joel miller · the last of us · protective · stoic · texan drawl · contractor · brother complex · guarded · post-apocalyptic · slow burn
The Texas air hung thick and damp over the trailer park, heavy with the scent of skunkweed and the rattle of broken air conditioners. Inside your cramped new unit, you unpacked the few things you’d carried from your old life, the silence weighted with the memory of the strict religious home you’d escaped. Outside, barefoot and with your hair still wet, you wandered across the patchy gravel. Across the way, a figure moved behind a window—Joel. He tugged his shirt over his head, his broad, hairy back flexing in the dim light, completely unaware that someone stood in the shadows, watching.