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corazondebeskar-reads · 2 months

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of rage and ruin - chapter one

of rage and ruin series

chapter one

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werewolf!alpha!Joel Miller x f!omega!reader

word count: 3.1k

summary: Joel Miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. He turns into a much different kind of monster than he expected, though.

chapter warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, a/b/o, alpha/omega dynamics, omegaverse, captivity, torture, canon-typical violence, genre-typical violence, horror themes, graphic violence, suicidal ideation, gore, abuse by captors (not by either joel or reader), death, murder of innocent people, typical raider/hunter behavior, mention of cordyceps, angst, no y/n, reader is able-bodied and afab with no specific descriptions, viewer discretion is advised

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

This is a werewolf omegaverse fic that uses traditional and non-traditional elements of the genres. It largely ignores TLOU canon.

DISCLAIMER: A plotline of this story involves unethical medical care and human experimentation re: vaccines. It may give anti-vax vibes. This is NOT an anti-vax story and I do not want any related discourse please and thank you. This is about FEDRA being the absolute worst, not about the real world in any way.

In a rare moment of lucidity, he thinks he used to be human, once.

He’s partially transformed more often than not. Almost never fully, unless he’s under the sway of the moon. His real keeper.

These raiders may think they own him, but he knows the truth.

But lucidity is rare, and most of the time, Joel Miller is more beast than man.

Most of the time, he doesn’t even know he’s Joel Miller.

No matter what, though, he’s a nearly uncontrollable force of nature.

That’s why they keep a shock collar around his neck and tasers at their waists. That’s why they never turn their backs or leave him unrestrained. He fought like hell for a long time until he broke.

No shame in it, he knows. Everyone breaks eventually.

As the years have gone on, though, he’s been getting restless and snippy, less cooperative. And the pain doesn’t really matter anymore.

Nothin’ really does when you’ve given up.

On the last new moon, when the wolf was quiet and the man was loud, he’d tried to refuse. He sat, buck-ass naked, on the gritty wood floor of the house they were raiding.

He did not sniff out treasure like some fucking metal detector. He did not tear the humans limb from limb. He did not feast.

He paid for that night and had the receipts to prove it, laid into his back from the silver-tipped whip.

He should have tried harder to die at the start.

He hadn’t understood right away, when they took him. It, frankly, didn’t even cross his mind that they’d know. Laura, the woman in the woods, had been so sure it was secret.

He got it when they shot him in the leg with a BB gun, though, and the silver shrapnel burned. They were prepared. Silver-coated chains and cuffs, silver-tipped batons and whips and knives. Cattle prods and electric collars.

They’d been hunting him.

They tried to break him easy, first. They were looking for a wolf; didn’t know they’d find Joel Miller. They left him chained in an abandoned suburb, giving him just the minimum food and water to keep him alive.

It worked to weaken him, but they didn’t want him weak forever. Not a very good guard dog or weapon if he can’t lift his head. So when that didn’t work, when he didn’t beg and plead or bend the knee, they gave up and bulked him back up slowly.

So they tried pain next.

He came to know the healing as a curse. They avoided the silver, at least at first, since it’d leave damage. But when they found out they could break his bones over and over and over?

That’s when he started to wish he was dead. What was the point, anyway? He couldn’t go back to Boston. Couldn’t risk himself around Tommy and Tess.

Couldn’t kill himself if he tried, but they could, with their arsenal.

Didn’t matter what he wanted in the end; his brain wouldn’t give in. It overrode his silent pleas, and it fought and fought and fought.

So they took him on a raid. Starving, chained under the full moon, and they waited. He couldn’t go far, but he didn’t have to.

They brought the food to him.

“You’ve no control over it, huh?” Cheryl said after, leering into his “room.” They send her to play nice, but he knows she’s the worst of them all. They just think he’ll smell pussy and roll over. “We didn’t need you to kill them. You just need to scare them and help us find what we’re lookin’ for.”

They had him. He knows, he knows, he knows. He’d have done anything to stop it from happening again. From devouring tied-up families who dared to say “no” to Jim and his crew. From throwing up blood and bones and bows.

He can’t kill himself. They won’t kill him. He had no choice.

He broke.

This new moon, they don’t take him out to scavenge. No, instead, they drag him outside and spray him down with the hose. This, in itself, is not unusual. But when they force the muzzle over his snapping teeth to scrub at his skin with precious lye soap and a rag, he starts to get concerned.

His suspicions are confirmed when they take him back inside.

The only time he’s left unbound is here, in his room. Well. It meets the vague requirements for a room, but it’s also reinforced with silver-plated steel and concrete. Cheaply so, but enough to mute his senses and hopes.

Usually, they wait until the grate is shut to unclip the lead. They wait until he kneels and offers his hands to unlock the shackles. When he’s been good, of course.

But not today. Today, they chain him tight to the wall at the far end of the room.

They’ve had this theory that he hates to admit is not without merit. Looking for another way to control him, they’ve tried to find him an omega.

The first few times, they just forced him on them out wherever they’ve raided. Usually, he’s too out of control, and they don’t survive the encounter.

The most recent time, they dumped one in his cell. But the poor thing still smelled of his alpha, having only lost them hours earlier.

Joel didn’t react well.

They’re trying something new, now.

That he’s here while they clean his room is deliberate. He knows this. They’re purging all his scent from it, and they want him to watch, want him unsettled.

He growls when they remove his mattress completely. It’s a pathetically small, thin, hole-ridden thing, but it’s his.

Before they drag in a new one, a flat pack of grated metal is tossed in the corner. Two of his captors go to work on assembling the contraption, and another leaves for a while, only to return with a sawed-off portion of his mattress.

It fits neatly inside the cage. For that’s what they’ve constructed. It’s silver-coated, of course, but pathetically weak otherwise. If he truly desired, he could snap the bars as easily as bone.

He’s not keen on having burnt hands, though.

Just inside the front of the cage, they clip up a bit of cloth. He doesn’t need to be told what it is, knowing immediately after it’s extracted from the airtight glass Tupperware.

They tell him anyway. “Got a new toy for you to try, if you’re good. For now, this is all you get.”

The heady scent of omega soaked into the panties permeates his room.

He’s salivating a little by the time they finally release him, but he waits until the heavy footfalls echo from down the hall to give in.

They smell divine. He can’t resist tasting, lapping at the tiniest hint of musk and omega under his elongated tongue.

“Told ya he would have shredded her,” Jim says to Cheryl when they come in the morning with his breakfast. Joel’s in his mind enough to feel a little shame, back of his neck burning, when they see the tattered fabric.

It’s clear they anticipated it because, along with his tray, he’s given a new pair.

They’re not so appealing this time. The sweet scent is cut by acidic fear like vinegar through molasses. He ignores them in favor of his meal.

He eats better here than he ever did out there. He’s worth more rations to the raiders than to FEDRA. Robust meals full of meat and eggs and potatoes.

They need him strong, after all.

It’s not until a few hours later that he’s drawn back in by the underwear. It’s not so acrid anymore. Or maybe it is, and he’s just in the mood. Either way, he buries his face in them while he strokes his cock and uses them to catch his cum when he finishes.

There. That’s better. The mix of him with… whoever you are.

When they bring him lunch, they make him put the panties on his old tray before pushing it out to them. He doesn’t burn with shame this time; no, he almost feels proud. Like a peacock fluffing out its feathers. They know now. They must.

Whoever you are, you’re his.

The next day, they bring back the same pair. He wolfs out a little at the fresh layer of you over his cum. It’s all fear and tears and disgust, but it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all, not to him, not to the wolf.

All that matters is how his head fills with static when he licks across the gusset and howls.

Cheryl’s looking pretty smug on the other side of the door, but for all that she’s pleased with the results; they still threaten to turn on the collar if he doesn’t eat quickly.

He’s nearly fully wolf, gobbling down the food and returning to his treasure. He snarls as he strokes his cock, the head angry and purple as he tugs. He doesn’t spill onto the panties this time, not wanting to cover up the perfect combination of your scents. In the end, they’re shredded anyway, as his fingers stretch and break into claws.

In his full glory, his senses are even sharper. Sharp enough that he can hear a faint sobbing across the building and Cheryl’s sharp laughter.

“I don’t know,” she’s drawling when he tunes in. “He sounds pretty excited to meet you.”

The soft sobbing turns raw and cracked. He can smell the salt and phlegm, can practically taste it in the air. He’s aware of Cheryl, but nothing is louder than the way your heart is tripping over itself.

When Cheryl’s words sink in, when he realizes he might actually get to have whatever delicious creature they’ve gotten him, he howls again, a long, aching sound that creeps down your bones like frost.

Later, when he’s a little more present, he realizes they didn’t shock him either time he howled. It’s usually a guarantee.

Whatever game they’re playing, it doesn’t bode well for you.

Joel Miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. He wasn’t even worried when it happened. They’d been heading back to the QZ, him and Tommy and Tess, when a wild dog attacked them.

Or, well. A wolf.

Tommy had gotten a bullet in its head, but it had Joel’s arm in its jaw at the time. Its teeth had rent through his jacket like a spoon in a banana split.

FEDRA would shoot him without a second thought, so they doubled back to the little cabin and hunkered down. Figured they’d lay low long enough for it to be hideable before sneaking back in.

Tommy went out at daybreak for the carcass—it’d be leagues better than what they had in their bags. When he came back, he was faint and empty-handed.

“...don’t make any sense,” he kept muttering, pacing the tiny kitchenette.

Joel and Tess exchanged a glance.

“Probably a bear took it,” she suggested.

Tommy ran his hand through his hair, shook his head, and did it again. When he looked up at them, it was through wild, unpredictable eyes. “Wasn’t a wolf. It was a man.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Joel said.

“C’mon.”

They followed him through the thicket, and sure as shit, in the same place the wolf’s corpse had lain was a man with a bullet through his skull. He was completely nude.

“Gotta be a coincidence,” Joel muttered.

Tommy turned to him, eyes wide and hands shaking. “What kind of fucking coincidence is this?”

There was a rustle, and they all turned, guns raised, as a woman peeked from behind a tree.

She put her hands up and waited. Tess jerked her head to one side, and they lowered but did not stow their weapons.

The woman was in a ratty cotton dress with no shoes; autumn leaves crunching underfoot.

“That’s, um. That’s my husband,” she said softly.

“Apologies, ma’am,” Tommy said, his face soft and sad. “But—I think he attacked us.”

Her green eyes grew wide, pupils dilating and breath catching in her chest. “Did you get bit?”

Tommy and Tess instinctually looked at Joel.

“What’s it to ya?” he said.

“Did you get bit?” she repeated.

“Was he Infected?”

“Not with cordyceps, no,” she says. She avoids looking at the body but flinches when she brushes a foot against a blood-soaked leaf.

“What does that mean?” Tommy said.

“I think it’s best we go someplace and talk.”

Against better judgment, they follow her through the words to her home. She claims to have two kids alone there, four years and six months.

It turns out to be true. She gets them both down for a nap and serves hot stew. They try to refuse, but she insists.

Tommy feels a little sick eating the food of a man he killed. They all listen, rapt, as she begins to speak.

“It happened a year ago. But it wasn’t an accident.”

When the full moon is two days away, Joel is nearing the furthest from himself. Same shit, different month, but his reactions to your scent are getting, well, feral.

They’re bringing him strips of cloth, now. He gets a new one with each meal. He doesn’t destroy them anymore. Oh, no. When he’s clearer, he wishes he did.

But no. He smells and licks and then jerks off with them. If only that were the worst of it. He’ll come to be mortified during the waning, but he starts to add them to the cage. It’s fairly saturated with the smell of him from his old mattress, but it pleases the beast within to line it with the sweet mixture soaked into the torn sheets.

You’ll understand, then, the wolf thinks. You’ll know it’s safe for you. Somewhere he’s made, a den all your own where he can keep you.

But you won’t know, because what you know is very little.

When FEDRA started asking for volunteers to test vaccines, you didn’t hesitate. You knew the risks. And the rewards—room and rations for the length of the observation period, anywhere up to a year in length. You knew there would be a catch—probably many, but given that you rarely had a room or rations, it wasn’t a hard choice.

But this was the end of the world, and “informed consent” was not something that survived the outbreak.

They worked in batches. A truckload of live bodies at a time. Sterilizing showers with the barest trace of privacy, dressed in stiff starchy scrubs, and led into little cubicles where nurses with needles sat in wait.

A quick jab to the upper arm, and then you were off. The hospital was an old correctional facility, but again, for someone who hadn’t had a bed on a reliable basis, you felt only relief.

Until the deaths started.

They didn’t even try to hide it. Within 24 hours of arrival, a fourth of your group was gone. Carted out in black bags marked with β and nothing more said. You watched through your window like everyone else.

Someone came around the next day and drew blood from every remaining subject, and the tagging began after that. You could see the symbols on other’s doors, but not your own. α or Ω. What they meant, you couldn’t begin to guess.

It started not long after.

The changes.

At first it was so subtle, you may not have noticed, but a nurse came by each day to ask you a series of increasingly embarrassing questions.

What do you smell? What do I smell like? What does your sweat smell like? How sensitive are your breasts? Describe your vaginal discharge. How aroused are you on a scale of 1-10?

They began weekly tests. Blood draws once a week and daily urine samples, of course, but also hearing and vision. They made you run on a treadmill hooked up to wires.

And then, one day, after six months of intensive observation, they moved you.

Or. They tried to.

You were exhibiting a specific set of side effects, they said. You were to be transferred to another facility for subjects with the same side effects for further observation.

Raiders took out the truck halfway through the ten-hour journey. It was… it was a bloodbath, actually. For the FEDRA officers, anyway.

When they had you all lined up, grippy socks soaking in the ankle-deep mud, well, that was when you all learned which symbol was on your door. They couldn’t keep the word out of their mouths. Omega.

Not that it fucking explained anything.

One by one, a short blonde with a bob went down the line of you and shoved something up to each omega’s face. That’s it. It seemed to have no greater purpose.

But for some reason, when she pressed the cloth against your nose and mouth, she smiled. And they separated you.

Whatever that was had a deep, oaky musk, like the illicit brewery operating out of the warehouse you often slept in before the trials.

They tell you nothing.

They make you sleep on strips of cloth, so you roll around in the pile as you toss and turn, rubbing your sweat and slick and pheromones all over.

They don’t bring you anything of his, but you catch faint whiffs of him (him, always him, they never call him by a name), of those aged, liquor-soaked barrels, but all it does is make you nauseous. You don’t understand how you know it’s him; you still don’t understand any of it.

You learn very quickly not to ask questions.

They take him out on the night the moon is full and bloated, hanging over him like a searchlight. See, it whispers, I can find you anywhere. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. If it didn’t, the wolf would find it anyway.

He is not himself.

He is his truest self.

He is two or one; neither yet both. A monster movie mashup of fur and teeth and roughshod science experiments conducted by a doctor who wasn’t a doctor at all. He’s the monster’s victim. He’s the monsters’ monster.

He’s the wolf and the wolf is him.

He’s The Wolf and he’s swallowed Joel down.

He’s the man, the weak link, buried so deep he can’t see the light of his celestial mistress

He’s Joel Miller. Sometimes, sometimes.

Tonight, he is gone. There is only the Wolf.

And the Wolf knows. As soon as they cross the threshold, he knows.

Dawn is rising, the hunt is over, but he’ll be the wolf for a while longer. And he knows that fuckin’ smell.

It’s the saccharine sour mix of you. Heavy on your sweet apple undertones, and oh, he knows.

You’re in the cage.

next chapter

*title from "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

😬 I've been working on this baby for a long, long time, so I will be drinking your likes and comments desperately. thank you for reading and i love you.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #alpha!joel miller x omega!reader #alpha!joel miller #werewolf joel miller #the last of us fic #joel miller fic #dark fic #dead dove fic #a/b/o verse #fic: of rage and ruin #a/b/o au

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