from beginning to end - prologue
pairing: joel miller x f!reader
summary: the relationship you have with joel is a long and complicated one. it started as only working on a single job together, but it eventually blossomed into something more. on one lazy afternoon, you reflect on the time you spent together, the good and the ugly.
word count: 1.3k
a/n: this is a prologue to a short series i’ve been working for the past two weeks and i’m excited to finally be publishing it! the first part will probably be up within the next few days.
This new relationship with Joel is in a whole new territory. You haven’t gotten used to it just yet. Never in a million years did you imagine yourself to be this happy. When you first met him, the last thing you ever expected was to move in with him two years later, let alone, fall in love with him.
When you first met, it was purely by accident. You had stumbled across his path in an abandoned building within the QZ, waiting for a contact of yours, when he had shown up. You both were on edge, not knowing the other was the person you were supposed to meet. Both of your weapons were drawn. The moment all hell was about to break loose, is when a mutual contact of yours showed up- Tess. She was the reason why neither of you shot the other dead.
Never would you have imagined the man who pulled a gun on you in that disgusting, dusty room would be the same man you imagined a future with.
Since the outbreak began over fifteen years ago, you never imagined (or allowed) yourself to be happy. You never put the amount of faith in someone as you have in Joel. The more you trust someone, the more it’ll hurt when they ultimately betray you.
But not with Joel.
You know Joel would rather put himself through hell and back just to make sure you didn’t get hurt. It’s not often he would do that for another person. There’s only a handful of people on this Earth he would do that for, and the latest person he would do that for is you. When he met you that afternoon, he thought the only time he would see you would be the job Tess had both recommended you for. Oh, how wrong he would be.
Truth be honest, he found you infuriating at first during the beginning of your relationship. You would be constantly asking him questions, or talking almost nonstop to fill the silence in the air.
That was the first major difference between the two of you. He grew to love the silence that would linger whenever he would travel with Tess beyond the walls of the QZ, but traveling with you was the complete opposite. It was rare when there was silence, where you could hear the nearby ambience.
It irritated Joel at first. All he wanted to do was to get the job done and get back to Boston as soon as possible, but the thing that aggravated him the most about you eventually became one of the first things that made him fall in love with you. It’s not often that he meets someone else who has such opposing views on the world as him, even when that person has lost so much already.
The way Joel sees the world is so much different than how you see it. He sees it in a much darker, grittier, way. For years, he always assumed the worst in others, believing they wanted something in return or they simply wanted something for their own benefit. He thought the moment he trusted them, they would just stab him in the back. He’s a pessimist. That tends to happen when everyone you love has been taken from you in such a brutal way- to see the darkness before the light.
You, on the other hand, see the light. You see the good in people over the bad. Even when they’ve left you with an unbearable betrayal, you still value their virtues over their flaws. The world has left you so much pain from the years since the outbreak began, a pain you never thought you would be able to overcome.
Every time another loss was brought upon you, it seemed like the grief would consume you, but you refuse to let it. The world has shown you its ugly side time and time again, but you refuse to let yourself cave into it.
Rather, you see the beauty inside of the ugly. It’s hard to do it at times, really hard on your bad days, but you refuse to see the world in such a negative way. You’re not naïve at the thought that there aren't bad people in the world, but managing to find at least one good thing in someone helps to fight the dark clouds that linger in your mind.
That’s something Joel struggles with. He always sees the bad over the good. He’s seen the real world and what it’s like. He’s aware of the selfish intentions of others, how they’re only looking out for themselves. He’s a realist. He doesn’t hold onto false hope in believing that humanity will get better in the near future. The hope of any kind of miracle or a vaccine is long gone, no matter how hard others try to make it happen. It’s simply hard to look at things in such a bright way when it seems like the world is just a deep pit of despair.
Something you have always admired about Joel is the way he looks at the world. Not in the sense that everything is awful and probably won’t get any better anytime soon, but in the way that he doesn’t shy away from the reality of the real world. It’s not perfect. It’s far from being perfect. People are selfish and their actions tend to reflect that- they will do anything in their power to get what they want, and that usually means killing innocent people.
But that doesn’t mean you lose hope when it comes to the sake of humanity. You continue to hold onto the hope that things will get better someday, probably during a time you’ve long been dead. It’ll be well past your time, you think to yourself. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.
The one major flaw Joel in himself is the one you wished you had within yourself, and it was the first thing that made you fall in love with him- seeing the world as it is and not what you want it to be. He sees the world changing him for the worst, but you don’t see it that way. You see him as a brave, strong man willing to do anything and everything to protect those he loves- no matter the cost.
“What are you thinking about?” The sound of Joel’s voice traces you out of your thoughts.
The sensation of his fingers running themselves through your hair for a few minutes, then grazing random shapes across your exposed skin, then returning to running through your hair once again was enough to lure you to sleep. Just the feeling of the sun beaming in your eyes, the sound of the nearby ambiance, and being wrapped in your lover’s embrace was enough to do that, but the feather-like touches of Joel’s fingers would have been the final thing that would allow you to cave in and drift off, but the sound of his voice stops you from doing so.
“Nothing, I just, uh-“ You begin as you look up at Joel from your current position of laying on his lap as he rests against a tree. “I was just thinking about us.”
“Yeah?” He asks with the slightest smirk on his face. It’s a recent thing to refer to your relationship with Joel as being an ‘us,’ something more than ‘just friends’ or two people who sleep together. It’s a whole new territory for Joel, but he doesn’t seem to mind one bit- to be referred to as ‘yours.’
“Yeah. I was thinking of the day we met.” You confess as a deep vibration rumbles from his chest. The sound of his laughter surges a warm feeling within your own belly.
“It’s hard to believe that was nearly two years ago.” He admits.
“I know, it seems like forever ago.” You hum in agreement.
Flashes of that day flood your mind. How things were immediately tense between the two of you, how it seemed like your newly blossomed relationship was beginning to crumble as soon as it began, then how things changed by a simple confession.
The start at the beginning.
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wip last line tag game
ty @janaispunk for the tag!
I don't write in chronological order so these are not necessarily from the upcoming chapters, but I've got three for y'all that I've been working on today:
from ch. [redacted] of "you know you never stood a chance"
You scuff the toe of your boot in the dirt. “Why’re y’all like this?” you grumble.
from pt. [redacted] of "all I did was what I had to"
You’re up on your knees in a flash, lunging half out of the window to cling to him. He wraps the gun-free arm around your shoulder and pats you on the back.
and from my currently untitled dead dove december joel one- or two-shot
No, he thinks, it’s not his fault. He didn’t owe you a warning. You should have just accepted it and obeyed.
(how tf did these all end up being joel lol. sorry din)
no pressure tags, sorry if you've already been tagged: @lincolndjarin @covetyou @alwaysmicado @milla-frenchy
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the idea of a life without ellie, without his daughter, spurred a feeling so violent within him he thought he was going to vomit. to have to keep living without her, failing to protect her like how he failed his sarah. his skin crawled at the thought. he felt bile bubbling up his throat as if it were egging him on.
joel’s world was crumbling around him for the second time in twenty years. his daughter slipping through the cracks, just out of reach. threatening to leave him, to abandon him, to force him to suffer in this cruel world all alone. he wanted to fall to his knees and scream as tears ran down his face.
somehow, ellie's corny jokes had wormed their way into the cracks of his broken heart and stitched him back together again. but just as quickly as joel began to mend, his heart shattered into pieces again, old wounds reopened.
joel miller had found a reason to live for the first time in twenty years, and he wasn’t going to lose her again.
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The Last of Us Plot Bunny
The end of the world occurred not once but twice for Harlow Reyes. When she was just eight years old, her mother was killed in a car accident, and while she was still reeling from the shock and grief, civilization fell apart around her as an unknown virus infected humanity, pitting everyone against each other. And just like that, her simple, peaceful life became a living, waking nightmare- one that she didn’t have a chance of surviving. But when all hope was lost, her savior arrived.
In her dreams, Harlow had always pictured one of her uncles appearing out of the darkness to save her. What she had never imagined was that her savior would take the form of a twenty-two year old girl caked in grime and blood with a wild look in her eyes and a dark outlook on life.
To this day, Harlow still can’t say why Ruth Burns decided to not only save her life that day, but every day afterward for the next eighteen years. All she knows is that she wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Ruth, and the day would soon come for Harlow to pay her back for all that she had done for her.
Forever Tag: @darknightfrombeyond @arrthurpendragon @foxesandmagic @bravelittleflower @darkwolf76 @stareyedplanet @thophil2941btw
(If you want to be added to my taglist, send me an ask or message!)
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