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penvisions · 16 days

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gone to the dogs {chapter one}

Pairing: Boston QZ! Joel Miller x F! Reader

Summary: Bared teeth and instincts are all you have to defend yourself while out beyond the walls of the zone. And sometimes, you have Joel Miller, though he's just as apt to turn on you as anyone else.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, canon typical gore, outbreak fic, age gap (only by about ten years), dark fic, dark joel miller, mean joel miller, joel miller is uptight, degrading language, sexual language, sexual proposition, violence, heated interactions, adult language, fighting, references to injuries, blood, one (1) instance of joel miller bashing someone's head in, gun use, gun violence, reader chokes someone out, reader is snarky, reader meets joel toe-to-toe with insults and it's amazing both reader and joel pov, lemme know if there are any i missed!

A/N: this is different by far than anything else i've written and shared. dark joel miller content tends to be so controversial sometimes but i've been wanting to explore this part of his character for quite a while. the reader insert is also far more...robust than any i've written but it's all so exciting! please lemme know what y'all think?

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The tracks are faint, you’re barely able to make them out yourself as you crouch low to the ground and move your hand in the direction they look like they’re headed in.

“Hey, you missed somethin’.”

“The hell you talking about, there ain’t nothin’ to miss.” He’s suddenly hovering over you, his own footfalls silent despite the pain you know he carries in his back and the swagger he has to adapt to not irritate it. He’s shining his flashlight on the imprint you had managed to find among all the dirt and rubble, a barely there scrape in the dirt that could be mistaken for anything. His voice is harsh, degrading in tone as he scoffs at your find. “You didn’t find shit, stop trying to make somethin’ outta nothin’.”

“Yeah and I suppose the marks that look about the same depth and span out in an even trail heading north ain’t shit either, huh?” You ignore the heat of his legs clad in faded and dirt smeared denim far too close for comfort. It would be easy to brush against them if you turned just slightly. Straitening back up to your full height, you don’t step back as you aim your own light over the similar marks that lead down a narrow path between the scattered and broken bricks. “It’s someone’s staggered gait, would bet they twisted their ankle or knee and it’s dragging enough to leave ‘em behind for us. Need to trust the younger pair of eyes we’ve got out here.”

“Don’t mean it’s our guy.” Joel doesn’t budge, ignoring the double whammy insult, head turning back at the hush of wind sweeping between the crumbling buildings. He turns his light off, securing it between his belt and waistband on the back of his hip. You know he knows there’s some truth to your words with how he ignores them. A habit of his you picked up, silence in the wake of begrudging agreement. Never voiced lest someone overhear that he had his moments of amenable tendencies, even if they were very rare and far between.

“Could be.” You insist, you knew what you were doing. You knew how to get the damn job done and if he heeded your words even once, he would realize it could make the situation go a whole lot smoother than it had been. But of course he doesn’t, he’s as stubborn as you are. Something you loathe about the man who had become one of your partners. It was hard to trust him when he didn’t trust you, constantly at odds with the gruff way he insisted he knew better. It was beginning to get on your nerves, the days harder when you had to interact with him in such close proximity.

“Could be isn’t good enough.”

“Do you need a blowjob or something?” You turn slightly to face him, his strong profile highlighted by the dark golden hues of the setting sun.

“Excuse me?" He pinned you with a dark glare, not taking kindly to your question. He’s chest to chest with you now, hard expression aimed down at you as you don’t move an inch. You wouldn’t back down, never had before and wouldn’t now. He may be intimidating, but you were too in your own ways. Hell, the first encounter you had with the man ended up with your knife at his throat and your knee over his crotch.

Him and Tess had been in your apartment, staking out the smuggling ‘competition’ once they had arrived in the Boston zone. Coming home from a rather painful migraine after shoveling ashes of deceased people had been one of the highlights of the day, if such a thing could even be considered that, only to find two strange people rummaging around through your things. Joel hadn’t been prepared for you to turn on him first, thinking he had hidden himself well in the shadow of your door and following it as you slowly closed it behind you.

A warning shot fired off at Tess had her scrambling behind the beat-up couch in the middle of the room while you turned on him. Only after demanding answers from them and getting them from the woman as she crouched behind the furniture, had you backed down from a stoic Joel.

“You heard me. You're pent up and snapping at everyone, need some relief?" Tilting your chin up, you meet his dark gaze head on, smirk pulling your lips up on one side. His eyes dilate just the slightest bit before narrowing, but you caught it and he knows you did. His voice is the deepest you’ve ever heard as he slowly responds with only one syllable.

“No."

"I think you do. Don't think I haven't seen the way your eyes drag down my body when you're walking behind me.” A bold statement, but a true one nonetheless. His eyes were a heavy and heady weight whenever they did exactly what you taunted. The thrill of the older man merely looking at you when he thought you wouldn’t see it perked up your self-esteem in a way you weren’t completely immune to, even in the shambles of what the world had turned into.

"Delusional. you're a delusional little-“

"I’m not a little girl, and you damn well know that." You punch the tip of your pointer finger into his chest, the dirty denim warm from his body heat. He’s a big man with a big reputation and it’s hard not to feel powerful as you obviously found one of the weak spots of his soft underbelly. An attack dog, a guard dog, a rabid dog, they all had one thing in common. They were only as strongest as their weakest point.

And you think you just found his.

The mischief of the unexpected discovery must glint in your eyes because his brows furrow impossibly deeper. The frown lines around his mouth pulling his thick mustache down, though it does nothing to shield the pale pink of his full lips.

He scoffs again, a harsh sound from the depths of his chest. Smacking your hand away from him, he takes off to follow the trail he can see a little better now that you’ve pointed it out.

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Act like you’re hot shit around the zone, only reason people don’t mess with you is cause of me.”

“I was doin’ just fine on my own. Remind me again, who staked out who to scope out the competition?”

“Wouldn't let you touch me if I was at the end of a barrel, and it was my saving grace."

“Fuck off, Miller.” You spit back, unable to rise to his taunt even as you fall in line beside him. That one stung, you had to admit. It was your own stupid fault, for finding him so attractive. From his dark hair threaded with silver to the way he carried a lifetime on his shoulders.

But his attitude muddied it, he was no better than a lot of the men you had run into before reuniting with your brother. The end of the world bringing out the worst in people, just like you had never one to sling insults so harshly or tease people easily a decade older than yourself who could snap your neck with a well-placed grip. Just like you assumed the man Joel had been before all this wouldn’t have even dared to think of talking to a woman with such spite and malice, if his faded accent told you more than he ever would.

The trail ends just at the shattered glass of what was once a revolving door entrance to a skyscraper looms ahead. There’s fresh blood splatter and the bag of supplies stolen from where they had been hidden for you and Joel to pick up. Two shells from a gun lay on the ground beside it, and you quickly grip your handgun to survey the area for the culprit who fired the shots.

Joel holds up two fingers, your attention going to him almost instinctively as he motions for you to crouch and round the left side of what remains of the door and into the building after the drops of blood. His eyes are focused, his full lips a hard line as he nods once to make sure you understand him.

Only looking away once you return the gesture. He turns so his back is to yours and makes sure there’s enough coverage for you both with his own gun at the ready. As quietly as you can manage with what’s still hopefully inside the pack, you pick it up with your free hand and avoid as much glass as possible.

No shots ring out, no bullets lodge themselves into your shoulder or Joel’s, everything is eerily still as you both move in tandem to seek the protection of the building. It seems to be blocked off inside, large pieces of plywood secured over the doors that had once been for elevators. The emergency exit off the right barricaded with all the furniture that once filled the ground floor waiting area.

“Fuckin’ told you it was a trail.” You mumble as the conflict seems to be over, the body of the man who had taken off with your hidden pack behind the front desk. Fresh blood seeping from a gunshot wound to his neck and the bandage wrapped thick around his ankle. You don’t flinch when Joel brushes past you harshly to stomp the bottom of his worn boots into the man’s head or the sick crunch that echoes slightly in the open space. Ensuring he doesn’t turn if he had been infected.

He rounds on you quickly enough to stir your instincts, the fleeting fear of him doing the same to you flaring up and making you take a half step back at the fierce look in his eye. The words he practically growls at you making your heart stutter painfully in your chest, suddenly breathless at the combination.

“Would you shut your fuckin’ mouth before I shut it for you? Tired of hearing that shrill voice all the god damn time.”

You huff, trying to play off the fear as indifference, shoving the bag of supplies at him. He doesn’t move to catch it, allowing it to hit him square in the chest, the pills and bullets contained inside rattling as the entire thing fell to the ground with a thunk.

Joel could only watch as you stalked off without another word, shoulders tense and hands shoved deep in the pockets of your jacket. He had seen the dilation of your eyes, the way your chest had risen with a quick inhale at his intensity. He had scared you.

That was new and he wasn’t sure if he liked it any better than you teasing him about being uptight and needing a little bit of pleasure in his life. An unpleasant lump rises in his throat and he tries to swallow it down.

Frowning, he bends to pick up the fallen pack, shoving it into his own nearly empty one before following after you. The silence that had fallen allows him to pick up the faint sound of labored breathing. But it isn’t coming from you up ahead.

It must’ve registered as a third person in the same instant for you because you’re turning to him with a finger pressed to your lips as you crouch behind a chunk of blasted concrete, gun already in hand. He mirrors you, reflections of each other as you each move around the barrier and take an assessing peak around respective corners.

Another man is laid out a few yards away, upper body slumped heavily on against the tire of a rusted car.

He’s barely alive, his breath rattling in his chest at a timbre that could only signal his impending death. A stark sound he recalls from a time long ago, both painfully fresh and numbed by years of oppression. He blinks the sound away, eyes closed for barely a second before you’re closing the distance with quick and quiet movements. A lunging dog at the sight of a threat. Constantly poised to take out anything that challenged the life you clung to.

It’s a reminder of why he willingly works with you, the way your smaller hands close around the man’s neck and clench. Shoulders displaying the strength you possess even with rationed food and improper amenities for life. If he wasn’t on your side, you would turn those same hands on him without a second thought. You had the first time you had met, when he had willingly gone into the den you had created for yourself in search of answers. In search of the name people gave when asked about who had the most knowledge on how to sneak out of the zone he now resides in.

He watches as you pick the man’s corpse clean, ration cards going in your pocket that he doesn’t think to demand a fair share of. Of the gun you hold out to him in silent offer.

No words are exchanged as you lead him back to the perimeter of the zone as the sun dips completely below the horizon. Moonlight illuminating your body effortlessly slinking and squeezing into places you had picked out that would allow for him to do the same with little trouble. You knew the operations of the zone, hell you probably were the reason some of them were orchestrated the way they were. The fear he had seen in you may have been fleeting, a response that allowed you to recognize the threat he could pose to you as well, but the way he admired your will to survive was not.

You only stay at his side long enough to relay the run to Tess, who had stayed behind and worked to ensure an alibi for you both. Signing your names and hers with one of the soldiers who traded with you on the roster in a perfect imitation of keeping up appearances for the demanded duties of all that reside in the zone. The ration cards slid into your back pocket are handed off to the older woman, no words or sounds coming from you before you slink out the door to their shared excuse of an apartment and down the hall to yours.

But he knew better than to think it was with wounded pride and your tail tucked between your legs, because he could hear the way you moved about your own space through the thin walls as if it had just been another day. Tess is watching him as his head tilts where he slumps on the couch, ears following the shuffle of your steps and the sound of clinking as you go about your own business. When he turns to meet her gaze, it’s unreadable but she doesn’t ask the reason for his short run down of what happened or the silence you had fallen into.

next chapter

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