“What do you want, Potter?” Draco asks, ignoring the cup. Even if he really could use some caffeine right about now.
Potter rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why I have to want something to come over here. And how many times have I told you to call me Harry? We are friends now, it’s weird that you call me that.”
“Just because you declared us to be friends,” Draco says, crossing his arms across his chest, “doesn’t automatically mean we are. Believe it or not, you don’t actually get to have anything you want just because you’re The Boy Who Just Won’t Die.”
“You are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met,” Potter says, taking a seat on the couch next to Draco’s chair.
Oh good. Apparently, he’s staying. Draco sighs and finally accepts he isn’t getting any more work done and unceremoniously shoves his things back into his bag.
“I’m not dramatic, just honest,” Draco says, lifting his chin, just a bit.
“Draco,” Potter starts, “please tell me I do that to start listing the many, many times your reactions have been over the top. If I remember correctly, there was a time you were up in a tree…”
“Yes, I remember, thank you very much,” Draco interrupts. “And if we are going to start going down that path maybe I should mention you stalking me for several years.”
Potter flushes at that. “It wasn’t several years. But ok, I get your point. All I meant is that I don’t know why the idea of being friends with me is so hard. We eat lunch together—“
“Because half of our friends are dating so we end up next to each other by default.”
Potter ignores the interruption. “We are partners in both potions and charms—“
“Because my other options were Finnegan, who would likely blow me up, or Pansy, who is still mad that I didn’t want to sleep with her anymore. Despite the reason being that I’m gay, but sure, let’s all be pissed off at Draco.”
“And,” Potter raises his voice over Draco’s very fair comments, which annoys him. Then he continues in a much more civilised tone and Draco flowers at him. “And, we end up hanging out most nights once we are all back in the common room. So, please explain how that doesn’t make us friends?”
Draco wracks his brain but can’t find a suitable explanation for the last one. He holds his glare for a few more moments but then sighs, slumping back in his chair.
“Fine,” he says. “We’re friends. Is that what you wanted to hear, Potter?”
“Harry,” the man replies. “And yes, it is. But only if you mean it.”
Read the rest here on AO3!
Written as part of Fictober 2025 as hosted by @fictober-event
Summary: Ten years after Reader left Joel for reasons he still doesn't know, they find themselves together again in a town called Jackson. Joel has questions he's too afraid to ask; and Reader dreads having to give the answers.
Chapter length: 3.9k
Warnings/Tags: injury recovery, light angst, ellie is an absolute G and i love her with all my heart
Chapter One
notes: hello i hope u enjoy love u <3
They’ve got medicine here. Actual antibiotics, even some painkillers.
Apparently some of the folks in town are from all different corners of the country—some ex-fireflies, some ex-loners, even some ex-hunters, like me, Tommy, and Joel. Everyone came with their own stories, and their own supplies, or ways of getting them.
Well, everyone except me. All I brought was blood and confusion. But, still.
Angela keeps me in the town’s doctor’s office for a couple of days to recover. In that time, Joel comes to see me several times each day, as well as Tommy and Ellie. I still don’t really know who she is; just that, for some reason, she’s especially close with Joel. But, just like he’s holding back his questions—I can see it on his face every time the room falls into quiet—I’ve held back mine until I start to feel a little more human again.
Which is today, apparently. Everything is aching less, and I feel like I’m actually awake where I lie still in my bed. I could probably even sit up to eat today if I wanted to.
Ellie comes in sometime in the early morning, not long after I and the rest of the town started to wake up. She smiles, so bright-eyed and young, and sits in the chair beside my bed. “How you feeling?” She asks. “You look better.”
“I feel better,” I answer with a relieved exhale. “I mean, I still feel like I just came back from the brink of death, but…you know.”
“I know what you mean,” Ellie says. “I’ve had days like that, too. I remember after Joel was injured last winter, even once he was better he still took a while to get right again.”
I frown, mostly out of curiosity, partly out of concern. “How long have you two known each other?”
She blows a raspberry and looks away in thought. “I guess over a year now. A year and a half maybe? Time is weird.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Have you been here all that time?”
“No. We actually both came from Boston.”
“Boston?” I feel my eyebrows raise. That’s a long way from Texas, and it’s a long way from here. “So how long have you been…here? What brought you here?”
“That’s…kind of a long story,” she grins, sheepish. “I’m sure Joel’ll tell you all about it.”
I almost snort. “I doubt it.”
“Why not? You guys were obviously close.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Alright, well, he obviously cares a lot about you,” Ellie counters. She’s swinging her legs back and forth under the chair, her hands sitting calmly in her lap. “Him and Tommy. How’d you guys meet?”
“It’s a long story,” I echo her earlier sentiment, not wanting to get into it. I’m sure Ellie is just as curious about my history with them as I am about her’s. But it’s complicated. Everything is always so complicated. “You guys are obviously close, too. You and Joel.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we are.” A fond smile spreads over her lips, shy, like she’s trying to hide it. She looks down at her lap, fiddles with her fingers. “We had a pretty intense few months together out on the road. But you know what he’s like. Emotions, relationships…not really his area of expertise.”
I actually do laugh at that, because I can’t help it. Because even though she’s just a kid, Ellie gets it. “Yeah, you’re telling me, kid. It’s just his way of surviving, though, you know?”
She nods. “Yeah, I know. And I get it. He’s taught me a lot about that. You know, surviving.”
My mind goes to Sarah in an instant.
I met Joel five years after the outbreak. He never talked about his past, his family, his life before it all went to shit. And he definitely never talked about Sarah.
But Tommy told me. One night, when Joel had been particularly gruff and distant all day, insisting on taking all the patrols even though he was exhausted from constant nightmares for a week, Tommy told me it was Sarah’s birthday. He said her name like I should have already known who she was. Like he’d expected Joel would have told me.
I only brought it up to him the one time. That night when I went to bed and saw him sitting on his shitty mattress on the ground, fiddling with the broken watch on his left wrist. “Tommy told me,” I said, quiet into the dark room. “About Sarah.”
“Don’t…”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And that if you ever want to tell someone about her, I’m all ears,” I’d said. Then, before he could protest or leave the room out of frustration, embarrassment, survival instinct—whatever it was that kept him so guarded—I just said, “Goodnight, Joel.”
And that was that.
Now, lying here in this bed, I look up at Ellie, hear her say Joel taught her how to survive. Something he never got chance to teach Sarah after it all went to shit. Something he blamed himself for. Maybe he still does.
I think of Sarah, of Joel, of his closeness with Ellie. It must have taken him a lot to overcome his fears and his past. It’s always weighed over him so heavily that I could see it.
But now, thinking about it, about how he is with Ellie, he looks different. Lighter. Like he’s not so afraid anymore.
I wonder what happened between them. How he let anyone new into his life again.
Just as I’m about to ask Ellie, the door swings open, and in walks Joel.
“Speak of the devil,” Ellie smirks, craning her neck to look at him.
“You ladies talkin’ about me?” Joel asks. He doesn’t smile, but there’s one in his voice. He’s carrying a covered tray that’s billowing steam up from around the edges. “Thought my ears were burnin’.”
“Yeah, talking shit,” Ellie says.
Joel grumbles in response and heads closer to me. He’s so tall from where I am, towering over me like a beautiful skyscraper. Shifting the tray into one hand, he uses his other to gently bump his fist against Ellie’s shoulder. “Scoot,” he says. Ellie does as he asks but stands behind the chair as he sits down, putting her hands on the backrest. “You hungry?” He asks me.
“Starving,” I answer. The food, whatever it is, smells good. Sweet. I haven’t had sweet in so long.
“Got pancakes,” he opens the tray like someone on an old ad for a cruise. If I was talking to anyone else but Joel, I’d expect them to say Bon appetit.
“Pancakes?” Ellie repeats from behind him, staring down at the plate with wide eyes. “Why did no one tell me it’s pancakes?!”
He smiles, mostly to himself. It’s soft and fond. It’s fucking beautiful to see on him. “Well, go on then,” he says to her, so southern that it hurts, “there might still be some left. Better hurry before the other kids get there first.”
Ellie starts towards the door, but pauses before opening it. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she says, smiling at me, then she heads back out into the cold and runs across the street to the cafe.
Joel turns to me with that same fond smile. There’s a look on his face that says, Kids, am I right? And I don’t know how I translate it, because I’ve never seen him look like this before. “You need help eatin’?” He asks, putting the cover back on the plate to keep it hot.
“I think I can sit up today,” I say.
“You sure? I don’t know if Angela needs to check you over first…”
I wave a nonchalant hand, then press it into the mattress. “I’m fine.” Using both hands, I start to push myself up the bed, lifting my head and chest.
Joel shifts on his chair. “I don’t know if…”
“She told me to sit up when I feel ready,” I grunt out, using all the strength I have—which isn’t a lot—to get myself sitting upright. It hurts like fuck, but the pain has been worse in the last few days, so it’s fine. (It’s not. It’s spreading across my whole body. But I just want to eat my pancakes, to feel normal again. To prove Joel wrong and make up for the fact that I cried in front of everyone. In front of him.)
Joel half reaches out towards me. I start to struggle the last few inches as my stomach muscles begin to weaken. I can’t quite get straight enough to lean back against the wall, and my elbows are shaking.
Without a word, Joel puts down the tray and shoots up from his seat, reaching out to hold me steady. One of his hands grasps the arm opposite him, the other wrapping around my back. “I gotcha,” he hauls me up against the headboard. God. His hands are freezing, but my skin under where he touches me feels like fire. “Alright?” He asks once I’m settled.
I can’t quite speak, so I just nod.
The tray is in my lap soon, complete with a closed cup of milk with a straw, like it’s made for a kid. But it means it hasn’t spilled, and doesn’t spill even when my hands shake a little as I drink, so it is what it is.
“You want some time alone, or…?”
I stare at him, not knowing what to say. What I want.
“Just I know Ellie’s been comin’ in here a lot, so I thought maybe you’re wanting some space…”
I stab a piece of pancake and eat it. My God, there’s not even any syrup on it, just some stewed apples, but it is like heaven has just exploded in my mouth. I feel my eyelids flutter at the sensation, at the sweetness I haven’t tasted in so many years. Then, instead of giving Joel an answer, I ask, “What’s the deal with you two? She’s a sweet kid. Seems to care about me just ’cause you d—know me.” I stop myself before I say Because you do. Because, does he? Does he care any more than he feels obligated to anymore?
If Joel notices my stumble, he doesn’t show it. “Yeah, she’s…she’s a good kid. It’s kind of a long story.”
“That’s what Ellie told me, too.” I’m speaking with my mouth full of sticky, sweet pancakes. This might actually be heaven.
“I, uh…I did a lot of smuggling, back in Boston. Me and my…partner, we got a job to smuggle her out of the QZ.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You smuggled a teenage girl out of a safe place and into the wild?”
“I wouldn’t say safe,” he grumbles, “but, yeah.”
“Why’d she need smuggled?”
“That’s, uh…” he looks away, down at his lap. For a moment he seems to consider something, his forehead creasing like it does when he’s thinking really hard. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”
Observing him for a moment, I push a bit of apple out of my teeth with my tongue. “Try me,” I say.
Instead of answering, Joel sighs, long and heavy. After a minute he shakes his head, and when he lifts it to meet my eyes, I see an expression that I only saw in the first few weeks we knew each other. An expression I never thought I’d have to see again: distrust.
He shakes his head again, and doesn’t say anything.
But I hear him clear as day. He doesn’t trust me.
I don’t blame him.
Clearing my throat, I chop up another mouthful of pancake and shove it down me. Somehow, I’ve almost finished the plate already. “Thanks, uh, for the breakfast.”
“Thank Lucy. We’re damn lucky to have her.”
Lucy is the town’s cook. A lot of the residents cook for themselves in their homes—which was once the norm in our lives, but now seems like such a foreign concept—but she still makes meals in the cafe for newer residents, injured people, and those who are shit at cooking.
“So, you went on some big adventure, I assume,” I say into the quiet, half-joking. But the way Joel chuckles dryly and shakes his head, I realise that the answer is a very serious yes. “How’s Tommy already married if you’ve not been here long?”
“He’s been here a lot longer than me. Maria’s dad set this place up.”
I frown. “Tommy wasn’t in Boston with you?”
Joel still won’t meet my eyes. He runs a rough hand over his mouth and stubble, rubs his jaw where the hairs are greyer. I’m a little distracted by it, to be honest. I can’t help but imagine running my hands over his face myself. Even after all this time, those thoughts are still there.
“We, uh, we separated a while back. Not long after you left, actually.”
“…Oh,” I’m not sure what to make of that. “I’m glad you’re back together again.”
“Me, too.”
My plate now empty, I watch him. He’s somewhat lost in thought, stroking at his jaw over and over, back and forth, staring down at the floor. Maybe he, too, is lost in the memories of what it was like back then. When me, him, and Tommy were a team. When we were part of a group of hunters. When we killed to survive.
It was hell. Tommy always hated it the most, even though I was always the softest.
But we did survive.
I look at Joel now, all grey flecks of hair and creases on his face from years of horror. I’ve got some premature greys now, too, but not nearly as many. He looks tired. Not badly rested; there are no bags under his eyes or paleness in his cheeks. But he just looks…tired. Worn down. Maybe it’s because of my presence here.
“Joel…” I say, hesitant. I don’t really know where I’m going with it. I can’t stop thinking about the old days. About the day I left. About the letter I wrote explaining why, that was always addressed to the fire, and not to him. “It’s been a long time,” I find myself settling on.
He laughs at that. I can’t decide if it’s humourless or not. “Yeah. It has.”
“You got old,” I tease. Because that’s always a good route to go down when I’m not sure.
“I sure did. Happens to all of us. Not you, apparently.” He glances up at me, then looks away just as quickly.
“What are you talking about? I got old, too.”
“You still look just like you did the day I lost…the day you…”
I look down as guilt hangs in my chest. I should say something. I should apologise. Maybe I should explain, after all these years.
Does he even want to know? Does he need to?
Do I want him to know?
“I should get goin’,” he says before I have any longer to overthink. He slaps his hands on his legs before standing up, then reaches for my empty tray. “Take it easy today. Angela’ll check on you soon.”
He turns towards the door and I try to scrabble for something to say to get him to stay. I don’t want him to leave—not yet. “Joel…” but his name fades in my mouth, because there are no words.
“I’ll come by later,” is all he says before he leaves.
Deflated, I lean further back into the wall behind me.
Everything hurts.
-
“Joel and Tommy both have spare rooms, if you wanted to stay with one of them,” Angela explains as she tends to some of the smaller cuts on my arms and shoulders. “Or there’s the inn where we house new residents before getting them settled.”
“I’ll take the inn,” I answer, not needing to think about it.
“You sure? Recovery ain’t gonna be an easy thing. You might want some friends around to help you out.”
I’ve survived this long on my own. “I’ll be fine,” I insist. “Had worse.”
Angela snorts. “Doubt it. You almost died, you know that, right?”
“Oh, I know,” I sigh. The pain in my body never lets me forget it. Then, realising I haven’t said it yet, “Thank you. For…for saving my life.”
Angela leans back, happy with her work. “No need to thank me,” she offers a warm smile. “You should thank the brothers. They’re the ones who found you. Crazy how fate works, isn’t it?” She throws old bandages into the bin and closes her medical case.
I chuckle, dark. “Fate is one word for it, I guess.” Luck is probably more accurate. But whether or not it’s good luck or bad luck, I’m not sure yet. Jury’s still out.
“Alright, well, if you feel ready, you can head on to your new lodgings. I’m sure Maria’ll get you set up with your own place in no time. For now, I’ll get them to give you a ground floor room.”
“Thanks,” I say, relieved to be getting out of here. It’s not that it’s not nice—hell, this is the nicest place I’ve been in since before the outbreak—it’s just I’m going a little stir crazy. I haven’t been this still for this long in a very, very long time. Every time someone says they’re going out on patrol, I get a little jealous. I want to be helpful, but more than that, I want to feel that I can still look after myself if push comes to shove.
Which clearly is not the case, because as soon as I stand up with the help of the crutches Angela has loaned me, I regret it. Only for a second. But the regret is there; my brain says, Maybe we should’ve just stayed sitting down!
As I hobble out of the doctor’s office and out into the snow, a cold breeze instantly assaults me. Angela is behind me, making sure I don’t fall, watching my step for me. But it’s fucking freezing out here.
My eyes are watering in an instant, blurring my vision. Using the crutches helps with my leg pain, but my arms are still weak and trembly.
It’s as I’m stepping down off the stoop that I see Joel and Ellie coming running across the street towards me.
“Angela! I told you to tell me when you discharged her!” Joel shouts as he gets closer.
“I’m fine!” I shout into the wind, definitely not fine. The cold is making my fingers ache. As if I needed more things to hurt.
“Where are you going?” Ellie asks. She points down the street in the opposite direction, “Our place is that way.”
“She’s staying at the inn,” Angela says. She puts a hand on my back, steadying me, then gestures to the building we’re heading to.
“What—the inn?” Joel asks, following us now.
“Yeah. You know, a place where people stay when they don’t have anywhere else?” Angela retorts, rolling her eyes. “Watch your step,” she says quietly to me, helping me hobble over a deeper patch of snow that crunches as I stand on it.
“She can stay with us,” Ellie says. “You know that, right?” She looks at me from the side.
I glance at her and try my best to smile through the pain and discomfort. “I’m fine, Ellie. Really.”
“No, you’re not,” Joel argues. His voice is so deep and rumbly, like it’s coming from his belly. “You can’t recover on your own.”
“Let’s argue about this once we get her sat down in the warm, shall we?” Angela suggests, which gets everyone to stay silent until then.
Ellie tries to pitch their house to me one last time. Joel is standing in the doorway of my room, looking disgruntled and grumpy, though that’s nothing new. Ellie sits at the bottom of my bed as I tell her No, thank you, for the last time.
“Alright, well, if you’re sure. If you need any help, or anything…”
“I know where you are,” I say, smiling gratefully. “Thanks, Ellie.”
“I got you some of my favourite movies. Since we came here I’ve been able to watch them. You ever seen Star Wars?”
Chuckling, I nod. “Yeah, I’ve seen those.”
“I don’t think this TV has a DVD player hooked up, but I’ll ask Maria,” Ellie promises, putting the DVD cases on the vanity opposite the bed, next to the old TV. The idea of watching a movie is somehow alien and familiar all at once.
“Thank you,” I say again. I’m amazed by this kid. She’s soft and kind and yet hard as nails. She’s mostly covered in winter clothing, but the skin I can see, she’s got a hell of a lot of scars. The most noticeable is on her eyebrow, gashing right through the hairs. It looks badass.
But it’s also sad. She’s just a kid.
“You can stay and watch them with me when it’s hooked up, if you want,” I offer.
Ellie grins. “I’d love that! I’ll bring snacks.”
Warmth blooms in my chest. It’s so unfamiliar that it concerns me for a second; I think something must be wrong. But then I look at Joel, standing in the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing his big puffy winter coat, and it reminds me that the same warmth used to be there every time I looked at him. Until it turned to something fearful, something looming.
“Alright, kid, let her get some rest,” Joel says, standing up straight and nodding his head out the door.
Ellie stands up and smiles at me. “I’ll see you later.”
“See you.”
She brushes past Joel in the doorway and elbows him in the ribs as she passes. Joel gives an over exaggerated grunt and bends over, making Ellie laugh as she heads down the hallway. “Come on, old man!” She shouts after him.
With a small smile still on his lips, and a hand on his ribcage, he turns to me. “You sure you’re alright?” He asks.
His concern has that feeling coming back. Warmth, from my chest to my toes. I nod. “I’m sure. I’m probably gonna try and sleep for a bit.”
“Angela said she’ll check on you. And there’s always someone about down here, if you need help.”
“I’m alright, Joel,” I assure him gently, pulling the blanket further up so it sits against my hips. “Look at me, I’m sitting up. I’ll be fine.”
He stays there for another long moment, but then he nods once, and turns to head out the door. “We’ll talk later.”
“Later,” I agree, even though I don’t know what there is to talk about that isn’t telling him why the hell did I leave, and asking him why aren’t you angry at me for it?
I watch him walk away until he’s no longer there.
{chapter 2/5}
notes: all interactions are very appreciated, but comments/reblogs especially make my heart go brrr♡
ps. pls come and scream about the tlou show with me i am feral
Fic title: Some Invisible String (tying you to me)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Ship: Drarry
Prompt: Just Take My Hand
Draco pinches the bridge of his nose, in a vain attempt to stave off the migraine he knows is coming. That always comes when he finds himself in yet another ridiculous situation. And with the man who is almost always the cause of said ridiculous situations.
“Potter,” he says, keeping his tone as even as possible, “do you want to explain to me how the actual fuck we wound up caught in a trap set by adolescent wizards half our age and with only the amount of knowledge we have taught them?”
Potter, at the very least, has the decency to look sheepish as he scrubs a hand through his hair. “In my defence, at least it was a seventh year this time.”
Draco lets out a sigh. “This time being the key phrase in that sentence.”
Before this, Draco had been having a perfectly normal day. Possibly even pleasant. It was the Friday before Christmas hols, so the students were a bit rowdy, but had mostly left him alone. Not that it surprised him, seeing as he took a page out of Snape’s book when he took the potions professor position six years prior. Well, except for the bullying. Even Draco had to admit his godfather had been kind of an asshole.
So while many of the other professors were dealing with students not paying attention, finding couples snogging in corners, and the occasional reprimand to ones caught skipping class, Draco’s students were mostly staying on task and completing their final potions for the term. Instead of detentions, he was able to give actual lessons. Instead of quieting students down, he was able to walk from cauldron to cauldron and give notes. He’d even managed to get some of his marking up done while the potion was in its timing phase.
He should have known Potter would find a way to ruin it all.
Read the rest here on AO3!
Written as part of Fictober 2025 as hosted by @fictober-event
Fic Title: Some Invisible String (tying you to me)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Ship: Drarry
Prompt: This is new
In the ten years Harry has lived with Draco, he has come home to many strange things. And in that time, more often than not, he has learned not to ask.
Once, barely a year in, Draco and Neville had been holed up in a back room which had suddenly been overtaken by odd plants. They were able to feed off the home’s magical energy in a way that gave them interesting properties, apparently.
Another time, maybe three years ago, the apartment had been pitch black despite it being no later than midday. When Harry looked up, the sky was spelled into the night sky, under which Draco was mapping constellations due to some unique astronomical phenomena. Or something like that.
Then there was the time Harry came home only to find all of the furniture and decorations hovering midair and Draco standing in the middle of it all, hands on his hips, and glaring as if the items had wronged him. Harry didn’t ask that time. He simply told his boyfriend he was going to the pub and to let him know when gravity decided to work again.
Ron likes to say that Draco is a mad scientist (mainly because Seamus made the error of introducing him to films and Ron found a weird obsession with Sci-Fi). Hermione claims he is just a quizzical type of person, nothing mad about him. Draco, for his part, just likes to say he enjoys testing the theories and limits of magic.
If he’s honest, Ron is probably a lot closer to the truth. Not that Harry will ever admit that.
But the truth of the matter is that Draco had somehow wound up in a field of magical experimentation, a job Harry still doesn’t fully understand but seems to make Draco happy. At the end of the day, it’s that fact alone that makes it all worth it.
Well, most of the time.
Today, however, Harry comes home and can’t even begin to explain what he’s seeing.
To start, it’s usually a sign that things are going to be… interesting… when Luna is there. Actually, no matter which of their friends is there the weirdness is usually a lot more pronounced. Today, for example, their living room now resembles a zoo more than a place to relax and watch the telly, with more creatures stuffed into the space (which seems to have been magically enlarged) than he would have thought possible.
At least Draco remembered to take the furniture out this time.
Read the rest here on AO3!
Written as part of Fictober 2025 as hosted by @fictober-event
Summary: Ten years after Reader left Joel for reasons he still doesn't know, they find themselves together again in a town called Jackson. Joel has questions he's too afraid to ask; and Reader dreads having to give the answers.
Chapter length: 4.2k
Warnings/Tags: injury recovery, light angst
Chapter III
Series Masterlist
notes: second to last chapter ahhh! thank u for reading and enjoying this fic with me, you're all just great humans!
Joel takes me up a nearby hill outside of the town’s walls, through old trails, over fallen trees and across the crunchy snow. I wrap my arms around him, pressing the side of my face into the back of his jacket, and I tell myself that it’s to shelter my face from the oncoming icy wind.
The view up here is incredible, stretching across the entire town and all the way to the hydro-plant beyond. Mountains surround us, covered in white, with light grey clouds hanging low over them and blue skies higher up. I can see birds of prey soaring up above us; could probably hear them if I listened closely enough. Despite the wind and the gentle crunch of Felix’s hooves on the snow, it’s so silent out here.
These days, silence isn’t necessarily the same thing as safe, but Joel tells me that this is one of his regular patrol routes, and he knows it well. If anything’s hiding somewhere, he knows where they’ll be.
So I just enjoy it.
Eventually we find our way to a building that looks half-snowed under. It’s not entirely covered, though; it’s a lookout post, probably used for fire watch way back when. A decent size, but only a square, the windows are mostly boarded up, except for one on each wall. Joel unlocks the door and the five padlocks that hold it shut. Before leading Felix inside, he helps me down, holding my weight until I’m stable.
Once we’re all in, and Felix is munching happily on the net of hay that’s already strung up in here, I take a moment to look around. There’s a hunting rifle propped up in the corner, along with some ammunition, and a bow sitting next to it with a few arrows strewn across the floor. A wicker bench, like something from a garden furniture set, is in front of one of the windows, complete with a pillow and a blanket. In the other corner there’s a fold-up chair beside a locked case, presumably full of more supplies.
“We keep it stocked for an emergency,” Joel explains, leading me over to the bench. I can manage without my crutches now, but the cold makes it harder, so he supports me around my waist until I’m sitting down. “People’ve got stuck here in blizzards before.”
“Thought you said this place was safe?” I joke.
He chuckles and grabs the blanket, wrapping it carefully around my shoulders. “It is. I promise. Here, put your leg up.” He gestures for me to turn in my place, taking a gentle hold of my ankle. Following his guidance, I lift up my leg and grimace at the discomfort. It feels better for having it up, though.
“Warm enough?” Joel asks.
“For now,” I say. “Depends how long you keep me here.”
“You make it sound like I’m holding you prisoner,” he pulls across the fold-out chair, takes off his backpack before sitting down opposite me.
“I mean, I can’t exactly leave on my own right now,” I smirk, gesturing to my leg.
He reaches into his backpack and pulls out his canteen. “How’s it feeling?”
“Better. A lot better.”
“Amazing what a little rest can do, huh?”
“Yeah. You’d know.”
He looks up at me and raises an eyebrow. “Really, with the sarcasm?”
“We all know you don’t know how to just stop and rest,” I say. “Don’t think I’ve seen you chill out since…well, ever.”
He holds up his flask like it’s proving a point, and gestures to the room around him. “What does it look like I’m doin’ now?”
The light from the windows surrounds us, casting shadows over his face. His cheeks are flushed pink from the cold, his lips just a little blue. It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts enough to respond, but before I can, he reaches into his pack and pulls out two…whisky glasses?
When he opens his flask and pours it, I expect to see water. But, nope. A golden amber liquid flows out into the glasses, and the smell hits me in an instant.
Yup, that’s whisky alright.
“Joel,” I gasp teasingly, “are you usually such a rebel on patrol?”
Grinning lopsidedly, he hands me one of the glasses. “This ain’t a patrol,” he says. I take it from him, and our fingers brush together for a second. “And it’s good for warmth.”
“Ah. And here I thought you were finally going to chill out.”
“Alright, alright,” he shakes his head and uses his own glass to gesture to mine. “Drink.”
“What are we drinking to?”
He doesn’t answer. He looks up and takes a good sip, smacking his lips after he’s swallowed. I watch the movement in his throat; his Adam’s apple bobbing down then up again. His eyes follow the glass as he lowers it again.
I wait for him to speak. Nervous, I lift my own glass to my lips and take a sip. It’s good. The best I’ve had in years, actually. The warmth goes all the way down my throat and to my insides, spreading through me in an instant. It makes me shiver in the best way. “Damn,” I say into the quiet. “That’s good shit. Strong, though.”
Joel nods in agreement. “Best in my collection.”
“Collection, huh? You’re living it up here in Jackson.”
“Sure am,” he smiles, wry. Tips his glass at me, then takes another sip. A small moment of quiet passes. “What brought you to Wyoming?” He asks then, surprising me. “Were you comin’ to Jackson?”
“No,” I almost laugh. “How would I have known about it? And besides, if I’d known there were so many people here I’d have stayed well away.”
“People find us in all sorts of ways. You’d be surprised how fast news travels.”
I shrug a shoulder and take another drink.
“So where’d you go?” He asks. Then, as if he wanted to word it differently, “I mean—where’ve you been? Since you…since we parted ways?”
“Here and there. I wanted to go South for the winter, but my plans went South instead, I guess.”
“You were alone when we found you,” he says, glancing up at me. “Have there been…any other groups since the old days? Friends…partners?”
I shake my head. For a moment, my thoughts are too bleak to say anything. I think of what it was like to be a hunter. It was hell. Carnage every day and night. Tommy and I used to talk of leaving; Joel was always reluctant, saying that we were safer staying put. He was probably right—that is, if my feelings hadn’t gotten in the way.
After that, it seemed better to be alone.
“No,” I answer eventually, staring solemnly down at my nearly-empty drink. It’s giving my head a nice buzz. A little burn in the back of my throat. If I really let myself, I could believe that we're in a cabin in the mountains during normal life, on vacation, sitting and enjoying a drink on the stoop before heading to bed.
“You…you’ve been alone this whole time?”
“Yeah,” I sigh.
He’s surprised into silence, it seems.
I glance up at him and catch him staring. He looks away straight away, but I see something on his face. Something sad. A slight crease in his brow, his mouth open a little like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing; like what he’s hearing devastates him.
“Jesus Christ,” he curses eventually, just a breath. Staring at nothing, he shakes his head. “You survived on your own all this time.…”
“Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t have survived this,” I motion to my leg, “if I’d been alone last week. But other than that…yeah. Just me. Sometimes it’s easier like that. Easier to slip past people unnoticed.”
He still looks upset. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then closes it again. I want him to look at me so badly that it hurts. I want him to turn to me and let the morning sunlight shine on his face and make all the coldness around me fade away.
I never thought I’d see him again. I thought I was dying, I thought I was hearing things when his voice came to me.
“Joel…” I start, finding a lump in my throat I hadn’t noticed before.
“You didn’t have to leave,” he says before I can say any more. Finally, he looks at me, and there is so much sadness and regret in his eyes that it actually hurts. “You hear me?” He asks. “You never had to leave. Back then. You could’ve stayed.”
“Joel…I already told you, I couldn’t let myself…”
He sighs. Looks away again, down at his glass, shaking his head over and over so much that he must be getting dizzy.
“Joel,” I say again. It feels like the only thing I can say that makes sense. “You don’t…we don’t have to talk about this…”
“Yes, we do.”
“…Okay. Yeah. You’re right.”
“I need you to hear me,” he says. Then his eyes meet mine, and it’s different. More intense, purposeful. I couldn’t look away even if I tried—even if I wanted to. “You didn’t have to leave. You told me why you left, and I’m telling you, it wasn’t…you didn’t need to.”
I shake my head. “I did,” my voice comes out as nothing but a whisper. “I did, Joel. I couldn’t—I couldn’t keep how I felt to myself, I couldn’t keep it in check…”
“Goddamit, you’re not—you didn’t have to keep it in check!” He raises his voice just slightly. “I’m trying to tell you that I…I had those feelings, too. Okay? It—it wasn’t just you.”
Oh.
I freeze.
Oh.
“…Oh,” because suddenly the racing chaos of my mind is silenced to just that one syllable.
He holds my eyes for another long, piercing moment, then looks away. Briefly he seems to consider something, his jaw working away as he thinks, and then he puts his glass on the floor and runs a hand over his hair. Jesus. The silver flecks in it are shining in the sunlight.
“I get why you thought you had to leave,” he says, quiet again. “I do. And honestly, I’m not sure I could say I wouldn’t’ve done the same thing if I were you. But I…if you’d just told me back then, if I’d known…”
Somehow, I manage to swallow the emotion in my throat enough to say, “Would it have made a difference?”
“It would have made every difference.” He says, with a tone that says Are you kidding me?
“Oh,” again. Dumbly. “But…it’s not like we could’ve…we could never have been…” I know what I’m trying to say, but it won’t come out. How do I express that I just never saw a way for a relationship to work? That I never saw how we could possibly fall in love and be together and act like everything was normal, like there wasn’t enough blood on our hands to fill a bathtub?
I close my mouth and regroup for a second. Or, try to.
“I just,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I’d expected, “I thought I was protecting you.”
Resting his elbow on his knee, he runs his hand over his mouth, rubs it across his beard. He does it a few times as he stares ahead at nothing again, deep in thought.
I watch him, silent. Waiting.
Then, he takes a breath. “Do you still feel that way now?” He drags his eyes to me, and holds them.
I swallow heavily. Wide-eyed, I stare at him. “I…” yes. Of fucking course I do, Joel. I loved you then, and I love you now. I will always fucking love you. “Yeah,” I admit. I can’t lie to him, and really, there’s no point now, anyway. “I do. I never stopped.”
For so long, he just stares at me. Nervous, I fiddle with the fabric of my gloves, pulling at loose threads, unsure how much damage I’m causing to them because I can’t fucking tear my eyes away from Joel’s, despite the fact his gaze is making me lose my mind. I decide to take the gloves off, suddenly feeling closed-in by them.
I keep trying to speak, to fill the silence somehow, to try and mend a wound that I’m not sure is even still open anymore. It feels like it’s closed: the chasm of questions and pain between us is different now. Lighter. Like how Joel looks lighter these days, without the weight of the world on his shoulders, that’s how it feels in the air between us.
When he speaks again, I’m not expecting it, despite the fact I’ve been waiting with bated breath. “I missed you,” he says.
Oh, God.
“I missed you so goddam much, you know that?” His eyes flick to the space on the bench beside me. Without thinking I shift my leg, moving it off so there’s space for him if he wants.
“I missed you,” I say, my voice cracking a little from the truth of it. The gut wrenching, undeniable truth in just those three words. “Joel, I…” As I’m shaking my head, lost for words that better convey what I’m trying to say, Joel gets up and comes to sit beside me. I turn to face him, finding the backs of my eyes stinging with tears.
(I swallow them down so hard that it hurts. I’ve cried enough. I’ve cried enough over him.)
“Hey…” he says, dipping his head to catch my eyes that have somehow fallen from his. He puts his finger under my chin, holding it up and propping his thumb on the point. He took his gloves off when he came inside, so his bare skin is against mine, his fingertips cold and calloused but fuck, so perfect. Catching my gaze again, he looks so deeply into my eyes that it’s like he’s searching my fucking soul. “Don’t look away,” he says.
I shake my head. My hands are trembling in my lap. Heat is blooming from my stomach to my chest, threatening to burst out of me at any moment because fucking fuck, I never thought Joel would touch me like this. Holding me tenderly, not because he’s patching a wound or inspecting one, not to get me to look in his eyes to stop me from passing out from pain; no, holding me because he wants to, because he wants to be close to me, wants to feel me like I want to feel him.
At least, I hope that’s what he wants.
The way his eyes flick down to my lips gives me a little more confidence.
“Joel…” I whisper into the inches of empty space between us. I can feel his hot breath brushing against my face. “Joel, you don’t have to…you don’t have to forgive me, you know that, right?”
Surprising me, he laughs. Shakes his head a little, smiling at me with crow’s feet around his eyes, the sunlight glinting into the flecks of grey in his beard. Could I reach out and do what I’ve always wanted to? Touch him there, run my hands through the coarse hairs, maybe even feel them on my face?
“I know I don’t have to,” he says, still chuckling. “But I do. Even though I wish you’d have made a different call, or at least told me you were leavin’…”
“Joel…”
“—I’d say we got pretty lucky, findin’ ourselves here again.”
He’s so close to me now that I have to look between each of his eyes in turn. I could do it forever. He’s so close. I’ve wanted this for so long.
I never thought I’d see him again.
Let alone have this.
“Yeah,” I manage to whisper. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Now, if you don’t mind,” he shifts his hand from under my chin to my cheek, pressing his palm against my jaw and smoothing his thumb over my skin, “I’d like to do what I’ve wanted to do for a damn long time.”
I nod before he even clarifies. I’d let him do anything. Fucking anything.
He sighs before closing the distance between us, like he’s relieved. Like he’s saying, Finally.
My agreement doesn’t make it out of my lips because he’s pressing his to mine, capturing my top one between both of his, and—
Holy shit.
It’s the softest kiss I’ve ever had.
So tender. Like he’s just testing the waters. Asking me a question. He barely even lingers for a few seconds.
But, Jesus Christ.
I find myself letting out an embarrassing whine when he pulls away and tries to meet my eyes, his eyebrows raising, checking it’s okay; but I can’t wait, I can’t fucking wait or hold back any longer—
I pull him in by the lapels of his coat and push my lips back into his, barely even having time to open my mouth. He groans against me and I feel the vibrations of his voice in my fucking mouth.
It’s crazed at first, finding a rhythm; messy and uncoordinated but all I can hear is his lips sucking at mine and him trying to find his breath amongst the mess of our mouths. It doesn’t take long for it to flow, to work, to understand the push and pull of each other and I lean into it with everything I have. He’s breathing into my mouth, his breath hot and sweet, and his lips have gone from cold to hot in the blink of an eye.
He’s got two hands on me now, grasping at the back of my neck with his fingers pushing up into my hair from the roots. My hat slips from my head. He uses the extra space in an instant, gasping happily against my mouth when he can get his fingers up the entirety of the back of my head, threading them into my hair. Goosebumps spread across my skin, and not from the cold.
At last, my hands are where they’ve always dreamed of being. On either side of his face, fingers running through his beard. I can hear it; the hairs brushing across my skin and under my nails. Lightly, I curl my fingers so my nails scratch his jaw. He likes it; moaning softly as he tilts his head to the other side, barely pulling off of me before our mouths are together again.
Alas, though, as much as my hands have found their home, there is so much more of him to discover. One of them slides back into his hair and I swear to God he fucking whispers my name against my tongue as I take a handful and tug.
Soon I’m shrugging him out of his jacket after pulling on the zip, and he’s doing the same, undoing each of the buttons on my coat while I suck kisses to his cheek, his beard, wherever I can get to him.
As soon as our coats are on the floor, he unwinds my scarf and throws it on the floor, and makes the most of having new access to my neck. Hungry, he dives in, his mouth already open as he mouths at the expanse of my neck in long—but not long enough—kisses.
“Joel, oh, my God,” I gasp when he sucks particularly hard on the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. My hands are in his hair again, anchoring him to me. A bolt of pleasure comes from my neck to my brain, goes straight between my legs.
It’s as he kisses me again and I start to fumble with the buttons on his flannel that he makes a different noise in the back of his throat. A soft protest, I think.
“Hey,” he pants, breaking off from my lips and taking a gentle hold of my wrists, stopping them in their work.
I’m completely out of breath. I’ve not been this out of breath from something good in fuck knows how long. My lips are swollen, I’m sure they’re bright red, and I can feel wet patches on my neck. “You okay?” I ask with my hands settling on his chest.
He laughs, breathy, “Never better. I just…want to make sure that we…” he has to swallow and catch his breath for a moment. As he does so, he lowers his head and kisses up my forearm, all the way to my elbow. His hands caress the underside of my arm like it’s something he treasures. “God, I want this to go further, but I said we’d be back in an hour and I know Ellie’ll come lookin’ if we’re not…”
Still panting, I laugh a little. All I can do is press my forehead against his.
He lifts up my hand and puts it over his heart. Even through the flannel of his shirt I can feel it pounding. A gasp pulls into my throat at the feeling.
“Besides, it’s cold as hell, and I’d really like you to be warm and comfortable before we…”
He’s right. Goddamit, he’s right.
Resigned, I nod. We sit like that for a minute, just coming down, catching our breath. His lips are pinker than I think I’ve ever seen them. I think I was sucking at them even more than I thought I was; the pink colour fades gradually into his skin like smudged lipstick. I wish now that I’d had chance to suck at his neck, to mark him like I’m sure he’s marked me already.
Then, it hits me.
That I never even thought I’d get to touch his fucking beard.
Let alone suck his neck.
“God,” I whisper, mostly to myself. My voice cracks a little, and I’m not sure it’s just from the blinding desire still throbbing between my legs.
“You okay?”
“I just…yeah. Yeah, I’m…I’m really fucking good.”
He laughs. Keeping one hand over mine where it stays on his chest, he brings the other up to cup the side of my face. Our foreheads are still resting on each other and his palm is so warm against my cheek.
I’ve wanted this for so long.
I have to tell him. He knows, but I have to tell him. “I’ve wanted this for…forever,” I confess, probably only finding my confidence because we’re too close for him to look at me. With my spare hand I hold the side of his neck, the tips of my fingers brushing into his beard.
“Since the moment I saw you,” Joel’s voice is gravelly as he nuzzles his nose into my wrist, “I wanted this.”
I can’t help it.
I lean in and kiss him again. Close-mouthed and quick, but just because I can.
He takes a deep breath. Holds it a minute, then lets it out, his sweet breath brushing against me once more. I want to taste it again. Feel it going into my lungs. Feel it on my neck, on every inch of me.
“We should head back,” he says, reluctance coming from his very core. “You’re gettin’ cold.” He squeezes my cold hand.
“You’re the one who took off all my winter gear,” I retort with a happy smirk.
“Yeah, alright. You started it, though.”
“Um, you pushed my hat off as soon as we got started…”
“The hat thing was a mistake.”
I remember how it felt to have his hands spread out over every inch of my head, and shudder. “Oh, no, it was no mistake, Joel.”
He laughs. “Come on. Let’s wrap back up. I’d love to say we can pick up where we left off as soon as we get back, but I’ve got patrols today, and Ellie wanted me to take her riding…”
I hold the back of his neck. As much as I absolutely would let him take me right here on this freezing wooden floor, I don’t mind waiting. For the first time in decades, I feel like we might just have time for it. Like everything doesn’t have to be a rush. “It’s alright,” I say, meaning it.
“I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Mm. I’ll hold you to that.”
“Good.”
After another—very restrained—kiss, we start wrapping up again and pack up to head back. In the back of my mind as we potter around each other, I feel the horrible tendrils of doubt try to creep in around me. Wondering: what if this is all too good to be true? What if there’s no way we can make this work? I was never even going to stay here, but does he want me to now? Is that where this is going?
But then Joel takes me in his arms before we step back outside, and holds me like it’s the first time.
And it is, really. He’s only ever done this before when I’ve been hurt or sick.
And for that moment as his hands press into my back, my mind is quiet.
{chapter 4/5}
notes: thank u for all the support and love on this fic, it means the world to me, i'm so glad you're enjoying it! there's more where this came from and i'm just so grateful to y'all for reading this <3
ps: the next chapter will have smut (YAY)! also, if you're reading this the weekend i post it (21st jan 2023) then please send me smut requests for joel miller or din djarin <3 love u xo
Summary: Ten years after Reader left Joel for reasons he still doesn't know, they find themselves together again in a town called Jackson. Joel has questions he's too afraid to ask; and Reader dreads having to give the answers.
Chapter length: 3.4k
Warnings/Tags: injury recovery, light angst
notes: hello, hope u enjoy! love and appreciate you <3
I’m starting to think that opting to look after myself wasn’t the best idea.
I have to pee. Like, really badly. But every time I try to get up my leg just hurts so damn much. The bathroom is across the hall, and it’s cold outside of my bed, and I’m hungry and thirsty with no way of asking for any help, because no one’s around. At least, not anyone that I feel comfortable enough to say Hey, I have to pee, can you help me to the bathroom? to.
A part of me thinks how horrific this would be if I didn’t have anyone to fall back on for help. But it’s kind of irrelevant, because if I didn’t, I’d already be dead. So.
Angela catches me in a moment of shame as I try and fail to hobble out of the room. One of my crutches clatters to the ground and I can’t fucking get it because that entire side of my body hurts, and if I lean down, I think I’m going to pass out from it.
Angela rushes towards me and grabs it for me. “Here,” she says. “Why are you up?”
“I…bathroom,” I answer.
She nods and puts her arm around my shoulders to help me through the hall. “Still in a lot of pain, then?”
“Yeah.” We save painkillers until night time, so it helps me get some sleep. In the day, the pain has full rein over me.
When I’m done peeing, she takes me back to my room and sits me down on the bed. “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“I’ll get you some food,” she looks at the night stand and sees the three empty glasses of water. “Water, too.”
“Thank you.” I’m out of breath. Everything hurts, and I’m so weak that I feel like a stranger in my own body.
“The worst of it should pass soon,” Angela assures me. “It’s only been a few days. The bruising was pretty significant. Once that starts to heal, you’ll be on the up.”
I nod, though it’s hard to imagine ever being out of pain again.
Angela hesitates. Then, “Are you sure you’re okay to stay here? I can take you back to my office if it’s easier for you, or I know Joel or Tommy would still be happy to have you until you’re back on your feet…”
Closing my eyes, I sigh, leaning on one of the crutches’ handles. I don’t want to admit defeat and accept help. I want to know that I can survive on my own. I need to know that.
But I can’t. If I ever want to survive on my own again, I need to recover quickly. And to do that, I can’t be alone right now.
“You think they’d still be up for it?” I ask, keeping my eyes shut because I’m just so embarrassed by the whole thing.
“Honey, Joel asks me about it every damn day. Damn near got angry with me when I told him you seemed happy here,” she chuckles. “You want me to ask Joel, or Tommy?”
“Joel,” I sigh, reluctant. “Joel. Please.”
Angela nods, clearly pleased that I’ve finally decided to accept help. “I’ll bring you some food. Then I’m sure Joel and Ellie will be over.”
By night time, they’ve got me all set up in their living room.
I can’t manage the stairs to the guest bedroom, so I sit on the armchair while Joel and Ellie set up a bed for me on the couch. Ellie bolsters it with extra pillows from the sofa in the garage, and spreads a clean sheet out over the cushions. Joel hands her a duvet that is probably the cleanest duvet I’ve seen since the outbreak and she spreads it out on top of her work, then finishes it with several pillows.
“Ta-da,” Ellie says, presenting it with her hand and a smile. “I hope it’s comfortable. Joel’s fallen asleep on it a few times by now, but that could just be ’cause he’s old.”
Joel ignores her teasing, coming in with hot mugs of tea.
In all the experiences I had with Joel a decade ago, I’ve never experienced something quite so…normal. So pre-outbreak. In this moment, he’s just a guy welcoming a guest to his house for the night with some tea and a nice, comforting fire in the fireplace. His shirt is dark green and washed well, not a drop of blood and barely a speck of dirt on the fabric. His hair looks a little long still, but neat, like he’s brushed it or even trimmed it, and his beard is the best I’ve seen it look since I got here.
“Hope you like chamomile,” Joel says wryly as he puts the mugs down on the coffee table. It’s just so fucking weird to see this. I love it.
“I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to see the menu first,” I retort.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ll be sure to mention your complaint to the manager.”
Ellie plops down on the end of the sofa she’s made up for me and grabs one of the mugs. “Do you mind if I sit here for a bit?”
“You can lie down if you need,” Joel offers me, handing me the second mug. Steam billows up into my face. I haven’t smelled herbal tea in a long time.
“I’m alright,” I smile, finding that I mean it. It’s warmer here than it was at the inn. The fire casts such a warm glow throughout the room, combined with the few table lamps that they’ve got scattered about the place. The living room is attached to the kitchen with an arch, the back window looking out at other houses beyond, all lit up with dim orange lights. I’ve not seen anything like this before.
“I’m glad you decided to stay with us,” Ellie says. “The inn’s nice, and all, but this is better.”
“Are you hungry?” Joel asks.
I shake my head.
“You need anythin’?”
His concern is comforting and jarring all at once. After what I did to him and Tommy, after just up and leaving in the middle of the night, I’d expected him to hate me. To be angry at me. To at least have questions for me before telling me he’d moved on, from it and from me. “I’m…actually good,” I answer. “Thank you. For letting me stay.”
Joel nods. He sits on the armchair next to mine, his legs spread with his elbows resting on them. His hands wring together, all callouses and bruises. Still I want to run my fingers over each bruise, each scar. Just like before. Nothing has changed.
I thought leaving would make it better.
He leans forward, wordless, and picks up his mug.
For a while, we just drink in silence. It’s nice, but something is hanging in the air that I don’t know what to do with.
“Ellie,” Joel’s voice comes up into the quiet, surprising me. “You mind givin’ us a minute?”
Ellie looks between us once, then gets up. “I’ll be in my room.”
Once she’s up the stairs, I look to Joel, a little wide-eyed. His leg is bouncing up and down a little, and I know that means that he wants to say something but isn’t sure how.
“Out with it,” I say softly.
A sad smile twitches at the corner of his lips closest to me. The firelight flickers golden against his skin, makes his beard look all the one colour. “Always did know how to read me,” he says to the floor.
I gulp. My mouth is dry, so I take a sip of tea. God, it’s so nice. He still doesn’t say anything, though. “Joel,” I say, “I understand if you’re…angry at me. I mean—whatever you feel about me, it’s okay. I understand. I screwed you over back then, and I…” I fade off when Joel starts to shake his head.
“You don’t know what I feel,” he says. Stares down at his mug.
He’s right.
“No,” I say, “I don’t.” And I don’t expect him to tell me.
Silence lingers on for another few minutes. I think about taking another sip of tea, about shifting in my seat or even trying to say something into the quiet. But it’s all I can do to stare at him, to take in the side profile of his face, his presence, things I never thought I’d see or feel again.
“Why’d you do it?” He asks then, unexpectedly.
“Why’d I do what?”
His eyes haven’t moved from his tea. “Why’d you leave?”
Heavily, I swallow. Thinking of the letter, of my smudged handwriting, the way my hands shook. The way I hesitated before I tossed it into the fire. The way I looked at Joel’s sleeping form before taking off, second guessing my decision for just that split second. My heart had ached at the sight of him, and that’s how I knew I needed to go.
Because, during the apocalypse, you can’t afford to fall in love.
I thought it was safer, back then, to not tell him why. There was a tiny chance that he felt the same, and if he did, he might have tried to come after me. And the worst part was: I wanted him to.
“Do you really want to know?” I ask. Because, if he does, I’ll tell him the truth. He deserves that. After all this time, he deserves that.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
Okay.
Okay.
This is fine.
Staring down at my own mug now, I exhale, trying not to shake. “You know that in times like these, caring for someone is what gets you killed,” I start. "Especially the way we lived back then."
“I…guess.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I…it’s complicated.”
Great. Because we all need it more complicated. “Ellie told me about Tess,” I say, not really sure why that’s the direction I’m going in.
He freezes. “Why are you bringing that up?”
“Because you know. You know that caring about someone is dangerous.”
“How the hell is Tess relevant? I’m asking about why you left me. Years before Tess. Years before any of this.” He’s getting frustrated, and he turns his head towards me, just about meeting my eyes. The fire is reflected in his. “She ain’t the only one I’ve ever cared about since this shit started.”
“I know. You’ve got Tommy. Ellie now.…”
“That’s not who I meant.”
I swallow again, forcing back the nervous tears. “Well. I…Joel…”
“Just tell me,” he growls. “Please, just tell me. It ain’t bad enough that I’ve been wonderin’ for all these years, that when you didn’t come back I thought you were dead and all this time I assumed—”
“I had feelings for you,” I blurt out. He freezes again, this time with his eyes on me, staring with his head tilted slightly towards me. His body still faces the rest of the room, but it feels like he’s closer to me, like he’s all I can feel around me.
“What?”
My breaths are trembling. “I had feelings for you. There. See? You see now why I had to leave?”
“I…no,” he frowns. “No, I don’t.”
My eyebrows raise, incredulous. “It was dangerous, Joel! You always used to say that you had to keep your distance from people. We used to say that. I know you know what I’m talking about. I know you, Joel, or at least I used to. Having people close isn’t—isn’t something that feels safe. For either of us. And feelings like that? They’re impossible to get away from. I couldn’t take the risk that it’d put us—you—in danger.”
He looks away, and I wish he wouldn’t.
I just stare at him. Breathless. Wishing I had something more coherent to say. “Joel…” my voice comes out quieter than I’d thought it would. “I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted to protect you. I didn’t want to put any of us in danger, and I…didn’t want you to be in the position where you felt you had to reject me. Things didn’t need to be any more complicated than they already were.”
“Reject you,” he mutters, right under his breath, like he’s saying it to himself.
“You can understand that,” I plead, “right?” I don’t know why I feel like begging for his forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I don’t even know if I want it from him. It’s easier to believe that he’s angry, bitter. That he just wants to see the back of me once this is all over.
But I’m sitting in his living room under a blanket that he draped over my lap, holding a mug of tea that he made for me. It’s so clear in every moment I’m here that he doesn’t hate me, and that makes this harder. If he doesn’t hate me, then it means he could…that he could feel…
He stands up. I scramble for something to say to get him to stay.
“Joel,” I say, “Joel, you wanted to know the truth. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t want to make things weird—”
He holds up a hand. I stop talking. “Just…” he says, “just…give me some time. I just…let me think.”
I can’t tell him no.
The stairs creak. We both look up at the same time and find Ellie standing at the top of them, a question on her face.
“Sorry,” she says, “I just…I needed something from the kitchen. I’ll just…” she starts to turn around, but Joel stops her.
“No, it’s alright. Come on down. We were just headed to bed.”
Oh.
Ellie cautiously comes downstairs, standing in the room entrance like she knows she’s interrupted something.
“It’s alright,” I offer her a smile. I know when Joel is done talking. “We were finished. I’m real tired, and I’ve put you guys out enough tonight.”
“You haven’t,” Ellie says and relaxes, heading into the kitchen.
Joel heads towards the stairs. I half expect him to turn back to me, to at least mutter a Goodnight. But he doesn’t.
Somehow, I feel like I’ve fucked things up even more than I already had. Reopening old wounds and making new ones. Maybe even embarrassing myself at the same time by telling Joel the real truth.
Great.
Fuck.
-
The next morning, I wake as the sun rises.
The curtains in the living room are thin, so the sun shines through them in long, orange beams, casting a spotlight on the dust in the air. I’m comfortable, warm. I'm not in too much pain for once. For a moment, I just bask in all of that. I’m lying in a house that doesn’t have boarded up windows, and I feel safe.
Footsteps on the stairs gently pull me from my thoughts. I turn my head and see Joel at the bottom of them, wearing pyjamas. Fucking pyjamas. I have never seen that before in my life and, God, it’s a lot to take in. Checked, dark blue sweatpants and an old black T-shirt, showing the expanse of his arms. I don’t know how he isn’t cold, but I’m grateful.
The look on my face must make him think he woke me. “Sorry,” he mutters, “these damn stairs are always creakin’. You can go back to sleep, I’ll tell Ellie to be quiet.”
I shake my head. “I was already awake.”
He offers a smile. It’s genuine, but awkward. Then he walks into the kitchen, and it’s all I can do to watch him. A part of me expects him to say something, to bring up our conversation last night, to bring up anything, actually. Even a conversation about the weather would be enough.
But instead, he’s quiet. Brooding, more accurately.
And I don’t feel that I can say anything. He said he needed time to think.
So I give him it.
For four agonising days, I give him it.
He still talks to me, still looks after me with the help of Ellie; brings me food, blankets, sits and reads beside me in silence while I drift in and out of sleep. I wish I could reach out to him, take his hand, get him to hold me. It feels selfish to want those things, knowing that he’s still thinking about our conversation.
Or, at least, I assume he is. I hope he is. As much as it’s a conversation I never thought I’d have with him, we did have it, and it felt like it wasn’t quite finished.
But, I consider myself lucky beyond belief that he’s still talking to me at all.
It’s at the beginning of day five, when I’m finally moving around more, able to go to the bathroom myself and get myself a glass of water, that I decide I’m going to bring it up. I’ll broach the topic gently, give him every chance to tell me he’s not ready.
I thought that being still and stuck on the couch was bad for making me paranoid about what he could be thinking. Somehow, though, it’s worse now that I’m back on my feet.
Joel comes to me that morning when I’m pulling on a fresh pair of socks. (A fucking luxury.) He stands in front of my couch, his hands on his hips, not quite meeting my eyes.
“You alright?” I ask him.
There’s a look on his face that could be concerned or thoughtful, I’m not entirely sure. “You feelin’ up to a ride?”
God, yes. “Like, on patrol?” I feel the dull ache of my leg, and debate whether I’m able to do patrols yet. I’d try it. I just want to feel helpful.
“No, nothing like that,” Joel answers, silencing my thoughts. “Just wondered if you wanted to go for a ride. You know, for fun.”
“Oh,” I say. I don’t know why I’m dumbstruck. “Yeah. I—I’d like that.”
He nods and rubs at his beard again. (I wish he’d stop doing that. It drives me fucking crazy, imagining my own hands slipping through those short hairs, running up the sides of his face and into his hair.…) “I thought we could talk. Once we’re out there.”
“…Okay,” my heart does a little leap in my chest. I gulp down my nerves. “I’ll be ready in ten.”
“You let me know if you need help,” he offers. “I’ll come by with Felix.” Felix is the horse he’s taken a liking to the most here in town. I’ve not met him yet, but Joel and Ellie talk about him a lot.
“I can come to the stables,” I offer, even though walking any further than around the house is still a struggle.
He shakes his head, knowing this. “I’ll come by. Take your time.” And he’s out the door.
I know I said I was ready to talk—hell, I was going to initiate it—but it just got very real, very fast. I try not to let my mind race as I get ready; try not to imagine all the ways he could say Thanks, but I don’t feel the same about you, and so it was kinda pointless for you to leave in the first place.
Ten minutes later, I’ve managed to wrap myself up in some good winter gear: boots, a thick coat, scarf, hat, and some cosy gloves. My leg is still bandaged up beneath my pants, but it feels secure now rather than just painful to have something pressing against it. The jeans Maria gave me are a few sizes too big, so that they don’t press against the wound; I’m wearing one of Joel’s belts to keep them up.
He’s waiting at the stoop with Felix when I get out there, standing beside him with a hand on his neck.
“Stay on the step, I’ll give you a hand up,” he says. Felix has his side facing me, the stirrup ready for my good leg to fit into.
It takes a bit of struggling, a bit of grunting as pain shoots up and down me, but soon I’m up and sitting behind Joel.
“Hold on to me,” Joel instructs, soft, as he gathers the reins in one hand.
I do. It might be my only chance, so I do.
{chapter 3/5}
Chapter Two (Previous)
Series Masterlist
notes: thank u for reading! all interactions are always appreciated but comments and reblogs especially make my lil heart go brrrr <3
take care of yourself, it is the most important thing!
ps: some WIP fics i've got in my docs at the moment are actually written in second person instead of first like this one, i'd love to know your opinion on first vs second in reader-insert fics? also pls come and scream about the tlou show with me i have many feelings
♡here's a reblog-able masterlist for some invisible string♡
Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader
Rating: E
Status: Complete, 5 Chapters (21.5k words)
Summary: Ten years after Reader left Joel for reasons he still doesn’t know, they find themselves together again in a town called Jackson. Joel has questions he’s too afraid to ask; and Reader dreads having to give the answers.
Tags/Warnings: smut, post TLOU part I, jackson era joel, second chance love
*indicates smut
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V*
Also on AO3!
{any requests for this series? hmu ♡}
fic masterlist (lots of joel, lots of din djarin, more to come ♥)
