodding, clinical now. You’ve seen worse, and strangely, that’s comforting. 

“– whatever supplies you need, I trust you –”

The weight of Tommy’s confidence steadies you, tying up the loose ends that have untwined deep inside. You run through the mental checklist of what’s in your medical bag at home – stashed in your closet on the very top shelf. Bandages, antibiotics, sutures. But if you’re dealing with a bite…

“I got it. Promise. Keep everyone out, alright? I’ll let you know.”

He pauses, catching up with the subliminal thing that waits in the air between you. Wariness paints his gaze, and you know he knows what you’re afraid to say. 

Tommy nods, but you’re already running.

#my writing #a heart for eating #ahfe #outbreak!joel #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #motherofagony

[honeyedmiller]

Angel

joel miller x f!reader drabble

warnings: this drabble has dark themes!! this is purely smut and it contains a knife kink and daddy kink. please heed these warnings! if you do not wish to consume this content, please do NOT read under the cut. smut contains unprotected piv, dirty talk, empty threat of using the knife!!!!! dark joel (? just in case) this relationship between joel and reader is consensual and joel was asked by reader to do this with reader. 18+, minors do not interact.

wc: 641

Joel was astonished when you’d first told him.

He was unsure. Hesitant. And oddly enough, the thought of you enjoying doing that with him turned him on, blinding him with a carnal desire that he knew was still deep inside of him.

He’d sworn up and down to himself that you’d softened him up, made him a better man after he’d met you one night at the Tipsy Bison. One smile from you—a smile that could end fucking wars—and it was over for him. You had him wrapped around your finger from that moment on.

So, when he’d asked you if there was anything in bed you wanted to give a try, something you two had never done before—he was completely taken aback at the proposal you offered: him holding a knife up to your throat as he fucked you relentlessly from behind.

And that’s how you two ended up here, with his switchblade pressed to your throat as your knees dug painfully into the mattress, him pistoning into you from behind.

Joel got a million dollar view of your ass and your arched back, his other hand engulfing your wrists as he pressed them against your tailbone. It was no use for you to struggle, even if your pleas were getting louder.

You and Joel had a safe word, and he’d yet to hear you say it, so he kept going.

“Daddy, please—”

“Wan’ me to fuckin’ press this blade into your throat baby? Hush up now n’ take what daddy gives ya.”

Your cunt gushes at his words, his empty threat sending you into a spiral of arousal. You couldn’t even think straight at this point, and Joel knew it. He also knew him being a little mean to you turned you on even more.

“Look at ya, getting fucked dumb on my cock. Can feel you fuckin’ squeezin’ me. Fuck, baby—god damnit. Gonna cum if you don’ stop squeezin’ me like that.”

You were numbly incoherent at this point, nothing but a strangled whine bubbling from your throat as your eyes rolled into the back of your skull. The blade was dangerously close to digging into your skin, but a sick, twisted fucking part of you loved the thrill of it.

Joel’s thrusts were becoming sloppy and you knew he was close. He took the blade away from your throat and gripped your hips, flipping you around so his broad body covered yours.

He was pulsing inside of you and the wild desire in your eyes nearly sent him over the edge. A calloused hand dragged up your body and groped your breast, tweaking your nipple between his forefinger and thumb before he trailed his hand up to your jaw to open it. He pressed the blade of his knife onto your tongue as he fucked into you at such a rapid pace, you fucking swore the bed would break.

“Such a good girl. My angel. So fuckin’ pretty n’ good for daddy, baby. Come with me.”

And he didn’t have to say it twice. His wish was your command, and you cried out as you pulsed around him, gushing all over the base of his cock. He grunted as he collapsed and dropped his head onto your shoulder, pulling out just in time before he came all over your stomach.

You swiped a finger over his hot spend, plopping your finger into your mouth as you looked into his eyes and sucked. You moaned at the salty taste, eyes closing in pure ecstasy.

“Christ, baby. Y’don’t know what you do t’me.” He flops down onto his side and tosses his switchblade onto his nightstand, pulling you into him.

You couldn’t help but giggle as you traced patterns onto his warm chest, the feeling of his erratic heartbeat beneath your fingertips.

“I have a pretty good idea.”

#don’t look at me #omg #joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller drabble #dark!joel miller #knife kink drabble #PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS #joel miller tlou #jackson!joel #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fic

[itsokbbygrl]

Just Stay.

- A GN!Reader x Jackson!Joel Miller story

For my wonderful, lovely, kind, hilarious friend, Jo (@morgaussy/@merci-killing), who wants nothing more than to worship that old man. I hope this is to your liking ♡

Tags: 18+ MDNI, explicit content, BODY WORSHIP, slight size difference (reader is described as shorter than Joel), reader is generally able bodied and has hair but is otherwise not described, oral sex (M receiving), heavy petting, lots and lots of kisses, body hair appreciation, domestic fluffy smut, two goobers deeply in love, kink discussion (daddy kink, and per jo's request, "A secret barely there splash of mommy kink"), grief mention, TLOU2 Jackson Era (post-Ellie run away era, pre-snowstorm)

WC: 4.6k

A/N: this is full of lazy writing technique and i am aware! there is POV switching whenever i say so, get in both their brains, die mad about it POV purists :)

Warm water, straight from the tap. Straight from the tap and into the basin where Joel Miller’s aching muscles are learning to relax, still, years after their first reconnaissance with a god’s honest bath. He can’t quite believe it. More than 20 years after the end of the world, where people starve and maim and kill and hunt to survive, there are still hot baths. He takes a deep breath and sighs in relief, letting himself sink lower beneath the surface, only the top of his broad chest and shoulders remaining above in the cool air of the home. He closes his eyes for a moment, soaking. 

The jiggling of the sticky front door knob calls his attention. An alertness solidified in a world consisting only of predators and prey. Kill or be killed. He knows, rationally, he’s safe here. His eyes clock his hunting knife laid safely on the vanity anyway. 

He listens to the familiar sound of your steps, the way you insist on toeing off your boots at the front door, the soft pattering of sock clad feet as they maneuver around the first floor, the creak of the loose floorboard near the kitchen island that he’s been meaning to fix. He can tell just from your movements that you’re hankering for a cup of tea—hearing the cabinet door close softly, always gentle, the ceramic clink of the base of your favorite mug coming into contact with the stone countertop, the metallic clang of the filled teapot as you set it atop the stove. He relaxes further knowing you’re home, safe. 

The water is just turning tepid when he hears the stairs creak, signaling your imminent arrival. He pushes himself back up to greet you, the cooler air causing his wet skin to break out in gooseflesh. He turns his head to find you standing quietly, hip propped against the vanity, warm mug cupped between your palms, eyes trained on him already, his favorite soft grin gracing your lips, plumping your cheeks. 

“Whatcha doin’ there, starlight?” he asks. 

“Just admiring the art,” you respond, raising your mug to your mouth and taking a slurping sip, careful not to burn the fragile skin of your lips and tongue. The response makes him chuckle and flush, blaming the pinkness brought to his chest and neck on the temperature of the water if pressed. 

His starlight. A beacon in the dark, guiding him home. He found you at a time when he thought he’d lost everything. Ellie had run off, and, terrified, he’d run after her. Once she’d been found, she’d confessed how she hated him for the choices he’d made for her, how she didn’t want to be part of his life anymore, and he’d agreed to her terms as long as it meant she’d be safe and home. He’d spent the entire ride back to Jackson fighting off the grief that threatened to overtake him. He wasn’t sure how he was going to cope this time, losing another daughter. At least this time he knew she was alive, could watch from a distance as she grew, could talk to the other townsfolk and get updates on her life, make sure she was ok. 

That was where you came in. You’d been serving at the local watering hole, The Tipsy Bison, when he’d come in for a drink. You’d poured his whiskey neat, just as he’d requested, and quietly left him to his thoughts as you tended to other patrons. He sat quietly, sipping his drink and listening to your conversation. His ears perked up when he heard you mention your students having a hard time with an assignment you’d given recently. He knew everyone in town shared responsibilities, should’ve figured you would have more to offer to Jackson than to only be a bartender. When you came over to check on him, see if he wanted another pour he assumes, he cleared his throat and asked about your other role as a teacher and your entire face lit up as you gushed about your kids. He tried to listen, but found himself lost in the feeling of being a kid again, the awe he felt the first time his dad had taken him and Tommy out to the wide open Texan countryside and shown them how bright the stars could shine. 

He tuned back in when he caught you talking about one student in particular you had connected with—his Ellie. How she was a natural writer, so creative, always scribbling in her journal. Mostly doodles, but over time you described how you’d earned her trust and she’d opened up a little more, shown you some of her poetry, how you’d encouraged her to keep writing. You talked about how she was quiet, shy, kept to herself most of the time, but she had a lot to say on paper. Joel tried to tamp down the proud tears that threatened to well at the news. She was ok. She was going to be ok. 

Joel kept going back and you were always there for him, greeting him by name with a soft smile, pouring his glass of whiskey before he’d even had a chance to take a seat on one of the old wooden barstools. You’d formed an easy friendship and before he knew it, he was inviting you over for dinner. You’d gone a little speechless and he worried he’d overstepped, but then you’d let out a breath you must have been holding and giggled, burying your face in your palms for a second before you found his eyes again and the way they shone for him was nothing short of celestial. You’d agreed, and the rest is history. 

“You wanna get in?” Joel asked, motioning to the tub. 

You shook your head. “Not today. Just want to keep you company if that’s alright.”

“Course that’s alright, sweetheart. Make yourself at home,” he said before going back to relaxing, closing his eyes.

You watched him ease back into contentment in the water before you moved, opening the cabinet below the sink and stealing a couple clean towels. You placed them on the floor next to the tub before kneeling atop them. You took a long drink from your mug of tea before placing it aside. You looked over the products on the tub ledge and grabbed the shampoo. Quietly, you leaned over, laying a soft kiss to Joel’s exposed shoulder before whispering in his ear, “Tip your head back for me.”

He did as instructed, sitting up from the wall, keeping his eyes closed and tipping his head back. You grabbed your mug of tea, draining it before quickly rinsing it in the water, filling it and carefully soaking his sweat damp curls, using your hand to ensure none of the water dripped forward onto his face. You then uncapped the shampoo and squirted a small amount into the palm of your hand. You lathered your hands together, causing the shampoo to begin sudsing, and brought your fingers to his scalp. He hummed in bliss as you began massaging the soap into his tresses, the day’s tension easing from you both as you cared and were cared for in return. 

After a few minutes of gentle ministration, you guided his head back with your fingertip under his chin before rinsing the suds from his locks. You then reached for your bottle of conditioner, something you typically reserved for special occasions, and squirted a dollop into your hand before softly carding it through his hair. You let it sit for a bit, rinsing your hands in the water and allowing yourself a moment to admire the man in front of you. He was remarkably beautiful—strong, broad, sun speckled chest giving way to a softer stomach coated in a fine layer of soft brown hair that drew your eyes southward to where his thick cock laid softly against the crease of his thigh, his legs strong enough to walk or ride for miles. Scars littered his skin and you mentally pressed a kiss to each one as your eyes worked their way back up to his face. His eyes met yours there and he leaned forward, capturing your mouth with his own. He held you in place with his palm in its favorite place, cupped around the side of your jaw, thumb finding its place in the divot next to your ear. He kissed you deeply for a few more moments, pouring all of his affection for you into it. You smiled, effectively breaking the embrace, and left him with a final peck to his lips, the tip of his nose, his forehead, before maneuvering him once again to rinse the conditioner from his hair. 

Once clean, you helped ease him from beneath the water, wrapping him in one of the towels, now body-warm from where you sat, using the other as a soft barrier between his wet feet and the cold tile floor. He lets you care for him without a word, chest warming as you dry his body and leave sweet kisses in the towel’s wake as you go. He laughs good naturedly when you try to comb his hair back and have trouble reaching, bending down to make the job easier. His heart swells when he sees you grab your precious jar of aloe from the countertop, swiping your fingers through the gooey substance and working it between your palms. 

“Can you sit on the toilet for me, please?” You ask. He plants a kiss on your head and complies, thankful for the warm towel you wrapped him with saving his damp skin from the cold porcelain. You stand between his spread thighs and begin your work, piecing together a clump of curls and twisting them around your finger, effectively applying the gelled aloe before giving the little ringlet a squeeze and moving onto the next piece. Joel sits calmly, loving the feeling of your fingers in his hair, the way you love him so simply. He wonders, as he often does, how he got so lucky to find such goodness in a world gone so rotten. 

You take your time, dipping back into the jar of aloe you harvested earlier that week as needed, ensuring each ringlet receives the care it so deserves. You love doing this for him. You love this man—this man with his reputation for violence, this man with a karmic debt that may never be fully repaid, this man whose hands were made to create, not destroy, who patiently sits with children as he teaches them to play the guitar, who misses his daughters more than anything in the world. Joel Miller, who protects the least of these with his gun and his knife and his bare hands. The same hands that delicately carve in his workshop, drafting some of the most intricate pieces of woodworking you’d ever seen. 

You finish the last curl at the base of his skull, just behind his ear. You give it a little tug and watch as it springs back into shape, smiling at the sight, before leaning down to leave a kiss there…and there and there as you move down the column of his strong neck. You feel his large palms grip your hips and you move your kisses northward, along his jaw, to his mouth where he meets you, urges your mouth open to lick inside and explore. You pursue a deeper physical knowledge of him in return, giving as good as you’re getting, tongue dancing behind his teeth, cataloging every crevice, every bump and ridge, deciphering the taste of him as if he were a fine wine—notes of apple and coffee and his 5pm pour of whiskey and something uniquely him. 

You feel his hands roaming, making their way to the front of your jeans, pushing the button through its hole and tugging down the zipper before stuffing his hand inside. He gives you a few firm strokes over your underwear, just to feel, to be so close, and you allow him to explore for a moment before you break your kiss to rest your forehead against his. 

You shake your head softly when he attempts to move his hand beneath your cotton barrier and he stills his hand. “Not tonight,” you say quietly, “you first,” and you step back before sinking to your heels in front of him, grabbing the towel from in front of the bathtub and placing it under you before kneeling forward and meeting his eyes. His pupils are blown wide, mouth shiny and flushed with arousal, his chest and neck blushed a beautiful pink. You think he’s never more beautiful than when he’s about to get his cock worshiped by your reverential mouth. 

You reach up and gently unfurl the towel from where it’s tucked at his waist, allowing the soft graze of your fingertips to lightly tickle the skin of his stomach, the muscles beneath contracting in their wake. You unwrap him like the gift he is, allowing the towel to open fully, exposing all of him to the room. You take in the sight of him, hard and drooling at the tip, thick thatch of curls nestled at the base, strong thighs parted to cradle you between them. You turn your head to the side and lay a kiss to the inside of his knee, up his thigh, right to the crease of his sensitive groin, before repeating the motion on the other side. You hear him groan and look up to find his head tipped back, already losing himself to his pleasure. You’ll never get over how easy he is for you, how much he clearly loves the way you love him. You repeat your favorite vow to whatever god is listening, to love him forever if they’ll be so gracious. 

You reach up to grip the heavy weight of him in your palm, curling your fingers around him as much as you can, and give him a few gentle strokes, the velvety soft skin warm in your hand. You feel his pulse combine with your own as you glide your thumb along the veiny underside. A fresh drop of precum oozes from the tip and you’d be remiss to let it go untasted, leaning forward to meet the spongy head with the wet warmth of your tongue and lapping at it, thankful for its musky, salty gift. You’re sure at some point you’ve stepped out of your body because everything goes quiet as you taste and taste and taste him, lathing your tongue over and over the weeping head while your hand continues to stroke, kissing the very tip of him gently before trailing your lips along the length of him, down to the base and tonguing back to the top, mirroring your actions on the other side, lifting him to give attention underneath, not wanting to leave even a millimeter of him unfound by your mouth. 

“God, baby, there you go, so good at this,” Joel’s praises bring your head back above water, but all you want to do is drown. And so you do. You flick your eyes up to meet his before opening your mouth wide and allowing the thick length of him inside, sliding him along your textured tongue, and closing your lips around him tightly. You hold him there for a moment, watching his face as you roll your tongue along the underside of his cock, sucking in a stuttered pattern, allowing the pillowy softness of your inner cheeks to hug him briefly, before pulling off and refilling your lungs. His eyes glisten just as yours do. He cups your face in his palm and you turn to kiss him there. He pushes his fingers into your hair and gently scritches at your scalp. You close your eyes and lean into the gesture before returning to prayer at your altar. 

You take him as deep as your jaw will allow over and over, not caring for how messy things are getting as you continue the push and pull, saliva pooling on your tongue and dripping along his length, down the corners of your mouth, off your swollen lips and onto the towel below. You can hear him moaning with abandon now, knowing he’s loving this as much as you do. You tenderly roll his sac between your fingers and he tugs at your hair, so you continue your ministrations as you suck. 

“Shit, baby, gonna make me cum,” he warns. You pull your mouth off him and continue to stroke him with your hand. 

“Cum in my mouth. Please, want to taste you, want to, want to,” you stutter, mind focused solely on him, making him cum, easing him into blissful release. You open wide and take him back inside, closing your eyes and losing yourself to the feeling. You grab his other hand with your own, holding tight to each other as he helps guide your head exactly where he needs you. You suck and suck and suck until he grants you the prize you’ve eagerly anticipated, and he does it so beautifully. The sounds he releases from his throat resonate against the tiled floors and walls of the room, reverberating into your bones. His lashes fan and grace the tops of his cheeks where his eyes are squeezed tightly shut. His pillowy lips part, the plushness marred by his own teeth marks, bitten in an effort to not give too much of himself away too soon. He tastes so deliciously of man—clean, soapy, salty, musky—as he releases onto your tongue, into the back of your throat, and you make every effort to gracefully swallow everything he gives. 

Once he’s finished, you softly suckle the last of your combined fluids from his length, ingesting them to become one together inside you. You leave a parting kiss to his length in thanks for all he’s given you before you allow Joel to haul you up to meet his mouth. He kisses you fiercely, tasting himself there. You know him almost as well as you know yourself, and you know he’s itching to return the favor, but you slow him, softening the kiss until the temperature returns to a simmer. He holds you there against his bareness, one arm keeping your head against his chest while the other strokes your back and you mirror him, fingers running gently all along his back. You feel more than hear when he speaks as it rumbles from his chest. 

“Thank you, darlin’. Love you, more’n I thought was possible,” he says. You sigh and kiss his chest, wrap your arms around him tighter. 

“Feeling’s mutual, my love. I promise,” you assure him, giving him a final squeeze before stepping back, keeping his hands in yours, not wanting to completely break contact with him just yet. “Come with me, we need to get you dressed.”

You lead him by the hand to your shared bedroom and sit him on the edge of the bed. You turn around and find the dresser where you keep a majority of your combined clothes—yours on the left, his on the right—and pull out a well worn tee and pair of grey sweatpants. You bring the clothes back over to him, setting the pants aside for the moment, and unfolding the t-shirt. 

“Arms up, baby,” you instruct. He complies amusedly, raising his arms above his head while you drape him in soft cotton, paying careful attention to the collar, ensuring it’s stretched wide to not disturb his drying curls. Once the shirt is tugged down to cover his soft belly, you move to his pants, scrunching up one leg and feeding his foot through before repeating the motions with the other side. “Stand, please,” you request. He stands, allowing you to tug the waistband up over the swell of his ass, carefully pulling the material over his front to not accidentally overstimulate his now soft cock. You eye him up and down, nodding in approval of your handiwork. “Beautiful,” you say under your breath, not intending for him to hear, just for yourself. 

Joel doesn’t remember the last time he felt this way—so deeply cared for. For as long as he can remember now, he’s been the provider, the protector. He hasn’t had a moment to slow down since before Sarah was born, 30 some odd years ago now. And it feels…nice. He feels small in some ways, but not diminished, never with you. No, he feels almost young again, experiencing this kind of selfless love that he’s only ever experienced before from a parent, and something clicks for him. He sees you near the hamper, changing out of your day clothes and into your own pajamas and he gets you, understands you on a deeper level than he had just hours before. He lets you finish your routine and make your way back over to him, anticipating you getting into bed, but instead he’s met with your hand reaching out for him. He takes it in his own, he’ll always take it when it’s so graciously offered. 

“C’mon, let’s have a snack, worked up an appetite,” you say jovially. He snickers, thinking to himself that he fed you pretty well not 10 minutes ago, but he’d follow you to the ends of the Earth if it meant you’d keep smiling at him like that. 

You lead him downstairs to the kitchen and sit him in his chair at the breakfast table he made just for you. While you putter around, preparing the two of you a small meal to share, he thinks about how beautiful you look in the morning light, the early sun catching on your hair and in your eyes. And you, you give the sun a run for its money with how you shine, bright and golden, warming everyone you come into contact with. You make it so easy for him to forget where you all are, when you are. Nothing is simpler than time spent with you. And now he knows you even better and he isn’t sure yet how he’ll quite thank you for that. 

In what feels like just a blink, Joel watches as you plate a simple late evening dinner of eggs and toast for the two of you, an old favorite of Sarah’s, nothing sillier to a child than having breakfast food while the moon sits high in the sky. You bring the plates to the table and sit across from him. He hooks his foot around your ankle as soon as you’re settled. 

“Thank you, sweetpea. You didn’t have to do all this,” Joel tells you as he accepts the proffered fork. 

“I know,” you respond, stabbing a bite of your scramble with your own cutlery, “but I wanted to,” you finish simply, popping the eggs into your mouth with a smile. Joel returns your smile and digs in. 

The two of you quickly polish off your plates, leaving nothing but the crumbs from the bread you’d baked a few days prior behind. Joel moves to clear the table and you allow him to, but join him at the sink, grabbing the dish towel from its place draped over the left half, falling into your regular routine—Joel washes, you dry. 

“You know,” he starts, “I think I understand you even better now, after today.”

You turn to look at him with an amusedly confused face. “In what way?”

“You know how sometimes you ask me to be your “daddy” in bed? I love you and I would do almost anything for you, so I’ve never had a problem with it, and I love how it seems to make you feel, but I didn’t fully understand it before,” he pauses, giving you time to respond if you felt you needed to, and turns to see you’ve paused with plate in hand. He fully turns his body to face you now. “I think I get it now. The way you took care of me tonight? It was…almost parental? But it wasn’t at all at the same time. I think,” he tries again, “I think the only other time in my life I’ve experienced that kind of selfless…devotion, I guess…was from a parent. And obviously you’re not my parent, but…fuck, I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?” he asks self-consciously, unable to meet your gaze. 

You bring your fingers to his chin, lifting his eyes to meet yours before you speak. “You’re not fucking anything up. You’re right, that’s why I like it, why sometimes I need it. It’s the way you take care of me. You make me feel so incredibly safe, Joel,” you answer him. 

Joel pulls you into his chest, gently rubbing your back. “It makes me so, so happy to hear that, my sweet starlight. Always want you to feel safe, loved, taken care of here.”

Your hands snake up the back of his shirt, needing to feel him closer, flesh on flesh. “The same goes for me, you know? If you ever need, or want…I want you to feel that way, too. I love taking care of you, too.”

Joel leans down and kisses the top of your head, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of you, wanting to solidify this memory for as long as his mind will allow him to hold it. He considers leaving the dishes in the sink to be tomorrow’s problem, wanting nothing more than to return to bed with you, but he knows he’ll be frustrated when the egg has glued itself to the pan and he has to really scrub to remove it. He reluctantly releases you from his embrace and turns back to the sink, washing the remaining plate before handing it to you to dry, and doing the same with the utensils and the old, salvaged steel pan. 

Once you’re both satisfied with your work, you close down the kitchen in tandem, flicking off the lights and heading back to your room. You move to your respective sides of the bed—Joel going left, you going right—before climbing beneath the old, soft comforter. You’re both wiped from the day’s activities, opting to just turn the lights out rather than do your usual song and dance of reading for five minutes and falling asleep with the book splayed open on your chest, leaving Joel to gently dogear the page and set it on your bedside table before clicking off your lamp in fond exasperation. In the dark, you hear him shuffle, turning towards you. 

“Hey, darlin’?” he asks, getting your attention. 

“Yeah, baby?”

“Can you, umm, would you hold me tonight?”

“Of course I will. C’mere, my sweet boy,” you answer. Joel turns over again and shuffles back, allowing you to snake your arm over his torso and bury your face in his shoulders. He holds your arm in place and it feels…right, so nice and comforting and he gets it. 

“Thank you. For everything. Never known a love like this, but you make it so easy. Not sure how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

“Just stay, Joel,” you answer simply, “stay with me. That’s all I want, all I need.”

And he thinks he can do that. And he sends up his own prayer, his favorite vow, to whatever god is listening, to let him stay with you forever, to let him love you until his dying day, that they owe you that much at least, your simple wish. He’ll do whatever he can to ensure it comes true. And as he drifts into unconsciousness, held safely in your arms, he thinks he never wants to be anywhere else. 

thank you for reading ♡ please reblog or leave a comment if you enjoyed!

#LJ writes #i've missed this old man #joel miller #joel tlou #joel x reader #joel x you #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #tlou fic #the last of us #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fluff #the last of us smut #the last of us fluff #jackson!joel

[corazondebeskar-reads]

no quiet on this earth

Joel Miller x f!reader

originally for Febuwhump 2024 Day 10 - killing in self defense | Febuwhump masterlist

words: 2.8k

summary: You and Joel run into hunters on patrol.

-- I'm a fucking menace, and this is Joel & reader from "you know you never stood a chance" (spoiler warning). BUT this can be read as a standalone. I just can't seem to help myself/let them go.

warnings: established relationship, jackson, patrol partners, hunters, Joel and reader both kill hunters, canon-typical violence, graphic descriptions of violence, lots of blood, oral (m receiving), p in v unprotected, creampie, feelings, guilt/trauma, trauma response, a little hurt and a LOT of comfort, Joel takes care of you, one (1) ass slap, pussy/clit spanking

dividers by @saradika-graphics

They had been waiting for you. Not the biggest group of hunters that’s come ‘round, but there hadn’t been any signs. It was supposed to be an easy half-day route. 

It was also your first patrol with Joel. 

You’re already off to a rough morning. He’s settled back into Out There Joel, gruff and tense, and you’re already feeling useless again even though you know you can handle it now. 

You’re on horseback, you with a gentle brown mare that you’re a little irritated about. Penny is notoriously slow and usually used to teach people to ride. Tommy taught you to ride ages ago, but Joel fucking insisted. 

“Ain’t havin’ you have to deal with a spooked horse our first time out.”

“Our first time. I’ve been out loads of times,” you grumbled. He leveled you with a look so stern that you rolled your eyes. 

“Don’t start with your smart mouth,” he said. “Only way this works is—“

“If I do what I’m told. I got it. Same shit, different place.” 

To say you’re pissed would be an understatement. You thought after all the shit you’ve been through that he’d trust you now. And you’ve gotten quite good with your revolver and halfway decent with the rifle. 

Now, out here on the trail to the safe house, neither of you has said a word. Just like the good old days. Y’know. If they had been good. 

You’re nearly there when they make their move. They don’t have guns, thank fuckin’ god, but there are five of them and two of you. 

It becomes quickly clear that they want the horses. Joel makes quick work of the first hunter that lunges for him. 

One comes at him from each side, and you’re too worried to notice the other two do the same to you. 

One grabs the reins and the other tries to yank you from the saddle. Your boots are stuck, and they don’t seem to particularly care if they break your legs during the extraction. 

You free your feet, boots left behind, and let the brick house of a man pull you down. He doesn’t care much about your landing, so when you hit the ground, you grapple for your revolver. 

His partner yells, and he spins back to you, a huge fist aiming for your face. But it doesn’t connect, because your bullet does first. 

He was close enough that it would have been near impossible to miss, which also meant that his stupid body landed on you, turning your clothes into a sponge for his blood. 

Joel’s rampaged through the others by now and turns to take down the one trying to abscond with your horse. 

But he doesn’t make the shot, because he freezes up when he sees you. 

“Get the fucking horse,” you yell. 

He swears and loads the rifle, one neat bullet into the head of the escaping hunter. He hadn’t fully mounted your mare yet, and his corpse crumples into the soft spring soil. 

Joel whistles and Penny takes her fucking time to come back, giving him a very unimpressed look and shaking her mane. 

He heaves the dead man off you. “Where?” he says sharply, eyes darting all over your body. 

“Nowhere, Joel, I’m fine,” you say. 

He’s already dropping to his knees, hands gripping and patting every inch of you before cradling your face. “You’re sure?”

“I mean, I think so. Unless I’m in shock, but I guess we’ll find out in a little bit.”

“Not funny, sweetheart,” he mutters, doing another check, slower this time and more thorough. 

You let him. You feel kind of funny, dizzy almost, but mostly just… muted. Like the world around you is muffled and you’re suddenly hyper aware of how blood is turning tacky and your jeans are stiffening as it dries. 

“Hey,” he snaps. 

You’re pretty sure that means he was already talking to you, and when you look up and meet his eyes, they abandon their irritation for concern beneath furrowed brows. 

“Sweetheart, listen to me,” he says, voice low and slow. It draws out the Texan twang and loops you in. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. You did what you had to do, okay?”

“Okay,” you echo, but the word sticks in your throat, tasting of copper. 

“Say it.”

“I did what I had to do.”

You’ve done as he said, but he looks more worried for it. 

“Alright, c’mon. I’m gettin’ you home.”

“But—“

“Rethink that, baby. I ain’t in the mood to argue.”

“But we were supposed to—“

“Yeah, and plans fuckin’ change. We’re going back. Tommy and I can come out and deal with the bodies later.”

He stands and pulls you up, though you follow willingly. You hover where you stand as he pulls a rope from his bag and tethers it to Penny’s lead. 

“What’re you doing?” 

“Want you on Oakley with me.”

“I can ride,” you snap. “I’m not fucking hurt.”

“I know,” Joel says. “But you’re gonna ride with me.”

“Don’t start this shit,” you say, mortified when your voice and hands are trembling. “I can handle myself.”

He spins around, fury written in the curl of his lip. “I fuckin’ know that! I don’t give a shit. You’re riding with me, end of fuckin’ discussion.”

You open your mouth, ready to bite back, but he seizes you by the shoulders and shakes you a little. 

“Don’t you fuckin’ get it? It’s not about you,” he snarls. You’re crushed against him before you realize it’s an embrace. “You’re gonna fuckin’ ride up here, so I know you’re okay.” 

“Oh,” you whisper, leaning into him. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he says, but the fight is already leaving him. He presses a kiss to the top of your head before he lets go. “Now get on the damn horse before I put ya there myself.”

You think you deserve credit for only hesitating a little, tempted to see if he really would. But his jaw ticks and you heave yourself up onto Oakley. Joel swings himself behind you, caging you in as he takes the reins. 

“You’re so fuckin’ stubborn,” he gripes. 

“I learned it by watching you,” you say, voice pitched in mockery of the vague memory. 

But instead of irritation, something akin to relief flashes across his face. “Yeah, s’that right?”

“Uh-huh.” Now that everything has calmed, you’re exhausted. He can tell because of course he can. He knows you too well. 

“C’mon, lean back. I got ya. Not gonna let you fall.”

You don’t sleep, not really, but you fall into something between the light and dark. It’s blissfully absent of reality. You’re only aware of the soft sunshine, the sway of the horse, and Joel. 

Joel, your Joel, is everything right now. All encompassing. You’re surrounded by his warmth and smoky musk, masking the chill and tang of the stains on your skin. 

His heart seems to beat in time with Oakley’s hooves and the steady pace he encourages keeps you lulled in this safest place. 

“Holy shit, what happened?” Carl asks at the gates, almost loud enough to knock you from your peace. 

“Nothin’ too serious, she ain’t hurt,” Joel’s smooth tone settles you back down. “But do me a favor and get the horses back? Send Tommy my way in a while. I’m gonna take her home.”

Home. It sounds so nice. But you’re already there, you want to tell him. There’s nowhere you’d rather be than right here. 

You must actually say it, because he chuckles. “Okay, sweetheart, but I can think of somewhere I’d rather be.”

It hurts a little before he leans in and murmurs in your ear. 

“I’d rather be in a warm bath with ya. That sound better than stayin’ put?”

“Oh,” you say. “Yeah, you’re right. Way better idea.��

He makes good on his promise when you get home. While he draws the water, he peels your ruined clothes off and sits you on the bathroom counter to rinse the blood into the sink. 

You sit very still with your eyes clenched shut as he cleans you. 

“I know,” he murmurs. “First one’s the hardest.”

You can’t quite stopper the whimper. 

“This is part of why I don’t like ya goin’ out there. I can’t protect you from this.” The admission costs him, but he seems to decide it’s worth it when you look up at him. 

The tub isn’t really big enough for both of you, but he makes it work, long sprawling limbs propped up to make room for you against his chest. You lie on your side, both to make more room and to press your ear to his chest and listen to his strong, tender heart. 

He holds you there, hand gentle on your head and the other around your shoulder until neither of you can pretend the water is comfortable still.  More importantly, his cock’s been pressing against you for a little while now, and you’re unable to ignore it anymore.

You roll over on your stomach, legs bent a little funny to fit, but it’s the right angle to press a kiss to the fat mushroom head that you love so much. 

“Sweetheart, you don’t need—”

But you just give him a look, because he knows better, he knows you’d never do anything you don’t want to. And he knows how often you crave it, how your throat aches for it.

He raises his hands in surrender. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna stop ya.” 

With the convoluted seating arrangement, you’re able to swallow down his length, working your throat open in the way you’ve grown to know well. It’s a lot at once, but the way he groans is worth the effort. 

You choke and gag a little, but neither of you are really bothered by it. Quite the opposite. And you’re grateful for the way the thoughts you don’t want to face are knocked from your brain each time he ruts deeper. 

Too soon, though, he’s pulling you off, spit thick with precum stringing between him and your lips as you whine.

“C’mon, let’s get out. I gotta have more of you.”

You don’t dry off quite as much as you’d like, but you’re probably going to need to change the sheets anyway. He can’t be bothered to let you towel off properly, picking you up and setting you on the bed before crawling over your body.

He kisses you, ferocious but hesitant, and you trail your hands up his arms, basking in the way he encompasses you for the second time today. His soft, powerful body leaves no wiggle room, practically pinning you down with his bulk. 

Except he’s holding himself up, tense. And the gentleness of his tongue and distinct lack of nipping teeth in his kiss is grating. 

You turn your head to break apart. “Stop acting like I’m gonna fall apart.” 

“I—”

“Oh, don’t even. It’s like you think I’m going to break if you touch me.”

“I didn’t want to make it feel like…”

“I know,” you say, softer. “But I want to feel you, Joel. I don’t want to feel the ghost of it… him. Please.” 

“You wanna feel me, sweetheart? Want me to be a little rough with ya?” 

“Unless you’re too tired. S’it past your bedtime, old man?” 

He doesn’t fall for the taunt, but he pretends to, and you’re deeply grateful as he snarls and bites at your breast before licking and sucking at your nipple, taking it between his teeth and shaking a little. 

“Oh, fuck,” you moan, hand tangling into his hair. He wears it a little shaggier these days, and you find you like it long. A lot. 

“Think you can take it just like this?” he says around your other nipple. The hand that isn’t holding him up has reached down to his cock, rubbing it against your clit until you squirm, and then dragging it down your slit. “You’re fuckin’ soaked. I think you can take it.”

He doesn’t wait any longer than the first little nod of your head before he flicks his hips, parting you, forcing your body to make room for him. It takes a second thrust to push all the way in, and you cry out as he stuffs you full. 

It hurts so good. It’s just the edge you need to feel awake again. The world is no less fuzzy but the haze is pleasurable and electric instead of the numb fog that refused to dissipate. 

“That’s my girl,” he says. 

It floods you with warmth. You think maybe the sappiness is leaking through, that he can see how stupidly in love you feel. 

Or, you know, it’s actually leaking, since you’re apparently fucking crying. You can’t really begrudge yourself for it. It’s been a hell of a day. 

“There you go,” he murmurs, the gentleness of his voice playing second to the harsh slap of his hips and the tight pinch of his fingers on your breasts. “Let it out, sweetheart. Let me help you.” 

His pace, somehow, intensifies, the brutal snap of his cock blunt against the softest parts of you. He pushes your legs to your chest so he can shove his way in deeper, and smacks a harsh hand against your ass from his new vantage point. 

He grips your hip with one hand and lets up on your tits, only to show no mercy to your clit. He skips over the gentle circles and soft strokes, instead pinching and tugging. He wrenches two orgasms from you before he eases off. 

“Hold your pussy open for me,” he grunts.

You look at him with wide eyes. How can he still be finding ways to shock you with depravity? The two of you have to have fucked every which way, and yet. You slide a hand down but he shakes his head.

“Both of ‘em, baby. Nice and wide.” 

Your cheeks are burning as he lifts up onto his knees, pushing your legs apart to watch as you spread your lips wide. For a moment, he’s mesmerized by the push and pull of his cock splitting you apart and the way it comes out a little slicker each time. 

“Look at that,” he says, a smug smirk spreading. “Fuckin’ creamin’ all over me, sweetheart. Now hold still.”

Before you really process the order, still dying from how hot his filthy words are, he slaps your clit. You jerk and let go, crying out more in surprise than pain.

“Put your fuckin’ hands back,” he says, and you obey. 

Your whole body is on fire, maybe. He brings his hand down sharply again and again, making you hold yourself spread wide for him to use as he pleases. 

It doesn’t really surprise either of you when you come. He finally knocks your hands away from your cunt and leans back down over you, hips stammering sloppily. 

“Can I—” he chokes out, and you’re nodding so hard it shakes your brain around. He digs his fingers into your hips. “C’mon, sweetheart, one more. Gimmie one more while I fill you up.”

He goes to reach for your clit, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as he starts twitching and pulsing inside you, you come, eyes rolling back and fingernails digging into his biceps. 

When you’ve both settled, there’s something bright in his eyes, something wild and dangerous. He sinks his teeth into your collarbone and doesn’t pull out. His softening cock isn’t much smaller than it is erect, and he stays buried deep in you, eyes trailing over your face. 

“What?” you say softly.

“I thought… thought I fuckin’ lost you today.” His voice is gruff but tight.

“You didn’t, Joel. M’right here.”

He kisses you, and it’s not gentle exactly, not like earlier, but it’s tender and demanding. His hands grip you and roam, not pursuing pleasure but just to have his fill of you, to feel your body warm and alive beneath him. 

When he breaks away from your swollen lips, he presses a kiss to your forehead. “You did good. I don’t like it, but you did good. I’m not gonna ask you not to go out again, but—”

“I’m gonna ask Tommy if I can have a break,” you say, pursing your lips. “I’m not a coward, but I don’t know if I can do that again.” You’re burning again, but this time with shame.

“No one expects you to. It doesn’t mean you’re a coward. You’re tough, sweetheart. But y’ain’t a killer.”

“I am, though,” you whisper. 

“Stop. Yes, you killed that man today. But you had to. It was him or you. You’re a survivor. But I’m going to make damn sure you don’t have to be anymore, alright? We’re safe here, now.”

You let out a ragged sigh and try to relax back into the pillow. “Okay,” you agree. You can tell he needs it. How scared he was. 

At least for now, you’ll let him protect you from this.

*title from "Death For My Birthday" by Say Anything

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #jackson!joel #joel miller fic #the last of us fic #joel miller smut #the last of us smut #fic: you know you never stood a chance #fuck it we'll call this a surprise deleted scene lmao #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday10

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: chapter i

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company

OR

you live in jackson and meet joel and you’re both damaged little babies and fall in love (but i’m drawing this shit out🫶🫶)

warnings: angst, ANGST👈🏻👈🏻, reader has a violent past but we don’t get graphic about it yet, knives (at present we only use her for gardening), age gap (reader late 20s/early 30s, joel 50s), mention of masturbation (if i left out any, let me know!)

word count: 3.1k

authors note: i would consider myself a mildly experienced writer but this is my first ever fic! kindness is appreciated but so is constructive criticism. i really hope you enjoy🍓

by the way, a big ol thank you to @macfrog @netherfeildren @5oh5 @swiftispunk @bageldaddy (and others), whose fantastic writing gave me the courage to put this story to paper🫶

series masterlist | masterlist

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you don’t remember much about the little fruits, from the time that came before. you were only a child then, 8 when it all crumbled to pieces, and those small sweetnesses aren’t things you’re taught to notice when you’re that young. lemons and airplane engines and the neighbor’s dog; these you remember, what with all the ruckus they made, but berries and peaches were far too soft of creations to make an impression. you suppose to anyone who could see your life in full, it would seem ironic in a tragic sort of way that they were all you cared for now.

you like to ponder these things—torture, really—on your way to the garden in the morning. there’s something about the honesty of jackson air, the clarity of it at daybreak, that make such musings, painful as they are, the only bearable passtime. keeping your hands close to your sides inside your jacket, you let your fingertips brush against the knife stored there. maria had offered you gardening tools, things more fit for the work you did now, but you’d refused; this knife was your father’s once (if you were remembering correctly) and you wouldn’t let it rust over on your nightstand. you like to make use of things, things and people if you’re honest, and trimming plants and flowers and little fruits are no less noble uses for it than what you did before jackson.

the crunch of your boots beneath you whispers up as you trudge along. your house isn’t far from the garden, but ages, it feels, from everything else. you’d gone to the tipsy bison, once, within the first few weeks of moving in, convinced you were young and entitled to normalcy after what they’d collected you from on the outside. the scotch burned your throat in a cliche kind of way, and you suppose you enjoyed that part, but the walk alone in the dark on your way home was enough to keep you from the establishment since. you moved back and forth from your garden, the dining hall, and occasionally tommy’s house when you couldn’t bear the loneliness; these pathways you’d carved out for yourself here are few and stubborn, but you love them because they’re yours. the other young men and women your age in town, most of whom have lived the better part of their lives within these walls, don’t think of you enough to find you as strange as you perhaps are, but their not thinking is a comfort to you. the crunch crunch crunch of your boots on the gravel mumbles in agreement.

“speak of the devil.”

tommy is leaning against the glass of the greenhouse wall with noah when he calls it out to you, grounding you in place. you’d made it all the way to the garden in the time it took for that ugly contemplation, but the both of them are smiling with that back and forth glance only boyishness forgives, and now the morning is real. it’s cold enough that numbness has clawed its way up the bridge of your nose, the frost keeping last night’s snow frozen to the ground. it’s these moments, the arrivals to your garden at dawn, when the day comes to you. you like the both of them, noah and tommy. they make you feel like somebody’s sister. you turn up the ends of your mouth. “all bad things i hope.”

“awful, really,” noah chuckles, tugging on the arm of your jacket to pull you inside with tommy behind you, the both of them still smiling in conspiracy.

you begin to slip your arms out of your coat, laying it carefully against a wall, the wet warmth of the greenhouse rushing you immediately. you’d been heating the inside for a few weeks now, trying to maintain a healthy summer crop output despite the freezing soil, and a few of the sturdier vegetables had steadily been peeking their way up. you plucked a full radish from the dirt last week and nearly wept over it. you look back up at tommy and noah, standing shoulder to shoulder now in the aisle between the planter boxes to block your path forward, humming still with whatever tommy-and-noah-elation they’ve concocted. you tilt your head a little and smile.

“are you gonna make me guess? or can you just tell me?”

they confer with a nod and a jostle side to side, tommy turning back to you. “there’s a strawberry.”

your tongue unsticks from the roof of your mouth as something golden and beautiful unfolds inside of you. “there isn’t,” you counter. noah turns himself sideways so you can walk through the aisle to the end of the left planter box and you rush there (you’re rarely frantic, nowadays, but you allow this sort of thing for your little fruits).

maria had placed you here in the garden as a safeguard. she thought you dangerous (and you were, at least back when you met her), so she put you to work where your hands could do good and be far from people. it helped, you guessed, that the greenhouse is made of glass; she could keep an eye on you this way. and oh, how you’d resisted it, the softness of a gardener’s job. in the end, though, the black and grime of life left as residue on your palms felt like forgiveness, and you’d taken quickly to thinking yourself a botanist.

by the time you arrive at the end of the left planter box, on your knees like a worshiper at a pew, you’re eye level with the little poetry of red and green parting the soil you’d scooped by hand last month. tommy and noah, you feel, are behind you as your shadow casts itself over the soil, and you almost have to pull the thing out just to bear this feeling. there’s a strawberry. and you actually say it out loud, softer than anything but wild, still, and staring at the child of plant and earth you’d nursed to color. noah and tommy drop to your sides, and you notice then that the three of you are crying, and you laugh and laugh over the little thing like madness and sweetness and pride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the euphoria of your strawberry lasts you well into the late afternoon. tommy and noah had left you to bask in the glory of it to continue with construction on a little post office right off the main road, and you worked the morning with your thumbs in the dirt, slicing browning leaves off the budding plants with as much gentleness as you could muster. you look down at your knife, cradled close in the cup of your palm, to finger out the soil packed through the engraving along the handle. a last name meant nothing anymore, what with your loneliness and the end of the world, but still the slopes of it peer up at you; you watched your father make the engraving, you think, though the actual memory of it is lost to time.

by the time you reach the beets at the end of the right planter box, a commotion has stirred outside. men’s voices ring and rumble from the main road, and the bass of it hums under your knees on the ground. a great bark of tommy reaches you clearly, even tucked away as your greenhouse is, and curiosity consumes you enough to resign from your garden for the day. these days you are quiet, and reserved, sometimes frightening because you like how it feels, but still curious, always curious, and so you curl yourself back into your jacket to join whatever audience has congregated by the front gates.

he is beautiful in a holy sort of way, whoever he is. you come upon tommy wrapped up in a great big stranger, a horse and a young girl behind him, and the slopes of his nose bend the waning sunlight off into a ribbon of a beam. jesus, when was the last time you’d looked at someone this way? tommy pulls back from him, glassy eyed and awestruck, looking around at those who’d crowded the scene almost incredulously, but you stare still at his stranger, who is so broad and so timid and so clearly unused to his own timidness that you can’t pull your eyes away. he meets your gaze for a moment, as he sweeps his own across the crowd, and looks at you with about as much detachment as he does the rest of this spectatorship. but oh god, he is so divinely pretty, and so you can forgive his lack of immediate fascination with you.

tommy begins walking his stranger and his stranger’s small companion through the throng, introducing and shaking hands, and as you watch them slowly shuffle towards you, you are struck with the thought that this is tommy’s brother. as he shifts his face along the axis of his shoulders, taking in the town, you see more and more of tommy in the motion of his stranger’s face. you’re sure of it now, as tommy calls your name and shepherds the man in front of you.

“my brother here’as decided to make a grand entrance!” tommy says, slapping a mittened hand across his back. you shake his stranger’s hand and give him your name, hoping your little smile doesn’t give away how awful it felt for him to look this way.

“joel,” he musters (and it really does seem like it takes a mustering), and gives your hand a firm shake before stuffing them back in his pockets. he is disinterested, surely, but afraid, too. it almost hurts you how clear his prevailing apprehension is, and you nearly make to apologize for forcing him to introduce himself. his eyes squint in the golden light cast over jackson.

“i work in the greenhouse, a few blocks from here on the edge of the settlement,” you explain, eyes drifting between joel and his little shadow, who both joel and tommy have yet to introduce. she looks a little feral, and this endears you immediately to her. “welcome in,” you offer, and you do your best to direct this message to her from around joel’s shoulder. her eyes are so big for a thing so ferocious (and you are certain she is) and they widen further at your acknowledgment of her.

“we won’t be here for long,” joel grumbles out and you straighten back up. he says it like you’ve offended him, and you bristle a little. tommy’s beautiful stranger is very guarded, you decide. regardless, the width of him, from left to right, blocks the mountain range behind him, and the patchy scruff along his jaw makes you die a little death.

“alright, well,” you start to back away then, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by his face and his broadness and this little girl who looks and moves like you used to, “you know where to find me,” and you nod a little to tommy before turning and walking away. you lasted all but five seconds in front of him, relishing in how little you were in his shadow cast upon you and loving whatever creature the girl he brought with him was, but all the same he looked too tired and cautious and vicious that it suffocated you. he wouldn’t be here for long, apparently; you’ll likely never see him again. as you step towards your little house, you figure it was worth the meeting, if for nothing else than a face to keep you company in the dark when you’re a woman and alone, and a real image to pair with the descriptions tommy gave of a brother who loved him once.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

for a while, it seemed you really wouldn’t see joel again. you watched, through your greenhouse walls, the great expanse of him ride out with the girl, and you were left with the comfort of knowing how gorgeous you found him and that you would never have to speak with him again. you warded off your own psychoanalysis of your relief at his faraway-ness in the face of your immediate physical attraction to him, and sunk your fingers again in the soil.

but then he had returned. what with how consoled you felt at his leaving, he almost had to; fate was funny this way. but you figure, still, you needn’t disturb yourself with him. you imagined he’d keep to himself with how unspeaking he was when you first met him, and other than crossing his path every once in a while, leaving tommy’s house or marching himself along somewhere or other, you were right.

you think of him at night, though. in the morning you wake up with the shame and hilarity of it, of this lusting over a man you neither know nor want to know, but past midnight in your bed you let your fingers slip over yourself thinking of how small he’d made you feel. the wanting of him strikes you somewhere between your shoulder blades, and you blame it entirely on how long it had been since you shared your bed with anyone. strictly physical, strictly physical. you’d learned again to care for yourself these years in jackson, and you’d wrought kinship from tommy and noah without realizing it, but in all you attend mostly to flora, and in this you are protected. yes, joel keeps to himself as you surmised he would, but you avoid him, too; to want him in this way, all hands and hips and somewhere within you, is harmless, you determine, so long as he stays tommy’s stranger. he could never be anything or anyone to you.

it’s six weeks or so of joel’s continued disinterest in you, and your insistent avoidance of him (barring the way you touched yourself at night to his face), before a knock at your door past sunset brings you out of bed. people rarely appear at your doorstep, though you imagine it’s noah dropping off seeds found on patrol, or tommy with a similar sort of package, or even ellie, joel’s little creature, who’d spoken all but five words to you about your garden, but all the same materialized rather often there to see the colors of your little fruits. but when maria blinks back at you when you open the door, any semblance of a greeting dies in the back of your throat.

“can i come in?” maria asks, although she’s already leaning her shoulder towards the gap between your body and the doorway. you step aside to let her through. it occurs to you that maria has never visited you in your home before, not in your five years in jackson, and when she turns back to you, back pressed against your kitchen counter, it’s clear she’s just had the same thought. the way she crosses her arms over her chest, the authority of it and the terror, too, beckons you toward her from your place at the threshold.

“is everything okay?” you sigh out as you prop your hip against the adjacent table top. she is inspecting you, but smiles.

“yeah, yeah.” one of you sniffs. you shift your weight. “i came to see what you thought of joel.”

you almost laugh then, really laugh. “i don’t think anything of joel.”

she rolls this answer around behind her teeth. “mhm,” and then this time with finality, “mhm”.

you inspect her, now. “you don’t want him here.” it isn’t a question.

maria hums. “tommy wants him here.”

“that isn’t what i said.”

she purses her lips a moment. “yeah, i know.”

and you’re making the moment torturous for her, you’re certain, because you know why she’s come to you, why she’s standing in your kitchen like the elected leader she is, while something awful, something almost like alarm, leaks from the back of her neck onto your floorboards. you’d come to jackson a wild thing and she’d tamed you, and now you lived as a dirt woman who sunk her dagger into earth and green and life more permanent than humanity. she is proud of this, you think. and joel came as much of the same, with red hands that opened dripping, and maria needs him watched now the same way she watched you through your garden’s glass. you sigh again.

“what do you want me to do, maria? anything i’d say to tommy would be infinitely more effective from you.”

maria nods. “i don’t want you to say anything to tommy. i can live with joel in jackson. but he’s insisting on patrol, and i don’t know who else to put with him.”

your jaw seizes, and the heat of anger spreads itself along your neck and around your ears. you remember when you’d pleaded so kindly, crouching to make yourself smaller, hands collapsed together, begging to be useful, to be put outside, to protect jackson like it was yours. maria was as honest with you then as she is now, and she’d cited your instability (the reality of which is neither here nor there) to keep you off the rounds. you’d told tommy maria envisioned your actions before jackson as far more unforgivable than they were, though you knew that was a lie before you opened your mouth to say it. “patrol?”

she looks so solemnly at you you think you might die right there between your kitchen and the staircase. “yeah. i want you to be his patrol partner. i’m not looking to send him out there with a gun strapped to his back with one of the other gu-”

“and why does it have to be me?” and you’re really angry, now. for your unyielding quiet in this jackson existence you’d sewn together and the little strawberry you’d grown from nothing, still, still, you were at most and at least a violence. “why can’t you assign someone else?”

maria has this answer constructed already, it seems, for how fast she releases it, “because you’ll kill him.”

“noah would, if he had to. and leila. i can think of at least fi-”

“i’m not saying you would kill him. i’m saying you could.”

and suddenly you were again a wasp or spider, poisonous and unthinking, and the weight of the killing you did before jackson, which you had halfway successfully ignored to piece yourself into something good, perched its chin on the crown of your head. your father’s knife, laying up next to your bed after what was now years of tending to vegetables and stalks and leaves, howled with laughter, and it carried down the stairs to you like wind in summer, leadened and screaming and satisfied.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i hope you enjoyed this first part! like i said in my authors note, this is my first time writing a piece like this and certainly my first time posting it, so kindness is much appreciated, as is constructive criticism. part 2 coming (hopefully) soon🍓

update: chapter ii!!

#joel miller fic #joel miller #tlou #the last of us #fem!reader #teehee #jackson!joel #on strawberries and masonry

[hearteyesforjoel]

Old Man

okay okay, we’re FINALLY here, it’s finally done. i’ve had this idea stuck in my head for forever, it’s based on a dream i actually had, go figure lol. enjoy, first fic i’ve written in literal years <3

word count: 1280

jackson!joel x reader

warnings: tbh not much, a creep, heavy kissing, cheeky joel.

Content. If there was one word to describe how you felt at the moment, it would be just that. The radio playing some old country song you couldn’t be bothered with to remember playing softly in the background, not overpowered by the light chatter of the Jackson patrons. It was a quiet night for the Tipsy Bison. It had been a pretty uneventful day of patrol, the only thing keeping you going from lookout to lookout being the promise Joel made that morning before you both left the gated community.

“Sweetheart, we gotta get going for the day”, his voice still raspy with sleep as you both enjoy the comfort and warmth provided by the fluffy duvet. Your head rising and falling on his chest with each breath he took. Through the curtains you could see a peak of sunlight, taunting you to start your day.

You pout slightly, “But I love seeing you like this; so relaxed and cozy. Maybe Tommy can find someone to fill in for us? I know, tell him we came down with a cold?”

He snorted, “Yeah right. The last time we used that excuse, he saw all of those lovely marks you left on me.” Joel smirks as he recalls the memory.

“Well, I’ll just have to hide those marks this time around”, you say as you grin up at him, sliding your hand up his neck and to his scalp, pulling on his hair lightly.

Joel groans, a devilish look flashes in his eyes as he tightens his grip around you. He hums, “How about I make you a deal? If you can behave yourself today during patrol, I’ll take you out tonight. How’s that sound darlin’?”

You raise your eyebrows, “Joel Miller wants a night out on the town with me? Feel like I just won the lottery”, you tease with a smile.

Joel grins a shit-eating grin and pulls you closer. “Don’t push your luck sweetheart”, he says as he places small pecks from your temple to your neck, nibbling along the way.

You’d gotten to the bar before Joel, he mentioned having to stop by Tommy’s. Something about a new area of Wyoming to patrol. You honestly weren’t listening to the details, too excited for the night to come. You hum along to the old country song playing in the background, sipping on a glass of whiskey. The burn providing a warm comfort to the cool breeze from the fall air outside.

“Hey, what are you doing here all alone?”, you heard a familiar voice from behind you as you sat at the bar. When you turn to look over your shoulder, you saw that the voice came from one of the stable hands. Jake? James? Maybe Jason?

“Oh, no, I’m just waiting for someone”, you said with a small, polite smile. If you’re being honest, the guy always gave you weird vibes. Sometimes as you would leave for patrol on your horse, you could feel a lingering stare, leaving the hairs on the back of your neck standing at attention.

As you focused your attention back to your glass, you saw the barstool next you pull out, your pest of the night sitting down next you at the bar.

“Well in that case, I’ll just keep you company until then”, he smirked, looking you up down. There it is, that familiar uncomfortable feeling.

“Ah, no, that’s okay. He should be here any minute, I’ll be fine to wait alone”, you say as you pick at your cuticles, hoping he’ll take the hint. He laughs, resting his arm on the back of your stool.

“Some friend he is. Really, let me get you a drink, sweetheart”, he says, the term of endearment sounding bitter coming out of his mouth.

Before Jake? James? Maybe Jason, can say anything else, you feel a familiar hand rest against waist. “Should I throw your ass out of this bar or do you want to walk out on your own? Think carefully”, Joel nearly snarls as he puts himself between you and the once confident, now tense man.

He raises his hands in surrender, “Hey, man, I didn’t mean any trouble. I’m just, I’m just gonna…”, he slides off the barstool and quickly leaves, tail between his legs.

Joel turns to you, concern all over his face, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you okay? Did he touch you?”, he quickly scans your form. His big, brown eyes fully of worry.

You grab his bicep, pulling him closer to you. His familiar scent putting you at ease. “I’m fine, I’m just glad you’re finally here”, you say as smile, happy to finally have a relaxing night with the love of your life. Neither of you have had a night to yourselves, usually spending your nights enjoying dinners with Tommy and Maria, movie nights with Ellie. It’s not that you don’t enjoy the company of your family, but sometimes you just want Joel all to yourself.

“I’m sorry it took so long, Tommy found an abandoned town a few miles out, thinks there could be supplies worth the trip. We’re gonna head out first thing in the mornin’, there’s an old clinic we need to check out. Could be medicine there.”

You sigh, knowing you’ll both have to cut the night short. Defeated, you stand up from your barstool, grabbing his bicep to lead Joel out of the quaint bar. “Well, come on old man, you need your beauty sleep if you want to get up bright and early”, you tease him, sliding your hand to the back pocket of his jeans.

Slowing down his stride, Joel stares into your eyes. His once soft brown eyes, now dark, a devious glint in his eyes. Without hesitation, he grabs your arm and pulls you to the side of the bar, away from any prying eyes. His actions surprising you.

You inhale sharply, your whole body heating up from just the simple touch on your arm. “Joel? Joel, what are you doing?”.

He quickly pins you against the brick wall behind you, caging you in between his arms. Joel leans in, his lips grazing your neck, his warm breath bringing chills to your skin. You’re breathing heavily at this point, your insides practically begging for him to do something, anything to alleviate the burning desire within you. Joel begins to coast his lips up from your neck, your jaw, and finally hovering over your own. With heavy eyes, you both stare into one another’s eyes, waiting for the other to break.

You can’t take it anymore. Finally, you give in and roughly bring your lips together, his chapped, yours soft. Quickly, you bring one hand to comb through his dark hair, the other to rest against the back of his neck. His own grabbing at your waist, placing one hand to your neck, just under your jaw. Softly, you whimper against him as he bites your bottom lip, allowing him to take control of the kiss, his mouth exploring your own. You sigh heavily, the hand in his hair pulling on his roots. He groans, pulling away from the kiss, both of you gasping for air.

“Where did that come from?”, you whisper, slightly out of breath.

Joel smirks, eyes still heavy and burning with want, “You wanna call me an old man, sweetheart? Let me show you what this old man can do“. He grips your hand, pulling you back onto the street, beginning the short walk back to your shared home.

There it is, that fiery desire that only Joel can ignite.

Yeah, you were in for a long night. Maybe you’ll tell Tommy you both caught a cold?

______________________________________________

if you read all the way through this, i love you.

thank you so much for reading, i definitely need to keep writing, ya know, leveling up my skills.

prompts and requests are always open and welcome! xx

#omg i did it #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x reader #joel miller #jackson!joel #the last of us #tlou #tlou fic #pedro pascal #writing #my writings #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction

[trulybetty]

honey, I won't be home.

pairing: jackson!joel x reader word count: 1,712 warnings: tlou2 spoilers, angst, mentions of a wound, mentions of blood, neither in graphic detail, bee stings, mention of alcohol, no descriptions of reader, use of a nickname, no y/n estimated reading time: 9 minutes summary: ellie arrives at your door with news that turns your world upside down ao3: linked

a/n: I went back for a rewatch of tlou2 play through for research and ended back in my jackson!joel feelings and leaning into what I want to write as opposed to trying to make other things work and this was the result. if you want to read it in relation to Drip you could read them as the same reader.

honey, I won't be home.

It was early evening, you were drying dishes when the first shouts could be heard through Jackson. The glass in your hand slipped out of your wet fingers, hit the lip of the sink. The crack of glass on ceramic sounded like a shotgun in the quiet of the kitchen while the screams and shouts from outside echoed. Your attention torn you reached into the sink and recoiled instantly when the bite of cut glass hit your open palm. 

“Son of a bitch,” you hissed as you pulled your hand back, the soapy water already turning pink, the gash on your hand hard to see for the blood muddled with the watery suds. 

As you rinsed off the soap and inspected the wound, you winced at the sight of the jagged cut as the metallic tang of blood tickled your nose. Your eyes darted around for a clean dishcloth, panic at your heels for both the open wound on your hand, and for whatever it was going on outside as the shouting sounded like it was getting closer. 

Just as you found a dishcloth there was a booming knock at the door. 

“Dammit,” you cursed again as you wrapped your hand with the cloth you’d just been using, wishing you could have found a clean one. But the shouts were coming from behind the door now and with the continuous banging of the door, it felt like if you didn’t let them in they’d knock the door down. 

“For Christ's sake,” you muttered as you unlocked the door swinging it open, half expecting to see Joel there sheepish for being gone so long for the patrol he’d left in the early hours for and then for forgetting his key again. 

But instead, it was Ellie. 

Maria was at the bottom of the steps, frozen in a shout she’d been poised to let out at Ellie, but with your arrival, she’d fallen silent. 

You looked at Ellie, her face pale and bruises blooming at the side of her face, her lip split. If it weren’t for your hand wrapped tightly in the damp dishcloth pressed against your chest coupled with the intensity of the moment, you would have reached out to take her face in your hands to inspect her injuries. 

The usual spark in her eyes was gone, left was just a hollow emptiness that seemed to age her beyond her years. You looked down to the bottom of the steps, Maria, usually the picture of authority and composure within Jackson stood as a silent sentinel, her expression unreadable and her eyes avoiding yours.

“Honey,” Ellie’s voice cracked.

You still inwardly cringed still at the nickname all these years later. You wished you’d adopted it through a means of a term of endearment, something sweet bestowed upon you as the name suggested.

Eugene had christened you with the name years ago. You’d tried to remove a beehive from a property being prepared for new residents. You’d thought the hive was dried and inactive, but no — you were wrong. In the process of trying to remove it, you’d been stung multiple times, earning you a painful trip to the infirmary.

Then, that night, under the dim lights of the Tipsy Bison Eugene’s deep voice had carried over the general chatter as he regaled the tale. The clink of glasses and laughter had echoed around you as you sat centre of unwanted attention. Eugene had raised a glass of whiskey, sweetened with his prized honey salvaged from the hive, and toasted to you with a mischievous glint in his eye, using the new nickname he’d bestowed upon you.

It was also the night you’d first met Joel.

Your heart, already racing from the accident in the kitchen, now threatened to beat out of your chest. Your throat felt tight and your mind was swimming with possibilities of what the tension between Ellie and Maria meant, what the shouting before you opened the door was about. Then came your sudden realization that Joel should have been back from patrol with Tommy by now, especially if Ellie was back.

It all accumulated in a fear so intense, that it was nearly paralyzing.

“Ellie,” you spoke cautiously, breaking the heavy silence. It took a moment or two to control your breathing with the new weight that sat on your chest, so heavy it threatened to have you on your knees, “Ellie,” you said again, your voice strained and barely above a whisper, “what’s happening?” the weight was crushing, the tension in your body only serving to keep you on your feet, “Where’s Joel?”

Ellie’s tear-rimmed eyes looked up at you, she looked as if she was carrying all the weight in the world. For a brief moment, you mourned the childhood she should have had. That she shouldn’t be outside of the walls of Jackson on patrol, that she shouldn’t have witnessed the things she had in her short eighteen years. 

“Joel,” she started, her voice a volatile cocktail of grief and anger and you felt the heckles of panic at your heels again, working their way up to your chest, the moment stretched out so far it felt like hours before she spoke again, “He… he’s gone.”

The simplicity of her words belied the complexity of emotions they unleashed.

Gone. 

Gone.

The term was too small, too simple for the enormity of what it implied. Joel, your Joel, the man who had been a constant in your life since arriving in Jackson. The man who had seen you through so much, who had become not just your partner, but a part of you, could simply not be ‘gone’.

Your mind reeled as you tried to make sense of Ellie’s words, but it was like grasping at smoke. The world was suddenly tilting, just falling into confusion and disbelief. 

“Gone? Ellie, what do you mean gone?” The urgency in your voice rose, the panic evident, the grief in your throat growing, threatening to choke you, “What happened? Ellie?”

Your voice now a desperate plea for this to be a misunderstanding, just all a mistake.

Ellie’s eyes flooded with tears, spilling over as she looked at you, a tempest of tragedy on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely holding it together, trembling with the weight of the news she was delivering, “I– we… we were too late. The weather delayed Dina and I. Something went wrong. He–Joel… he was attacked. He was attacked. He… he,” she bit her lip as she tried to force the words out, “he didn’t make it,” her words broke, shattered by the sheer force of her grief.  

The cold winter air around you felt thick as time itself paused in the face of such inconceivable news. Ellie took you through what had happened, you tried to listen, but the pounding of your heartbeat in your ears threatened to drown her out. Left only with your thoughts of Joel, Joel Miller, the pillar of strength and safety in your world, the man who had survived against all odds, whose resilience and will to protect had been unbreakable, almost stubborn, was no more.

The newfound foundation of your life in Jackson, built together with him, had been ripped away in an instant. 

The pain in your hand, from just mere moments ago in what felt like another lifetime, once sharp and demanding, faded to nothing against the gaping wound in your heart. 

But as you clutched to the doorframe for support, the world spinning out of control, you saw Ellie. Really saw Ellie. Not as the bearer of some of the worst news possible, but as the young woman who had been thrust into a world of loss and survival from too young an age. The girl who had lost so much, yet fought so fiercely for those she loved.

The girl who in that moment, needed you just as much as you needed her.

Instinctively, without even realizing it, your stance softened, your grip on the doorframe released. Ellie, who had seen Joel as a father figure, even through the hard moments, who had been a constant presence in your lives, was now a part of your family through shared grief as much as shared love.

With a shaky breath, you reached out with open arms. She paused, just for a moment, causing you to hold your breath in anticipation. Then before you could say anything she collapsed into your embrace, her body wracked with sobs. You held onto her so tightly, as if your hold on her would keep you together, that as long as you were holding each other, the world around you couldn’t completely fall apart.

You stroked her hair, whispering words of comfort, that felt hollow in your own ears, but it was all you could offer, “It’s going to be okay,” you lied, because in that moment, nothing felt like it would ever be okay again.

But for Ellie, you could be strong. You had to be because if you couldn’t, you knew you would surely fall apart.

The cold Jackson air whipped around you, your bare feet were numb a contrast to the warmth of Ellie’s body pressed tightly to yours, her arms tight around you. You could feel her heart beating against your chest, fast and frantic, mirroring your own despite your seemingly straight face.

“You did everything you could, Ellie,” you whispered into her hair, knowing full well that nothing you could say could possibly erase any of the weight of guilt or responsibility she felt for Joel’s death.

Maria, who had silently been observing until now, approached cautiously. You glanced up, meeting her eyes, a silent exchange passing between the two of you tears glistened in her eyes mirroring the ones threatening to fall from your own that you were fighting to hold back.

The night was falling fast, the shadows of Jackson stretching long across the ground, it felt like an ominous presence mirroring the grief that had crossed the threshold of your home, a sanctuary no more. 

As the first stars of the evening began to peek through the dark clouds you squeezed Ellie a little tighter.

For now, you hoped it was enough to get you through the night.

#TLOU2 spoilers #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #jackson!joel #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x gn!reader #joel miller x f!reader #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #the last of us 2 spoilers

[loliwrites]

Edelweiss is coming summer 2024

#edelweiss #jackson!joel #sharpshooter!reader #coming soon #joel miller x reader #tlou fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #joel miller fic #ppcu fanfiction

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Stay in the Light✨

A/N: I’ve been wanting to do a one shot based off the song “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron for a while, and I finally got some inspiration yesterday to write this little piece. Hope you like it 🩵 Thank you to @mountainsandmayhem for being my beta reader before I decided to release this out to the world 💕

Summary: Joel gets injured after a raider attack, and he’s wishing he could’ve told you all the feelings he held back from you for so long

Word Count: 2.2k

Pairing: Joel x fem! reader

Rating: 18+ Only

Tags: Outbreak! Joel, Jackson! Joel, blood, angst, comfort, feelings, regrets, in both reader and Joel’s POV, no deaths, fluff (I am bad at tags, so let me know if I should add anything)

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

“When the night was full of terrors, and your eyes were filled with tears. When you had not touched me yet. Oh, take me back to the night we met”

- “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron

The ground is cold, wet, unwelcoming with a thick puddle of crimson blood pooling beneath his worn green flannel. Large flecks of powdered snow lace through his grey threaded curls that stick to his sweaty forehead. His vision blurs, going in and out in waves as pain takes hold of his insides. He can hear Tommy screaming in the near distance, his deep voice sounding like it’s washed out beneath a wave of deep water. He can barely register it, barely hear anything, but what he does see is a bright light, an angel in disguise. He sees you.

You. The girl he should’ve been more careful with. Your feelings, your heart, your everything. He was such an asshole ever since the first day you came walking through the front gates of Jackson. He should’ve been nicer, shouldn’t have yelled at you over petty things that were his doing and shouldn’t have thrown insults your way when you were just trying to help on every patrol you were assigned to with him.

Maybe if he would’ve been fucking nicer then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. A clean gunshot to the abdomen, now bleeding out on the thick white snow beneath him. Raiders. He wasn’t being careful, wasn’t paying attention. No, he was fucking fixed on arguing with you. Maybe he deserves it, maybe if he wasn’t such a grouch all the time then maybe none of this would’ve fucking happened. He sure as hell doesn’t deserve you. Warm, bright, gentle, kind. He was none of those things, so why the fuck were you still sitting here with him, keeping him from slipping into the thick fog of darkness?

“Joel! Stay with me, okay? Stay with me.” Your voice is so adamant, so terrified, so hurt. And it fucking kills him, destroys him. “Tommy! Help him!”

Joel sees the gathering tears that burn through your beautiful eyes, sees the absolute horror that’s coated through your knit together eyebrows, sees the pain of holding it all together just like you always do. Always so brave. His brave girl…. NO. You’re not his to keep, not his to hold, not his to tell everything’s going to be alright. You weren’t his and never would be. Not after the way he’s treated you.

He wishes you were his, but you’re not, and it’s his own damn fault for being so reckless. He should’ve been softer, more kind, like you. He should’ve done so many things, should’ve told you just how he felt. How much he likes you, how much he…

He winces in pain as Tommy presses down on the open wound, barely holding himself together to even keep his eyes open, but he fights. He fights for you. The girl he so desperately fell in love with over the last year, the girl he wished he treated differently. He should’ve fucking told you, but now it’s too late. It’s all too late.

“Hey, hey. Joel, look at me. Look at me!” You grab the sides of his face, sink your delicate fingers into the scruff of his greying beard, and cling to him just enough to where maybe he won’t slip through your fingers. You can’t lose him, you can’t.

“Joel, open your eyes. Please, keep them open for me.” You shake his head lightly, kneel over him and let your hair fall in a heap at your side as you pray for one more day with him. “Joel…”

Your voice is so sad, so desperate as you call out for him. He sees your face blur in his spotty vision, sees the glistening tears start to spill down your face. So he reaches up, musters up enough strength to wipe away the falling tears that stain your beautiful face. He thinks you’re so gorgeous, always has. Ever since you walked into his life, he knew. He knew he’d fall, and that’s why he pushed away so strongly. He didn’t want to lose you, he never wanted to. But now you were the one losing him…

He holds the side of your face for just a few more seconds, just enough to finally know he got you, some part of you, if only for a minute. And that was enough for him. At least he knew what it was like to feel your soft skin slipping under the weight of his calloused fingers. That moment alone was all he wanted.

He starts to close his eyes, starts to fade away into the midst of darkness and silence, but he hears you plead to stay in the light. “Stay in the light, Joel. Stay with me. Stay,” you beg. And he carries those words into the darkness with him. And then there’s nothing but the fading words of a promise he never could keep.

Stay in the light.

He awakes slowly, hearing the buzzing sound of some medical machine he doesn’t know the name of. Slowly but surely his eyes open as the harsh light from the blinding window slips against the warm sheets of the sterile bed. It takes him a second to come to himself, to know he’s not dead.

He looks cautiously down at his exposed torso, finding the tight bandage wrapped around his wound. It’s clean, mended to, but the pain burns through his body. Every breath he breathes feels like fire in his lungs, but at least he knows he’s alive.

He feels warmth sliding through his fingertips, feels comfort bubble over his entirety. He wonders what it is, wonders what thing could ever bring him comfort until he slowly turns his head and sees you sitting there on the edge of the bed, fingers laced through his while your thumb gently glides side to side in slow circles on the back of his rough hand.

His eyes go wide, eyebrows knit together as he stares wondrously at the girl he’s been pining over since the day he locked eyes on you. You look so goddamn beautiful there with your fingers threaded through his. He can feel it deep in his gut, that fluttering feeling he’s always tried so hard to push back down, but this time he can’t. He won’t. He can’t ignore the voices anymore that scream your name every single night he’s in between his sheets, wishing he could just have a chance to hold you, to feel you pressed against his firm chest. And maybe he would. One day. Maybe he still had time to make you his.

You hear a faint rustling sound in the sheets and turn your face slightly to the left, expecting it to only be your vivid imagination. Your jaw drops suddenly and your eyes go wide the moment you see Joel awake, breathing, alive.

“Joel!” You turn frantically and crowd his body, locking your arms tight around the back of his neck as you inhale his deep mahogany and pine cone scent.

“Ouch, take it easy!” Joel pants out as you jump back, realizing you might’ve hurt him with your body weight.

“I’m sorry, are you alright?” you ask as you assess his wound, running your fingers lightly over the bandaged area. He winces a little as you smooth out the edges, but he just hums in response.

“I’m fine. Jus’ calm down, will ya?”

You gently smile at him and brace your hands on the fitted sheets, just barely grazing your skin over his warm, sweaty body. Your eyes scan over his bare chest as you take in the coarse hair that covers his broad chest, watching the way the cool sweat glazes over tanned skin. You think he looks so beautiful, even after a gunshot wound. You’ve never seen him bare chested, and it surprises you what it makes you feel inside. Warmth.

“You came back to the light,” you whisper out, grazing your fingertips across the back of his hand as he stares wide-eyed at you, honey eyes so intense that you swear they’re about to split you in half. “I was so scared, Joel. You scared me half to death!”

He just watches you, eyes wading into yours like a violent tidepool about to drag you into the crashing waves, but there’s a fondness to them, a slight gleam in his eyes as he assesses you. Slow, curious, eyes that look like they might shed a tear.

“You… you saved my life today.” His tone is somber, his honey eyes wild as you see tears lick the surface, but he won’t dare shed them. Not in front of you. That’d be too vulnerable.

“Mhm. If Tommy wasn’t there, I don’t know how I would’ve ever gotten you up on that saddle alone. But we did it. We made it in time. I was so scared we were too late. You weren’t… you weren’t really breathing. Even the doctor was worried you wouldn’t make it. You’re a… well, a miracle.”

His face turns pale, lips parted solemnly as he breathes and lets oxygen back into his tired lungs. “Why did you save me?”

His words surprise you as you furrow your eyebrows and shift your weight slightly on the bed so you’re facing him. “What do you mean?” Your words come out shaky, appalled. What did he mean why did you save him?

“Why did you save me?” His honey eyes bore into yours, fingers flexing around the white sheets as he just stares with flared nostrils.

You place a hand gently on top of his warm hand as he tries to pull away, but you don’t let him. “Because I think you’re worth saving.”

His plush lips tremble, his eyes blowing wide as he takes in your quiet words. He looks like he wants to say something, looks like he’s fighting with himself in his mind, but he just stares unblinking, taking in the soft way you look at him.

Finally, he clears his deep voice and rasps out a response. “I’m not worth saving.” His eyes look so sad, defeated, and you wish you could take away all his pain. Physical and emotional, you’d take it all on if it meant he could have one single day where he didn’t wear the weight of the entire world on his tired back.

You lean forward as you hear the creak of the old bed and place your hand gently on his bare chest, feeling the bristles of coarse dark hair running down his tanned skin. “I think you are, Joel.”

He gulps, arms fidgeting beneath you as you see him fight with himself, battling the demons of reaching out or letting you slip through his grasp. He finally finds the courage to slowly, steadily crawl his hand up the side of his chest, then ever so softly places it on top of yours.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for bein’ a jerk to you the past year. I was a real asshole, and there’s no excuse for the way I treated you. I think about it every single night, think about how I should’ve done better, how I should’ve tried harder because I… I…” Joel winces in pain as he tries to sit up, but you push him back down easily and try to get him to stay still.

“Hey, careful there. It’s okay, Joel. It’s…”

“No, please let me finish.” You nod your head and he continues with a low grunt through gritted teeth. “I should’ve been nicer to you. And I want to apologize for everything I’ve ever done, every hurtful thing I’ve ever said to you. I didn’t mean it, not really. I’ve jus’… I’ve been goin’ through a lot, but that’s no excuse. Because I should’ve told you how I felt about you, not pushed you away. You see, the thing is… well, thing is I like you, darlin’. A lot. You’re so fuckin’ beautiful and those eyes, that smile. I…”

You cut him off as you lean forward and crash your lips into his, letting his warmth overwhelm you as you slip into him. His tongue tastes like coffee, his skin smells of freshly cut firewood, and he feels so good in the palm of your hand. He surrounds you in something like warmth, ecstasy, something you’ve wanted to feel for so long. He glides his thick fingers through your hair and pulls you closer as he gets lost in you, overwhelming your senses until all you can smell, hear, feel is him. It feels so right, this feels right. You almost forget he’s injured until he grunts and shifts his weight to the right.

You quickly let go of the kiss and lean back, assessing if he’s alright, but he’s smiling. Warm, bright, glowing. You’ve never seen him like this, like he’s the happiest man in the world. It’s that twinkle in his chocolate irises that gets you, and you finally know that this is where you belong. In Jackson, with him.

He guides a strand of hair behind your ear and cups the side of your face as his warm, calloused thumb grazes gently across your cheekbone. “You kept me in the light, sweetheart. You’re exactly what I needed all along, I jus’ wish I didn’t wait so long to find the light.”

You sigh and smile. “It’s okay, Joel. You found it. You found me.”

“You gonna keep the light on for me, sweetheart?”

“Forever, if you want me to.”

He pulls you back in and grazes lightly over your lips as he whispers out, “Forever it is.”

Tagging some friends who might be interested 💛 @sawymredfox @burntheedges @littlevenicebitch69 @keylimebeag @vivian-pascal @rav3n-pascal22 @princesatracionera @bbyanarchist @amyispxnk @pedrostories @syd-djarin @msjarvis @untamedheart81 @survivingandenduring

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel x female reader #joel miller pedro pascal #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #joel x f!reader #post outbreak joel #outbreak!joel #jackson!joel

[macfrog]

wish you were here | one shot

thank you lovely anon for this gorgeous request which felt like a huge mug of hot chocolate and a pair of socks fresh from the dryer to write. i hope you enjoy.

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: you and joel skip jackson’s annual holiday party in favor of some alone time. (not that kind you filthy animals it’s the HOLIDAYS)

warnings: fluff lmao, thirty-year age gap and u can stay mad, set around the holidays but no mention of christmas etc, nothing but love and two hints of sex. that's all. oh and no guitars were harmed in the making of this - joel canonically goes and gets the guitar after the fic ends. dw.

word count: 1.9k 

main masterlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤎

Jackson is alive with a thrumming heartbeat. Pulsing through the air, bumping gently against the quick-lying snow and filling the otherwise silent night. A steady, rhythmic heartbeat.  

A heartbeat which sounds a lot like Blue Monday, but a heartbeat nonetheless.

The holiday party is in full swing down in the Tipsy Bison. Seven o’clock ‘til late! on flyers plastered all over the commune for the last month. Tommy had tried relentlessly to convince Joel this morning on patrol – It’ll be a good night; You oughta come along, show face at least. At the same time, Maria was on your back about it in the stables.

Y’all hardly come to anything fun, she’d argued.

We come to stuff.

When’s the last time you came to anythin’?

We were – we were at Mike’s birthday dinner.

What – five months ago?

We like alone time.

Alone time? You’re never apart from one another.

Alone time – together.

Neither attempt had been successful. Tommy and Maria had exchanged a disheartened glance as the two brothers passed their horses to you on their return. Joel clipped your cheek, took his gloves off and fixed them onto your frozen hands before making off for home, a proud grin on his face. You’d held your own as well as he had: you two had a clear evening ahead.

He had lit and nurtured a fire, had made himself a coffee and heaped half a damn bag of tiny marshmallows into a hot chocolate for you, but when he’d come through to take his place on the couch, you were already stood out front.

It’s bitter out – a soft breeze, but a thick chill on its wings. The sky a washed gray, heavy clouds overhead. He slips outside, setting the mugs down on the table, and slings a blanket over your shoulders. Kisses the curve of your neck, scruff of his beard tickling your skin.

‘s freezing, pretty bird.

Then keep me warm, you whisper, turning into his arms. He steps back, settling into his chair, flicking his fingers for you to fall down into his wide lap.

You curl up against his torso, your head hooked beneath his jaw. Wonder how drunk Tommy is by now. What is it – nine?

His wrist lifts, moonlight gleaming in the reflection of his broken watch face. Just gone ten. I bet he’s on his ass already.

You giggle into his shirt, breathing in the scent of the pine trees, the smoke from stoking the fire inside, the bite of hot coffee. The echo of voices swelling in merry song turns your attention down the street – two figures hooked onto one another, stumbling through the powdered snow. Some slurred rendition of September melting into All Night Long before the smaller of the two tugs their partner off into a darkened house.

Joel laughs to himself, the bristle of his beard catching on your hair as he shakes his head.

You ask him softly, Will you play me something?

His breath soars, a cloud hot and pale white, past your temple and up into the pastel sky. Gets swallowed somewhere overhead by the wash of warmth from the porch light. He turns his mug until the owl faces the street, the bottom gnawing against the wooden armrest of his chair.

I’m serious.

What do you wanna hear?

That one you’re always practicin’. The plucking one.

Another rumble between your shoulder blades. His chest jolts with a solid laugh. The pluckin’ one.

You know the one.

I know the one.

Will you play it, if I go get the guitar?

Baby, his lungs nudge on your back as they fill, it’s late. We’ll wake the neighbors.

Everyone’s at the dance. C’mon.

And he can’t argue with that. The entire street lies dark, vacant. Yours is the only house with soft-glowing eyes, the muted orange of the fire flickering behind closed blinds. Two figures, tangled in a chair on the dim front porch; a hunting jacket around his shoulders, and his body around yours.

You tug on the blanket, wrapping it around your elbows as you stand. Just once. Play me it once.

Joel’s looking up at you, setting his mug down on the table. Play you it as many times as you want, pretty bird. Just – quietly.

There’s a spring in your step that drags another chuckle from Joel’s lips: the kind that drips like honey down your throat and warms the pit of your stomach – a sweet, comforting thing, a sound you swear was made purposefully for you. Divine and deliberate.

Like – all of him. Like the shape of your name in his mouth, the curl of his tongue as the sound surfs over it. Like the curve of his hand and the way yours so neatly molds into it.

The way it did the day he found you, crouched in the gray backroom of some butchers deep in the city, and took you all the way back to Jackson. Let you cling to him on the back of his horse; your weak arms around his waist, anchored by the heavy jacket he’d thrown over your back. Your ear between his shoulder blades. And that was that.

Fifty-six. One brown-turned-silver hair away from thirty years your senior. He still remembers before. Talks about movies, talks about computers. Talks about Sarah, when the sun hits the wall at a certain angle and he reckons he could see her standing right there, the soft shadow of her hair dark against the golden wall. When you make a joke and he laughs a ghostly sort of laugh, like he’s hearing the echo of her voice make the same quip three decades ago. He always says she would’ve loved you; you like to think he’s right.

He found you: a lonely little broken heart, and he pulled you to your feet with a rough palm against your own. Hands calloused only from years spent carving wood and pressing the hard strings of his guitar into the fretboard, and nothing else. No violence and no bloodshed; no survival or threat. Music, and patience, and kindness.

And maybe you found him, too, in the same sort of way: roughened up, awkward and messy stitches holding him together. Maybe the two of you nursed one another back to life; each brush of your hands in the dining hall and each meaningful glance while out on patrol sewing those wounds up a little tighter, a little safer.

He sits forward when you hold the instrument out, sweeping a broad palm down the slope of the body. Pinches the pegs one by one, twisting them while his thumb taps on each string.

Come here, he says, beckoning you forward with a flick of his chin. He taps on the seam of his jeans, widens his legs for you to curl up between them at his feet – the way you always do.

Your elbows hook over his thigh, ear pressed against the inside of his knee. Staring up, blinking slowly, eyes glazed with the cold and with the light and with love.

He plucks gently, slow at first. Letting the strings snap with a twang, vibrating enough that you feel the small rattle in your jaw. Your eyes fall closed, head rocking with the light tap of his heel on the porch. When you peer at him through your lashes, he’s watching the skilled movements of his fingers intently; as if he’s as much a spectator as you are – his body doing all of the thinking and working for him.

 So, he sings, and your stomach melts to a puddle, so you think you can tell –

Your eyes close again, the low rumble of his voice crisp in your ears. Like thunder, like the promise of something great and mighty. Something moving, something rolling and changing the landscape of your body, your mind and your soul. The lines between living and dying begin to blur, the seam tearing between this plain and the next.

Did they get you to trade – your lips parting to whisper the words with him – your heroes for ghosts?

His thumbnail dragging down the strings, his strong fingers flitting between chords. Like he was made to sit here, in the dead of night, and carve a space in the world for himself and his voice and for you – lain in the safe scope of his body, protected by his breadth and brawn and lulled by his sweet song.

His breadth and brawn – the parts of him which have kept him standing here. His skeleton, his muscle. But the thing that keeps you warm at night, buried side by side under a threadbare woolen sheet together, the thing that you link your arms around as he leads you home from the nights you dare to visit the Tipsy Bison: are his heart, his flesh, the gray-singed hair which falls in a featherlight wave over his forehead. The hair you sweep from his eyes when he’s on top of you, his hips cradled in yours, that all-encompassing feeling of every part of him filling every part of you.

It all feels that way. The warmth of him, the feeling of being wrapped around him. Hooked around his body, bones intertwined. Absorbing one another, his words breathing life into yours, slowly growing louder and braver with each pluck and strum of music.

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

Your makeups entangling, ribcages locking together, flesh meeting flesh and hair twisting until one day, Tommy will come looking for his brother and find the two of you here on your porch, your arms still draped over Joel’s thigh and his fingers still mid-song. Stuck, alone, together.

What have we found? Joel looks down to you as though asking the question – his eyebrows raised – and you reply, a dumb smile across your lips, The same old fears, and then, together –

Wish you were here.

He plays until his fingers must start to hurt, the way he clenches and loosens his fist. Setting the guitar against your chair, hands hooking under your arms to pull you back up to him.

That one your favorite? he asks, the cold tip of his nose circling yours.

You nod. Only when you sing it.

I like the way we sound together.

You smile, shrinking into his chest again, your fingers surfing back and forth on the worn shirt. I like the way we do a lot of things together.

His hands slip beneath the fabric of your shirt, massaging your waist. He dots a trail of light, damp kisses along your forehead, dipping to your temple, the angle of your cheek until your jaw lifts and his lips are against yours, his tongue parting to lick purposefully at yours.

I love you, pretty bird, he whispers, the words falling sweet and fair on your tongue.

You take a moment to let them seep into your skin. ‘s the first time you’ve ever said that, you tell him.

Joel smiles. He knows. But you knew it already, he counters.

You know, too. Mhm.

Alright, he groans, slipping his hands under your thighs and hoisting you up to his height, bedtime.

It’s only ten, you complain, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders as he carries you inside. It’s too early to sleep – Joel.

Didn’t say we were goin’ to sleep, he mumbles, kicking the door shut.

#happy max monday is this becoming a thing? can i claim mondays? boomtown rats move the fuck over #i just wanted to sit between joel miller's legs and look up at him all dumb and in love ok? #joel miller #joel miller fic #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller one shot #jackson!joel #joel miller fluff

[theywhowriteandknowthings]

A Sheep Farm on the Moon Masterlist.

Summary When Joel and Ellie wander into Jackson you don’t think they’d be more than a welcome distraction from your chores for a few hours. But between Ellie, a sheep, a bottle of whisky, and that killer smile of his, Jackson might finally start to feel like home.

18+ Minors NDI Smut/porn with plot joel miller is a bad man, joel miller smut, Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Smut, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Penis In Vagina Sex, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Pining, Mutual Pining, Dirty Talk, weed, cannabis, Alcohol

Chapter 1 - Whisky [AO3 Link]

Chapter 2 - The Sheep [AO3 Link]

Chapter 3 - His Damned Smile [AO3 Link]

Chapter 4 - Ellie [AO3 Link]

Chapter 5 - Home [AO3 Link]

#joel the last of us #the last of us hbo #hbo the last of us #tlou #tlou hbo #tlou series #tlou show #pedrohub #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #joel x reader #x reader #A sheep farm on the moon #fic: a sheep farm on the moon #theywhowriteandknowthings #vi writes #jackson era #jackson!joel #joel miller #jackson!ellie #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #joel tlou #joel miller tlou #joel miller fic #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x oc #joel miller x female reader

[motherofagony]

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 2

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 8.7k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: you take care of joel after a patrol injury, but you suspect there's more to it than he's telling you. the atmosphere shifts as you and joel grow (begrudgingly) closer. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, brief masturbation (f!reader), praise kink for two seconds, blood, bodily injuries, needles (reader gives joel stitches), dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension intensifies, The First Kiss™, soft!joel vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: we're picking up speed, folks. world-building is my weakness, so i hope you enjoy this nonetheless. honorable mention goes to the readers in the trenches, waiting patiently for joel to [redacted] reader senseless until she [redacted] all over his [redacted]. thank you for the love on the series so far. taglist: @ghostwritesthings, @widowssbite, @p3rkerr, @eternallyvenus, @punkshort if anyone would like to be added/removed to the taglist (or if i missed anyone), please send me a DM!

You’ve always hated flying.

In the great before, the stone ages of family vacations and things to look forward to, fears were singular and planes were yours.

Your family never had a lot of money, not really, but on the special occasion of a death in the family, you’d find yourself trapped to a seat in a metal tube. Going nowhere but up. Sitting through safety instructions that came from smiling, lipsticked mouths that were only hypotheticals until they weren’t.

It’s like a rollercoaster, your dad would say, amused in the way only a dad can be and sleeping through damn near anything in the same fashion. It did nothing to calm the knocking of your knees, to quell the flip of your stomach as you climbed higher and higher until you couldn’t see anything but cotton ball clouds.

It was always unnatural to you that something so heavy could float, that you were supposed to go on doing human things and drinking your ginger ale and munching your pre-packaged snack option. As if you weren’t being hurled into the sky with no one walking you through it.

As if the plummet onto tarmac meant no harm, just completely normal erratic braking that felt a lot like the moments before a crash.

There was no control — it was in someone else’s hands that you never saw. And as you fell, you were supposed to say thank you, that’s exactly what I paid for.

This is your version of the oxygen mask. This is you putting yours on before you help Joel.

You’re on your knees digging through your med bag, thumbing through bandages, checking for a quick count of gloves, antibiotics, wash cloths. You fumble with the zipper, fighting with the tremor that starts in your forearms and liquifies into your wrists. There isn’t much in the way of supplies unless you ransack what’s kept in storage, but there’s no time, and you’re not sure of what you’re about to walk into.

Waiting any moment for a scream, or the blast of a gun when they realize Joel’s not Joel anymore.

And it isn’t really a big possibility in the grand scheme of things, if you consider that he would’ve likely turned on the route home. But it’s still there, tickling the back of your head, nudging your navel uncomfortably. Nothing’s impossible.

You of all people know that.

You linger in your living room, giving a final sweep. Worst case, you can run back for what’s forgotten, but something about the idea of abandoning a vulnerable Joel – if only for a minute – doesn’t settle right in your stomach.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re shoving a bottle of whiskey into the bag, the only anesthetic on hand. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you need to score back some points.

The steps leading up to Joel’s house are sturdy, and you imagine it’s because of the pride he takes in what’s his. Before this, his house was just another skeleton of roof, foundation, windows, and siding.

The kind of houses you pass by every day that are rife with familiarity but you don’t know what it’s like to see the people inside eat dinner, brush their teeth. Fight. Fuck.

Fresh paint from only two seasons ago, reinforced porch posts. A swing. It’s weird to see permanence in this day and age, but his intention to anchor himself and grow roots here flutters meaningfully inside you.

It’s always been a sacred thing to you, you don’t know why. A place you’d never dreamed of entering, but dreamed about what it would smell like. A pair of boots haphazard by the front door, small piles of organized chaos, of collected tangibles. A you never know if you’ll need this in one corner, a saving that for a rainy day shelved in another.

So when you raise your hand to knock, you feel like an intruder, an unwelcome invasion of privacy. And you don’t know why you knock at all, you nearly think better of it given the circumstances, but you’re testing the atmosphere, hoping for voices inside instead of a struggle.

Ellie’s swinging the door open, relief smoothing out the lines in her forehead when she sees you. Her presence seems to answer any unspoken questions you had about Joel being infected, and you don’t voice them to her when you can see unrest in her antsy legs.

“Hey. Sorry for the wait. He alright?”

Her teeth are worrying her lip, probably more traumatized by the sight of him than anything. A few strands of hair have freed themselves from her lazy half-bun at the base of her neck, caught in the crossfire when she ran her hands through it, you think.

“Yeah,” Ellie breathes, committing to it. “Yeah, he’s okay. Bleeding stopped, nothing seems broken. Just needs stitches, I think.”

It sounds more to convince herself than anything else. There’s a foreign fragility to her, and you hate it.

“He tell you what happened?”

The question strikes a nerve. Ellie’s shaking her bowed head, scoffing in a half-laugh that doesn’t touch her eyes. Her hand wraps around her knuckles, cracking slowly in an effort to alleviate the tension that’s reached a fever pitch inside her.

“He won’t tell me, says it doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have gone alone anyway, he was bein’ a dick. ‘I wanna think, kiddo - need t’clear my head,’” she mocks in a gruff, rolling pitch, the perfect dosage of Texas.

It levels you, potent. Are you the thing Joel needed to clear his head of?

You’re weirdly longing for it, but being flicked away like a bug, peeled away layer by layer from him isn’t something you want.

There’s hope that you’re contagious. That you’re haunting him and lurking in the darkest corners of his mind like an apparition like he has yours. And maybe there’s hope after all, something left to salvage.

But you play dumb, furrow your brow a little too expertly.

Ellie’s measuring you, and there’s a glimpse of worry but she hides it in a way that you wouldn’t know what you were looking for if you hadn’t already found it.

“Anything you wanna tell me about the other night? He was pissed when he left,” she tacks on quietly.

You go a little slack-jawed. You don’t even know how to put it into words, and you couldn’t tell her what it meant even if you tried.

What’s there to even say?

“You know what, none of my business,” she says, her hands lifting in tired surrender when you don’t answer, ignoring your near-sputter. “But you’re not off the hook, just make sure the old man doesn’t croak. And tell him he scared the shit outta me.”

You exhale and hope it doesn’t read too much as relief. You’ll have to answer to her later, but at least you might have an answer to give.

“Handful of salt in the wound, rub in circular motions – got it. Tell Tommy I’ll catch up later.”

Your shoulders scrape affectionately as you nudge past each other, and you cast a wide look at the periphery of Joel Miller’s house. The feeling of unwelcome disappears, and if anything, you’re being tugged further inside. Imagining what it’s like to be a fixture, an adornment in his weird little life.

Nooks that you assumed would be messy are neat, coiffed even. There’s that unavoidable smudge of secondhand all over the furniture – mottled ever so slightly, aged uneven in places that only an apocalypse can do. But it’s an otherwise tidy existence. Another surprise from Joel that you’d never pick up on if you only witnessed him nursing a drink at the bar.

An oak bookshelf props itself at the bottom of the stairs and it rivals your own, dust gathering in thin lines where he’s repeatedly shelved this, reread that. There are paintings hung decisively on most of the walls, breathtaking rural landscapes of wherever.

You’re lugging the bag upstairs, counting your breaths with each step. The whiskey rattles mutely against the first aid tin, and it’s a toss-up now of who you really brought it for.

The landing mirrors the ground level, a purposeful littering of tchotchkes. Doors line the second floor, some closed, some ajar but not inviting, and you realize you have no idea which one you’re looking for. You sway uninvited by the bannister until you hear the unmistakable hiss of breath between clenched teeth, then a soft moan as his weight shifts.

And you’re stepping inside a room – his bedroom – warmed in the soft beginnings of sunset. Joel’s sprawled asymmetrically on his bed, eyes pinched shut, delirious with blood loss but already looking substantially less like a corpse. A damp rag settles just above his brow, and the handiwork of Ellie.

There’s an unrecognizable hurt in him, wounded in ways that he shouldn’t be capable of.

He doesn’t give any indication that he knows you’re here until he’s rasping out something weak disguised as stern.

“I ain’t bit. Shut the door behind you.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“How did you –?”

Joel just huffs in response, as indignant as his body lets him be.

“You see anyone else here? They might as well’ve jumped out the window, as fast as they dumped me ‘n left. I ain’t stupid.”

You accept that and drop the pretense, pursing your lips with a nod. He doesn’t seem that offended, knows it’s just the nature of the beast.

You move over to his bedside, unpacking the bag quickly on a side table, looping your metaphorical stethoscope around your neck and switching gears into a mode that’s strictly doctoral.

Yet, there’s still that hum beneath your skin, the fizzle of unfinished business. It’s thick in the space between you, in the way he flicks his gaze at you lazily. You’ll let him foster the anger, giving it a home. You can be the martyr he says you are.

This new lens feels calmer, almost professional. Your nerves are still firing rapidly, and your composure is forced, but it’s better than nothing.

You drag a chair from the corner up to Joel’s bed, not letting your eyes wander too far into the depths of the space. You don’t have time to dissect the idiosyncrasies of his life. Not yet.

He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but you get the sense that he’s tracking your every move. His limbs are concrete, the tendons in his forearms so tense and coiled like any and every movement is forbidden.

“Joel.”

He grunts, a pained translation. Still no effort to move.

“I need to take a look at you,” you say patiently, bargaining like you would with a kid. “Wanna tell me what hurts?”

Another grunt, softer this time. He motions vaguely, weakly to his head, then the left flank of his abdomen.

You already know what you’ll find under the rag on his head, and it bodes well that the bleeding looks to have stopped. His stomach wound, on the other hand, was enough to bleed through two layers.

“Alright. Lemme see.”

A muted whimper echoes in his throat, so uncharacteristically that it tugs on your heart. Still statuesque, unmoving.

Your fingers are deft, careful as they unbutton the first, second, third buttons of his flannel. Joel’s stock-still, and his breath comes in sharp, slow waves through his nose. Your own breath kind of sits in the back of your throat, and you pretend with a hurried exhale that you weren’t just holding it.

Your fingers reach his navel on the last button, and you’re gently tucking each panel of his shirt under him on either side, focusing too hard on not touching him. It feels like something is somersaulting low in your stomach.

You can’t even dare yourself to look at his chest, his stomach. The patch of hair leading down to the band of his pants.

Get it together. That’s not what this is.

An angry gash looks up at you, thankfully clotted with dried patches of blood. It’s about two delicate fingers long, a nasty slice. It looks clean, abrupt in shape but suspiciously manmade. Not too deep, but not superficial enough to heal without some assistance.

And thank god, not nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

Joel’s looking at you now through heavy lids, wary of you, but something like fear touches the corners of his eyes. You fight to stay medical, methodical in your diagnosis. No emotion slips out, nothing allowed in.

You sit back calmly, letting loose a sigh. Not letting yourself bathe in the intimacy of the moment, in the way he’s staring.

“You need stitches,” you announce simply.

“Like hell.”

“Joel.”

He’s scowling, a hurt animal pissed at its own vulnerability. Silence passes like a ship between you, and for a moment, you think he’ll really fight you on this. He can’t hide anything when he’s like this, the weighing of his options evident in the tick of his jaw, the pathetic pinch just in the center of his brows.

“Fine,” he grits out. “Make it quick.”

This fucker.

You’re rolling your eyes, unceremoniously tugging the rag from his forehead. The cloth is red but not soaked, just twinged pink around the edges. Joel curses, just an octave above unintelligible.

His hand is shooting to the cut near his hairline and you’re smacking it away before he can pollute it.

“Lay still, fuck’s sake,” you chastise. “An infection’ll put you out longer than a few days. Unless you have a puzzle you been meaning to get around to?”

The faux-threat calms him immediately, and the shift in restraint doesn’t go unchecked. He doesn’t say another word, but you catch a glare and a twitch of his mouth.

You make quick work of cleaning him up, squeezing rubbing alcohol on a clean towel and scrubbing patient circles through the mess of dried blood. Joel releases sharp noises you can only describe as growls when you get too close to the border of his cuts.

It’s primal, a dog asserting dominance with his leg caught in a trap.

You try to lose the attitude, and it’s difficult when your patient hates you, doesn’t hate you, won’t clarify either way.

There’s a hint of purple that’s developing like fresh film on the mountains of his knuckles that doesn’t go unnoticed. Places on the most taut peaks of flesh where his skin has split, marred with scrapes that look like indents of teeth. And in the right light, there’s a discoloration of something in the same family splayed on his ribs.

And that… you know that when you see it. Even if everything else can be explained away.

“You wanna talk about it?” you say quietly.

There’s an intermission where he doesn’t respond. Too long to be the truth, too short to come up with a lie. And you know he’s been waiting for this question, might’ve already thought of a story.

“Got clumsy,” Joel recites. “Tripped on some stairs that were caving in, hit my head.”

“Bullshit.” And it’s a statement, not an insult. It doesn’t cover why he has a certified stab wound in his side.

Another stretch of silence, lack of defensiveness, makes it clear that he knows you know. But he doesn’t elaborate, and for whatever reason, you don’t push it.

And maybe it’s enough to acknowledge this sort of thing for now. You can stow it away, let it keep you up at night. Draw parallels where there possibly aren’t any. If he’d run into a human thing, he’d be much worse off, right?

Just like you were.

You take care in lining up the supplies to stitch in neat order beside you, mulling over each step in your mind. Stalling, maybe.

You pull the whiskey bottle out of your bag by the neck and nudge Joel with the cap.

“Something to take the edge off.”

He kind of hesitates, but there’s a tenderness. Recognizing it as an act of mercy, a peace offering.

There’s nothing said, but he takes the bait, spinning off the top and swallowing a messy mouthful. A drip escapes through the corner of his mouth and slips into his beard.

You can feel the taste of it blossoming on your tongue.

He grunts his thanks and keeps a steady grip on the neck of the bottle, and the network of veins in his forearm unwind.

You clamp the needle, laced through with something thicker than thread but not quite medical grade. Joel exhales a shaky whine when you pierce the skin, and his fist grips the sheets when you twist clockwise to push the needle through to the other side.

“You’re doing great,” you murmur.

The needle weaves over the cut, greeting the other side. You pull it through and up, and his lower lip trembles, sweat beading his forehead.

“First one done,” you say, praising him but also yourself.

Joel’s still clenching the linens on the bed, ignoring you and hiding out in his own mind somewhere.

You don’t tell him that you’ve only ever practiced on fruit, that your suture knowledge comes exclusively from the one medical text you have and endless hours of TV you grew up on.

Silence envelopes you again, heavier than before if possible. The pressure waxes and wanes like nighttime waves, licking the shore between you. And it’s not angry, just something… else.

“Some house you got,” you note casually as a distraction, like you’re commenting on the weather. It comes off relaxed enough, though any conversation between you feels like flossing a crowded mouth.

His eyes sharpen, and you think it’s in excruciation, but there’s a twinge of apprehension. You straighten for a moment, hands fixed mid-stitch, and roll your eyes.

“Okay, cool it, Home Alone, I’m not casing the place.”

Joel takes a turn rolling his eyes. You swear that you see his mouth twitch again, but you hang your head, dabbing a cloth where pinpricks of blood form.

You try again.

“I like your paintings.”

You dare to look up, and his mouth is in a tight line.

“You like my paintings.” he repeats dully, not a question. Joel’s as cynical as you, and he thinks it’s a jab, not sincere.

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you?”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.”

Now’s as good a time as any. You sigh at that.

“Look, the other night wasn’t my finest moment. It didn’t need to go that way,” you mutter, leaning on the concentration of sewing up Joel’s skin. Otherwise, you might feel too strongly, dissect your word choice with an uncomfortable linger. “Sorry. I know you were trying to help.”

He goes rigid as your second stitch meets a third. The bottle tips to his lips again, and you wonder if it’s an act of liquid courage. You boldly hope so.

“Nah, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Been thinkin’ I needed to apologize anyway,” he admits, and you know he’s happy you made the first move. You can already feel him loosen, but maybe it’s the alcohol. “You ain’t a martyr, y’know.”

Oh.

The needle hooks into the final sliver of skin, your handiwork tightening into a neat line. You sit back, wiping your brow with the ungloved section of your wrist. It’s a treaty, a handshake at the very least.

“Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one,” you smirk, olive branch fully hanging between your teeth now. “Keeping up the charade is so exhausting.”

Joel presses out a pained half-laugh, and you feel something crumbling between you.

You tie off the last stitch, trimming the excess thread off the knot. The clamp clatters into the tray, and you give it a final once-over before peeling a large rectangle of bandage from your kit and pressing it gently over the wound.

“All done,” you quip, peeling your gloves off. “Didn’t even have to amputate.”

“Not too bad,” he grunts.

“I’ll add it to your tab.”

While you’re riding the high of approval, you stand and move to the foot of the bed. Joel’s boots are still on, laced messily.

And for some reason, you don’t even ask permission, you just start untying, tipping them off and lining them next to one another on the hardwood.

He doesn’t say a word. Out of confusion, maybe.

You scoot your chair and makeshift flatlay along with you, positioning yourself at Joel’s head. That look is back, a side-stare that steals your breath.

That look that knows you could absolutely ruin him, and he’d either thank you or kill you.

The pads of your fingers brush back the hair from his forehead, still slightly matted with blood. It’s a surface cut, but crescent-shaped and easily hidden by a curl of brown, peppered with grey. Butterfly closure it is.

No signs of a concussion show themselves. At least there’s that.

“You might have a scar,” you murmur. Being this close to Joel makes you feel like you’re wearing two layers too many.

And he hasn’t broken the stare, not even minutely.

“Add it to the collection,” he says lowly, not an ounce of self-pity.

Your eyes flash to the scar near his temple. You’re exercising full-on restraint not to ask him about it. But it’s not the time, something you could try to pry out of him later. And knowing there’ll be a later makes you relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw.

He’s nice enough to pretend not to notice, or he’s in too much pain to mention it.

You dab the damp rag around the border of his cut again, mopping up any excess. You reach for the isopropyl.

“You might wanna take another swig,” you warn. And he obeys, down the hatch and white-knuckling through it.

“Good boy,” you’re murmuring automatically, and it just slips out.

Your mouth falls open just so, and Joel’s coughing, clearing his throat against the burn of whiskey. You’re pleading with the universe that his cough was close enough, loud enough to cover the words, but his face has turned a shade of red that’s probably rivaling the heat that reaches your ears.

Good boy? Jesus Christ.

If there was ever a heightened moment of being fucking touch-starved, it’s this.

You make haste with the disinfectant and place the closures over the cut. The bloodied towels and scraps from the DIY surgery are cleaned up, tied neatly into a plastic bag. And now, this is the part where you run and never face him again.

You’re already making plans to board up your windows, maybe have Ellie deliver your meals solely through a slot in the door.

But Joel’s pain is overriding everything, and he’s sunken even further back into the pillow, his head lolling to prop on his shoulder. He’s whispering a weak thanks that’s incoherent at best. You tug the blanket up and over him.

You grab a glass from downstairs, fill it to the brim with water and bring it to him. He groans at the sight, petulant.

“I’m not leaving until you finish this.”

His lifts his arm for it, scowling. “Gimme the damn thing.”

Satisfied, you hand it over and watch him drink it down, his throat bobbing in a hearty gulp. Your gaze can’t help but snag on it.

You have got to get the fuck out of here.

You come back with a refilled glass and sit it on his bedside table, close enough within reach. The medical bag is packed up and ready, sagging slightly in areas where you’ve emptied it. It knocks against your already-knocking knees, and you’re grateful to use its weight as an excuse for how blurred you feel.

“I need to talk to Tommy. You gonna be alright for a bit?”

His eyes are closed again, on the outskirts of rest, but his mouth pulls up in the ghost of smile.

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere, sweetheart.”

And you hope he means it.

—

You track down an unsettled Tommy, finding him pacing in the back of the general store. He’s restocking some shelves but not quite – there’s an gross pairing of tinned fish and fresh eggs sitting on a display that’s unappetizing at best.

“He’s okay. No bite,” you add lowly, acutely aware of how many pairs of ears are in the store. “But he needs to be monitored.”

Tommy slackens, rubbing his eyes that are full of exhaustion and bruised with worry. Index finger and thumb stroking the respective tails of his mustache one, two, three times as the gravity of that strikes him.

He loops you into an embrace, and it’s kind, full of ease. The smell of firewood and smoke tickles your nose. His worry evaporates then, and honestly, so does yours.

“He doin’ alright?”

You chew on that for a moment and nod. There are complications, but nothing to do with Joel’s health.

“He was pissed about the stitches, but I didn’t have a choice. Cut was pretty deep.”

“So… he tell you what happened, then?”

There’s that question again. You feel like you should have an answer, but if he wouldn’t clue in Ellie, you sure as hell wouldn’t be.

Like squeezing blood from a stone, your dad used to say.

“No,” you lie instinctively. You don’t know why.

But it isn’t really. Not if you don’t know the full truth yourself. There’s just something about Joel’s omission that makes you feel entitled to find out first.

“He said he fell down some stairs,” you amend, “just didn’t say where or how.”

Tommy offers you the same look that Ellie gave you – a raised brow coupled with a touch of disbelief.

“If you say so.”

You shrug, playing it as cool as’ll come natural to you. “You know Joel. Doesn’t want to make a fuss.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and rolling out his shoulders that you know have been holding tension. He believes that, at least.

“Sounds like you know him, too.”

—

A few days come and go.

Ellie takes on a lot of the recovery, but she doesn’t like messing with stitches — creeps me the fuck out that you did that without puking all over him, she claims — and she’s eager to substitute for the patrol routes while Joel’s down and out. You offer to step in, with a totally normal and selfless motive.

If she thinks anything else of it, you’d be the last to know.

Your new itinerary consists of changing Joel’s bandages, cleaning up through his hissed breaths and every goddamn it. Twice a day, morning and night and sometimes in closer intervals, but never approaching the cusp of any boundary.

Joel’s fiercely independent, swatting your hands when you try to help. Donning a clean flannel in the space between your lunchtime visit and your nightcap, despite you telling him that he shouldn’t be pushing his mobility.

That said, he’s marginally better about following doctor’s orders, drinking the water you leave on his nightstand but neglecting the pills that would stop him from coiling in on himself like a ready spring. And he doesn’t say it but you know it’s because he thinks it’d be a waste.

You trade regular formalities at first, each of you standing behind your respective walls, daring the other to toe a bit closer.

Joel doesn’t ask, but you bring him some short stories to pass the time and he devours them. You didn’t think much of it other than just straying past the point of being nice, but your heart sings a bit at how he leaves his shell at your coaxing.

You learn Bradbury is his favorite, but when he finishes The Most Dangerous Game, it’s the most he’s ever spoken to you in one sitting, astounded at the perfectly tied bow of an ending, asking you questions that only the author could answer. But it’s a marvel to witness, something you think about when you’re cleaning stables or washing dishes.

He’s unraveling for you, a loose thread tugged too hard on your favorite sweater. He talks of the places in the paintings, sometimes abruptly, like he isn’t sure what his cue is or if he has one.

Mentions of pre-Jackson when there was so much uncertainty and isolation, but it was coupled with those types of watercolor skies that you couldn’t paint if you tried.

These little pieces of him that make him whole – it’s like you’re both in on the same secret. And Joel isn’t doing it to lighten the tension, to be nice; that isn’t his brand of politeness. He just revels in the holy act of confession with you as his witness.

You come to learn that his room is modest, different from the rest of his house. Clues of hobbies sprawled on his desk – leatherworking tools and hand drawn blueprints that you can’t get a good look at with just a sidelong glance.

There’s a dusty stereo tucked at the back towards the wall, and you picture a content Joel, sketching new plans for a porch swing or some small addition while old bluesy country croons from the speakers.

You like this daydream, placing him in something lighthearted where his only worry is that he’s losing daylight on yardwork.

The two of you talk about little bits of everything and nothing. Reminiscing about sending snail mail, discussing what you think places like Italy look like now. How close you came to crossing an ocean in another life.

Tonight, you have a night terror that clings to you like wet denim. Stop-motion, nonsensical. Your head ricocheting into concrete, hitting your temple just so. Flashes of the people that used to be your parents, your friends.

And just as the life drains from you, blood seeping onto the floor and into spidering cracks, you wake up a flailing mess.

You practice your routine, twisting on knobs of lamps and plugging in the twinkling lights hanging around the perimeter of the living room. You press your cheek to the floor, checking under your bed for monsters for good measure.

Bleary-eyed, you’re climbing back under the covers, pulling them snug up to your chin.

There’s a neediness crawling its way through your organs with a one-way ticket south. The juxtaposition of fear mingles with an otherness, and it anchors itself to Joel.

You never cared for a protector, still don’t, but the eagerness that sprouts from him to defend your honor — and for nothing in return — magnetizes you on a cellular level.

Your fingers are dipping into the band of your already-damp underwear, taking inventory of what the thought of him does to you. Body on auto-pilot. A pool of dripping neediness, so slick that you’re coating your clit in excess and rubbing in tight circles.

He doesn’t even have to touch you, and it’s pathetic.

Images of Joel’s beard scratching your thighs swirls behind your eyelids, your hand gliding between the glistening of your folds. Fingers crook inside you, dipping into the last knuckle, and you’re choking on a gasp, already on the edge.

You wish they were more calloused, thicker, with length that can hit the spot that’s desperately out of reach.

You wish they were Joel’s.

It takes only a minute, some curling and pumping of your wrist to make it quick in case it’ll only ever be a fantasy. The wet noises of your arousal are nothing short of obscene, and you’re coming loudly, sharply on a string of moans.

In some ways, you think, you have already died.

And fuck. It’s so poetic it makes you sick.

—

On the fourth day, Maria sends you to Joel’s with some stew — two hearty containers that're meant for the both of you.

She’s been taking her shift at his place, carrying over containers of this and that to keep him fed. You wonder how often she takes on that role anyway, sans injury. You don’t peg Joel as the type to eat three square meals a day of his own accord.

Tell Joel I can’t make it tonight. Gotta do inventory.

She makes no room for elaboration, so you don’t ask. But you thank her with a hug, and you could swear that she’s giving you a conspiratorial smirk.

When you knock on Joel’s bedroom, he gives a new, warm invitation, coated in subtle hospitality. It’s a far stretch from the unaffected what? you might’ve received a week ago.

You place the stew down on the bedside table, along with some bowls and spoons you plucked from his kitchen. He just looks up at you from his bed, uncertainty reaching the lines of his forehead.

“It’s all Maria,” you explain and he hums, catching up.

“Explains a lot,” he mutters.

You eat quietly for a little over ten minutes. Joel’s flannel today boasts a rich navy, buttoned up to the top but not far enough to hide the sprinkling of hair that peeks through.

He catches you staring and pins you with a dark glance.

“You afraid of the dark or somethin’?”

Joel’s ask cuts through the air, and your spoon stops mid-route to your open mouth. It’s so out of the blue that it stuns you momentarily.

“Sorry?”

“You turn the lights on at night.”

What you thought to be private moments of fear were actually on display for all to see.

For Joel to see.

And the memory of your thighs trapping your hand as you came over and over again on your fingers… you’re grateful to at least have had some decorum to draw your bedroom curtains.

“Um.” You dig for a way to say nope, I’m actually just a pussy and I see things that aren’t there. Also, I was touching myself thinking about you last night. “No, just nightmares.”

Every inch of your skin feels like it’s searing. A bead of sweat makes a slow descent down your spine to your tailbone. You laugh lightly to deflect.

Joel’s mouth thins into a tight line.

“It’s nothing,” you promise.

“Ain’t nothin’,” he snaps. His brows are knitted in fury, misdirected. But you get it.

Your stomach is rumbling, but you’ve effectively lost whatever appetite you had. The bowl finds a space on the side table, and you’re pulling your knees to your chest protectively, thumbing at the fray on the cuff of your jeans.

You don’t mean to scowl, but you can’t help it. You can’t even meet his eyes.

Joel’s sighing, his own bowl discarded on the nightstand, grazing the lip of yours.

“Look, it’s not my business,” he starts, choosing his words carefully, “but that kinda shit worries me.”

When you do look up, he’s rubbing his beard with rigid fingers. You should feel nice and fuzzy that he cares enough to point it out, but it’s just embarrassment instead.

That, on top of everything else, you can’t even get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat.

“I know how it looks,” you say in surrender, “but I swear I’m fine.”

You can imagine what it would feel like to really mean it; it’s just on the tip of your tongue. There is a defiance there, it’s just struggling to find a way out.

“You sure about that?”

You let your feet touch the floor, straightening out your legs and busying yourself with smoothing the creases in your pants.

“You worry about everyone else like this?” you muse, hoping to redirect.

Joel’s scratching the back of his neck, eyes fixed anywhere else.

“Always worried about you.”

If you were any farther away, you wouldn’t have heard him.

Outside, kids are yelling, playing tag. You watch in jealousy, can almost hear the crunch of their boots and their tiny, inconsequential conversations. It takes you longer than intended to give a response, and he waits, patiently. Just trickles a look from the crown of your head to your hands to your face. Searching for a reaction.

“You’re about ten months late, Miller.” And you’re smiling briefly. You mean it as playful, but it’s colored with sadness.

His eyes glaze, and the wheels are turning, wondering if that also means too late.

“Didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of the situation. And I thought Max —” Joel bites down on the name.

“Fuck Max,” you spit in disgust. “That was never a thing.”

You don’t have to make eye contact to see that he’s pleased by that. He hums in the back of his throat. Resists a shit-eating grin. From the looks of Joel connecting the dots, you don’t need say much else.

“Yeah, well. We all failed you,” he insists. “I failed you.”

It sets an incredulous spark in some hidden part of you. Nails cut into your palm, your fists balling harshly. Everyone else? Sure, you’d give him that. Jackson spit you out, with the exception of a select few.

But Joel?

“You saved me.”

“Not good enough,” he says under his breath.

—

The next day, you let yourself inside, already learning the language of Joel’s house when you press a little extra weight against the door to seal it shut when it sticks.

It’s quiet, on the cusp of 8, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Joel’s on the brink of sleep.

The sun’s long settled over the mountain, so there’s not much in the way of guidance.

It’s dark, but you expected it to be. You draw the curtains one by one, moving blindly from room to room yet knowing exactly where your feet are. It strikes you as odd, a visitor keeping pace with an unfamiliar house.

But if Joel’s anything, it’s predictable. Unfussy in the way he keeps out of the way, even in his own space. Takes pride in it, sure, but lives in a way that demands nothing but cherishes everything, even the absence of something.

Meaning there’s nothing too unexpected, too risky in its placement. He doesn’t take up too much room in the event that it’s gone tomorrow.

When your hands fumble for the switch of the living room lamp, the bulb springs to life and bathes a wary Joel in light. Sitting on the couch, slouched with residual soreness, but waiting.

For you.

“Jesus, fuck — what the fuck, Joel —”

“You’re late.”

“— sitting in the fucking dark like a lunatic —”

He puts a hand up to stop you, as if to press your mute button.

“I didn’t fall down any stairs.”

Your hands have risen to your chest in the shock of him there, and you’re gripping your shirt in the way he had almost a week ago. You don’t miss that little detail, so much so that you struggle to piece together what he’s saying.

It punches you abnormal; you kept so busy with leaving the subject alone that it slipped your mind that he lied.

“Sit down.”

You’re obedient and you don’t know why. You find a seat across from him, pulling up a stool that’s meant for feet, not your ass. Something crackles beside you, and the embers of a dying fire glow and warm to the left of you.

Your leg crosses over your knee, creating a 45-degree angle that you rest your elbows on. “Yeah, I gathered as much, thanks. You’re a terrible liar.”

Joel’s just eyeing you. And it’s not in a way that sizes you up, more of a calculation of what to say next. What to give away. There’s a beat of this, then another, then another.

“I thought ‘bed rest’ was pretty self-explanatory.”

You’re growing impatient, filling the room just to do it. You both know what happened, and maybe that’s what’s needling at you. That you’re the one person who’d understand the most, but the one person he doesn’t want to know.

It feels wretched and seething, knowing something but not enough.

“I’m gonna need you to cut to the part where you tell me what happened, Joel.”

At that, Joel drags in a breath and leans deeper into the couch. His gaze has moved to somewhere far off, burning into the drawn curtains like he can see outside, can see directly into the window of your kitchen. And with sudden clarity, you realize that he could — it’s a clean diagonal stare.

Are you afraid of the dark?

How many times has he sat in this very spot, taking in the show, watching you make tea, watching you read, watching you stutter and shake with sobs? Witnessing the onslaught of a nightmare?

Touching yourself? Watching you undress?

You aren’t the voyeuristic type, just uncaring to the point of defenseless. But Joel keeping an eye on you in this way is the coup de grâce that does you in. There’s no question now of whether he cares.

“I took Mountain View, headed for the outpost. Not much up that way lately, maybe one or two infected every once ‘n a while,” he says, and it’s unsettling that he’s talking in a way that could be to anyone or no one at all. “Thought I’d stop at the pharmacy on the way up, check that off, too. ‘Cept I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”

He pauses only to crack his knuckles for effect. Fingertips splay on his spread knees, and what seemed so fragile earlier, watercolors of bruises stretching from ligament to tendon, seems threatening now.

“One was lootin’ in the back, didn’t hear me come in. I thought he mighta been alone ‘til his friend followed me in,” he pauses, lost in thought. “Got into it with him.”

As if on cue, the gory split-skin of his hands flexes. Offensive wounds.

You were right, but you wish you weren’t.

“His friend came up from the back, ‘n they took turns for a minute. Long enough for me to get a good look. I ended up takin’ out the shorter one, other one was gone before I could get up.”

Joel doesn’t lift his head, just his eyes. The skin around them crinkles in sinister shapes, lids disappeared, lashes nearly touching brow. You know it’s not anger directed at you, but it’s shrinking you back down into an armchair, your fingers digging and clawing at the fabric without recognizing it.

“Know what’s funny about that?”

You don’t think you can answer with the desert that runs through your mouth. And whatever it is, it’s anything but.

“Not a lot of activity along the outposts this way, unless it’s infected. Everyone else comes straight through to Jackson. The logs say we’ve only run into two groups of raiders in the last five years along the patrol route,” another pause for emphasis. “And one of them was ten months ago.”

Something catches in your chest.

And then there’s a dam that breaks, pure relief. Relief that Joel’s seen the thing you’ve been pointing and screaming at while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and squints.

Then — panic.

Ice sneaks into your veins. The tips of your fingers run numb. It strikes you that you’re standing, that the foot stool is tipped on its side.

He doesn’t move, but there’s a contained rage in his eyes and his voice. A temper bubbling now that you’ve confirmed what he suspected.

“He have any tattoos?” Joel asks roughly.

There’s a flash of stars, hand-poked, bordering on downright sloppy.

“Who?” You say dumbly, but it’s obvious what he’s referring to. He’s seen it, too, and he’s seen it this week.

“You know who.”

You do.

You could draw it from memory if he asked.

Your weight becomes too much for your legs, and you collapse back down, this time into a chair that supports your amoeba-like state as everything in you turns to jelly.

“They’re getting closer. We were in Teton, so if they made it this far —” you jumble out, not sure if it’s just meaningless vomit to his ears. By his solemn nod, it isn’t.

He’s up and out of his seat with a wince that’s not as severe as before, his eyes careful on you, on your hands that you’re gripping together tightly to keep them still.

The isolation of his side is evident in the way he closes the space between you, but he masks the grimace as best he can. There’s a reprimand in you somewhere that he should be resting, lying down at least, but you know it’s pointless.

“Hey.”

He’s kneeling as much as his flank will allow, a pain in his eyes that isn’t for himself. Those fingertips scale the cliff of your jaw, ghosting as if he’s afraid to overstep. They’re prodding you to meet his eyes, and when you do, he drops his hand like he’s been burned.

It connects fiercely to a memory that you try to hold in your hands. A snowy, reminiscent one that slips through like a ribbon of smoke.

“Ain’t gotta worry about him. I’ll take care of it.”

You laugh, a real one that’s stained with sarcasm.

“What does that mean?”

Joel softens now, and the shift startles you. He thinks for a beat before answering.

“Whatever you need it to mean.”

It feels incomprehensible that anyone would willingly put themselves in danger for you, even adjacently, but then who noticed you were missing that day? Who led the pack, found you bleeding out?

The weather was violent, incoherent — a lost cause, a needle in the proverbial haystack. He already toed the line of a dangerous, potentially fruitless rescue mission.

And you never even thanked him.

“Why?” You ask it for the second time in as much as a week. It’s disjointed in conversation, but he knows that you need this answer.

“You remember how you were before?”

And for a split-second, you try.

There are glimpses, a rickety reel of kids tugging on your pant leg as they beg you to join them during recess, a glittering spray of laughter with Ellie as empty beer cans and discarded guitars litter her living room floor.

Of your friends’ faces on too many relaxed, sunny patrols, sometimes forcing them into a detour into the abandoned record store through Alpine so you can see what’s left.

Dinner in warm houses like Tommy and Maria’s, so full to the brim of love and potatoes and mead that you stumble on down to your house with cheeks burning and tuck yourself in with all of the lights off.

Visions of Joel that are fleeting, taped in frames on a film strip, but friendly exchanges.

But it’s a faceless narration. The accident wiped clean of any room for interpretation. Any visitation with these memories. You can place yourself in them, but can’t for the life of you feel tethered to her.

Frustrated, eyes watering, you shake your head.

“That’s why.”

Now he’s holding your jaw like he would some fragile thing, slotting his thumb just under the pulse thrumming in your neck, feeling the echo of it in his hand. There’s a silence, as if he’s straining to hear, to know the sound and syllables of your livelihood. You wish he’d press harder, bring you to the precipice of pleasure and death.

If only to know what it feels to be glass in Joel Miller’s hands, to be given the taste of death after he’d given you the gift of life all those months ago.

Your heart is hammering against your ribs. You know he can feel the adrenaline in your pulse point.

“Joel,” it falls out as a whisper, and you hate how good his name feels in your mouth.

He’s looking at you with empathy, thumbing through the pages of every agony you’ve succumbed to. It’s new and buzzing, knowing that there’s nothing you’d ever have to explain to Joel. No reasoning or fine print for how you are, he just knows. And he stays anyway.

A tear tracks a salty line down your face and it meets the pad of his thumb, an easy swipe.

And there’s a surge low in your throat, seesawing with satisfaction and the tell-tale lump of more tears if you lean in hard enough. Joel never shows his hand, the last to fold, but it feels a lot like you’re the prize he was waiting to throw cards down for.

So, you lean. Concave cheek into his calloused hand, tears without sobs leaking between his fingers down into his sleeve. The weight of only the world — your world, plural and shared — pushing you into him. The cataclysmic release that you’ve been aching for.

Your head is against his chest, cheek pressed against flannel because he’s guided you there. And it’s nice, you think, nice that he’s being a gentleman about the whole thing.

A gentleman just finger-combing through your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

It’s serene, and you’d happily make a home there and fall asleep if it wasn’t for the hammering of your heartbeat. You know he can feel it, and your quickened breath is the cherry on top.

Joel levels your faces, and his fingers are deja vu on the braille of each ridged cheekbone. He’s waiting on a cue, a line to be given to him from offstage, but you see flames licking through each darkened iris.

Something keeps holding him back, keeps holding you back. He’s too careful, afraid of cutting his hands on you. And in exploring every facet of that, it’s because he doesn’t want to bleed on you, not because the sharpest parts of you could hurt him.

You keep telling yourself it’s foreign and you’re strangers to one another.

But is it? Are you?

As if he’s reading your mind, Joel closes the distance in one fell swoop, and he kisses you.

It’s clumsy at first, in the way that clumsy is when you’re learning each other’s mouths. You taste the dregs of whiskey, of something wanton, and every unspoken word that’s ever misted between you. Years of forming smile lines and the prickle of his unkempt beard against your chin, taste the stories of every scar.

You’re tangling with him, lips pressing urgently against Joel. His tongue’s expert but gentle when he dips it inside your mouth, and you’re swapping breathless sighs. You can only imagine what he’s tasting of you, what flavor he’s been dreaming of.

His hands are still at either side of your face, thumbs pressing sweetly into the bony part of your jaw. Joel’s stilling the unrest in you that’s put its bags down and refused to leave. It quiets, tips a hat and walks out, leaving a welcome calm in place.

There’s a chasteness, but you know he’s just as desperate and hungry as you are. Wanting to claim, to devour each other entirely. And it’s not lost on you that he’s on his knees, hands clasping your face in prayer like you’re some communion he’s drinking from.

He engulfs you, and you’re moving together, fitting together like you were poured from the same mold. Joel’s fingers have moved to thread through your hair, one of his hands cradling the back of your head and tugging just barely.

Enough that magma pools in between your hips.

But he slows, letting loose a low groan into the heat of your mouth. It’s helpless, like he’s accepted he can’t swim and has submerged his head underwater.

And when you finally break apart, Joel’s pupils are dilated, on the cusp of black. Your collective breaths are uneven. He looks at you in awe.

“Been wantin’ to do that for a long, long time,” he’s saying, but you can barely hear him. Not when your heart is catching up with the rest of you, roaring above everything else. His thumb skates over your bottom lip, and the instinct to unhinge your jaw for him shouldn’t be there, but it is.

Maybe this sort of suffering is worth it, if it’s Joel you’re suffering for.

If you weren’t in trouble before, you sure as fuck are now.

#my writing #ahfe #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us hbo #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #a heart for eating #joel miller x f!reader #the last of us smut #motherofagony

[corazondebeskar-reads]

remember what you're staring at is me

jackson!Joel Miller x f!reader

originally for Febuwhump 2024 Day 8 - found footage | Febuwhump masterlist

words: 2.9k

summary: A videotape is left on your porch one morning, and it changes everything about your budding relationship with Joel Miller.

warnings: Jackson!Joel, some dark!Joel, some soft!Joel, we love a man who contains multitudes, ambiguous ending, I wish I had made this a much longer one shot but oh well, references to The Hospital Incident, oral (f & m receiving), implicit p in v

dividers by @saradika-graphics

You find it on your porch one morning in an old paper bag. Someone’s written right onto the brown wrapping with black crayon—”you need to know the truth.” It seems rather dramatic once you peel back the paper to find a videotape. 

It's not high quality—the footage is fuzzy and crudely edited together. But there’s just no mistaking the man on the screen. 

Joel and Ellie came into your life when they arrived for the second time in Jackson. You had heard the gossip the first time, but never met the pair. 

You met him fairly quickly when he swung by with a torn jacket, gruff and blunt but polite. Steady. “They, uh, said to ask you about some mending?” 

“Sure thing,” you say easily, smiling at the very handsome stranger. “Let me take a look.”

It was a casual thing, the sewing, and you liked it that way. You didn’t make anything, didn’t haul things to the market. You spun the wool for those who did craft things, and then you kept to your little projects at night.

The push and pull of the needle was the meditation you needed to keep going every day, even now, even safe here in this bubble. Something productive, something to keep your trembling hands busy and your mind blank. 

And in return, you got company and conversation. Most folks knew your services could be bought with a warm drink or baked good, a promise of a favor you’d never call for.

“How long?” he asks, voice flat and serious, but it didn’t prick at you, didn’t land as rough as it set out. 

“Not long,” you muse, looking over the tear—a knife gash of some sort, and the thin lining that peeked out. “Ten minutes if you just want it sewn up, or if you give me a day, I can get it properly stuffed.”

“Sewn, please.” 

Please. You like that. Manners at the end of the world. 

“You sure? Be a lot warmer if I fill it out.” 

“I don’t—” he scowls at the ground. “I barely have anythin’ to offer ya for the mending.”

You want to tell him it’s on the house, call it a welcome basket, but he’s holding out what he does have to offer and your jaw drops just a little, lips parting to make way for a soft, pleased “oh” that has him straightening up. 

“I can find somethin’ else,” he says.

“Oh, no. That’s… amazing,” you say, taking the jar into your hands and popping the lid. They certainly aren’t potent, not like you remember, but oh, you could die from just the faint smell of the cinnamon sticks. “This is… more than enough. I’ll owe you, I reckon.”

“I dunno about that,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Seriously,” you say, eyes wide. You set the jar on the counter. “For that, I’ll get the whole thing done tonight.” After all, the delay had only been so you could go to bed. 

“Y’ain’t got to do that, I don’t mean to be a bother.”

You brush him off and start gathering your supplies. If you steep the thread in tea for a bit, you think, you might be able to get close to the color of the fabric.

He turns down a cup when you offer but does take a seat at the table. He’s as stiff as your late husband’s favorite bourbon, but the blunt edges grow a little duller when you don’t try to keep up small talk.

The bright overhead light casts him in shadow, deepening the circles under his eyes and drooping his wrinkles in inky black. But his eyes are bright and curious as he watches you start to add unspun wool from your stockpile into the jacket, trying to shape and layer it evenly through the inside. You have to make a couple incisions but keep them tight to the hemlines and existing stitching.

The thread dries quickly with the hearth raging and he speaks for the first time as you weave it through the needle’s eye.

“What’s that?” 

“It’s a threader,” you say, offering it to him to see after you’ve pulled it loose. “I, um. I’m not as dexterous as I used to be and I can’t say my sight’s as keen, either. Makes it easier to use these damn tiny needles. Luckily, it wasn’t a very in-demand item when people were raiding shops.” 

“Huh,” is all he says, sliding it back across the table to you. 

The stitching is quick and rote. You’re used to people pouring out their life stories and desires and drama when they sit at your table or on your sofa, feet kicked up on your coffee table while you sew. 

But this silence with Joel is warm, too. You’re almost regretful the job didn’t take longer.

You stand up and he follows, pushing his chair neatly back into its place. He takes the coat and runs a gentle finger across the original wound.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. 

You give him a wan smile, never having found those words to settle right in your skin. “Nice meeting you, Joel,” you say instead. “You know where to find me if you need anything else.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and lets himself out. 

You lock the door behind him and wonder why you feel so energized. That tea was decaf, after all. And a little fuzzy, if you were totally honest, but you weren’t going to dump it down the drain just over a few fibers. 

One day when he comes, it’s with a bundle of thick socks and another, smaller jacket. Not a difficult job, but the gift he brings to trade knocks you off kilter so hard that you have to sit down.

“Not sure if it’ll be any use to you, but figured you’d know someone who can use it if you don’t,” he says, looking at the floor.

You’ve gotten to know him a little better, though his visits are few and far between. But he’s gotten more comfortable around town, more interested in following that wild daughter of his than hiding away. 

Sometimes, he’ll even sit at your table in the mess. You’d even go as far to say that the two of you were friends.

So you can tell what he’s trying so hard not to project. He’s nervous.

It looks almost like a desk lamp with its sturdy base and bent wooden arm, but in place of a shade and bulb is a hoop. You recognize it immediately and your stomach swoops. It’s an embroidery stand and you might faint just from that, just from having a steady way to hold the fabric tight as you sew. 

But that isn’t all. He shows you how to turn the peg that loosens the grip of the handle on the side, a raw hewn thing that doesn’t match the worn stain of the stand. You’re burning, head spinning, and the fuzzy darkness at the edges of the world stop you from focusing on the gift. 

The carved handle, he says, with hands curling around either side of you, has been partially hollowed to accommodate the end of the magnifying glass. You can raise and lower it with the peg and rotate the handle to use the other side of the glass.

“Joel,” you say uncertainly. He doesn’t really seem like he’ll want the attention drawn to it, but you have to know. “Did you make that?”

“Nah,” he scoffs. “Just added the glass is all.”

“Just added the glass,” you echo in a whisper. But you know he doesn’t mean he only attached it. He made the entire attachment and fit it onto the stand. 

His ears are red and he won’t look at you. 

You set a cautious hand on his arm where it reaches across your shoulder, still resting on the table. He’s caging you in from where he leaned over to demonstrate. “Joel, this is incredible. This is… this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Ain’t a big deal,” he mumbles but he doesn’t shake off your hand. “Just saw it and thought it might be useful.”

You feel emboldened by his kindness, so you curl your hand around his bicep. “Can I thank you?”

He looks down at you now, seeking something that he must find, confirmation in your blown out pupils and parted lips, and nods. 

He doesn’t break away as you slip from the chair to sink onto your knees or when your fingers loop around his belt to pry it open. 

“Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” you say, voice tight. 

He shakes his head. “You’re not.” His voice is the rumble of thunder breaking a tense summer night. 

You don’t bother removing his belt, simply knocking it open to reach for his zipper. 

You’re about to tug his pants down when the door opens. 

“Hey sugar,” Tommy drawls, “all my fuckin boxers have holes. Can you help a guy out? Promise they’re cle—“

His loud mouth gave just enough warning for Joel to pull his shirt down over his belt and for you to fumble at rolling the cuff of one pant leg up just so, reaching for a pin. 

“Oh hey, Joel!” Tommy says happily. “Finally fixin’ those ratty old things?” 

It’s a fucking miracle that he’s in these jeans, his favorites. Actually, it’s not, he wears them all the time, and they’re just a little too long so the bottoms are torn up. 

“Guess so,” Joel scowls. He’ll have to finally let you hem them now. 

“Just leave ‘em on the table, Tommy,” you say around the needle between your teeth. “And tell Maria to stop bein’ so rough with them.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “She can’t help it, sugar. I’m irresistible, see?” He claps his brother on the back and takes his leave. 

You slump a little, sighing as you set the needle on the table before moving to resume your activity. 

But Joel steps back. “I should get goin’,” he says. The line between his brow is cavernous and his lips are tugged down at the corners. 

“Oh. Okay,” you say, and pull yourself up with a hand clutching the table. 

“So. Thanks again,” he says. And then he’s gone. 

You let yourself drop dramatically into a chair, groan growing as it turns physical when your tailbone hits the seat wrong. 

You’re rubbing your forehead and thinking about going to bed to give yourself a pity orgasm when the door opens. He’s quiet and cautious, but he pushes the door shut behind him and locks it. 

“M’sorry,” he says. “I…”

“It’s okay,” you say with a tired smile. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” he says, offering you a hand. 

You take it and let him pull you to standing. 

His other hand finds your waist. “I was bein’ a coward.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—”

“Darlin’, you couldn’t,” he says. His arm slides further around, pulling you to him in a gentle embrace. He looks down at you through heavy lids, watching the way your lips part just a little. “You still want this?”

You bring a hand up to cup at the hair that curls down the nape of his neck. “Please,” you whisper. 

He matches your motion, cradling your head in his palm as he dips his head to kiss you. He wastes no time, licking into your welcoming mouth, seeking out the earthiness of the tea still lingering on your tongue and the sweet shiver of goosebumps prickling across his skin as you wind your fingers into his hair.

“Shit,” he mumbles when you break away for air. “What do you want, baby? What can I have? You gotta tell me now, before I can’t think straight.”

“You can have whatever you want, Joel,” you say, hot breath brushing his swollen lips before he presses them to you again with a growl.

It’s a much quicker kiss, and he breaks away to drop to his knees and push your skirt up to your hips. You have to lean back with both hands clenching the edge of the table not to fall over in shock.

He nuzzles against the soft cotton of your panties and groans at the smell of your wet cunt. He mouths at it gently over the fabric before hooking his finger around the gusset and pulling it aside to part your lips with his tongue. 

“Not fair,” you gasp as he feasts. “I was supposed to—supposed to do that for you.”

“You said whatever I want, darlin’,” he says against your pussy, chasing the taste of you. 

“Fuck,” you pant. “Fuck.” 

“Gimmie one and I’ll let you suck my cock if ya want it so bad,” he says, plunging two thick fingers in and basking in the way you squeal and squirm. He doesn’t give you a chance to adjust, pistoning in and out like he’s trying to win a race. 

It works, with his tongue on your clit and his fingers against that soft, secret part of you that no one has touched before, you gush around where he spreads you. “That’s it,” he croons, “good girl. Good fuckin’ girl, give me another.”

“You said—”

He cuts you off by sucking on your clit and your hips rock, wobbling the table as he takes another from you anyway. 

“Couch or bed?” he says, tugging your panties down your legs now that he’s sated the immediate urge. 

“Don’t care,” you say.

“Alright, bed,” he says. “Wanna do this right.” 

“Don’t think you could do it wrong,” you say, a lazy, sated smile on your face and a lightness to your eyes that he thinks he could get addicted to. 

He does let you suck his cock, and thinks maybe he could die happy from the warm, wet of your mouth and the way you look up at him like he’s the only thing in the world. 

At that moment, he is. You had resigned yourself to keeping your little crush a secret until it faded, too fond of him to risk it, but here? Now? Now that you’ve had him, you don’t think you can ever go back. 

He’s gentle in a way you can’t quite name. It’s not that he’s soft with you, but just aware. Like he knows where you’re capable of meeting him and settles there. He makes room for himself in you like you’d done for his coat, opening you up and stuffing you until you’re warm and full and renewed. 

He doesn’t leave you to stitch yourself up, either. He buries his face in your tits and holds you tight after, cleans the both of you up with a warm towel, and kisses you before he leaves.

Neither of you want him to go, but he’s got Ellie at home and won’t—can’t—worry her by not coming home. Not without warning. Next time, he whispers, and it carries a question and a promise. 

There is a next time. And another. And another. You think you might be in trouble. You do far less mending jobs once your evenings are taken over by Joel. You still take them, darning socks on the soft with your feet in his lap, or basking in the way he looks proud and satisfied when you use the stand to fix up bigger projects. Some of your favorite nights are when he sits and strums his guitar while you sew, just two people finding peace by creating it themselves. Together. 

So when eight months later, that tape finds its way into the VCR you’ve only used twice, you’re more than familiar with the bulking shape of him. The way his hair sticks up when he runs worried hands through it. The grip of those hands, sure and steady.

He finds you there on your third viewing. You didn’t even hear him come up the porch, didn’t realize the sun was starting to crest over the mountains, that he’d be coming by with breakfast just like he promised.

The little Joel on screen is working his way to the operating room. You’ve stopped flinching at each crack of the gun or collapsing body. 

“Where the hell did you get that?” 

You do startle when he speaks, unaware that he’d been watching you watch the tape for a minute. His voice is low and slow, something lurking beneath the baritone that trips an alarm. 

This isn’t your Joel. This is that one, the one from the TV. 

He moves like a jaguar, slinking and graceful. “Where,” he snarls, breath curling off your clammy skin, “did you get this?” His hand curls around your shoulder at the base of your neck. 

“It was on my porch,” you whisper. 

His fingers dig in a little where he holds you in place. “Try again.”

“It’s the truth, I swear. I didn’t know what it was.” 

“How much did you watch?”

“All of it,” you whisper, though it feels like the click of a lock.

“Goddamnit, baby. Why’d you have to do that?” 

There’s an actual click, the unmistakable flick of a release. 

“Joel, please,” you say, voice breaking. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I can’t take that chance,” he says. 

He still hasn’t brought the knife close to you, though, so you hazard a glance over your shoulder. You wish you hadn’t. He’s gone, his sweet eyes dead to the world, no whisper of his gentleness to be found. 

“I swear, please. You can trust me.” 

“Can’t trust anyone in this world, darlin’. You shoulda realized that by now.”

*title from "Through Glass" by Stone Sour

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #jackson!joel #dark!joel #the last of us fic #joel miller fic #dead dove fic #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday8

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: masterlist

pairing: jackson!joel & fem!reader

rating: 18+

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company.

series warnings: angst, jackson joel is a warning, violence & gore, eventual smut, age gap, each part will have its own more specific warnings

series vibe teaser

chapter i

chapter ii

chapter iii

chapter iv

chapter v

#joel miller fic #joel miller #jackson!joel #fem!reader #masterlist #on strawberries and masonry