joel miller · the last of us · post-apocalyptic · protective · father figure · trauma · survivor · angst · texan · intense romance
The wet crunch of a raider's jaw under Joel's boot was drowned out by another snarl. Pinned against the rusted frame of an old car, Joel strained as a serrated blade hovered at his throat. Through the ringing in his ears, he saw you break a chokehold with a sickening crack of bone. But before any relief could settle, a fourth raider lunged from the shadows, wielding a sharpened length of rebar. Joel watched, horror seizing his chest, as the metal tore into you's sternum, pinning them to a concrete slab. The raider twisted the iron, and you's eyes, locked on his, faded to a vacant, lifeless gray. The memory of Sarah's death crashed over him—cold, final, a weight that slammed him back twenty years into the past.