Joel Miller x f! reader

"What happened to me?" you questioned, your curiosity seeking answers.

"I found you," the stranger replied. "You had slept for two days."

In two days, you changed the rules of the game.

In two days, Joel came across with his humanity when he found you laying on the ground after being beaten up by some smugglers.

And what a plot twist you were.

Honeysuckle

Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader

Word Count: 9.6k

Summary: Following Joel and Ellie’s return, you’re there to mend things over.

“When night comes, he wants to drown in your presence, drown in your eyes, feel you, remember what home is like again—it requires three of you, together in one place.

The picture of the month he puts together for you is jumbled, vague. There’s already an underlying sense of change, and he’d rather focus on the things that remained.

You. Only you, in his arms.”

A/N: Set right after Joel and Ellie return from the hospital. (Tagged everyone from my “everything” list, but it’s a new character for me, so no pressure to interact!)

Warnings: Brief smut, loss, angst (but with a happy ending and plenty of soft moments!), implied age gap, language

“Joel?”

Your back is pressed to his chest, his heavy arm draped over your waist protectively. Your voice is a whisper in the darkness, a breath in the night.

He tenses at it, presumably reminding himself that they’re safe. Ellie’s just down the hall, and you’re evidently not alerting him to danger. It’s a foreign feeling—their own house, their own space, their own room.

“What?” he finally replies, voice scratchy with sleep and disuse. A smile almost—just almost—pulls at your lips at the way he buries his head in the crook of your neck. You remember how it’d surprised you how cuddly he was the first time the comfort of a shared bed was available.

Oh my gosh! 😭

This is absolutely amazing, I am utterly speechless. All I can say (coherently) is that you wrote a masterpiece, it’s truly something!✨✨✨

Gif credit: Unknown, saved from Pinterest or Google

Thank you so much!!! I’m so glad you loved it 🥰

Rosebud

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

summary: carnations bloomed when you saw joel. too shy to admit your feelings, but too overcome to not, you began leaving flowers at his doorstep. 

warnings: very brief but graphic depictions of violence, mentions of death/grief, tragic backstory, emotional processing, reader is a loser who falls in love in two seconds, lots of metaphorical language, swearing, mostly just self-indulgent fluff, joel is soft, big age gap (reader is in late 20s), no smut, no use of y/n (reader has a nickname), jackson era.

word count: 6k

a/n: hey y’all. i’m delving into the world of fanfiction writing and i’m tentatively posting this as my first story. this story by @army-author is what inspired me here—i read it years ago and loved the concept ever since. i also super don't know much about flower gardening so apologies for any inaccuracies.

Your earliest memory was sitting in the garden with your mother one September. You were small then, no more than three years old, covered in soil and some residual stickiness from whatever fruit you’d just devoured, watching with a curious eye as your mother pruned her roses.

When you thought of her, you thought of that garden. In your memories, it was a labyrinth. Flowers, shrubs and vines overflowed the yard. You used to fear getting lost in the brambles, but at some point, you started to crave their thorny embrace.

It was a pink rose, so bright and intense, like a painting come to life. She shed the thorns, tucked it behind your ear and pinched your chubby cheeks. That was the first time she called you ‘Rosebud.’ Nobody ever called you anything else.

You couldn’t have known then that you were just a few Septembers away from losing her.

She died on the first day, in the centre of the garden. Your lasting memory of her was your father driving a pair of garden shears into her jugular. She collapsed to the ground, blood as dark as a crimson rose pooled around her as your father wept over her lifeless body. You sprinted inside and threw up.

She died a stranger. You didn’t understand what was happening to her then, but you understood that she was gone before the shears even entered her neck.

It haunted you for the next twenty years—but that person was not your mother. 

Whenever the wound opened, and that memory came flooding back, you closed your eyes and thought of her as she truly was—kind, gentle, passionate. You recalled her soft smile, her musical laugh, the books she read, the flowers she loved.

When you were a kid, you thought of her as the sun that kept those flowers alive. As you grew older, she became the sutures that kept you from falling apart.

You knew your father had no other choice, but you could never quite look at him the same. Still, he was all you had, and he kept you safe until the day he died.

It was your mother’s leather-bound notebook that kept you going. She listed every flower she could think of, and wrote the meaning next to it. That notebook went with you everywhere, all across the country. Every new species you came across, you found it in the book, memorised its meaning, and crossed it off your mental checklist.

Flower seeking had to be the most frivolous thing one could do at the end of the world, but it kept you close to your mother, and gave you some semblance of purpose. Each new flower felt like something blooming inside you—your own secret garden that grew from the depths of your soul.

⇸ Now if you lose your one and only

There's always room here for the lonely

To watch your broken dreams

Dance in and out of the beams

Of a neon moon ⇷

song inspo:

a/n: howdy!! this is my first time posting any work on tumblr bahaha so who knows how it is going to go, but i’ve had this idea stuck in my head for so long now, i simply had to get it out. any and all feedback is much appreciated !! I KNOW it’s a slow first chapter, but so much promise it picks up lmao. xx

Joel Miller was not what many considered to be personable.

Even in the last month of adjusting to the comfort and lifestyle of Jackson, the familiarity of guardedness and disdain for others had not been cleansed from his system. How could he be to blame, though? The atrocities he and nearly every other contained within the walls of the newfound community could not be erased. Decades of self preservation unable to be reduced to the foreign security Jackson provided.

I love this concept so much! And I definitely did not think this chapter was slow - I can’t wait for the next!

𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

pairing: joel miller x ofc!june | written in reader format, no body descriptions but does have a personality

genre: dark cottagecore, horror, angst, explicit smut, minors dni

Summary: Runners. Stalkers. Clickers. Shamblers. Bloaters.

Domestics.

All infected. One unlike the other.

You expect the infection to eat you from the inside out, turning you into something horrid. But instead, you find yourself with leaf-shaped ears and antlers that belong to a deer. While you live out the rest of your days trying to adjust to your new features and survive, you meet Joel, a survivor just like you but with a more grim approach to life.

Both of you adopt the forest as your home. One wants the other gone, meanwhile the other will do anything to not be left alone.

A few things to keep in mind; after the fallout with Tommy instead of heading to Boston Joel heads to the woods to escape it all, and the 20-year time jump doesn't happen. Which means, for now, no Tess, no Ellie. Joel is 32-33 here (since in the prologue he's around that age) and reader is in her mid-twenties

a/n: warnings will be given before every chapter and the oneshot (which will be both listed below) I've been sitting on this for so long and so excited to finally share it on the 15th.

I quickly want to shout a huge thank you to @pedrito-friskito who listened to me rant, brainstorm for months and edited this whole thing. I love you brain twin, I have no idea what I would do without you ❤️❤️❤️

chapters marked with ** indicates smut

spotify playlist || cross-posted to AO3

I loved this so much! The new element of Domestics you created was so interesting, and I love the slightly whimsical feel to it in some places 💕

To Hell and Back l One (Joel Miller x Female Reader)

Series Masterlist

Summary: After escaping a group of brutal slavers, you are left with permanent physical and emotional scars. Unwilling to put your trust in another human being ever again, you spend a year fighting for survival alone in the post outbreak world. But when you choose to save the life of a man named Joel Miller, the wall that you’ve built to protect yourself slowly begins to crumble.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings/Tags: 18+ only, minors DNI. Canon violence, canon language, brief mentions of slavers, brutality, torture, assault, guns, reader is an archer, mentions of hunting, animal death, injured/unconscious Joel, very minor mentions of blood, age gap (reader is 30, Joel is 56) very brief mention of scars, reader does not/cannot speak at times, a lot of internal dialogue from reader, at one point reader does try to speak to Joel but she is unable. *please be advised that no specific diagnosis is used or will be mentioned, I’m writing the series with the idea that reader herself cannot fully comprehend her inability to speak at times. Basically the gist of it is we have a very traumatized person who does not realize just how traumatized she is.

Word Count: 8.1k (good lord I am so sorry)

California l Fall, 2023

You’d been on the run since dawn.

This was phenomenal! - can I be added to the Taglist (if you’re doing one)? 💕

Ellie is absolutely terrified of storms the first couple months in Jackson.

Every time the clouds overcast, and it even remotely looks like it might do more then rain, Ellie is complete glued to Joel’s side. She’ll follow him around town, holding onto his arm or his hand, and when he’s busy doing something else she’ll sit just a few feet from him, but never to far away where she can’t reach him if she needs to. Joel’s dad senses are also heightened on days like these, he can sense one of Ellie’s meltdowns from a mile away, and he doesn’t even need to think twice before going to her.

“Ellie look at me.” Her eyes are always focused on the sky, her hands shaking as she listens to the thunder clap. “Ellie.” He always has to guide her face to meet him, his thumb rubbing in gentle motions against her cheek. “It’s just thunder baby, you’re okay.”

She nods everytime, sniffling as her fingers twist around his jacket sleeve. “Tommy.” Joel calls, turning to face his brother. “We’re going home, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Joel I-” The second he sees Ellie sitting on the ground, eyes wet with tears, he’s quick to shut-up, nodding his head and calling one of the other guys over to help him with his project.

“C’mon honey, let’s go home.” Joel pulls her off the ground, grabbing her backpack and helping it around her shoulders. He notices she hasn’t ate much, she never does on days like these.

Without saying another word he grabs her hand, pulling her along out of the stables and on the way to home. The whole time she clings to his side, watching the sky for lightning. When another clap of thunder echos through the sky they’re only a few feet from home but that doesn’t stop Ellie from stopping in her tracks, burying her face into Joel’s side.

“Almost there baby girl, just a couple more steps.” He guides her through the gate and up the stairs, only pulling her back when they’re inside with the door shut.

“Let’s take off your backpack and we can go lay down.” But Ellie doesn’t move, she instead burrows further into him and wraps her arms around his waist, leaving Joel to do all the work for her.

He laughs as he takes off her backpack, and then her coat, gently laying them down beside the door.

“Shoes Ellie Bellie.” She doesn’t look up as she pulls them off with her own feet, kicking them to the side when her heels slip out.

“You wanna go to my room or the couch?”

Her voice is muffled as she answers, but it doesn’t matter, she didn’t choose either one anyway, just mumbled ‘I dunno’ into his stomach.

“That’s okay. I have a better idea.” Gently pulling her away, he moves her over so she’s resting against his side, and they both walk up the stairs, Ellie still glued to Joel. She doesn’t pay much attention to where they’re going, because if she does she’ll think about the storm and if she thinks about the storm she’ll freak out. So instead she focuses on the sound of Joel’s voice, his warmth, the way he smells, anything to keep her mind away from the booming sounds coming from the sky.

“Where are we going?” She whispers, hearing Joel open a door and guide her inside.

“Well, I figure you can sit with me, watch me work on this new animal I’m trying to carve.”

“Oh.” Ellie breathes out, freezing when he moves to sit down in the chair.

“Well where am I gonna sit?”

“Right here.” Joel pulls her down, letting her get comfortable on his lap before moving the chair forward. “Like you always do.”

He picks up the new piece of wood, picking up where he left off earlier that morning. Ellie eyes the thing very carefully, watching him carve away as she cuddles into his chest, trying her best to override her fear with other things. But yet another clap of thunder, followed by a lightning strike, makes her tense all over again, and before she knows it she’s hiding her face in his chest, fingers gripping onto his arms for dear life. “Ain’t nothing to worry about babygirl, just a storm remember.”

“I know it’s just-”

“Loud.” He finishes. “I know.” He kisses her head, placing down the wood and knife so he can wrap his arms around her. His fingers trace gentle patterns against her back, making her giggle every now and then when he hits a sensitive spot on her ribs.

Eventually his weight and warmth soothe her, and he can feel her relax against him, eyelashes fluttering against the skin on his neck. “You can sleep Ellie, I’m not gonna let anything get ya.”

“You promise?” She whispers, nuzzling her nose into his neck.

“I swear.”

She’s not used to this kind of affection really. It’s odd, scary kind of, the way he’s so gentle with her. Maybe it’s because after the hospital she was convinced it was a one-time thing, that he’d only done it because she was to fragile for him to treat her any other way, but the longer they lived in Jackson the more she realized that Joel was just like this.

For such a large man, he was so insanely attentive.

At times it was even intimidating.

No matter how many nightmares Ellie has, how many times she wakes up screaming, how many times she screams and doesn't snap awake - Joel comes to her.

In the early evening when she accidentally falls asleep reading a new Savage Starlight comic he got for her, he races up the stairs taking two steps at a time and holds her in the dying sunlight until she can think of the stars and no longer sees blood.

Hours past midnight, street lamps long turned off, when her cries are quiet and small, Joel still notices, still crosses the handful of feet between their bedrooms and lets her cling to him for the rest of the night.

In the sweltering summer when all physical contact only traps heat between them and leaves them sticky with sweat, Joel keeps her pressed against him for as long as she needs, sharing his body heat and comfort just like he does in the coldest winter months.

Ellie calls out his name during the day with joy glowing in her voice and he responds with the same urgency as always, following the promise of her smile with his own lighting up his face. She asks questions and requests hugs, tells pun and teases him when he looks up despite knowing she is only doing it to fuck with him, and sometimes, when the doubt settles back into her bones against her best efforts, she says Joel with a rare vulnerability laced into her voice, only letting out the breath she was holding when he still responds, still comes over, still loves her.

There are days when she waits for him to grow tired of her, fearing the time she asks for him and he refuses to seek her out, to follow her call to wherever she is, but no matter how long she waits, he always comes.

Always.

Doesn't it bother you, she whispers one night, that I need you this much?

Joel brushes her hair out of her face and presses his forehead against hers, one hand cupping her jaw and tracing the line of her cheekbone before he leans back again to leave a kiss right below her temple.

Doesn't it bother you, he whispers back, that I need you that much I'm always here, no matter what?

Ellie falls asleep curled up against his chest, face buried in his neck, and when they drift apart in their sleep, she reaches out from the middle of her dreams, a silent call, trusting that Joel will pull her back into his embrace and carry her to the next morning.

He does.

Joel thought he would never hear her laugh like this again, light and melodic and laced with a childlike innocence he knows she lost long ago, but it's spring and the snow has melted and she is giggling.

She is playing with a puppy, watching it overestimate its own speed and tumble to the ground, holding it with the same gentleness he feels in his own hands when he touches her, basking in the pure expression of joy only animals are capable of. They're free of untainted memories, the air smells like roses and lilac, his fingertips have been numbed by his guitar strings, and Ellie turns to look at him with a smile, a memory that has carried him through winter.

The sun has yet to grow hot but it is already turning her hair into shimmering copper, her ends barely reaching past her shoulders, and when she remains unbothered by the breeze blowing through it, strands tickling the back of her neck, he knows he will get to watch it grow again, watch her grow.

After not being a father for twenty years, the thought of experiencing another childhood, no matter how broken, no matter how short, fills him with equal parts of fear and devotion. Her spark is still there, the twinkle in her eye when she asks can we keep her, the brightness illuminating her face when he says yes and doesn't bother to hide his smile. There are crocuses in the grass, bright specks of color among the morning dew, and Ellie's skin when she presses her cheek into his palm is softer than their petals.

Joel remembers the giraffe, the dog and her in the snow after his world had stopped, her laughter anchoring him back down, her tiny hands that should have never had to aim a gun softly holding their horses face so she can press a kiss to his nose.

All he can do is stretch out his arms and offer her a space to grow, the promise of an embrace whenever she needs it, a constant I love you he cannot quite say, not yet, but only the innocence preserved in the trusting eyes of an animal, the carefree joy of a toddler in her arms, can help her find her childhood again.

There is too much violence in the world, too many memories haunting them to ever escape the pain, but Ellie presses herself against his side, warm, alive, happy, and she is laughing again.

It's enough.

There is something so fragile and painful about Joel hiding his nightmares from Ellie and not asking for help. He sees himself as the caretaker and for the most part he is, but he takes it to an extreme it doesn't have to reach and denies himself any kind of comfort she might offer that isn't focused on her. In the fic I wrote about it, Ellie has already figured out how to help him, but I wanna write about the very first time Joel wakes her up while having a nightmare, both before Jackson and then once they settle.

I wanna say the first time is after episode five, he has them every night but they get worse sometimes and that are the ones that make him wake up in the middle of the night. Henry and Sam dying the way they did is a gigantic mirror of Joel and Sarah, and combine that with almost seeing Ellie get ripped apart by infected and you get a nightmare that makes you snap out of it with a full-blown panic attack.

Joel doesn't scream, doesn't shout, he simply shoots upright and his pupils are blown out with frantic terror. The ragged breaths he sucks in while hyperventilating are the only sound in the clearing they have chosen for the night, the fire having long died down and leaving them in almost complete darkness. Maybe if she hadn't already been awake she wouldn't have noticed it at all, but Ellie has barely slept for the last three days because she sees blood and bullet wounds whenever she closes her eye.

Her sleeping bag is right next to his, a silent choice they both initiated the first night after Kansas City, and she is on her knees before Joel even spots her in his confusion.

There are things neither of them can say in the daylight, but there's only the moon and the distant stars as their witnesses now, and the desperate Ellie he chokes on lays all of them out in front of her.

She doesn't quite know what to do, doesn't know what she is allowed to do, but Joel's hands are shaking and her heart is pounding and he held her surrounded by Henry and Sam's blood on the motel room floor, so she shuffles closer. As soon as his gaze lands on her the tension holding his shoulders up drops and her head hurts with the hours and hours of sleep she has been missing out on, so she feels not an ounce of embarrassment when they meet in the middle and Joel pulls her closer.

Ellie doesn't know why there are tears dripping from her jaw or why the soft touch of Joel's cheek on top of her head breaks something deep inside of her open, but she curls up in his lap amidst the heat he is radiating and listens to his heartbeat until it slows. The forest is a cold void stretching around them, and she squeezes her eyes shut when his breaths calm enough to allow his words to reach her ears, the same phrase mumbled into her hair over and over again.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

for @ellie-licious, love you meg <3

-

Ellie doesn't sleep.

She should, every cell in her body is begging her for a break, exhaustion puling on her bones, but she can't. Her skin is clean of blood, hair brushed out and tied back again by Joel when she couldn't get her hands to listen to her long enough to do it herself, but still. Ellie can't sleep.

The fire has died down over the last few hours, but the glowing wood continues to ward off the cold, and Joel's chest against her back keeps her warm. It's the safest she has been in ages, knife in her hand, gun a few inches away, and with Joel finally awake and capable of protecting her if needed. For some reason, it makes everything worse.

Paranoia comes to life beneath her skin, bugs crawling all over her body, making her itch, and her breaths are oddly light without the weight of her panic, only Joel behind her keeping her tethered to the ground or she would float away with the last wisps of smoke rising from the campfire. Whenever she closes her eyes, there's none of the darkness she would welcome at this point, just a sea of red pulsating to the beat of her heart.

Joel's left hand rests on the wooden floorboards below them right beside her thigh, fingers splayed out to keep them from shaking; the tremors started when he brushed against her hip and she flinched so violently it almost send both of them toppling to the floor. They still haven't stopped. Maybe she should be the one shaking, but despite the electricity in her veins jerking her back to the present whenever she gets too close to drifting off, her body is cold and still.

She feels like a statue, pristine marble forever changed by the imprints of angry hands around her wrists, her arms, her chest, her-

No amount of sculpting will smooth out the marks she will have to carry around with her until her body finally gives out and decomposes, peace and innocence found only in the cool dirt where fire and ash can no longer reach her, safe from the snow.

"Joel."

It is the first word she has said since he found her, and Ellie slides down a bit when he shifts, startled, hands fluttering uselessly in her periphery, too scared to touch, of what her reaction might reveal. She hasn't been able to look at him, not since he washed the blood off her face with movements so gentle her mind almost didn't trust them to be genuine.

Ellie turns around now and kneels in front of him, lowering the knife to the floor, vision so clear his features are almost piercingly bright.

"Joel, I'm cold."

Hold me, she wants to say, would say if her voice wasn't so broken she is scared it will turn soft words sharp. Make it go away, make me feel something else, something good.

She is still wearing the same sweatshirt, blood sprinkled along the neckline, smelling of metal and smoke and whatever remains of her innocence, and she can't decide if she wants to throw it into the fire and see it go up in flames or keep it close to her chest as a reminder that he is dead, that she killed him, that he won't come after her.

Joel is quiet, features pained, concerned, rage barely contained, and she wonders if seeing him kill David would have brought her the same relief or if this was something she simply had to do on her own.

Help me.

His hands are safe, she has seen them damaged and bloodied after beating someone to death for her, felt them taking hers and pulling her behind him, the last line of defense between her and a world that seemed determined to take the parts everyone else had left behind, too rotten for them to be of use.

The knife clatters to the floor, knuckles aching with the sudden relief, and then she is falling into him, clinging to his chest and begging him to cling to her, too, to not let her drift away or seep into the frozen dirt, to keep her alive, real. Joel is warm, so warm, his body melting beneath her and rearranging itself to spin a cocoon around her, weaving and stitching his words into her skin. He smells like fire and gunpowder, protection, like blood and the basement she knows will be haunting both their dreams, still alive, like cold snow and the promise of spring.

I got you, baby girl. I've got you right here.

This is so beautifully written - haunting and delicate. The imagery you paint and the way you convey Ellie’s train of thought is a perfect example. This deserves way more notes!! 💕

We Don’t Have to Talk About It

Joel raises his voice at you and it has you shaking on the floor. You both go from there.

Word count: ~1.5k

Warnings: Heavily implied past domestic violence. Mentions of shoving, slapping, insults, though all hypothetical (you’ll see what I mean). It’s obvious reader has experienced DV but there are no details provided. Panic attack. Brief mentions of making out. No use of y/n.

Please don’t read if you think any of the topics listed in the warnings has the potential to upset you. Taking care of yourself includes minding your media consumption.

It’s early morning. Every day starts like this. You wake up in a warm bed, the cream colored duvet heavy over both of your bodies. All of your limbs free of aches and horror. You usually walk with Joel into the kitchen before it’s light out, years of sleep deprivation weigh on you strangely.

Crush

Summary: Joel Miller has a crush for the first time in thirty years, and he isn't sure what the hell to do about it.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~3.5k

Warnings: flirting, fluff, Ellie and Tommy bonding by playing matchmaker and annoying Joel, assumed unrequited affection, mentions of violence, menace status Ellie and Tommy, Joel might be ooc but I can't tell, Joel has a lil bit of a voice kink lmao if you squint

A/N: This fic came to me like a premonition. Joel is so weird because he doesn't know how to deal with having a crush and I think its very cute. Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!

Joel ain’t quite sure how it happens. 

One day, you’re just one out of the many in Jackson. The next, Tommy’s teasing him over having a crush. 

Crush. 

Like what? He’d asked. Like a damn kid? 

Exactly like a damn kid, Tommy had answered. Just like a damn kid. Ain’t ever seen you like this, big brother. 

It’s horrifying, because it's true. He's enamored, smitten. He has a fuckin' crush.

It becomes worse when Ellie notices. 

“She got something stuck to her backside or something? Why are you looking at her so much?” Ellie openly squints across the room at you.