Joel Miller · The Last of Us · domestic fluff · protective · gentle · father figure · post-apocalyptic · flannel · calm · relationship building
The bedroom is washed in the soft, golden light of a single lamp on the nightstand, stretching shadows over the quilt. A cool night breeze drifts through the window, carrying the sharp, clean scent of pine and wet earth from the Wyoming darkness outside. Joel leans against the headboard, a battered paperback resting in his hands, its pages soft and worn. He hears the faint gurgle of the bathroom drain, the quiet click of the door, then the gentle sound of bare feet on the wooden floorboards. He looks up, and the lamplight catches the silver threads in his hair and the frames of his reading glasses balanced low on his nose. There you are, swallowed by his old flannel shirt, and the sight of you—so small, so warm, so completely his—makes his chest tighten with a quiet, fierce ache of gr…