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sprout-fics · 10 months

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Woodsmoke (Joel Miller x F! Reader x Joe 'Bear' Graves)

Chapter Two: Smoke

Masterlist

Rating: Mature (Rating will change) Word Count: 7k Warnings: Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault (Non-explicit) Tags: Character Study, Angst (Literally so much angst), AU- Canon divergence, Sheep Farmer Joel Miller, Patrolman Joe 'Bear' Graves, Domesticity, PTSD, Night Terror, Cuddling by a campfire, Touch starvation, Unrequited pining, Complicated emotional relationships A/N: This is part two of me going 'Lol what if these two DILFs in a threesome' and then rapidly descending into a 20k character study fic, many hours watching Six and re-watching TLOU, and countless conversations with @writeforfandoms @guyfieriii and @soapskneebrace (To whom this series is dedicated to) Also it's been literally four months since I posted the first chapter Jesus fuck I'm so sorry ahahahaha

Summary:

Bear, by contrast, is a the bright, licking heat of a campfire. The gentle glow of him in the distance brings you closer, beckons your cold hands into the warmth of him. You bask in the entrancing flicker of him, watch with glinting eyes the dance of the flames, unable to look away. It tugs something in your chest that wants more but knows that if you reach your hands into the flare that you might somehow breathe in the flames, allow him to burn the hollow of your ribs to make space there just for him.

It takes time for you to notice, but you see the way Bear holds himself in his frustration, in the vague mentions of before that you hear Caulder and the others murmur about in hushed tones. There's something in Bear that has been broken long ago, and the pain of it threatens to bubble to the surface, snap like the sudden crack of a log that sends sparks scattering up into the nighttime sky. It's a dangerous, searing thing that he refuses to show to you no matter how much it consumes him. A ferocious, burning brightness that sets himself ablaze to keep others warm, even if it means turning to cinders as a result.

Instead, he sets his gaze upon you. You see embers dance in the darkness of his pupils, a hypnotizing temptation that you want to touch even though it might singe the edges of your soul. The presence of him threatens to burn your world to ashes, if only so he can lift you from the carnage and into his hands, cradle you there until you surrender to him.

It takes weeks for you to approach these strange new men in the place you call home.

Joel offers them the house on the hill, on the other side of the valley. You watch from the kitchen as he invites the men inside the house, keeps them corralled to the living room and away from you, sheltering in the kitchen. Your hands, damp with soap and water, tremble from the presence of strangers, of armed men, of the threat of danger-

Yet Joel's voice wafts from the doorway. Low, even, like the slow, murmuring crackle of a fire against your too cold palms. The warmth draws away the chill of your memories, the ones where silhouettes in the dark reach for you with grasping hands. You focus instead on the sound of his voice, feel your shoulders shift and sink, reminding yourself that even in the presence of these strangers, Joel will keep you safe. He always will.

Eventually you peek from the archway as the conversation continues, carefully observe the men who Joel has entrusted to keep the farm safe.

There's four of them. Two sit with their backs to you, one of them with his back turned towards you, his dark skin cast in warmer hues by the fireplace beside him. To his left is his thinner, wiry comrade. You saw him look at you from his horse, face calm but eyes sharp. Ready as you stood trembling with the shotgun in your hands. He seems to hear you behind him, casting a brief gaze over his shoulder as if checking behind him before he faces forward again. The motion draws the attention of his friend, who makes a larger effort to glance at you, offering a kind smile that you briefly return.

Across from the two of them, Chase and Fish, you later learn their names are, is a man who appears so much younger than he truly is. He looks almost boyish despite the flecks of grey beginning in his curly, dusty blonde hair. Caulder, you're told later, doesn't glance at you, instead focused unwaveringly on Joel, who speaks in low, serious tones with the man seated beside him.

Bear.

Bear sits with his arms crossed, feet planted and legs spread. Whereas Joel bends forward, his elbows on his knees in contemplation, Bear looks alert, observant, ready for motion at the drop of a hat as he leans back, arms crossed. He regards Joel silently as he speaks, listens respectfully with little nods and noises of affirmation. When he does speak, his voice is a low, dragging mumble that has you sometimes struggle to make out the words. Yet there's a steadiness to his tone, an unflinching resolution that's reassuring in the face of the danger posed to you all.

It's only when Joel looks away for a brief moment towards one of the other men that Bear looks up at you from under thick eyebrows, the lines near his eyes wrinkling in a gentle, entreating smile.

You feel your heart thump in your chest a little louder, trying to decipher apprehension from the vague stir of interest at the kindness that glints against blue eyes.

Eventually the men stand, and Bear clasps his hand against Joel's in some sort of agreement you can't make out. They shuffle outside, and you hover at the door of the kitchen, a touch nervous, as they each give you a small nod or 'ma'am' as they pass. Bear brings up the rear, once more pauses, draws your eyes up to his taller form.

"You let us know if you need anything, yeah?" He offers, voice a low, soothing murmur that feels all too much like autumn wind through the shade of the forest.

You only nod at him, once more feel that strange stirring in your chest, one that almost wants to reach out, ask more of him that you know how to.

He leaves, and you watch from the window of the front door as the four of them set about tending to their horses, leading them up the hill and towards the barn nestled next to the pastures.

Joel stands with his hand on the frame of the door until they've left the perimeter of the house before turning to you. You blink at the wrinkle of his brow, the thin, taut line of his lips that you know to be displeasure.

"You don't have to talk to those boys if you don't want to, understand?" He tells you, and you watch his scarred hand curl on the wooden plane of the door. "If they make problems, you let me know."

You nod at that, still a little unsettled by Joel's tone, the way he seems to both trust and distrust these men he's summoned. Yet when you listen to the echo of his words in your thoughts, you realize there's something there you almost missed. Something that almost sounds possessive.

Yet then you watch Joel's shoulder sink all of a fraction, his fist drop from the door as he carefully closes the distance between you. His hand is warm when it lands on your shoulder, familiar and welcome. Even though he doesn't speak, there's words conveyed there that you understand in the absence of his voice.

We'll be okay. I've got you. I trust you.

Please trust me too.

----

You avoid them.

Bear bypasses Joel’s offer of the desolate house atop the other side of the valley, says it’s better to be close to the barn. They set up camp in the hayloft, the four of them crammed together in such a way that there's scantly any space between them. It helps, you think. The nights get frigid in the shadow of the valley, and more than one night you think about how they might be cold, might be sore from the wooden planks under their backs. It's not comfortable by any means, the barn is drafty and musky with the scent of the horses and manure. Yet you don't hear a single word of complaint from them in the mornings from the group aside from a grumble or a grunting stretch. There's a hardiness, a drive and resolve to them that you both recognize and are unfamiliar with.

They're different from the FEDRA soldiers. They're humble, respectful, and don’t use their positions as armed guards to sway you or intimidate you. Yet there's some recollection in your memory of the way they shove playfully at each other, the appreciation they have for their weapons, the way they snap to attention when given instructions. The glint of focus, of something dangerous and intense in their gazes has you maintain a berth when you can, heart murmuring in caution at the unknowable things in their eyes.

You wonder who they all were before this.

You try not to think about it too much.

Joel puts them to work soon after they arrive, and you're surprised by the shortlist of tasks he gives them, as if he's been waiting for the extra help. There's repairs made to the roof, fences mended in the disused pasture, the well is dug deeper, and you soon find even your chores being assisted with. The men grumble at first about the labor, but a firm word from Bear has them shrug, set about aiding where they can. It's a welcome help, and you can't deny the relief at having some more time to yourself as a result.

If Joel sees you drape extra blankets on the ladder to the hayloft, he doesn't say anything.

You pass your new guests throughout the day, still trying to make yourself scarce where you can. They're rowdy with each other, words sometimes a little too biting and caustic for comfort. More than once you come into the barn to see them boyishly tugging at each other, only to freeze when they spot you. You wonder if maybe you make them uncomfortable with your skittishness around them.

When they do approach you, however, it's always with good intentions, offers of assistance in the task you've set out with. You see Bear always watching them from the corner of his eye as they near you, ready to step in at the moment you shy away. It happens more than once, at least in the beginning, and it's Bear's firm hand on the shoulder of one of his men that alerts them, tugs them away from your nervous, shifting stance.

Always, there's an apology on his lips, a careful offering that has you meet his gaze once more.

You think the blue of his eyes looks like a gentle summer rainstorm.

The men take shifts once darkness begins to fall. There's a smaller camp set up at the top of the valley, in the vein that runs between the hills. It's simple. A tent, a campfire, and a loaded gun to fire into the darkness of the valley below in case of an attack. You look to the orange haze of the fire at night, high up on the rise. You stand, watching it sometimes from the porch, a shawl wrapped around your shoulders, praying the fire doesn't go out, that raiders don't descend into this place you've come to call home.

Joel sits outside with you some nights, doing much the same, as if he himself doesn't entirely trust the soldiers he's hired to properly warn you all of danger. Yet when the hour grows late he suggests, in that gruff and stubborn way of his, that you go inside and sleep.

You do and try not to think of the memory of a bonfire licking at the stars and the screams of others in the freeze of a winter forest. The phantom sound of the shotgun haunts your dreams, waiting for the moment it will crack like the sound of thunder and rain chaos down on you all.

When morning comes, it's quiet once more.

It's on one of those quiet mornings that you run into Bear.

The forest path is soddened from the drizzle of the night before, the world still muted and grey as the last of the rain moves through the mountains. Sunlight weaves its way through the canopy of trees and overcast clouds, dappling bright for mere moments before it's shielded once more. You walk under it, further into the woods where Joel's animal traps lay, where kindling lays against the bases of trees, knocked loose by the storm. You gather the damp branches idly, gingerly checking the snares that yield little success in the over-picked glade.

It's the small bit of pale color in the corner of your vision that makes you pause, turn to examine the strange flora that sprouts from the remains of a rotted log. Mushrooms, the kind untouched by the apocalypse, reclusive and now rare. Their small, ridged, white caps poke from the deciduous ground, and as you gently pad over, kneel with your legs in the soft, damp earth to examine them, you can't help but wonder if they're edible.

You reach for them, dirt smeared fingers outstretched, eyes enraptured by the silent, strange symbolism of them.

The snap of a branch behind you.

You gasp, twist so violently you fall on your bottom, kindling spilling and fingers fumbling for the knife at your waist to whatever predator has stalked you through these woods. You draw it up with a trembling grasp, holding the blade outwards even as your arms try to draw into yourself as a shield from danger.

You expect a wolf, or perhaps a mountain lion or lynx. Yet standing before you is none of those things. Instead, it's a man, standing at a distance, his hands held up in a gentle entreaty, brow furrowed in concern. His looming stature towers over your fallen form, eyes gentle as he realizes he's startled you.

It occurs to you then, in gazing into his blue-eyed stare, that you know this man.

"Bear." You breathe at last, muscles loosening. Yet even then you don't tuck away the blade entirely, lowering it enough for Bear to ease his stance, wet his lips before he speaks.

"I- uhm, didn't mean to startle you." He offers, and still does not yet lower his hands from either side of his head in surrender, keeping them well away from the rifle slung over his shoulder. "I was doing a patrol, thought maybe you heard me coming."

You blink, and his soft, rumbling voice manages to slow your stammering heartbeat. The cool, damp earth presses into your lower back, with you braced against the rotten log like it can somehow provide you shelter.

When you don't speak, Bear's eyes flicker to the mushrooms you were so close to touching, and there's a flicker of amused disbelief that tugs the corner of his mouth, makes a single eyebrow raise.

"...Sure you want to eat those?" He tries to joke, and the humor should relax you but it doesn't. Instead, with Bear's massive form standing over you a distance away, your mind summons memories of a dark figure backlit by a roaring campfire, the glint of a blade held in his hand. He steps towards you in your memories, even as you scramble backwards in the snow, feet kicking uselessly as he advances on you-

"You alright?"

Bear's voice breaks the memory, and your eyes flicker up to his once more, seeing the confusion and concern etched across his gaze.

You try to speak, you do, but instead your mouth opens and closes uselessly, hands shaking as you try to erase the hands that reach for you, haul a knife far above your fallen form-

Bear must see the panic written across your gaze- something foreign to him that chokes the moist air from your chest and threatens to send you drowning in your own thoughts, into a memory which has no end.

"Hey." He offers quietly, and as you try to control the mounting gasp of panic inside you Bear gentles himself, remains steadfast, softening at the edges under your eyes. "Hey, look at me."

You watch as he sinks lower, keeping his eyes on yours all the while to see any fear his movements spawn in you. Yet you watch as Bear goes down to one knee, makes himself smaller, less intimidating. He's still not quite at your height, but it's fairly close, and he no longer stands above you, dwarfing you with his size.

Whatever he sees in your gaze, it must be enough for him to understand, because his shoulders ease, and he exhales a soft sigh through his nose. The beard partially covers the tight, concerned draw of his mouth as he regards you like an injured animal, fearful and in need of aid.

"It's alright" He offers in a rumble that reminds you of the clearing rainstorm above, dampening the soft earth under your form. "I'm not going to hurt you."

It's the tone of his voice, more so than his words, that allows the tremble in your hands to abate, lets your grasp fall to your lap as it holds the blade Joel gifted to you.

"I didn't mean to scare you." He tells you again, and there's something akin to regret in his eyes. It's enough to make you blink, to make the memory of a silhouette gently wash away from your thoughts.

The air in your chest loosens, and you swallow, remember how to breath. When Bear watches you force yourself to exhale, long and slow, there's a smile that crinkles the corner of his eyes.

He doesn't coo over you, doesn't offer praise or patronize you the way so many others have before in response to your terror. Instead he remains where he is, the offer from him silent but transcending words.

Come to me when you're ready. I'll wait.

As the rainstorm at last lifts from the heavens, you see Bear in a new, radiant light.

---

It's a gradual process, the closing of the distance between you and Bear.

It's caught in the moments in between, the morning greetings that slowly turn into conversations, the offerings of favors that are returned in kind. You leave breakfast for the boys in a basket on the steps to the hayloft- bread, boiled eggs, some milk, a tin of coffee and cups to match. It's simple fare, and you at the beginning leave it and then dart away before they can thank you. Yet soon you find Bear awaiting you when you arrive just after dawn, sitting on the ladder and a weary but pleased smile on his lips. The soft 'Thank you's turn into exchanges about chores, about the day ahead, and soon transform into other things entirely.

You find yourself liking his company. Bear has a gravity to him that feels like the pull of a riptide at your feet, dragging you further into the sound of his voice. Yet it doesn't push you under, doesn't force waves crashing above your head. Instead, you simply float in the goodness of him, and often wonder about the things that lurk beneath.

You see it sometimes in the way he talks with his men, the steeliness of his eyes that changes into flinty resolve at the mere mention of danger. Unblinking, acute, nearly cataclysmic. It startles you the first few times you see it, when there's a noise that's too loud in the distance, the sound of an animal crying out in surprise or pain. Whereas you are jumpy, nervous at the same things, Bear spins, muscles coiled and tense, ready at any moment to attack, defend, conquer.

Once, while you two linger outside the barn one morning, you hear Caulder shout as he descends down the hill. You don't even have time to process it before Bear has one arm pushing you behind him, against the wall of the barn, the words he was rumbling a mere heartbeat ago now dead in his throat. There's a hand on his pistol, and when you grasp his arm in surprise he seems not to notice you, eyes glinting but dark in their intensity. You don't see him breathe until his gaze lands on Caulder, who rights himself from a short tumble down the steep slope with a curse and a kick at a stray rock.

You wonder about the things Bear has seen, the things he's done to warrant that look in his eyes. Ready to sear the world to ashes at a moment's notice, drown himself in the smoke that spills from his open, scarred palms.

You sometimes wonder if it will burn you too if you get too close.

Bear is gentle with you, that much is obvious. There's an interest there, as if he's found a beautiful, wild creature in the woods, is trying not to scare you off. He allows you to come to him, lets himself be open and ready to see you take a step forward. It's familiar to you, somehow, reminds you in some ways of a pair of almost sorrowful brown eyes that feel like cinders flickering against your gaze.

Yet the more time you begin to spend around Bear, the more Joel becomes quieter, withdrawn. There's an odd pinch to his face you catch sometimes when you mention Bear, a tight draw of his lips that speaks of emotions he'll never say out loud. It's hard to tell if he's just concerned for you, if he doesn't entirely trust Bear, or if there's still secrets inside him he refuses to show you. Sometimes he turns from you after you've disagreed with him on something, and you catch only a glimpse of the hurt lurking under his gaze.

You want to draw him back to you, want the familiar feeling of the two of you in mutual, comfortable silence as the fire burns in the hearth come evening. Yet when you dare to reveal the barest sliver of your heart, your worries and doubts to Joel, his voice instead meets you with that gruff, distant tone that hides the true confines of his barely mended heart. He's too afraid to let you get closer, too scared of being broken again, even if he refuses to tell you the thing that did it in the first place.

Joel is your shelter, you think. He's the canopy of the forest that shields you from the driving rain, the trees that offer a solemn, needed silence from the chaos of your thoughts. You walk alongside him, feel the shifting silence of him like the rustle of branches. The calm, protective respite of him allows you a grace you desperately need, a place to nestle the hurt fringes of your soul. Yet the deep loom of shadows that lurk in the woods feels so much like the hidden words that you can see scarcely concealed in his gaze.

There's mysteries left in him you'll never understand.

You find yourself drawn to it anyways. You feel the frost and cold embrace of your dreams chased away by the too-bright flicker of his warmth. While Joel keeps you safe, shelters you, it's Bear who melts the remnants of frostbite from your weary spirit, opens you up into the warmth of sunlight.

There's a night where you awake in darkness, feel the dreaded whisper of snow and an icy grave lick at the tumult of your thoughts, and find yourself rising from your bed. You stand on the porch, staring at the campfire on the rise, and in some strange semblance of gravity find yourself pulled there. The cold wind licks at your skin as you huddle your jacket and shawl around you, boots digging into the damp earth as you climb. You're not sure how you know Bear is there keeping watch, but when you appear at the perimeter of the fire he doesn't seem surprised to see you either.

You perch a way away from him, sitting on a log and feeling the flames dance in your gaze. Bear is quiet but alert, watching you from the periphery of his eyes even as he scans the wilderness for signs of approaching danger. Ever the watchman, the guardian, the pyre.

"I had a nightmare." You whisper, and for a moment you think your voice has been swallowed by the wind. It's childish, you think. Like a little girl huddling in the darkness jumping at shadows. When you look up, Bear is gazing at you unblinkingly, his eyes a little mournful, the flames glinting against his eyes.

"Tell me." He offers quietly, and you feel like his ribs crack open so he can hold you that much closer to his chest.

Your heart clenches.

He's different, you realize. Joel will shake you from your nightmares, will allow you the safety to regain yourself, but he won't open himself to you. If you try to spill your fears to him he'll tell you only a 'It's fine. You're safe' and refuse to let the bitterness linger. Yet here is Bear, asking, opening his palms so you can drop yourself and your aching fright into his warm gaze.

So, you do. You tell Bear all the things you've never spoken of to Joel. You share the story carved into your heart. You tell him about escaping the Seattle QZ, fleeing from the infighting caused by rebels along with a group of others. You tell him about entrusting yourself to a pair of older smugglers along with several others and running into the wilderness in search of a settlement. You tell him about the long harsh nights sleeping in abandoned houses, of eating meager rations not knowing where your next meal would come from.

You don't tell him about how the smugglers demanded payment.

The chill of your fingers is warmed as you press them to your chest to quell the ache there, grimacing at the pain of remembering. Yet you feel unable to stop, a drain unplugged and letting your sorrows circle downwards bit by bit until you feel almost empty with them. Bear listens, asking soft questions as you speak, allowing you the space you need even as your eyes water, staring up into the starry sky to keep them at bay.

You tell him about the night it all fell apart.

Raiders. The same kind that have attacked the outlying farms here in Jackson's territory. They caught your group unaware as you slept, and you awoke to screams, bloody impacts of blades, the snow turning red under your boots. The memory of a man backlit by the fire, advancing upon you with long, horrifying strides briefly makes your chest seize, your eyes go glassy and unseeing as they stare forwards.

Bear's hand grazes against yours, as if he's scared to touch you, as if you yourself are the flames. Yet when you don't pull away he presses closer, soon wraps his arms around you as you sag into the embrace, realizing after a moment just how starved you were for the warmth of another person. You don't cry, instead breathing in the strong, smoky scent of him that washes maple over your senses. Like a forest fire, the grief in you is slowly cindered away. In its place, soft green blooms sprout from the ashes.

You stay up on the rise until early dawn, dozing gently against Bear's side. Safe. Protected. At last, he rouses you just as scant light peeks over the horizon, chuckles at your sleepy murmur and then reminds you that you'll be missed if you linger. There's a bitterness in his gaze as he says it, and you blink upon realizing he wishes you didn't already belong to someone else. You want to tell him, want to tell him about the tear in your heart, want to confess to him the way you want Joel in the way you can only have Bear. Instead, you pad down into the valley below, trying to discern the conflict of your feelings.

Joel is waiting for you when you arrive at the house. It's still dark. The form of him is hazy around the edges with the glow of the lantern in the window. He's sitting on the steps, but as you approach he stands abruptly.

"Where were you?" He asks, voice dipping gruff and low in the way that means he's worried.

You feel something unpleasant squirm in your chest at the pinched look on his face, caught between vexation and regret. It sours the afterglow of your shared words with Bear, making you duck your head and sidle past him into the house.

"I was with Bear." You murmur as you pause in the doorway, not looking at him but imagining that maybe his eyes look hurt. You give a moment to let your words linger before you vanish from his sight.

------

It's often, after that, that you hike up to the rise to share Bear's company.

It's a shy, entreating thing at first, as you hesitate at the edge of the campfire and offer a 'Can I join you?' that Bear only smiles at and nods to the seat beside him. You hover at his side for a bit, fidgeting and conveying little bits of conversation, unsure of yourself yet wanting desperately to lean into him again, feel the warmth of his form leech into yours.

You have to fight down the feeling of guilt at being here with him. You have to remind yourself that you aren't Joel's, that you confessed to Joel only to be rebuffed, that the distance he's put between you two is the result of his own doing. You tried to tell him, tried to say you wanted to stay with him, but the memory of his eyes looking into yours with that emotion- guilt. Like he blamed himself for keeping you close.

You want him still. You want him to hold you the way Bear does. You want to feel his arms around you, want to huddle into him and be warmed by his shelter. Yet the more you drift to Bear for that exact thing, the more distance grows between you and Joel, and the further the pit of guilt opens up in your stomach. It’s selfish, what you’re doing, but you ache to be held, to be listened to, to have someone willing to open up to you the way Bear does.

You try instead to shed it away as you talk in slow, rambling tones with Bear. You talk about the day's events, about the news you get from Jackson, about the aches and complains from Caulder and the others. Eventually the topic drifts, and soon there's laughter and smiles between you both, eyes glinting with the sparks of the fire. You share with Bear the trials and tribulations of living here, as well as the deep, profound joy you've found within your healing. Bear welcomes it, tells you stories about his men, about him and Caulder from the before, their training and oath and brotherhood.

You begin to look forward to your evenings with Bear, begin bringing coffee up onto the rise with you and relish in the way his eyes light up at the scent. You stack kindling during the day for you to burn at night, watch as Bear chops extra wood to keep the fire burning brightly. There's smiles passed between you in the daytime, a deeply blossoming friendship that murmurs of something deeper you try desperately to ignore.

One evening, after a rainstorm has cleared and there's a gentle haze that dims the stars, Bear looks to the sky and tells you in a soft confession about the day that changed everything.

Friday, September 26th, 2003.

The day it all went wrong.

The team had just gotten back from a mission abroad, killing a man who had a hand in the death of one of their own. Yet no sooner had they put boots on the ground in Virginia Beach were they ordered to lift off once more, not given a chance to even eat due to the urgency of their mission- escorting an ambassador out of growing unrest in the Middle East. Bear and the others had already heard murmurs by that point, strange stories in the media of martial law in Indonesia. Yet it wasn't until their mission that the understood.

Infected. People who had become sick, had changed into something not human, things that didn't stop even when you shot them. Bear explains how he and the others had lost the ambassador, that one of their own, Trevor, had tried to rescue him, only to be killed himself. He tells you how the remaining five of them had spent ten hours in the air wondering if the world ended before they could get home.

They had returned to a nightmare. Infected had swarmed the city, and Bear and the others wasted no time in combing the carnage in search of their families. Fish, Chase, watched their worlds crumple before their eyes in grief, their families already lost. Buddha was the one to find his wife and children safe but not unharmed, and the group had spent the next week escorting them to the Atlanta QZ and leaving Buddha with them.

Bear doesn't mention his own family. You don't ask.

After that they moved west, towards a daring dream of California where they imagined Caulder's daughter was. They had kept up hope for years, trying to find a trace of her, only to come up empty handed. Eventually they drifted east again, traveling as mercenaries for hire, falling back on their skills as soldiers to survive. Years later they ended up in Jackson, and there they had stayed. They rest, they say, was history.

Bear relays the story with tightly concealed emotion, focusing only on events and facts, refusing to show the aching hurt inside him even as he opens himself up to yours. Even so, you can see it in his eyes, can see the regret and pain linger there when he dares to glance at you. He's burning himself, and you desperately wish the rain would return to douse the grief inside his chest. Your heart aches for him, and you fall asleep on his shoulder, eyes damp with hurt for the things he's lost.

The crackle of the fire drifts softly against your senses, merging with the rustle of the wind over the hills and Bear's soft, quiet breathing. It soothes against you, drags you down into a gentle doze where you're tucked against his shoulder.

---

You awake with a start as Bear stiffens against you, sucking in a breath and adjusting the rifle in his grip. You shift, rouse against his side, blink blearily and try to process the words Bear has just murmured down at you.

"Get to the cabin."

You snap to, standing with him as he rises to his feet. His form is coiled tightly, a white-knuckle grip on the rifle. When you glance into his eyes the orange glint of flames dances darkly in his gaze, jaw clenched and shoulders taut as he readies himself for the threat he sees in the distance. When you follow his stare, you see it, the shapes and shadows of riders on the next hill over, dark against the night sky.

Raiders.

Bear's voice is a dragging, smoky growl down at you, one hand loosing from the rifle to gently push you in the direction of the valley below.

"Now."

When you run down the hill, the devastating, thunderous sound of Bear's rifle echoes out in the midnight like an omen of destruction.

Joel is at the porch with his own rifle by the time you reach the edge of the barn, and when he calls your name it's with a shout, a scream you've never once before heard him use. It chills your blood, threatens to crack the heavens above your form. You race towards him, shawl fluttering from your shoulders as Bear's rifle once more fires into the dark, as hoofbeats echo down from the rise, as your world alights in destruction.

Caulder and the others were awakened by the first shot, armed by the second, and now as the raiders descend into the valley below they spill from the barn onto their own horses. It takes mere moments for the world around you to be consumed by the shaking ground under you, the approaching sound of riders behind you as you hurl yourself back towards Joel, legs pumping and eyes wide with terror.

You watch as Joel lifts his rifle, points it in your direction just as the shrill whinny of a horse closes in on your form. The echo of it shatters in the dark, and you stumble and fall just as Joel's aim finds the rider less than ten steps behind you, his rider-less horse racing mere feet past your fallen form.

Joel screams your name once more, in that holler that trembles the earth around you, and you stumble to your feet only to feel the side of you alight in warmth. You turn, eyes horrified as they reflect the flickering flames of a torch just as it reaches the woodpile stacked against the barn.

"NO!!" You scream, now pointing yourself in the direction of the blaze. Shots ring out around you, hoofbeats and shouts and whistles the only sounds in the world, muffling the growing flames that lick at the wood panels of the barn. You barely hear them, thinking instead about the animals you and Joel have spent so much time caring for, the lambs that you had watched him catch as hope bloomed in his eyes.

It takes effort to tip over the rain barrel at the edge of the barn onto the growing blaze, smoke stinging your eyes and clogging your throat. The flames are higher than you now, and as you use a bucket to slosh water higher you pray to whatever god will listen that the flare doesn't reach the hayloft.

Hands grab at you, and instinctively you scream, push back at whatever attacker has seized you. Yet Joel's voice pierces your thoughts, and when you turn you see the panic written clear across his gaze. The fire glints off both your forms, and for the briefest of moment you see Joel's lips form the words "It's me."

Together the two of you race towards the barn door, with Joel at your back lifting his rifle towards the shadowy riders that circle your homestead. It takes effort to haul open the gates inside, releasing first the horses, and then braving the growing smoke towards the sheep. They hesitate, frightened inside their corral, so you launch yourself in and scare them from the pen, watching as they spill towards the barn doors. Joel stands there as they dart in the direction of the pasture, and once more you beg the heavens that Caulder and the others can distract the raiders long enough for them to get away.

Smoke smarts against your vision now, descending heavy as the hayloft begins to catch. Yet you manage to release the other two pens of sheep before at last trying to make your way towards the barn door. As you do, you hear a terrified bleat, eyes wet as you turn towards a forgotten lamb who'd been injured in the surge. Despite the heavy smoke descending from the ceiling, you stumble and scoop the little one into your arms, desperately coughing and blinking as you fumble in search of the door. You try and follow the sound of Joel's voice, feeling heat sear against your skin.

Hands seize on your form, dragging you along as you wheeze and splutter, until at last you're hauled into the cool night air, grass sticking to your knees as you collapse. You fall forward so your head braces on the ground, still clutching the lamb tightly in your arms as you heave for air. The sound of gunshots is muffled down by the roar of the inferno, heat searing at your back. Yet the earth trembles less, the shouts and whistles have faded to infrequent rifle shots that make you flinch with each round.

You don't know how long you stay down on the ground, coughing up smoke and feeling the lamb in your tightly clutched hold tremble with you. The acrid smell of smoke fills your nose, clogs your thoughts and summon the vision of a man backlit by flames, his blade raised as he brings it down on your form.

"J-Joel-" You gasp, one arm stretching out in front of you. Your chest splutters, lungs heaving with each breath. You're so cold despite the raging fire of the barn, frostbite lingering on your lips as you try to breathe.

Hands reach for you, raise you up and soon you're dragged into an embrace, face streaked with tears and ash. You drag in a gasping suck of air that looses as sob, warmth spilling from the corner of your eyes as you struggle to breathe and cry all at once. The arms holding you smell like gunpowder and smoke and maple, holding you fast as you collapse into them. A hand grasps at his jacket, and you dare to hope that maybe, maybe the person holding you is the one you want.

Bear's face blinks into your gaze.

He presses you back to his chest before he can see the conflict in your eyes, refusing to let himself see the things that might hurt him, refuses to let you see his own pain at the look in your eyes. On his knees, his rifle discarded beside him, he drags you to him, shushes you when sobs crack in your throat, confused and hurt and wanting.

Another hand settles on your shoulder, and you don't need to look up to see who it is. Joel's grasp is solid, familiar, and you raise a hand up to grasp at his sleeve as if he might pull away. yet it only draws Bear's arms tighter around you as a result, as if trying to shield you and keep you with him just a little longer.

"You're okay." He hushes into your hair as you sob, cough up smoke, caught between the forest and the blaze as your world burns to ash. "We've got you."

"We're here. You're safe."

“You’re safe.”

Taglist:

(Please reblog this post to be added to the taglist for the final update)

@yeyinde @alittlefansthings @joebeargraves @moriflos @aeoncss @havenforafrazzledmind @littlemisspascal @zwiiicnziiix

#TLOU #Joel miller #the last of us #joe bear graves #Joel miller x reader #Joe bear graves x reader #Six TV series #reader insert #fic: woodsmoke #x reader

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sprout-fics · 1 year

Text

Woodsmoke (Joel Miller x F! Reader x Joe 'Bear' Graves)

Chapter One: Kindling

Read (Here) on AO3

Masterlist

Rating: Mature (Rating will change) Word Count: 6.6k Warnings: Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault (Non-explicit) Tags: Character Study, Angst (Literally so much angst), AU- Canon divergence, Sheep Farmer Joel Miller, Patrolman Joe 'Bear' Graves, Domesticity, PTSD, Night Terror, Love confessions, Rejection, Mutual Pining A/N: So this started off as me wanting to write PWP with Joel and Bear, and then it became smut with context, and now we're here at a three part chracter study that also includes porn, thank you for witnessing my descent into madness. Also a huge shoutout to @soapskneebrace @guyfieriii and @writeforfandoms for listening to my absolutely unhinged raving and ranting about this series. I don't know how I could have done this without you all

Summary:

When spring comes, it melts away the frost, blooms lilac and pink in the hills, and in your heart as well. Like the slow, steady drip of thawing glacier, the interior of your soul at last becomes revealed to you once more. Vivid and bright like forsythia, like jonquils and the first flowers of spring, it unfurls its delicate petals, turns towards the sun.

It's Joel, your heart reveals to you with a tender whisper. Joel, with his steadying and unflinching gaze, his brown eyes the same color of your coffee, his hands that speak of experience, of raw ability. It's Joel, who knocks on your door as you get ready for bed and murmurs a quiet goodnight, his eyes always resting on yours with words he doesn't speak. Joel, with his deep voice like raw timber, his presence a towering, gnarled oak tree that refuses to be felled.

You think you love him.

You don't think you can have him.

How it starts, you don't know. How it begins, however is with you.

With you, with the first time you see the sheep ranch nestled at the very edge of Jackson’s territory, at a distance. Atop the hill that descends into the valley below, your eyes trace across the grey and white bits of fluff that dot the hilly pasture. The cold autumn wind rakes through your hair, bites against your cheeks, freezes against your chapped lips. The reins in your hand feel like steel, tough, clutched tightly in your nervous, anxious grip.

Beside you, Tommy eyes you as you take in the sight before you. A few pastures. A barn, a chicken house, a garden, and atop the other side of the valley- a house. Quaint, quiet, a watchtower of the farm below.

Tommy breathes through his nose, his mare shifting with a little chuff that seems to match her rider's contemplation. He's been quiet for most of the journey, offering only small conversation in response to your quiet inquiries about your destination.

"He's a loner." Tommy tells you, and his eyes are soft, a little broken when he speaks of his brother, the man who would be your employer. There's bitterness there that you recognize, even if you don't really understand.

"He's not...mean." He goes on, even though he hesitates over his elaboration. "He just prefers the quiet is all."

You nod, voice silent. It took months for you to learn how to speak again, and even now the simple act feels too heavy, too awkward.

It had been the better part of a year since you'd arrived at Jackson

It had been Tommy who had found you, out on patrol with the other riders, stumbling upon your form half-buried by snow, curled into the ground. Starving, confused, injured, scared, waiting to die so the earth would swallow you whole. Yet instead of letting you succumb to frost, Tommy had taken you back, allowed the doctors in Jackson to nurse you back to health.

In body, at least. Maybe not in soul.

Tommy leads the way down the steep slope ahead of you, leaning back in his saddle as his mare picks along the barest hint of a path down towards the ranch. You follow him, feeling your breath fog across your face, a warm puff before it dissipates into steam. All the while you steal glances away from the trail ahead of you and towards the livestock dotting the hillside, the grass turning an ashen green as the season inexorably change once more.

Tommy leads you not to the house atop the hill, but rather to a cabin at the bottom of the valley. It's braced against the edge of a tree line that trickles into the dip between the hills, and if you listen above the wind you think you hear a brook there. Yet your attention is drawn to the cabin itself, with its wood walls and stone chimney, from which woodsmoke pours forth. You can smell it, the scent obscured by the raw, frigid taste of oncoming frost. It lingers across your tongue even as Tommy dismounts, ascends the steps, fist raised to knock on the door.

It opens before he gets the chance.

The man that answers the door looks older, worn. Greys dot his temples, his short beard. There's lines across his face that speak less of age and more of grief, a time spent witnessing horrors you yourself have not yet seen. Yet his eyes glint with a keen awareness, a clarity bred by experience. Wary. Ready.

He stands occupying the broad space of the doorway, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grease caught across his knuckles. There's a furrow in his brow, as if he's annoyed by the interruption to whatever project he has occupied himself with. Yet when his eyes take in Tommy his face relaxes into something vaguely resembling a smile, and he manages to smear the majority of grease away from his palm before clasping it to his brother's.

"Tommy." Is all he says in greeting, but there's a warmth there, a familiarity that briefly has your heart threaten to crack, wishing selfishly someone would regard you that way too.

"Joel." Tommy replies, his tone light, pleased before he turns to reveal you, standing a ways away with the horses. "Brought you a visitor. Meet your new farmhand."

You shift a little where you stand, not making any motion to venture closer, instead offering a timid 'Hello' that seems to be swallowed by the wind.

Joel regards you silently, continuing to wipe his hands on his rag, eyes taking you in silently, cataloguing the uneasiness in your stance, your darting eyes, tense shoulders. yet he doesn't remark on it, doesn't offer so much as a greeting, instead seeming to mull your very presence over in his mind. Contemplating, considering.

"It's cold." Is all he says after moments that seem like hours. "Fire's warm."

With that he turns inside in a silent gesture for you to follow, offering little else in the strangest introduction you've yet to encounter. Absent of expectations or forced niceties, his words saying all that need to be said, and yet somehow containing multitudes.

It is, you come to learn, very much like him.

----

Joel puts you to work immediately, and you quickly learn just how desperately he needed another pair of hands on the ranch.

Your chores begins before dawn most days, the cold of the misty mornings clinging to your skin as you warm yourself by the stove as it crackles to life under Joel's care. You dress by the scant sunlight that seeps over the hilly horizon, step outside into the dewy air and watch your breath fog up and away into the dove grey sky.

The day starts with collecting eggs from the hen house, feeding the chickens, ensuring no creatures have made it past the wire fencing that protects them from predators lurking in the woods. Breakfast is simple fare, quick, not meant to be lingered upon before the work of the day begins in earnest.

There's few words spoken between you and Joel as the sun rises. You understand quickly he's not typically one for conversation unless prompted. He doesn't mince words, prefers to say what needs to be said and then to follow through with whatever he's spoken. It's a gruff, curt personality that might grind with a more extroverted, conversational person. For you, with your quiet, contemplative demeanor, it suits you well. You, like Joel, prefer to speak through actions rather than words, let your hands occupy your thoughts and chase away the memories that linger there.

So you do just that, involving yourself in the momentum that carries the weight away. You toss down hay from the hayloft, herd the sheep out of the barn in the morning, mend the fences, pull weeds from the garden. You sweep the kitchen as Joel cleans the dinner dishes, you chop firewood for the crackling hearth, gather kindling at the edge of the forest but never venture beyond the tree line as Joel tells you.

Joel gives you space for the first few weeks. Yet he isn't without attention. You find that he's quick to notice when you need something, even if you're hesitant to ask for it. It's as if he sees you in a way you aren't familiar with, discerning your hesitation and inward reflection like an extension of himself. His responses come less in the form of words and more in the form of offerings. An extra blanket for your bed. Another pair of socks. Fixing the shades in your bedroom so the light doesn't seep in, refilling the kerosene in your bedside lamp. It's simple but meaningful gestures, absent of words that somehow fills the unfamiliar space between you two.

"It's okay." They seem to whisper to you, as you lay wide-eyed, awake in your bed at night. "You can stay. I don't mind. You can ask. Take your time."

You never speak to Joel of the circumstances that have led you here, not even when you slowly begin to find your voice again, when words between you two become easier, less forced. Yet Joel somehow seems to know what's happened to you anyways, and you can't help but wonder if he was able to see it from the very start.

There's glimpses you see in him, his eyes becoming distant at times, as if staring into the past. It's as if he's lived your life before you, can see the scenes of his own regret play out in shadowy phantoms across his vision. You feel it in yourself, in the way memories cling to you as night like parasitic fungi, creeping with slow, sinister growth along your veins, old wounds that have yet to heal.

If Joel hears you whimper and cry in your sleep, he doesn't say. Yet in the mornings, after the nightmares have ended but still occupy your shadow, he's gentler. Softer. Extra milk in your coffee, his voice less gruff, allowing you extra time before the mornings begin so you can shed the last of your sorrows.

Slowly, with time, they're chased away by daylight.

You bury the remnants of them with motion, purpose. Joel made it clear from the start you weren't there to freeload.

"Two rules." He told you the first night you were alone, the washed dinner plates stacked to dry, the hearth crackling warmly and filling the silence.

"The first." He begins, and you can hear the age in his voice. Gritty, choked on memories like charcoal. "Is that you do what I say, when I say it, understand?"

His eyes meet yours, and you stare into them, losing yourself for a moment in his brown, keen-eyed stare. You wonder if there was a softness there once, find yourself trying to imagine what it must have looked like.

"This is to keep us safe." He explains, hands clasped together on the aged, wooden table, fingers grazing over worn knuckles. "Just because Jackson runs patrols doesn't mean it's entirely safe out here. I'm your employer, you're my responsibility now, so you listen to me when I tell you to do something, clear?"

You nod in silence, eyes shifting away from him to your mug of weak tea that's long since cooled.

"Clear." You reply, voice soft, a little distant.

Joel nods out of the corner of your eyes, as if to himself. Then his voice raises again.

"The second." He continues, voice maintaining that gruff, even tone. There's a hint of an accent there you try to place but come up empty-handed. Yet it softens, is joined by an indiscernible sigh, a shift of his shoulders that eases into the cracks of your soul. "Is that if you ever need something, all you need to do is ask."

You look at him then, eyes blinking, lips parting, trying to place the strange, sudden wash of feeling that murmurs between your ribs. Joel's stare remains unchanged, but the gentleness of his statement lingers, suspended between you both. An entreaty, an offering.

Slowly, something within you rouses, long laying dormant within the recesses of your grief. A gentle glimpse of color before it's gone again.

"Clear." You tell him, and this time your voice softens too, for the first time allowing yourself to open, unfold within his unwavering, focused gaze.

----

It's quiet, that first year. Joel is closed off, distant in a way that's not entirely unfamiliar to you. You can see the scars on him, even the ones he refuses the bare. It's hard not to see, with the way that his history is written across his eyes.

You don't ask why he can hardly hear from one ear, why he only ever sleeps on his right side. You don't ask about how he knows about how to pour the foundation for a new shed meant to store food for the winter. You don't ask about how he survived this long, why he wants the quiet solitude of the Wyoming steppes compared to the bustle of Jackson.

You don't ask the question everyone seems to ask people like the two of you.

What happened to you? What made you like this?

In turn, Joel doesn't ask you of your own past, of the mistakes and fatal flaws that led to that moment of solemn, fateful near death, your would-be grave a shimmering, white tomb of frost. Nor do you offer them. There's no changing the past now, and even though the screams of the damned still torment you in the witching hours of night, they're just that- ghosts.

They can't hurt you anymore.

Though you don't speak of your past, you do speak. Slowly at first, then with more ease. Joel seems surprised at first, even though the change is gradual. More than once you see him pause what he's doing, turn to you, blinking as he processes your remark about chores, the weather, what to eat for dinner. Utilitarian conversation that seems to mirror his own words.

He, like you, doesn't speak much, doesn't feel pressed to fill the silence. He's more than happy to simply coexist, his hands working alongside yours, his voice directing you with his steadying, unwavering presence. Like a lantern in the mist, the glow of him feels hazy, distant, and yet somehow still there, a signal as you wander in search of yourself.

You watch him, sometimes, over the edges of the worn paperbacks you read in the evening as the fire glows low. The orange flames catch across his face, reveal there the shadows of the things he doesn't say. He stares into the flames like they yield answers he doesn't have. There's a striking gravity there in his gaze, one that pulls you inwards, down into him, causes color to flutter in your heart. Sorrowful, unsummoned, and yet somehow alive.

You gather him in bits and pieces, like sifting for gold along a streambank. The sediment washes away, and what's left there is glimmering dust that catches and glints in the sunlight.

He has a daughter, that you already knew. Ellie is her name. You think you met her once back in Jackson on a misty grey morning where you paced the perimeter in solitude, basking in the absence of others. She'd muttered a brief greeting to you as she blew warmth into her hands, sidling past you towards the direction of the school. Bright eyed, brown haired, dimpled. She looks nothing like him.

Then again, you suppose you're all orphans of the apocalypse.

You meet her once more several weeks into your new residency, ferried there by Tommy. She peeks over his shoulder from where she sits behind him in the saddle, her face faltering when she sees you helping Joel mend the fence of the western pasture.

It's the first time you see Joel nervous, his hands fidgeting, seeking purchase on something that isn't there. You don't understand, eyes darting from him to the girl he's fostered, taught to survive in a cruel world. Yet then he clears his throat, introduces you to her with slow, halting words and you think you see it, the way he seems to look for Ellie's approval.

Ellie regards you warily at first, and like Joel her eyes seem to see more than she lets on, glinting at you as she takes several, heavy moments to judge you by your presence alone.

"Hi." She says at last, and her smile is soft, yet still somehow sincere. "I'm Ellie."

You almost miss Joel's sigh beside you, breathed into the coming winter wind.

His relief is well-placed. Ellie seems to take a shine to you. You happily listen to her ramble about her schooling in Jackson, about her distaste for her teachers, to her pleads for Joel to just homeschool her because "who needs school anyways?" You let her tell you terrible puns from a journal where she's scrawled the jokes with slanted, rushed handwriting. You follow her as she insists you accompany her to survey the ewes, climbing in the hayloft and attempting to hang from the rafters.

You don't notice the way Joel's eyes soften as you smile.

It's only on the third day of Ellie's visit, the morning of her departure, where she turns to you as Tommy and Joel talk next to the horses. Her arms wrap around your middle, head pressed to your chest, the embrace lasting for all of a moment before she pulls away again.

"Thank you." She tells you, eyes gazing up at you, clear and unwavering in a way you've come to recognize. "For taking care of him."

You freeze, eyes wide, lips parted, trying to process what she's just said. Yet you don't get the chance, because suddenly she's striding towards Tommy with a holler of "Let's get this show on the road!" and you're left alone, caught within the imbalance of her words.

No, you think. It was the other way around. You, you were the one who was taken care of, so you could be saved from yourself.

By him.

Things become different after that. It's as if Ellie's presence, her fondness of you has lifted an unknown weight from Joel's shoulders. Where before you could see cracks in him, now you can see the sunlight that dares to seep through, past the heartache and the grief he carries within.

Slowly, you too begin to change.

You're not sure what does it, whether it was Ellie, Joel, or the thaw of spring that relents the boundaries of your heart, unfolds them like snowdrops, born anew.

It's your voice that fills the silence now. Soft, soothing, still somehow endearingly shy yet undeniably kind. You turn your face to the wind, listen to the sound, try and discern the whispers it speaks to you. As the mountains turn green and lush, so too does your smile, a gentle thing that catches the sunlight and imbues it into your soul.

Joel smiles more too. You're not sure why, but you see it sometimes. When you appear from the hayloft with straw caught in your hair, when you hum a forgotten tune over the sink as you do dishes, when he sees you bolt after the lamb that escapes through the fencing, he smiles.

It always catches you a bit off guard, the way his mouth puckers, tugs the corner of his lips. Yet there's something in his stare that feels strangely like familiarity, of warmth, and you find yourself longing after it. You wish somehow you could trace that too into your soul, allow it to fill the cracks there like a balm, erase all the old wounds that linger with a bitter, sour aftertaste.

Joel remains at a distance from you, even though he seems more relaxed now. There's things he doesn't say, things he refuses to let you see. His words, though perhaps provided more often, remain enigmatic. Short, clipped, you come to realize he says what he means, but means far more than he can say.

Yet there's times when Joel is closer somehow, outstretching a hand to keep you from stumbling over a pit in the pasture, helping you down from the hayloft when the ladder breaks, crouching with you over a newborn lamb as it takes its first breath. There's something different in him in those moments. His eyes shine a little brighter, the draw of his face changes, his voice gets firm in a way that's less of a reprimand and more of concern. You can tell, the way he looks out for you without words.

Things get easier after that first year. Joel lets you gently shoo him from the kitchen when you've had enough of his poorly seasoned cooking to last a lifetime. He lets you wander further from the farm when you have the time, venturing into the woods to check the snares he's set. He comes with you when you hike to the top of the valley in search of wild spring onions, makes no complaint about his tender muscles. He tends to you when you come down with pneumonia, and in your listless, sickened state you think you hear him murmur the words "It's going to be okay."

Slowly, you unravel him. He smiles more often, albeit rarely. You get him to groan at terrible jokes and convince him to trade for art supplies and books for you. He listens to you when you suggest sheepdogs, and then forgives you when the mutt runs off into the woods within the first week to never return.

In the evenings, he sits closer, makes you a mug of tea without asking. He pushes the mug into your hands with little fanfare, and you learn it's through gestures that he says what he means the most.

"I want you here." The steam of the mug whispers to you silently. "Things are...easier with you here."

Yet there's unspoken words that remains between you despite that. You see it in the way he averts his eyes too quickly when you dry off from the bath, the way he watches you when you smile into the summer sunlight. You see it when you strip your jacket during the blazing heat of summer and he coughs suddenly, feigns breathlessness. You see it in his smile when you hold a tiny, baby chick in your hands, eyes glimmering with something akin to hope.

You see it when he warns you to get inside as a courier lets his eyes roam over you in a way that makes your skin crawl.

It's a messenger from another outlying settlement, one you've never seen before. Young, brawny, his smile a little too wide as he greets you from atop his horse, dismounts before you can stammer a greeting and extends his hand to you.

You freeze. There's something about his eyes, the way they don't meet your own, the way they seem to fixate on other parts of you. It summons a vile reminder of things that once were, and you feel your breath catch between your ribs, too shallow, too cold-

"Get inside." Joel tells you, and his calloused hand tightens on your shoulder just a fraction, not enough for anyone but the both of you to notice. The deep, gruff rumble of his voice in your ear conveys all the meaning you mean to hear. Familiar, it whispers to you: Danger. Threat. Listen to me. I'll protect you. I'll keep you safe. Don't ignore me.

"Now." Joel growls, and he pulls away enough to give you a look that lasts a millisecond, too short to go noticed by the courier.

You nod at him, but the prickle of peril still skims across your flesh, nipping in a shallow bite. Tasting, teasing, a parting augury that leaves you shivering as you turn in the direction of the cabin.

The courier's eyes never leave you, not even as his conversation with Joel continues, his voice a lazy drawl compared to Joel's clipped, brusque replies. Your skin crawls, and you feel his stare rake over you with a slimy, lasting touch. Putrid, unwanted, vile. Your hands shake.

You cast a glance behind you once you reach the porch steps, and blink when you find Joel crowding closer to the younger man, fists curled at his side. There's a look that passes over the courier's face then, brow knotted and lips turning into a displeased sneer.

For a moment you turn, ready to go back and intervene in the building confrontation. Yet then you see Joel's shoulders rise as he speaks and the courier's face drops, goes ashen and slack at whatever it is Joel has just said to him. The threat, though you can't hear it, hangs heavy suspended between them. You can see it, the way the younger man looks at Joel with a brief, vulnerable expression of fear.

He swallows, shuffles for a moment before tipping his hat at you in a brief but abashed farewell. Then he's getting on his horse, trembling hands grabbing the reins and turning back towards the hill from whence he came.

"What did you say to him?" You ask Joel when he eventually paces over towards the porch, his shoulders still taut, frown creased across his face. He peels off his work gloves, stuffs them hastily in his back pocket as he brushes past you. You think he won't give you an answer, leave you wondering as to what words he spoke to the man who dared to look at you the way he did.

Joel pauses with his hand on the door handle, still facing away from you. He stays there for a moment, and you watch as the rage eases from his shoulders.

"I told him." He says, voice low, reeking of an imminent tempest, a fury he keeps simmered down low, deep inside himself, ready to boil at a moment's notice.

"I told him if he ever looked at you again I'd pop his goddamn kneecap off."

The door stays ajar behind him, and you're left alone, the autumn wind breathing cold across your nape.

Yet warmth blooms within you, a familiar yet distorted dissension to the icy threat of Joel's words. Rather than settle in your bones with a lurid freeze, Joel's warning instead summons an affection like the proximity of a hearth, ensconced within the promise of his protection.

"I've got you." The heat in your chest murmurs in conjunction with his voice. "I'll keep you safe. Don't think I won't."

You follow him, tracing his back with your gaze, and thinking somehow that you might follow him anywhere if he asked you.

---

The months drag on. Winter is harsh that year, the snow falling gracefully yet accumulating with sinister depth. The fire never stops, and it's on more than one night that you and Joel both abandon your bedrooms and sleep in the main room, closer to the woodstove so the freeze doesn't come for you in sleep. It's on those nights that you awake with an extra blanket draped over you, that Joel walks a little stiffly the next morning, grumbles about the cold irritating his joints.

The blanket smells like him.

It's on one of those nights, where the wind howls and sleet batters at the windows that you shiver under your covers, and the nightmares come creeping past your defenses. Like frost, they grow across the planes of your thoughts, extending, fissuring out and reminding you of that time, of an unearthly, blank, white grave. You sink into it, watch through snowflake covered lashes as the world shimmers with pristine, powdery glimmer, even as your heartbeat slows, your vision fades.

It's on one of those nights that there's hands that seize you in your sleep and you struggle against them with a whimper of "No, please, not again-"

"Hey."

It's Joel's voice that breaks through the ice, hauls you from the depths of exposure and into wakefulness once more.

"It's me." He says when you feebly push at him, mind still trying to discern its own direction, tears burning the corner of your eyes. "It's me. I've got you."

Your vision, wavering and watery, meets his gaze. Brown eyed, brow knotted, hands on either side of your face as he wills you to see, to hear him. You can only cling to him, eyes wide, unseeing, mind a cacophony of screams and sickening, bloody impacts until there's only a cavern of blank, snowy silence that rings between your ears.

"It's over." Joel tells you, voice deep, a grinding whisper tinted with an emotion you can't place. His eyes have a look you haven't seen before, and it takes you a moment to place it.

Fear.

"You're here." He murmurs, keeping your eyes facing forward, into his own. "Safe."

The dying embers of the woodstove flicker across your glassy eyes, and the vision fades, resumes into the now with Joel's thumb stroking across your cold, wet cheek. You shiver into his grip as the nightmares fades, a ghost of a past that's long since transpired, but leaves scars echoing endlessly within the prison of your mind.

Neither of you fall asleep again that night, words unspoken into the silence but presences merging, blending together in the darkness until daylight at last breaks over the horizon.

If Joel is different at that night, you can't tell. He keeps his short, gruff way about you, offers what he needs to, busies his hands with the work to be done. He doesn't remark upon the truth he saw in your eyes and words that night, simply absorbs that truth into himself and keeps moving in the way all survivors do. You find yourself wishing you could do the same, could burrow the hurt down deep so it sleeps, hibernates there until spring, whenever that may come.

Yet when a rake falls loudly in the barn, when a gunshot rings out in the woods from a neighboring hunter, when you hear a coyote scream at night, he's there. Wordlessly, his eyes slide over to your tensed, ashen expression and his voice becomes soft, a reassurance of security, of protection.

"It's just the wind." He tells you when a gale lashes at the windows, clatters against the panes. His hands don't cease as they prod the fire, but his eyes turn to you- looking, waiting, expectant. It's only when you nod that he returns his focus elsewhere, ensures the unease in your bones has settled.

It's in that way that you know. Regardless of whether Joel speaks it or not, somewhere along the way he's decided you're one of his own. Someone to reassure, to protect, to keep safe, even from the doubts of the past.

This is where you're meant to stay, you realize. Here, with him.

It's a realization that feels like relief, hopeful like the lambs that bounce through the meadows and the hatchlings that nest in the eaves of the porch. It feels like a rebirth, like a renewal of yourself as you at last realize the true extent of your feelings.

You think you love him.

You think, in another life, you could have been his.

You aren't so bold as to offer him advances, the emotions in your chest too fragile, too fleeting. Yet you do ease around him in a way you haven't before. Sitting next to him on the couch, daring to cover his hand with yours as he reaches for something in the cabinet, stepping closer to point out a hole he missed in the chicken wiring, your breath ghosting over his nape.

He doesn't miss these gestures, you know he doesn't. Joel is too aware to not see them, has too many years struggling to survive in a cruel world to not notice this gentle easiness of yours. Yet he never makes mention of it, never takes the chance to step closer, to narrow the strange distance between you. You don't understand it, can't comprehend why he insists on not venturing nearer to you. It remains one of the things you'll never know about him, why he looks at you with such tenderness and yet refuses to let you come closer.

"I'm too old for this." He groans as you both lay panting in the pasture after wrangling the flock's ram back into the field after his daring escape. "I need to retire."

You huff, something akin to a laugh, staring up at the summer cumulus clouds that roll white and puffy across and egg-shell blue sky.

"I'll stay here, even if you do." You tell him honestly, smiling, feeling for once like you can see into the future ahead of you. You turn to look at him, hair mussed, eyes bright but warm. "I don't want to be anywhere else."

He looks at you then, and the color in your heart wilts to sepia at the emotion that flickers across his face.

Guilt.

It stabs at you, like a blade in the dark, the razor-sharp edge glinting from a campfire. Your face falls, your stomach drops, and distantly, you think you can hear the sound of your heart cracking at the edges.

He doesn't want you.

There's a deep, lurking, sinister shadow that wonders if anyone ever will.

You try not to dwell on it, even as it slowly consumes you as the days drag on. Doubt festers in your veins, like spores sticking to the edges of your skin, your distant, unfocused eyes.

You lay awake at night, days later, deciding to step outside into the summer air to breath, release your demons into the night sky.

It's only then that you see the orange glow on the horizon, wake Joel with your rising, panic shouts.

Joel stumbles out of his room, eyes quickly clearing of drowsiness as he too looks towards the sight before you.

"Get dressed." He tells you, sleep still clogging his voice. "It's the Johnsons. Something's caught fire."

You follow his command wordlessly, and it's within ten minutes that the two of you are riding over the lip of the valley, speeding in direction of the next farm over.

You arrive too late.

The barn is a single flame against the night sky as you arrive, and the farm's two owners hold each other not far away. Contents of their house are strewn about them. The smell of smoke and blood thickens at the back of your throat.

"Raiders." The wife tells you, voice less of a wail and more of a shattered, trembling whisper. It's all that needs to be said.

You and Joel see to them, spend the day helping them gather the remainders of the farm. You don't arrive back at the cabin until sundown, skin chalky with ash, hands chaffed, form slumped with fatigue. Yet it's not even two steps into the door before Joel turns to you, eyes severe, steely, holding back a fury spawned by fear.

"I'm leaving." Is all he says. "In the morning. Gotta tell Tommy about what's happened."

You feel a low murmur of terror gurgle in your stomach at the idea of being left alone when danger lurks beyond the edges of the valley, at the idea of him going by himself.

"Let me come with you." You try, but he shakes his head.

"No." Is all he gives you. "I need you to stay here. Guard the farm. I'll lock everything up before I go."

Then his eyes soften, and he breathes a sigh as he looks at you, sees the anxiety rising in your gaze.

"I won't be long." He murmurs then, voice dipping. "Just keep that shotgun safe, like I showed you. I'll be back soon."

You know you can't argue with him, stubborn as he is. Besides, he's right. Someone needs to stay. Someone needs to make the journey. One of you has to go. You both know it's him.

So, you watch him, the next morning, watching from the porch as he ascends the edge of the valley, tracing his back until he's nothing more than a speck that vanishes over the rise.

True to his word, Joel arrives back the next afternoon, and on his tail is an entire company of riders. Spooked as you are, you at first think they're raiders, forcing him to lead them back to the farm. You stand on the porch with a shotgun, hands trembling until Joel at last dismounts, approaches you like he would a wild, scared animal.

"It's alright." He murmurs, and makes you lower the weapon as the rest of the group stands at a safe distance. His hands are cold, yet familiar as they touch you, ground you from your own rapid heartbeat.

"Security." He tells you simply as you eye the group warily. They regard you respectfully, eyes shifting from you to Joel and then back again, tall atop their horses, murmuring to each other in low voices.

There's around five of them, hard in the eyes, fit, strong. They're all younger than Joel by a number of years. Their weapons lay across their laps or on their saddles. You can tell at a single glance that they're soldiers by training. You know the look. You've seen the same expression in the eyes of FEDRA soldiers. Focused, disciplined, rife with a cold, calculating instinct.

Your eyes flick from them to Joel, and at last you relax, shoulders dropping all of an inch, letting him take the shotgun from you.

It's only then that they begin to dismount, talking amongst themselves and offering you linger, skeptical glances, as if encountering traces of a predator in the woods. Yet there's one of the group that hands his reins to the man beside him, approaches you both with slow, measured steps.

He's the once you noticed first, with his towering stature and set jaw. A short beard and thick brows frame his face, shoulders tight with coiled strength. There's an air to him that seems more acute, more potent than the rest of his men. Somehow, it warns of danger.

He removes his hat as he nears the two of you, holds it over his heart in a humble greeting.

"Ma'am." He offers with a nod.

"This is Joe Graves." Joel tells you, one hand still cupping your elbow. Steadying, grounding.

"You can call me 'Bear'." He adds and gives you a smile that pierces through the remnants of frenetic, panicked anxiety. "They boys and I all have callsigns.

"Hello." You offer at last politely, voice a little quiet, guarded. Bear only nods at you, seems to take your hesitancy in stride, his smile not faltering. It's warm, understanding, and it's as if he senses the unsteadiness in you, waits patiently for you to right yourself.

Your chest flutters.

"The boys and I are going to take good care of your farm." He tells you, voice measured but easy. "If you ever need anything from us, don't hesitate to ask."

You blink at him, feel his words siphon away the fear, the uncertainty that dwells between your ribs.

"Thank you...Bear." You tell him, voice muted but betraying your gratitude, your slow unwinding tension at his tone with you. Entreating, patient, void of expectations.

There's something that glimmers in his eyes then, and you catch it for only a moment. A spark, a hope, an interest you can't yet decipher. It feels like it coats you in a smattering of glimmer dust, leaving behind a warm, hazy glow that catches in your stare.

You know that look.

"Don't worry." It says. "Take your time. There's no rush. I won't come closer unless you want me to. I'll stay right here until you're ready."

Like the bloom of springtime, color once again unfurls in your heart.

#TLOU #Joel miller #the last of us #joe bear graves #Joel miller x reader #Joe bear graves x reader #reader insert #fic: woodsmoke #AHHHHHH ITS FINISHED

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