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nehi-soda · 3 months ago

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side by side with me (a tlou x hunger games au)

joel miller x f!reader

words: 3.6k

summary:

After FEDRA finally laid waste to the Fireflies and snuffed out the light, they devised a system to keep the QZs in line.

75 years later, the violence is commemorated with a special Quarter Quell edition of the Hunger Games. It gives FEDRA a chance to kill the nation's favorite victor - Ellie Williams, who they have a very good reason for wanting dead.

After all, would the QZs still obey if they knew most of the kids born in the outside world were immune now? Or would one little girl tear the fabric of their control apart?

To find out, she'll have to win the games again. And the odds were never in her favor.

warnings: major character death, suicidal ideation, reference to suicide attempt, canon-typical violence, canon-typical systems of oppression, we hate fedra in this house, i look liberties with tlou and hg, p in v, oral, ellie is the mockingjay basically, there's far less plot here and mostly just angst, bittersweet ending, dead dove do not eat

for @guiltyasdave who was enabling me and whose own hunger games au with joel i CANNOT fucking wait for.

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

are you—are you comin' to the tree? wear a necklace of rope side by side with me.

He knows, somehow. He’s toward the back of the crowd, still in his work clothes, faded and filthy jeans with a denim shirt, soil-caked boots and all. Sweat from the sun drags mud down his brow. The bandana around his neck is saturated from the heat.

He didn’t bother to change, didn’t see a point in dressing up. The cameras knew who he was. And he knew for certain he was about to be on that little stage.

It shouldn’t have been a sure thing. There were three other male victors there. But he knew.

There were two female victors—one older than him and one far too young. So when they called for Ellie Williams, two years out from her victory at twelve, there was no question.

The year she’d won, he hadn’t mentored. Couldn’t stand in that room again and watch another little girl die. He stayed home like a coward and threw up every time the bell tolled, and he didn’t know where she was. Each time, he caught himself prayin’ to no one, begging forgiveness that he didn’t try harder. Should have gone and schmoozed, should have got her a better chance.

In the end, she didn’t need him.

He wasn’t going to let her go alone again. Didn’t need to know a damn thing about her other than she had been promised survival and then this. The fuckin’ Quarter Quell.

So when they called out for Mitch, Joel stepped forward instead.

“I volunteer,” he said. He didn’t wait for the peacekeepers or the crowd’s gasps to fade. He strolled right on up to the stage.

And that was that.

Your fate was sealed when they announced the Quell. As the only surviving female victor, you were going back in that arena. You took a day to mourn and rage and let the numbness overtake you.

Nothing to be done about it.

So, while you wait, you live. You swim each day until your skin is stretched dry from the salt and let your waterlogged legs drag you home. Sometimes you sleep there, near the water. You know you’ll never see it again.

It does occur to you to give in to the call you’ve heard since you returned the first time. The lapping waves whisper a song: come home, come home. The crinkle of the water under the heavy belly of the setting sun reminds you of your mama’s old quilt, and a tug in your navel urges you to paddle out and let it tuck you in.

Instead, you let the sun hold you, warm and safe. On the last day, you bring what’s left of your food and have a feast upon a rocky ledge jutting out over the water. You spread butter thick on soft bread, nibble at rich cheese, and sink your teeth into melon so juicy it bathes you in red. Practice for the arena, you think, and your raw laughter gets carried away on the breeze.

As the only living female victor, you have a man for a mentor. It all feels stupid, anyway. You didn’t need someone to tell you how to do this dance. You barely listen as he droned reassurances about securing sponsors. When he starts suggesting you encourage them on your knees, you stop listening entirely.

That is, until you hear the other mentor tell Nick, your male tribute counterpart, to “steer clear of Miller at all costs.”

You sit up. “Miller? As in Joel Miller?”

“Yeah, didn’t you hear? He volunteered,” Nick says.

You hadn’t heard. “Huh,” is all you say, leaning back against the window.

Joel Miller won his games only to lose his daughter, Sarah, to them at 14.

You won yours not so long after Joel. Close enough that you remember his viciousness. Close enough that you remember watching him mentor his daughter in the arena. Close enough that you remember the crack and the blood and the ensuing screaming after he tried to join her.

“Back off,” he growls when you approach him in the training rooms.

“I want to make an alliance,” you offer instead.

“Nope.” He turns to walk away.

You grab him by the shoulder, and he flings you, but you anticipate that, curling your body when you hit the ground so you can roll right out of it.

There’s a buzz, and a speaker crackles to life. “Save it for the arena,” the voice reminds you.

He’s glaring at you, and you step closer anyway. “Let me help you,” you say quietly.

“I don’t need your help.”

“No. But she does. You’re only here to save her, right?”

He’s scowling, but he nods.

“I don’t plan on walking away from this. Not if she can,” you say.

You remember Ellie’s games. There was something broken inside of her before it even started, you think, something with the potential to be wicked. She could have let it fester and grow, and no one would have blamed her.

She was feral and violent, but wicked she was not.

On cue, she popped up at Joel’s elbow. She clearly didn’t trust him, but she trusted you even less, eyes narrowed. “The fuck do you want?” she snapped.

But Joel puts a hand up to quiet her, watching as you hold steady under his scrutiny.

He remembered your games. He’d already been mentoring by then. You didn’t win by brute force, but that didn’t mean you didn’t kill. No, in fact, the final shot of your games was you soaked in blood, having slit your last competitor open from below.

He had done whatever was necessary in his. Tommy was alone back home, and if Joel didn’t make it back, the chances Tommy would meet the same fate were monumental.

But he remembered enough to know you had skills he didn’t. He was a brute; you were a survivalist. Ellie would need both.

They don’t want to interview him. There are a lot of attempts at coaching that he ignores.

But it’s not just him. The general sense of injustice has settled in on the stage tonight.

He goes along with minimal fuss; it doesn’t matter what he looks like or says. He’s already a ghost. They dress him in a grotesque facsimile of his real work clothes—inappropriately tight jeans, a silk guayabera with too many buttons undone, an ornate belt buckle, and unbroken leather boots. They even put a stupid hat on him, so he looks like he stepped out of a textbook about cowboys.

At least it’s better than the dress they forced Ellie into. One look at her, and you’d know it wasn’t right, wasn’t her. Two years ago, they had shoved her on stage in a plaid frock and pink riding boots. Now, they’ve clearly decided the cutesy, innocent look is over. They dolled her up like a goddamn southern belle, complete with a very padded corset.

It didn’t bode well for their plans for her if she won, but Joel knows there’s nothin’ he can do when he’s dead and gone. All he can do is get her out of there and hope.

You’re already on stage when they go up. He watched from the sides as your droll counterpart tried to make himself seem charming and handsome. They’d put him in skin-tight leggings covered in glittering scales, and a billowy white blouse left open to his navel.

You were dressed like a fucking mermaid. It was a gown, still, but your midriff was only covered by thin netting. The bottom clung tight to your curves before flaring out at the train. It was also covered in scales.

“You’re prettier than a picture,” the host oozes. “You could sing us a siren song, and all the men’d follow you into the sea. And some of the women!”

“Don’t you know what happens to those sailors?” you scold. Your voice is playful, but your eyes are cold.

The host, Flipper-something or some other absurd name Joel can’t remember, leans in conspiratorially. “They win the fishing tournament?”

You laugh. “They get their heads bashed against the rocks, silly.” You aren’t smiling anymore.

Joel found he was, though. Grinning with sharp teeth, a look Ellie returned. Yeah, you just might have a chance for her, he thinks.

You sneak into his room the night before. It’s against the rules and probably a bad idea in general. Might have been smarter to seek your satisfaction with a future enemy rather than risking this.

But you don’t want any of them. You want Joel, who, for all his brutality and intimidation, is going to die for a kid he doesn’t know.

You don’t want him to walk into it alone. Nor do you want to be alone. So you’ll follow him there, maybe stand beside him at the end of your time, so long as you fulfill your mission.

It’s funny, you think, in the way of things that aren’t funny but leave you nothing to do but laugh, that you had sex for the first time just like this. At the end of the world, the noose all but wrapped around your neck, just to say you had.

The other tribute from your district had also been a fumbling virgin, so it had gone about as well as it could. But you had done it, and no one could take that from you.

So tonight, you’ll offer, you’ll feed that desperate ache to feel something of your own volition, with another dead man. The irony that you might have to kill this one, too, doesn’t escape you.

He knows, when he answers the door. He’s in low-slung gray sweatpants and nothing more. But he takes your arm and pulls you inside without a word, locking the door behind him.

You appreciate that there’s no need for words. It’s on your faces, behind your eyes. His hand around your wrist draws you close before slipping to your waist, the other already wrapped around the nape of your neck as you meet. The first kiss is gentle, sorrowful. It’s all of your “what could have beens” until it turns sharp and hungry.

He peels your t-shirt and shorts from your body, hands gliding over every inch of you. You sink to your knees on the plush carpet and mouth at the line of him before tugging his pants to his ankles. He steps out of the loose trap, and you toss them to the side before taking him as far into your mouth as you can.

Together, you and Joel sink into the finality of your lives like gelatin. The last cock you’ll taste, the last mouth he’ll fuck. The last cunt he’ll devour, the last god you’ll cry out to.

Except the god you cry out to isn’t there. There is only Joel. Broad and hardened, marred by the cruel lick of the world and his own misfire. You offer yourself at his altar, and he drinks of you until he’s satiated, knowing the last of his days will be spent starving.

For all the clashing teeth and hurried hands, he’s slow when he climbs up over you. You think he might be frightening in any other moment, the intensity and sheer dominance imposed by his physical form and his soul.

He’s beautiful like this, though. He’s got you caged in, sweat dripping from his brow, and as he sinks into your cunt, he imparts the apologies he cannot say. They’re in his kisses and in his slow, torturous thrusts. They’re in the way he keeps closing his eyes, as if it’s too much to see his reflection in yours.

His mouth makes its way to your neck, and he leaves his assurances there. That it’ll be okay, when you come to the end. That no forgiveness is needed when you kill him. He’s sure that will be the way of things, that his cowardice that shook his hand so long ago will crest, and you’ll have to be the brave one.

He bites and sucks as blood bursts under your skin; each blossom left to tell you this was real, this happened, for one last moment, we were alive. That for one last moment, you each mattered to someone as more than a meat shield. As more than a martyr.

His rough fingers pluck at your clit and nipples. His mouth works its way down to your breasts as you writhe before he pulls his cock out completely.

“No,” you gasp, breaking the bargain.

He says nothing, eyes shining, as he bows to your core and drinks again. It’ll all be over soon, and he needs one last taste, needs to feel you shake under his tongue one more time.

When he’s taken you apart, he climbs back up into the welcoming heat of your cunt. The gentleness is gone; you’re too wrecked for it now. Each of you aches to hurt and be hurt, and so he takes, bruising hands on your hips as he pounds into you.

He gives you a look, the unspoken question plain as his tongue dips out to wet his lips. You nod, and he brings a hand up to tangle in your hair, searing your lips together as he fills you.

In the end, there’s one last moment. The last tenderness you’ll feel. He presses your sweaty foreheads together, cradling your head, and you take turns pulling kisses from one another, chaste but aching, swollen lips trying desperately not to part.

For a moment, he cups your face in his hand, a finger brushing over your cheek. The hurt is too raw, and you turn away from his pretty brown eyes that hang heavy with grief.

He rolls off you, and you sit up, legs swinging off the edge of the bed. His hand lingers on your back for a moment, and when you stand up, you feel the brand of it there for hours. Silently, you slip back into your clothes and pad out of the room. Though his gaze falls heavy on your back, you don’t look over your shoulder.

II.

You don’t like it, but it’s not up for negotiation. When the chime sounds, you bolt to Ellie and Joel to the cornucopia. You can’t watch, not without losing ground, so you beeline to Ellie and grab her by the arm, dragging the both of you off to the woods.

Right before the bell tolled, you had shared one dart of the eyes with Joel, looking to each other and then to the copse on the cliffside at the northeast corner.

It’s nightfall before he finds you. The two of you have tucked away behind an outcropping. There’s solid rock behind you, scaling higher than you can see. The rocks near the cliff’s edge are tall enough to hide you, and there are paths on either side. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do for the first night.

Almost everyone will still be getting their bearings, but you’ll need something better in the morning.

Ellie is wide-eyed, eyes darting at every whisper of a snow drift or creaking of a spindly branch. She’s tucked up against your side, failing to comply with your order to sleep.

When there’s a sudden crack, she full-body flinches, and you’re up in a flash, crouched and ready.

Then you hear it. The tell-tale tick, like a film reel kicking on.

A Clicker.

It’s enough to choke you up, fear colder than the tundra around you holding you in place. Long-forgotten instincts.

When you hear it again, wandering further, your brain kicks back into action, and you copy the sound.

“Shh, what the fuck are you doing?” Ellie hisses.

Joel comes around the corner. “S’that your idea of being quiet?” he whispers to her.

She jumps again, clutching a hand to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Joel shoots you a glare, and you grimace.

“I forgot to warn her,” you say. “Sorry, El. That’s our signal.”

And impossibly, somehow, he’s holding a backpack. It has a sleeping bag hooked to the bottom. He sees your stare and hands you the bag; no need for even a glance between you before you immediately give the bedding to Ellie.

“Dunno what else is in there,” Joel murmurs. “Didn’t have time to check.”

But he has a bow. And arrows. And a sleek little knife that he hands to Ellie.

Holy shit. You might just be able to do this.

You don’t think about it; you just throw your arms around Joel. You realize your mistake right away and take several steps back, out of the range of his fists. But he’s frozen in place, eyebrows raised.

“This is amazing. Thank you.” Your gratitude doubles when you finally realize he’s covered in blood. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s not mine,” he says, shaking his head.

“How many?”

“Three. Plus eight from others.”

Later, the guilt will eat at you, but for now, the relief is euphoric. Every body now is a body you don’t have to fight later. Eleven down is amazing. Minus the three of you, that means there are ten tributes between Ellie and freedom.

You don’t count yourself or Joel as bodies in her way. When the time comes, you know you’ll each make sure the other doesn’t chicken out, doesn’t make her bear that burden.

It works, until it can't anymore. Until both of you are on borrowed time. Four bodies stand between Ellie and life.

Two tributes, and the two of you.

“Let go,” you hiss as you thrash in his grasp.

He can’t make his fingers straighten. Can’t stop the way they dig into your arm, slippery as it is.

You’re not even trying to scrabble for solid purchase. The roar of the river below must seem menacing to him, you think.

“Not like this,” he pleads.

You fall still. “Joel,” you say, shaking your head. “It’ll take me home. I want this.”

“The hell are you talking about?” He snaps. “Drownin’ ain’t the way to go, darlin’.”

“It’ll take me home,” you repeat.

You watch him understand. The clarity doesn’t help, not really. But he closes his eyes and nods. You’re starting to slip, now, and he’s starting to let you.

It’s not a long fall, but the water is deep. It’s cold, colder than you’ve ever been, and when you gasp in shock, you suck in water.

Just like you knew you would. If it doesn’t fill your lungs, then the cold will steal you. If that’s not quick enough, the powerful current will strike your body against the stone.

You always thought it’d be peaceful, when the water took you. But this is okay, too.

“What are you doing?” Ellie yells.

He looks away from where you’ve been lost. She doesn’t know he let go, he realizes. All he can do is stare at her.

“We’ve gotta help her, we have to—“

“Ellie.” It’s soft but horrible. Maybe the worst sound she’s ever heard. Joel shouldn’t sound like that, shouldn’t sound sad.

“You have to do something,” she says, but it’s devoid of all hope.

“She’s gone, baby girl. It was always gonna be this way, you know that. We said we’d get you out alive.”

As soon as the words leave his chapped lips, the world around them bursts.

When Joel wakes up, he sits straight up on the gurney. One wrist is bound to the rail in a velcro strap, IV piped into the back of his hand. He peels the tape away and removes it, pressing down on the puncture to ebb the flow. He yanks the sticky monitor pads from his chest and swings his legs over the side, only to find himself wobbling when he tries to stand.

He ends up grabbing at the gurney to stay vertical, releasing the wound and letting blood drip down his arm.

A strangely familiar blurry shape comes through the doors, and Joel panics, rearing back and balling a fist.

“Joel! It’s me, stop, please. It’s me. It’s Tommy.”

Joel faints.

When he wakes up the second time, he has the sense to stay down. He blinks up at the now solid shape of his brother.

“Y’know,” he says, reaching up a hand to see if it connects or if he’s hallucinating. “I never really thought hell would be a hospital. Makes sense, though.”

“What’re you talking about?” Tommy asks, swatting Joel’s hand away. It’s still bleeding, after all.

“Said it makes sense. Wakin’ up to the time I lost ya.” He closes his eyes, the sting already bringing tears. At least, he thinks, it’s not the most painful memory he could’ve been forced to re-live.

Tommy makes a wounded sound. “Joel, you’re not dead.”

“S’that part of the trick?”

“Look at me,” Tommy says, sitting down on the sliver of unoccupied padding. “This is real. That was ten years ago. I'm not leaving you here, not this time, and I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Joel blinks. He tries to sit up on his elbows, but Tommy pushes him back down.

“Where’s Ellie? Did she—” he chokes on the thought.

“We got her. She’s okay. She’s gonna be just fine.”

“What do you mean you got her?”

“Ah shit, this ain’t really the time or place to tell you everything. You’re just gonna have to trust me. We got y’all out of the arena, and we’re safe.”

“No,” he croaks. “I wasn’t supposed to make it out.”

“But you did. We got you,” Tommy says reassuringly.

Joel closes his eyes, brows pinching. “I let go. You’re tellin’ me I let go, and if I’d have just held on for one more minute…”

"I'm sorry," Tommy croaks. "There was nothing we could do."

#joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction

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