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sempersirens · 10 months

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a bird in your teeth, epilogue

masterlist

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

warnings: mentions of past trauma, ptsd, nightmares. so much fluff

a/n: a little palate cleanser. sun bleached flies joel is on the naughty step rn

December 24th, (five years later)

God only knows, what I'd be without you...

The TV turned black as the credits rolled, only the warm flickering lights from the Christmas tree left to illuminate the room.

You took a steady breath in through your nose and locked eyes with Sarah, both suppressing a laugh before simultaneously turning to finally face Joel, who had been trying to silently bite back small sobs for the past forty-five minutes.

"How you holding up, boys?" Sarah teased, lovingly.

"You girls are damn evil. Pickin' such an emotional film on Christmas Eve."

"It's heartwarming!" You interjected.

"My heart is feelin' a lot of things right now but warm ain't one of 'em." Tommy murmured, wiping his eyes with the back of his sweatshirt.

"I just can't believe neither of you had ever watched Love Actually."

"May 'swell have, the number of times I've seen you two watchin' it, all damn year round," Joel said.

"Keep talking like that, Miller, and I won't make you an Irish coffee." You warned, earning oooh's from Tommy and Sarah.

You pulled yourself off the sofa and moved to the kitchen, proving your threat entirely empty. As you pottered around the room, collecting all of the ingredients for the drinks, you listened to the noise of the three people you loved most in the world simply existing in the room next to you. The haze of their laughter mixed with the song still warbling through the TV was softened by the wall separating you, a honeyed prayer just for you.

Somehow, life kept moving after that night. Everything thereafter seemed to be measured in the passing of time. Four days for your lip to heal. Three weeks for you to return Daisy's calls. Seven months until you could stop taking the long route to pick Sarah up and drive down that street again. Two years for the panic attacks to stop, for good. Five years, and counting, for an uninterrupted night's sleep.

Two months passed before your tenancy was over, but you had woken beside Joel each morning nonetheless. Sometimes, before the others had risen for the day, you would creep down the stairs and pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit on the porch, and look at that house across the street. You would watch the lights slowly turn on, see the silhouette of life taking shape. A young family had taken over your lease, and it comforted you to know another life was being nurtured within those walls.

Neither you nor Joel had ever discussed what happened that morning in that apartment. And you didn't need to know; you were content with the understanding you both did what you needed to go on. Call it closure.

"What's goin' on in that head of yours, pretty girl?" You felt his chest pressing against your back, his arms leaning on either side of your body, entrapping you against the counter.

His face nuzzled in the curve of your neck, breath tickling your hair against your skin.

"Just wondering if you're on the nice list this year." You turned to face him, staring up through your lashes at the man you love.

"That so? We've got about," he checked his watch, "two hours until midnight. M'sure I can do enough to make it on each of your nice lists for the next twenty years."

"You're planning on keeping me around for that long? Maybe I'll have a love affair with a real cowboy." You teased.

"Good luck gettin' him to watch a Hugh Grant film with ya."

You rested your hands on his face, using your thumb to trace his cheek lightly.

"How did I get so lucky?" You smiled, shaking your head softly in disbelief.

There had always been a surplus of love inside you, even when you were little. Throughout your life, you had poured it into the wrong people, time and time again. Belittled, taken for granted, chastised. Even though the love remained, you had grown to fear it. It would be like riding an escalator and instinctively grabbing the handrail, but being zapped by an electric shock. Each time thereafter, your hand would hesitate in reaching for the supportive grip. Sometimes it would tentatively hover above, trying to gage the sting of electricity a few millimetres away.

But loving Joel came so easy. Everything about him made you want to tear yourself open and offer him everything you had, everything you ever had been, and all you ever would be. You would wake in the night simply craving the feeling of his skin against yours. And every single time you reached out to him, even in his sleep, he would pull you in.

From the other room, an old Christmas song hummed through the walls.

Merry Christmas, baby / Sure did treat me nice...

"I should be the one askin' that question, darlin'." His right hand flexed in and out of a tight fist, the same way it did when he felt a bout of anxiety rise in his chest.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" You asked, concern digging itself into the furrow of your brows.

"I'm no good at this, you know that."

"No good at what, Joel?"

He pulled away from you slightly, lowering himself onto one knee, suppressing the groan you knew he desperately wanted to release at the tightness of his back and knees.

"My sweet girl, I will never understand why y'picked me. Out of all the men in this damn world, even Hugh Grant, I get to be the one who calls you mine."

"Joel..."

"I don't know much, but I know that I need t'spend the rest of my life by your side. And I need you by mine. Would you do me the honour of being my wife?"

"Oh my god, yes! Of course, I will, Joel."

Joel slipped the ring he had presented from a small box in his back pocket onto your finger. His smile showed off the creases by his eyes that you often wished you could dive into and engulf yourself in each feeling that caused them to deepen.

"Get up, you idiot. Your poor back. I don't want to be pushing you around in a wheelchair just yet." You laughed into his kiss, your bodies merging together like it was all they had ever been made to do.

"Can we come in yet?" Sarah called from around the corner.

"Yes! Come in, both of you." You replied, cheeks wet and aching from the smile etched into your face.

"No chance of those Irish coffees, I guess?" Tommy smirked, you softly clipped him round the back of the head before suffocating him into a hug. "Welcome to the family, Mrs Miller."

Merry Christmas, honey / Everything here is beautiful, I love you, baby / For everything that you give me.

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #my fic #joel miller x female reader #joel tlou #the last of us #tlou fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #a bird in your teeth #a bird in your teeth fic #dee writes

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jace-the-writer-guy · 3 years

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M.I.A. Part Two

"My name... is Cameron Roberts. I am a Ghost operative under the orders of Commander Riley Black," Viper, or rather Cameron, said to Auron and Shyla as she sat on one of the two couches in the Karmine family living room. Cameron had taken her gear off and was left in her pants and a sports bra, which revealed her toned and fit body along with a few viking tattoos she had on her forearms, her right hand, and her back, "In... my own world, I was on an operation to take down a private military company called Sentinel that took a company called Skell Tech hostage and forced them to create weapons and drones. After the threat of the T-800 Terminators on Auroa was neutralized with the help of another Ghost and a person from the future that warned us of them, I was ordered to investigate and destroy the portal technology that Skell was being forced to experiment on. I activated the self destruct sequence, and the portal turned on and sucked me into it. The next thing I knew... I was in the forest where you found me."

"That ain't the weirdest thing I've heard for someone from earth showin' up here. You ain't a monster hunter like the others were on their earth." Auron remarked, leaning back in the cushions of the couch.

Cameron blinked a few times. "If this is all real, then... What exactly is this world?"

Auron and Shyla both spent the next hour or so explaining to Cameron about the new world she had found herself in. They explained all the kingdoms and continents to her, along with the faunus race. And Auron had of course told her of the creatures of Grimm and told her about each type of Grimm that had been discovered, including the Beowulves that he saved her from. He also told her that they were at his home in Anima, south of the Kingdom of Mistral.

Safe to say, it was a lot to take in for Cameron and it left her just sitting in silence for several moments. Her arm had been bandaged up on the way to the house. She just didn't know what to say, let alone think. She was just suddenly thrust into a world so foreign and so much more deadly than her own. Even past the constant worry of terrorism or even war of her home, this world called Remnant and it's inhabitants were dealing with far worse with the constant battles against those monsters all over the world in a huge struggle for survival, and the Grimm were unrelenting.

Cameron began to hold her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees. "I know it's a lot to take in, but it's real," Auron said softly to her, "We'll offer our home to ya to stay in until you feel like you're ready to live in this world."

"I... a-appreciate it," Cameron replied shakily, "Where's your bathroom?"

Shyla stood up from the couch, leaving Dusk to lay next to Auron, and put her hand on Cameron's shoulder. "I'll lead you to it. I wouldn't mind taking a look at your guns if you're okay with that."

"Umm... sure." Came Cameron's quiet reply.

Shyla led Cameron through her home and eventually led her to the bathroom, where Cameron quietly closed the door after thanking Shyla. She turned the light on and went to the sink, then she turned the cold water on. She cupped her hands under the stream of water and closed her eyes, and she splashed it in her face, hoping the cold would wake her up from this dream. She opened her eyes after she did that and saw that she was still in the Karmine home. She let out a sigh before she grabbed a rag and soaked it in water, and then she started to wipe her face paint off, along with the dirt and grime that had accumulated on her face and arms. When she finished with that, she dried off with a towel and she looked at herself in the mirror.

This was real.

Cameron could feel her eyes begin to sting with tears as it completely set in for her. She would possibly never be able to return home, and never see her family or friends ever again. Her tears began to stream down her cheeks as she walked out of the bathroom and through the house, and she walked outside past Auron and Shyla. She sat on the top step and rested her arms on her knees, and she buried her face in them and she just began to sob and cry uncontrollably.

She was a trained soldier that was trained to accept the fact that on any given day, she wouldn't be able to make it home. But that was only for if she was killed in battle. Now she was so far from home and she had no way of ever returning. It was hitting her hard to say the least. Auron and Shyla could hear her cries from where they sat, but they both figured that it was best to let her be alone for right now and let out everything that she could. Her cries lasted for several long, heartbreaking minutes before they eventually softened and Cameron calmed herself down as best she could.

She raised her head up and just leaned against the post next to her. She had no more tears left to shed right now. Her eyes still stung, but Cameron didn't care. She pulled her Desert Eagle from its holster on her hip and held it in both her hands for several moments, and she held the top of the slide against her had with the barrel nowhere near pointed at herself. She closed her eyes and started muttering to herself.

"Odin... I've failed my oath to protect my home. I don't know if I can ever return so if you're listening, give my family the strength to make it through whatever news they get about me. But I'll make a new oath right here. I might not be able to protect the people of my home, but I will still give my life to protect the innocent here in this new world and honor you and my ancestors. I may never see my family again... but I won't let that break my spirit. I will keep fighting and I will do my best to protect the innocent of this world."

Cameron holstered her pistol and looked out over the treetops, and she heard the door open behind her. A second or so later, she felt a hand on her shoulder. "We'll get you some new clothes an' you can take a good shower," Auron said to her, "We'll get your aura unlocked sometime in the next couple o' days, an' maybe get you somethin' other than a knife. If you run outta ammo, you're gonna need somethin' bigger to protect yourself. Plus we gotta keep an eye out for what your semblance may be."

Cameron turned and looked at him. "My fucking what?"

"Basically a super power," Auron explained to her, "Mine lets me make metal from dirt."

Cameron let out a short breath and shook her head. "Odin give me strength..."

"You'll have to tell me who that is. But for now, come on. We gotta get you some clothes an' some food."

X x X x X

"Hmmm..." Cameron frowned a bit as she held a sword in her hand. After a week of letting the former Ghost operative grow used to being in the world of Remnant, Auron and Shyla took her out into Mistral so she can find out what type of melee weapon she could go with in case she needed it. She had her combat knife of course, but if those Grimm could be bigger than the Beowulves she had encountered, she could definitely use something a bit bigger for if and when she runs out of ammo in the field with whatever work she takes.

"This one doesn't feel that nice in my hand." Cameron finally said and put the sword back on the wall where she got it from.

"Well, we're seeing what you might want for yourself," Shyla told her, "We aren't going to make you pick one of these to use since they aren't made special for one person."

"You've been through a lot the last week an' wakin' up your aura seemed to take a lot out of ya, so I'll be makin' whatever you think you'd want after you figure it out and give me the details." Auron said as he leaned against the wall nearby.

Cameron lowered her hands to her sides and looked back up to the wall where all the weapons were. If she was going to have a melee weapon, she would definitely like a good sword. And if she was going to have a sword, she wanted one that would be something her ancestors would wield into battle. She never thought she would train to fight with a sword but this new world she found herself in was going to test her strength in more ways than one. She began to clench her fists and continued to look over the weapons with a bit more determination, and then she felt her right hand begin to clench around something. When she looked down, her eyes widened as she was now suddenly clutching the ghostly hilt of a sword. The hilt and crossguard looked very familiar to her.

"I-is this..." She watched the blade begin to form and take an ethereal glow. The sword grew to the size of a bastard sword with just enough room on the hilt for both her hands to hold if needed, "Hǫfuð?"

///A ghostly, ethereal version of this sword///

"Ummm... what?" Shyla asked her curiously.

"Where I'm from, the movies that featured this sword called it Hofund, so you can go with that," Cameron replied and held the sword in the air, "Where did this come from? Was it a gift from Odin?"

Auron began to grin. "Seems to me like you already figured out your semblance. Guess you had some pretty strong feelin's about home. What's that sword supposed to be?"

Cameron gulped a bit and let out a slow breath. "Hǫfuð, or Hofund, is the sword used by Heimdallr to guard the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard in Norse mythology, and my heritage traces far back to the vikings that believed in the Norse gods. It took the form of the sword used in some super hero movies back home, and all my tattoos are tributes to my heritage."

She released her grip on the hilt and the sword began to vanish. "And... you said that's my semblance?"

Auron nodded. "Right. No other way to explain it, unless you wanna go with it bein' a gift from your God. Could be both, who knows."

"Well, now we know that you won't have to make her a sword," Shyla said playfully, "Now that that's settled, I think we should go get something to eat. Then we can go back home and talk about the ammo Cameron here uses for her guns."

Cameron felt herself filled with new waves of determination and she nodded. "That sounds good to me. Thank you both for everything over the last week. And please, just call me Cammie from now on."

#oc #cameron 'viper' roberts #auron karmine #shyla karmine #dusk the puggle wuggle #ghost recon breakpoint #rwby oc #ghost recon

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