she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let
and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment
and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.
and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment
and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?
to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.
and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.
you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.
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The Revenant Wife
Pairing: Joel Miller x Fem!Reader
Warnings: Mentions of grief and death.
Summary: Ellie knows very little of Joel and even less of the wife he had before the outbreak. When she finally meets you, its just as much as shock to her as it is to your husband.
Word count: 1.6k
Note: ficlet is based off of this previous post about Joel getting separated from his wife during the outbreak and assuming you died until you find one another years later. Reader is described to look like Sarah. Title came from the ever lovely @djarin-junk <3
Tagging those I think would enjoy: @pedrostories @thesadvampire @joel-mlller @softanon @max--phillips @captainsamwlsn @hooplahoopla @moondirti
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Ellie didn’t know that Joel had a wife.
Granted, she didn’t know much about his old life at all.
She knew he built things. That he had a brother named Tommy and a daughter named Sarah, but didn’t like to talk about the latter that much. In one fleeting conversation, full of mumbles as her eyes began to close while they rested under the night sky she heard him mention you but was far too gone to truly hear what he said. Nothing more than the vague rumble of his voice saying “my wife” before her eyes opened once more.
“You’re married?”
She asks with such incredulous shock it sounds more like “somebody married you?” but girls at her age hardly ever have filters.
“I was.”
There’s the same bristle in his throat and far off look in his eyes as when she first asked about his daughter. An open answer but one that carries enough unsaid to tell Ellie of your fate. To warn her that she should change the subject or simply shut her mouth and go to sleep before plucking his raw nerve one too many times until he snaps-
“What was she like?”
But Joel learned early on that Ellie wasn’t one to follow warnings.
“Kind.” His breath stutters. “But not a pushover- she didn’t take shit from anybody.” He stares up at the sky, feeling his chest grow tight and fingers twitch by his side until there’s a rustling, the girl next to him rolling over to face him and he turns to find Ellie peeking out from her sleeping bag with a smile.
Damn this girl.
“Not even from you?”
Joel scoffs. “Especially from me. The amount of times she gave me and Tommy and earful-” he shakes his head, Ellie watches a smile grow on his face in silence, as if worried she may frighten it away.
“Did she cook?”
Ellie thinks of the stories the older kids would tell her. The ones who remembered life before the Outbreak, who told her of freshly baked pies on weekend and fluffy pancakes in the morning.
Joel remembers the first time you tried to bake him a cake for his birthday back when he was sixteen. How he opened the door to your forlorn face and a store bought sheet cake in your hands because as your mother told him over the phone, you damn near burned the whole house down trying to bake for him as a surprise.
“From time to time.”
There was only so much she could get out of him before his voice became clipped and eyes full of an emotion she didn’t quite know the name of that he told her to get some rest. Leaving her with nothing to do but to stare at the sky and wonder about these stories in the shape of a woman who unveiled a little bit more about the mysterious man she traveled with.
Of all the silence and secrets that made up the man that protected her, she created stories to fill them. Stories of Joel Miller, husband, father, brother and badass contractor that everybody loved. Of his soldier brother, of his wife and their smiling daughter between them both.
In Ellie’s mind, you didn’t work.
But not in a ditzy lame way like some boring housewife. But just because you didn’t have to.
Joel said that everybody loved contractors so that means he probably got paid like, a ton of money to build stuff for people so you got to stay at home all day. Ellie imagined your house to be ginormous. Maybe Joel made it himself for you when you guys first got married. It was big enough that when Joel came home everyday he’d call out your name and it’d echo through the hall as you called him into the kitchen, where your daughter sat reading as you set dinner on the table. Sometimes you’d get upset if he came home late but then he’d kiss your cheek and you would roll your eyes but smile before you all sat down and ate as a family.
Ellie imagines Joel’s daughter, she wonders if Sarah looks more like her mother than her father.
Ellie wonders as the sleep takes over her body, if they could have been friends.
When it happens, months later after she’s come to think of Joel as something akin to family and he thinks of her as something he can’t say out loud just yet, she’s shocked. She’s face to face with a woman holding her at gunpoint that looks nothing like the smiling mother she dreamt of during cold nights.
You don’t match the stories Ellie made up in your head.
You’re mean.
No. Mean isn’t the right word.
Cold. Yes. you're very cold.
Ellie watches in shock as you ask where they're headed, gun focused on the center of her chest while the two boys at your side point their own at Joel, who has yet to speak.
She waits for him to answer, but he just stares at you in awe. The same man she’s seen kill and threaten to keep her safe day in and day out is rendered speechless until all he can do is utter your name and she realizes that he knows you. More than that, judging by the way he surrenders his gun to you with no fight, something she had never seen him do.
You lift your head to look at him, the brim of your hat raises just enough to clear the shadow cast over your face and Ellie can finally see your eyes and the snarl on your face.
You’re also very pretty.
“I won’t ask again.”
The two boys standing on either side of you have your eyes. Same color and intensity, narrowed into slits like guard dogs waiting for an order and Ellie sees the way Joel stares at them.
She wonders if Sarah had brothers.
“Out west.” He manages. “Takin’ her to her family.”
Your eyes move to her and she holds her hands higher in the air.
“That true?”
“What?”
“Is he telling the truth?”
The taller one, Duke, she had heard you call him, had already ripped the bag from her back and emptied its contents onto the ground, she had nothing else to hide from you.
But then she sees something in your eyes. A concern for her that she hadn’t seen since Tess or Marlene.
And she understands.
“He’s telling the truth.” Ellie forces out.
You watch her for a moment and there’s a moment of panic where she thinks you can see right through her lie.
But then you lower your gun and jerk your head over your shoulder.
“C’mon.” is all you say before you begin to walk away. The boys gawk at you for a moment before you give them a look of warning and they follow in your step, occasionally casting glances behind them at Joel and Ellie who follow suit.
She’s quick to grab onto the sleeve of Joel’s jacket and pull with a harsh whisper as the other’s march forward.
“You know this psycho?”
Joel flinches at her voice as it pitches up. If any of you heard her, which he gathered you did because Ellie didn’t have an inside voice to save her fucking life, you didn’t care enough to react.
Ellie whispers his name again. Insistent and angry for answers but he just keeps looking forward. He can’t take his eyes off of you or the boys ahead and it fills her with worry but she doesn’t know why.
“She’s my wife.”
You lead them to a cottage. Its paint is chipping and the fence is reinforced with wiring around the perimeter but it looks like a home. She can vaguely hear the soft clucking of chickens nearby and there's a flash of fur behind the fence with a pair of pointed ears that duck away just as fast as she saw them.
Ellie has seen the remnants of homes before the outbreak. The plates still stacked in the sink and the jacket still hung up on the hook. A story telling a family that once lived within its walls and is now nothing more than memories that ghosts along its foundation.
But this one is real. It’s yours.
There is a rickety wooden table in the dining room. Each chair around it seems to have been brought from a different house and is varying shades of faded brown. You kick the leg of one and nod toward it.“Sit, both of you.”
Ellie looks to Joel before sitting. He follows suit, choosing the chair closest to her.
“I’m gonna get some bandages for that leg-”
Joel shifts forward. “I don’t need-”
“I wasn’t fucking asking, Joel.”
You’re not stronger than Joel, if she had to guess. You both look the same age, but she’s seen his strength, his violence, all done for her safety and knows if it came down to it, you might not win in a fight against him.
But at your order, he sits back in his chair.
You turn and set a shoulder on your son’s shoulder.
At least. She thinks he’s your son.
Softly spoken words are exchanged while the other keeps his eyes on Joel and his hand on his holster. The boy says something back in insistence, but you tilt your head and he nods.
“If either of them try moving or taking anything.” You offer them one final look over your shoulder before slipping out of the room. “Shoot them.”
They listen to your footsteps slowly retreat until there’s nothing but the subtle creak and groan of the wood floor beneath them. Ellie leans forward to look at Joel, setting her hands firmly on the dinner table in announcement.
“Dude-” The young girl breathes out. “Your wife is a bitch.”
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