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pettyprocrastination · 2 years

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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.”

#revenant wife tag #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #this is just a little blurb because I havent written in a hot minute #mostly from ellies third pov so i hope the sort of juvenile internal thoughts make sense #joels wife is a sort of scary badass gal with a lil farm #joel miller x female reader #@ the blogs who asked to be tagged but had zero header or age in their bio: do better #tumblr please dont rearrange the order of this again im BEGGING #not pictured in the fic: joel punching duke in the face and wrestling the gun from his hands before the other twin shows up followed by you #and now joel has to grapple with the fact that 1. his wife is alive 2. she had children 3. he just sucker punched his own kid

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lilyrizzy · 10 months

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for my beloved @catofthecanals289... consider this day one of your twelve days of maxiel advent calendar lol (if i manage to write that much...i'll try...no promises....). but yay! wedding fluff

It's Grace that asks Max, “are you ready to marry my son?”

On her face there is a grin so similar to Daniel’s, Max can’t help but return it despite his pounding heart and sweating palms.

Looking out at the sea of familiar faces for a moment, he lets the steady hum of voices wash over him. Just breathes in the sweet smell of the tulips- Daniel’s idea- swirling in the air. Admires how the rays of sunlight filter through the big bay window behind him to bathe the room in gold.

Max would have married Daniel in a Vegas back alley, but he does have to admit this is all very lovely. Victoria, bouncing Max’s baby daughter on her lap as his twins play with their cousins next to her, catches his eye to give him a sweet smile.

“I am ready, of course,” Max says turning to Grace, and it’s been the truth since he was twenty years old.

She squeezes the top of his arm, her smile softening momentarily, before she nods at the registrar. Then, multiple people are instructing Max to turn around, to face away from the aisle and instead to stare out at the setting sun through the window.

Michelle had teased Daniel about this, said it figured that he would be the one to make the grand entrance of the day. Max had dutifully listened to Daniel’s insistences that he was not a show-off, while secretly agreeing with her. Announcing himself dramatically into a room silenced by the first few notes of a song he's spent months agonising over chosing seemed exactly like Daniel’s style.

I want a proper first look, Daniel had told Max, it will be romantic.

Hearing the charmed murmurings of the people they are closest to in the world as Daniel makes the entrance, Max can’t wait any longer to turn and look.

Max is meant to wait. He’s supposed to count to fifteen, to let Daniel get at least a little way already down the aisle before he moves to look at him. He isn’t totally sure why, just that it had seemed very important when they’d practiced yesterday. Except-

What he notices first is Daniel, of course. His wide grin, the soft brown eyes Max loves so much, framed by the cheeky way his eyebrows climb up his forehead as though to say, surprise! How beautiful he looks, though Max knows he would prefer the word 'sexy'.

Then, it’s their children.

Their twins, each with a hand tucked carefully into one of their dad’s, as the three of them walk down the aisle all together. Max can’t help the laughter that fizzes up from his stomach and all the way to his lips as he glances at the now empty chairs next to Victoria. Joe, who was supposed to be walking Daniel down, shrugs innocently at Max from the seat next to Grace.

The bubbles of laughter don’t stop, not even as his eyes start to get wet at the corners, making his vision swim. He can still see everything he needs to perfectly; Daniel’s well cut suit, his carefully styled curls. The sparkle of the diamonds he let Max slip onto his fourth finger almost a year ago now, the sunlight bouncing off them. The matching blonde heads of his children, Oli’s topped with the flower crown Victoria had actually made for his sister, Livia.

The people who remind Max over and over, just how gentle love can really be.

The song fades out into silence when the three of them come to stand in front of Max. Three perfect faces wearing the same smile Max was first drawn to over ten years ago now.

He wants to kiss the version of it on Daniel’s face the moment that he gets close enough for Max to reach for, but they are fathers first now. Oli throws an arm around Max’s leg, hiding shyly behind him, and Livia informs him seriously, “Papa, I gave Oli my flower power to help him be brave.”

Even as Max and Daniel exchange a grin, something thicker settles into Max’s throat. He can hardly believe it sometimes, that after years of traveling the world together, fatherhood is yet another adventure he gets to have with Daniel.

“Hi baby,” is all Daniel says, cupping Max’s face gently. He is the picture of smug, and Max lets him revel in his glory for a moment, before crouching down to be eye level with their children.

Glancing up at Daniel, Max asks instead, “do you think I could borrow him for a moment, so we can get married?”

“Guys,” he says seriously, touching each of their sticky-warm cheeks in turn gently, just as their other father had touched his. “Thank you for helping daddy get to me safely.”

When they’d practiced, Joe had been the one leading Daniel up the aisle. Max remembers that this is supposed to be the part where the registrar asks who gives Daniel to be married, but there is no giving away to be done now. They have always belonged to each other, and now to their children as well, just as much.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Livia declares, throwing her hands into the air excitedly. Oliver is less certain, but Victoria and Grace both speak up then, all gentle encouragement to coax them both back to their seats. They go- each with a parting kiss- and then Max straightens up again, Daniel is looking at him with the same shit eating grin.

Good surprise? He mouths as the registrar begins the formalities, and Max does his best not to roll his eyes as he lets the fond smile overtake him again. Anything to do with their babies is lovely, so it’s not like it was really a gamble.

It’s enough even, to blunt the sharp edges in Max’s chest when he looks at the two empty seats in the front row he had asked Victoria to keep free just in case. Fatherhood gave him a renewed belief that indifference and disapproval were not gaps that couldn’t be bridged with love. Now it’s enough to know that whatever divide might have formed between the family he was born into, there is nothing he wouldn’t find a way to cross for the family he made for himself.

As if that has ever been anything other than the truth.

He takes Daniel’s hands and repeats everything he needs to so that they can make what Max has always known to be true, official. When Max kisses Daniel, he feel both the promise of new beginning, and the fifteen years of shared history.

“Who would have thought it, Verstappen?” Daniel teases as he pulls away from their first kiss as a married couple, but Max knows he is thinking the same thing when he adds, softer, “all mine now, Maxy.”

What is a perfect day for them, is of course a little more boring for the babies. Halfway through signing the register, the children start to fuss, and so they end up with one on each knee, Livia demanding her flower crown back, and Oli forever eager to please the sister he adores. Somewhere, the same song the three of them made their entrance too fades back in and Daniel starts to dramatically mime the words to Max, like the show off he and Michelle both know he is.

Your love will be, safe with me.

#this is the fluffiest thing i've ever written and i NEVER write fluff so if it's terrible that is why #but don't you worry my black hearted gal #angst is coming your way;) i thought id just start off a lil happier lol #fic #max/daniel #also who knows the song?;))))

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