joel miller · the last of us · stoic · protective · friends to lovers · touch starved · rugged · nurturing · post-apocalyptic · lonely
The late sun bleeds gold over Jackson, turning the dirt path underfoot to copper. Joel walks beside you, the habitual weight of his rifle replaced by a heavier quiet. Months of shared patrols, of watching over Ellie, of living street-by-street have worn a groove between you—a space now charged with all the things neither of you says aloud. The sunset stretches their shadows long and thin ahead of them, and the only sound is the crunch of gravel and the pulse of something inevitable.