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starstruckunknown-princess · 2 years ago

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This Must Be the Place

Summary: Emma McDonough was at her brother's wedding in Minneapolis when the world ended. Twenty years later, the boyfriend she left behind shows up in Lincoln, MA just after she gets her feet back under her. Follow Emma on her journey from Austin to Minneapolis to Lincoln to the Boston QZ to...wherever else Joel Miller may lead her.

Pairings: Joel Miller/OFC, Bill/Frank, hints of Joel/Tess

Warnings: Angst, canon-typical violence, fainting, former lovers reunion, mentions of dead pet (dog), if I missed any let me know!

Word Count: 3023

A/N: First time writing for TLOU -- I've never played the game but I'm head over heels in love with the show, so this series will follow that. Somewhat established relationship between Joel and OFC, Emma, but they haven't seen each other in twenty years which complicates things a bit!

Looking forward to your feedback! There will be at least a Part 2, but hoping this will be a series so let me know what you think!

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

April 16, 2023

When Joel flicked on the radio, “Cecelia” by Simon and Garfunkel started playing on the radio. Followed by “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. Then “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Diana Ross. Joel glanced at Tess where she was sitting at the shitty little table in the kitchen. All she did was nod.

“Tomorrow night?” he asked.

Again, Tess nodded. Joel got to his feet and started packing for the trip to Bill and Frank’s. Seventies hits meant “new stock” and since his normal oxy dealer had stood him up last week they were hurting for supplies.

From under the floorboards he unfurled his pack and reached inside, feeling for the collar that he kept in the bottom of it. His fingers brushed against smooth leather, and relief spread up his arm and across his chest.

The collar meant almost as much to Joel as his watch did. It served as a reminder of those he had lost, but unlike the watch that was entirely Sarah, the collar held a double meaning. First, of the dog who had worn it. Secondly, of the woman who had picked it out.

Bash, a shaggy black border collie/lab mix. Emma, the lost love of his life.

Blue leather, dirtied brown with age, and a metal clip that jangled every time the dog shook himself out. Since Emma hated the constant clicking of his tags, she’d found a one that clipped onto the band of the collar rather than dangling off the d-ring.

Once upon a time, the tag was engraved with ‘Bash’ and had her phone number beneath. Nearly half of it had been scraped away due to age and the car accident they’d been in on Outbreak Day.

Somehow the dog had escaped the accident unscathed, had followed Joel while he carried Sarah through the wreckage of their Austin suburb. Had laid down and whined next to Sarah’s body. Like Joel, Tommy had to drag the dog away from the girl’s body and get them moving again. Joel had buried his face in the dog’s thick fur to sop up his tears. For the next six years, Bash didn’t leave Joel’s side.

Until he got bit.

Joel couldn’t think about what happened next, just like he didn’t let himself think about what happened to Sarah.

It was better, easier, to shove those memories into the back of his mind so he could get on with the business of daily survival.

By now, fourteen years later, the dog would’ve been long gone anyway. Still, Joel shoved the collar into the bottom of every bag he packed. Every time he and Tess left on a smuggling mission, he couldn’t bring himself to leave it behind, hidden under the floorboards with his weapons and whiskey. If he believed in that sort of thing, he would think bringing the collar was akin to bringing the dog himself. With you in spirit, or some shit like that.

But he didn’t believe that. The dog was dead. Most likely, his owner was too. If the world was kind, she had been dead since the beginning.

But this world was far from kind.

It was only habit that made him stash the strap of blue leather in the front pocket of his pack. Like checking over his shoulder while walking through the QZ after sundown or tapping the bottom of his whiskey glass on the table after a ‘cheers’.

Not the unhinged glimmer of hope that one day he would be able to present the collar to its original owner. That one day he would see her face again. That one day he would know for sure if she had survived or not.

Joel shook the thoughts out of his mind, clenching his jaw at his own foolishness. He packed the rest of his supplies quickly, then put the pack by the door so it would be ready to grab and go after his shift at the ash pit tomorrow. Tess had a street sweeping rotation, so they’d get done around the same time.

The sound of the spring rain against the windows helped usher him into sleep that night despite the ache in his knees and back. Joel dreamt of her for the first time in ages and awoke feeling emptier than usual.

Emma enjoyed going up and down the stairs without a cast and crutches so much that when she reached the bottom, she turned around on her heel and climbed them again before descending once more.

“Someone doesn’t miss her cast at all,” Frank commented, wheeling himself into the foyer from the parlor. A wide smile cracked her face in half.

“Not even a little bit,” she replied. “Where’s Bill?”

The gruffer of the two gentlemen was usually right behind his partner, wheeling him from room to room even though Frank insisted he could do that himself — “It’s my legs that are useless, Bill, my arms are fine!”

“Making sure the seedlings survived the storm,” Frank explained, gesturing out the back door with one hand. “His elbow is still bugging him though, so we’re in for more rain.” He let Emma redirect him back to the parlor and she sat on the piano bench in front of him.

“He could’ve asked me to do that,” she said as she held up two fingers of each of her hands out to him and Frank reached forward, squeezing them as tightly as he could. His grip was a little weaker than yesterday, but she didn’t mention that out loud.

Now that her right leg was out of the cast, she knew her time in this well-equipped domestic paradise was coming to an end. Bill had always insisted that once she was healed she would continue on her way to the Boston QZ and never mention Lincoln to anyone. He’d even made her sign a contract to that effect in her own blood.

Even though Frank insisted that Bill softened over time and had come to enjoy Emma’s company, a pit in her stomach told her that sooner or later she would have to call the Boston QZ home.

“You know him, so used to doing everything his own way. If he had asked you he would’ve redone it anyway,” Frank said as she led him through the physical therapy exercises she knew for dexterity.

Tapping each fingertip to the thumb (the middle finger of his left hand didn’t cooperate), flexion/extension (mostly good), and the wrist deviations (again, the left hand was less than cooperative). Then they did their regular arm stretches together.

“That’s fair. I still feel like I should pull more weight around here,” she lamented.

The couple had taken her in, fed her from their garden and supplies, and for the first two weeks she wasn’t able to do much more than entertain Frank until Bill found her a pair of crutches in one of the various places in town he’d squirreled things away.

Frank put a hand on her knee. “You’re doing all you can. The cast only came off a week ago, you need to take it easy or you’ll re-break your leg.”

“Hey, who’s the doctor here?” Emma joked, smiling at Frank. He smiled back at her and tugged at the end of the braid that lay on her shoulder, fondness crinkling his eyes. She was going to miss him dearly.

They’d spent hours talking about their lives in the pre-outbreak days and the years since. She told him about how she was at her little brother’s rehearsal dinner when the shit hit the fan, running for her life in a cocktail dress. He’d shared the horrors of the Baltimore QZ falling and his journey north. She let him know the heartbreaking reason she was traveling to Boston.

Emma hadn’t thought she would ever tell anyone that secret, but Frank was so easy to trust, to befriend, to adore. His big blue eyes never showed the slightest hint of judgment or disgust at the things she had done to survive. He was an incredible listener and he gave the best hugs, even in the wheelchair. She understood why Bill fell for him.

Bill, on the other hand, was more reluctant to open up to her. He listened to her stories like he was looking for weaknesses or trying to catch her in a lie. Once he saw that Frank was comfortable around her, however, his answers to her questions became less monosyllabic. They talked about wines and gardening and radio broadcasting and he even let her start seeds in the seedling trays.

“Oh yeah, Doc?” Frank teased, “Where’s your degree?”

“University of Shitty FEDRA Med School, class of ‘05,” she joked. This was a common back and forth between them.

They laughed as she wheeled him to the back porch in front of his easel. Once she got him a clean rag for his brushes, she retreated to her room and picked up the book she had started the previous day, Jane Eyre. One of her favorites.

Her reading was interrupted an hour and a half later by Frank shouting at her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Em! Come down and meet our friends from the QZ!”

She’d heard tell of the smugglers, Tess and Joel from the Boston QZ. They brought building materials and seeds and, most importantly, Frank’s pain meds. She’d pointedly ignored the flash of excitement the name ‘Joel’ gave her — the chances of this Joel being her Joel were slim to none.

Emma made herself presentable in the dusty hall mirror, then descended the staircase — only once this time — and went out the open front door. Outside smelled like wet earth and petrichor and ozone. She stepped onto the porch with a ‘creak’ and two people who stood midway down the front walk whipped around to face her. From the other side of them, Frank was smiling and waving her closer.

A tall woman with graying brown hair and intense hazel eyes straightened as Emma approached. Her face told Emma the story of hard-won survival, of a fierceness that Emma recognized.

The second person, the man reaching for his gun, made her heart thud to a complete stop. His dark brown eyes widened and his hand fell away from the gun tucked in his holster.

Joel.

His hair and beard were grayer, his face lined deeper in what she figured was a permanent frown, but it was him. Same firm jaw, same powerful frame. Joel, it was Joel — her Joel!

Emma couldn’t draw a breath. Instead, she felt all her blood rush downward and her vision blackened around the edges. Her shoulder slammed into the door jamb, but she barely felt it and her knees crashed to the wood porch.

She came to almost immediately, multiple pairs of hands helping her up and ushering her into the parlor.

“Head between your knees, hun,” a woman’s voice reached her as they placed her in a plush chair. “Deep breaths, in and out. There you go.”

Emma followed the instructions and felt oxygen beginning to circulate in her body again. Bill’s rough hand passed her a glass of water, and she took small sips as she sat back up. The woman — Tess, she assumed — had a look of concern on her features, Bill’s mustache twitched.

“Can you tell me your name? Do you know where you are?” Tess demanded.

“Emma McDonough, I’m in Lincoln Massachusetts,” Emma answered. She could hear Frank yelling from outside and Bill ducked out, returning momentarily. Frank’s eyes were as wide as saucers and he all but lunged for Emma, his hands fluttering around her like a mother hen.

“Are you okay? What the hell happened?”

“I’m fine, I swear, I was just…surprised, is all.”

“Surprised by what?” Frank asked, dropping his hands.

Bill answered, “You know Joel. There’s history there?”

Emma nodded, “Yeah.”

“Oh, shit,” Tess said, “You’re her, aren’t you? The girlfriend who was out of town when it all happened?”

Emma nodded. The room went silent. She looked between the three others in the room, not seeing the cause of her embarrassingly Austen-like swoon. Tess looked out the window, then crossed to the front door. Bill and Frank shared one of their looks and Frank’s hand came to rest on her knee. They all turned their heads at the sound of approaching boots. A few seconds later, Joel’s broadness blocked most of the door frame.

“Can-” he paused, clearing his throat, “Can y’all give us a moment?”

“Of course,” Frank said, squeezing Emma’s knee. “We’ll be just outside if you need us.”

Bill gave her a look that said, ‘I’ll shoot him if you want me to,’ as he wheeled Frank out the door to join Tess on the porch.

Joel closed the pocket doors next to her, then leaned his forehead against them. Emma got to her feet, slowly so as not to faint again. Her mind buzzed with questions, so many of them she had no idea where to begin.

“I-I don’t even know where to start,” she offered. “What-? How-? I…I…”

Joel turned to face her. His eyes darted over her figure, an unreadable expression on his hardened face. All of a sudden, Emma felt self-conscious.

Twenty years had gone by and she knew she didn’t look the same as she used to. Like Joel, the years had hardened her face. Her body was softer in places that were once firm, thicker around the middle but still svelte. She wasn’t the sexy thirty-year-old she’d been when they’d started dating. Then again, he’d softened around the middle too but it hadn’t detracted from the strength and power he radiated.

It didn’t detract from how drop-dead sexy he was. If anything, the years of survival had given his rugged good looks sharper edges that she was more than willing to dash herself against.

She moved first, taking a half-step toward him like he was a timber wolf she had managed to corner. He instinctively stepped back and held up a hand to stop her. She stopped. The air between them thickened.

Slowly, Joel shrugged off the pack on his back, holding it with one arm and digging into it with the other. Emma’s brow furrowed and her head tilted. Once he had retrieved what he was searching for, he let the pack drop to the ground and stepped toward her, offering her what was in his hand.

A beat up scrap of leather that might’ve once been blue. The clip-on tag was all scratched to shit, but she knew it had once read ‘Bash’. Joel was careful to not let their hands touch as she let him place the collar in her hand. Her fingers closed around it, tears springing into her eyes. She noticed Joel’s shoulders tighten, his hand scrubbing down his face.

Memories of the smiling, happy dog flooded her mind and she pressed the collar to her chest. Her eyes slid shut.

Picking out Bash at the shelter, just a little shaggy floppy-eared puppy. All the training that had convinced her she would never be ready for a baby. The fights that realization caused with her ex-husband. Bash putting himself between them during those fights, growling at her ex-husband.

She heard wood tracks rattling and opened her eyes just in time to see Joel exiting the front door of the house.

Emma jogged after him, “Hey! Wait!”

Joel was halfway down the front walk again, heading toward where Bill, Frank, and Tess were chatting. He paused but didn’t turn back toward her.

“What? Were you expecting some tearful joyous reunion?” he asked from over his shoulder, voice dangerously low.

Emma stopped her approach at the bottom of the stairs, mouth agape as if he’d just slapped her. Rage swelled within her. What the fuck did he have to be so defensive — so dismissive — about? “After twenty years, maybe I expect a little more than you handing me my dead dog’s collar and leaving, yeah!”

Joel turned to her, “I’m not the same, Emma. It’s been twenty years, I’ve been through a lot-”

How dare he! She whipped the collar at him and raised her voice, “Fuck you! You don’t think I have too?” He caught the leather and tucked it into his back pocket. Tess, Bill, and Frank all turned toward them when they heard her shouting. She ignored them, keeping her focus on Joel.

“I didn’t say that,” he argued, his hands going to his hips in a way she remembered all too well. “Just trying to temper expectations.”

“Temper expectations? If you’re not happy to see me just fucking say so,” Emma spat. Her volume had returned to normal, but the three other adults were heading their way.

“It ain’t that. I’m glad to see you alive, Emma, I am, but it’s not like we have the time to fall into each other’s arms and sob it out right now.”

She threw her arms up in frustration. “You were the one who asked for a minute!”

“Cuz you fuckin’ fainted!”

He may as well have slapped her. All at once, she understood why he’d given her the collar after carrying around for so long. The hard look he was giving her and how he was carefully maintaining his distance —

He thought she was weak. Vulnerable. A damsel in need of protection. And, if this world had taught her anything, it was no place for damsels.

Good thing she wasn’t one.

She closed the distance between them and slapped him across the face, making sure she made it hurt. Tess shouted and slotted herself between the former couple and Bill grabbed Emma around the waist, dragging her back. Turning, Tess guided Joel back a few steps and spoke to him in a low tone.

Emma shook Bill off of her and headed back into the house. She glanced over her shoulder, catching Joel’s gaze on her for a moment. He rubbed his jaw with a big hand and brushed Tess’s hands away from himself, dark brown eyes following her into the house and up the stairs.

#joel miller x oc #joel miller fic #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #tlou series #bill and frank #tlou bill and frank #tlou fic #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us hbo fic #the last of us hbo #tlou hbo #pedro pascal characters #long lost love #lovers reunite #poor bash

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aventurineswife · 12 days ago

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TYYY, im the anon who requested avgin reader <33

i was thinking maybe part 2, where aventurine remembers that he promised to marry reader (an aventurine fan being delusional in its finest after some lovely angst), he would remember the promise because his past self told him that he would marry reader when he's older, and maybe he tries to find us but we already leave penacony

he looks for us for a while, but doesn't find us, until he comes across us again, but we have different colored eyes (contacts(im imagining every avgin has their own very unique eyes)). he tells us that he is sorry, but he had to leave kakavasha behind in order to become aventurine, AND WE MAKE OUT

jkjk

but he wants us to starts over and be friends again, and then eventually we start dating

i love being delusional over fictional men (especially aventurine)

End of Beginning | Part 2

Summary: Driven by a forgotten promise he made to you in your youth, Aventurine searches for you, only to discover you have also changed.

Tags: Aventurine x Reader, Slow Burn, Second Chance Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Reunited Lovers, Childhood Friends to Strangers to Lovers, Emotional Repression, Confession in the Rain, Friends to Lovers.

Warnings: Emotional Pain and Past Trauma, Identity Struggles, Themes of Loss and Separation, Mild Language.

A/N: OMG HIII!! 🤭I LOVED YOUR PREVIOUS REQ AND YOU'RE SO REAL FOR THAT LMAOO!! ANYWAYS, I HOPE YOU LOVE THIS ONE 🫶💖🥰

(Part 1)

The rain came down like a forgotten melody, blurring the neon lights of Penacony's streets into hazy streaks of color. Aventurine stood beneath an awning, absentmindedly watching the downpour, his hand resting in his pocket, fingers brushing against a small object: a chipped, red gemstone you’d given him back on Sigonia-IV, long before everything had changed.

It had started with a memory—half-formed, distant but persistent. "When I’m older," his voice from another time had echoed faintly, "I’ll marry you." He hadn’t thought of that promise in years, but it lingered now, blooming in the spaces between his fabricated smiles and rehearsed confidence. In the midst of high-stakes deals and risky wagers, a part of him had begun yearning for something more honest, something only you could have given him.

And so, he had started looking. But you had already left Penacony, slipping away just as he arrived at places where he was certain he’d find you. Weeks turned into months, yet his search continued, propelled by a restless ache he couldn’t deny. Each dead-end only amplified the memory of you—your laughter, the way you’d said his real name, Kakavasha, as if it held his entire world within it.

Finally, he found himself in a quiet place far from the bustling cities, the perfect setting for chance reunions. He spotted you standing beneath a flickering streetlight, your silhouette softened by the drizzle. But when you turned to face him, he froze, heart hammering as he took in your unfamiliar gaze—your eyes were different, colored lenses casting your unique Avgin irises into another shade.

Still, he could tell it was you. He took a step forward, and you blinked in recognition, guarded but unable to disguise the glint of emotion in your expression.

“Kakavasha...” you murmured, almost like a question, but he could hear the hope hidden in your voice.

He clenched his jaw, glancing down as he felt the weight of that name settle into him. “I... I’m sorry,” he began, voice barely rising above the rainfall. “I had to leave Kakavasha behind to become Aventurine.”

The words hung between you both, fragile but resolute. You studied him, looking for a hint of the boy you once knew, the one who had promised forever. He took another step, so close now that he could see the light rain gathering in your hair, feel the warmth of your presence. “I remember... that I once told you I’d marry you one day,” he confessed softly, almost afraid to voice it aloud. “That’s why I’ve been looking for you.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” The hurt in your voice was undeniable, woven with both sorrow and defiance. “Why did you let go of everything we had?”

Aventurine closed his eyes, breathing through the ache. “I had to,” he said quietly, “to survive, to become someone who could protect you, in a way I couldn’t before.” He looked up at you, eyes revealing the struggle beneath his poised exterior. “But I want to try again, to be... someone you can trust. Let’s start over. As friends, if that’s what you want.”

The words opened a wound, yet there was something in his gaze—vulnerable and raw—that made you want to believe him. The rain picked up, pouring harder now, drenching you both in a cloak of silver. He lifted his hand, hesitated, then let it fall, as if afraid he no longer had the right to reach for you.

And then, standing under the rain, words escaped you, unbidden but true. “Then let’s start over.” Your voice was a whisper, but it was enough.

Aventurine’s eyes softened, a flicker of hope sparking within them. He stepped back, nodded, and offered a small smile that, for the first time in years, felt genuine. Neither of you moved to leave; instead, you lingered, drenched and laughing softly under the storm, sharing a tentative glance that promised more than any words could convey.

As the rain poured down, you both knew this was only the beginning—of something fragile, yet unbreakable.

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