Ravaged hearts
Joel Miller x F!Reader
Summary: Joel has been denying his feelings for you but when you reunite with your old lover in Jackson, he finally breaks down
Warning: Swearing, angst, tears, sad Joel
Word count: 3.8k
Author's note: I love to make myself sad and I hope I ruined your day with this
also why did my gif become 240p when I rendered it from an HD clip, shite
You were never good with words. You've seen too many horrible things to be the same confident and open person you used to be before the world fell apart.
Not only losing your family but seeing your friends die in such ugly ways, you saw no purpose in life anymore. You were the opposite of friendly and helpful.
Which was why Joel Miller didn't trust you when he'd first met you. You were looking for Bill and Frank, worried and stressed ever since you heard an 80s song playing on the radio, just when he made it to town with Ellie.
You heard Bill mentioning Joel once when you two were talking about the security of his home. He mentioned that Frank brought people there to form a partnership which Bill hated but eventually accepted after a long time.
If it weren't for Ellie, you wouldn't have joined them. All you wanted was to isolate yourself and grieve your friends but it was hard to say no to the teen girl whose honesty and lingering gaze that sparkled with hope made you say yes.
Despite seeing you getting along with Ellie, Joel always kept an eye on you, never trusting you fully. Eventually, it took him days to tell you that the girl was immune to the cordyceps, explaining everything that led them to Bill's town.
Many things happened in half a year. You lost count of how many times Joel saved you and you never let him down in returning the favor if he needed help.
Spending months with both of them while traveling across the country to find his brother made you warm up. There were times when Ellie was asleep and Joel would find you to keep you company when he saw you awake at night. He opened up more and more which eventually led you to see his real face, a face of a broken and vulnerable man who lost too much.
You didn't realize how it happened, only knowing from the moment he comforted you after a nightmare that you had feelings for him. And sometimes when you saw his vulnerable gaze, you let yourself believe that maybe he did too.
But Joel never admitted any of that.
You hated how afraid you both were to tell the other anything but still stayed silent. If he didn't want to take the next step, you wouldn’t force him to do so.
In spite of Ellie's harmless teasing, the more she'd joke about Joel's feelings to you, the more tense you'd become. Not that Ellie had anything to do with your doubts and fears but you could never just laugh at her jokes regarding Joel. Your heart was aching each time you forced a smile on your face.
Arriving in Jackson felt like a dream coming true. You'd spent so much time on the road that you forgot how it felt to be a part of civilization anymore.
Joel was happy to be reunited with his brother, his face and eyes said it all. And while they hugged each other, finding comfort in each other's arms, you couldn't help but remember how much you've been missing your sister as well. You were happy for Joel but also envied him for being able to hug his sibling.
When you saw a familiar face in the crowd after Tommy and Maria showed you around, you couldn't believe your eyes. At first, you even thought that your imagination was playing games with you but when a pair of ice-blue eyes pierced through your soul, you knew it was real.
Your boyfriend - or whatever you were supposed to call who disappeared twenty years ago when everything went shit - was alive and well. Looking at Austin made you travel back to the times when everything was great.
He held you in his arms for minutes and you suddenly forgot about everything. The fireflies, Kansas City, all the deaths you'd witnessed, your feelings for Joel. His touch and scent made you young again.
Ellie looked happy that you could meet your love again while Joel's face was serious and flat. You didn't know what might have gone through his mind but decided to not care since he most likely never cared enough about you anyway.
You spent the rest of the day with Austin, at his house, sitting on his couch and talking. You didn't realize how much your voice could be heard until you felt your lips go dry from all the talking.
"I can't believe that you are here," he smiled and touched your cheek. You didn't push him away, only smiled.
"I can't either, so much has happened..."
"It's alright now, you are here with me," Austin wrapped his arm around your shoulders. Leaning into his presence made you relaxed and guilty. You never wanted to develop feelings for anyone else, let alone Joel Miller who was an emotionally available man and also a decade older than you but here you were with a torn heart toward two men.
Between the past and the present.
"Tommy mentioned that his brother is a closed-off person..." Austin started and your shoulders tensed.
"He can be," you admitted quietly. You didn't want to mention that lately, Joel has been more open with you, especially when he saw you in your most vulnerable state.
"How was it to travel with someone like him?" Austin asked. "I mean, he can literally murder someone just with his glare."
You chuckled tiredly as your eyes drifted to the ground.
"He is a tough guy," you said as you started to fidget with your fingers. “But he has a heart too.”
“I don’t doubt that, I just always wondered what makes a man this cold.”
Remembering the time when you were on watch a few nights ago and he woke up from a nightmare, he let you tell him that he wasn’t weak to miss someone, you felt your blood turn cold.
It took him time but in the end, he’d spoken to you about his daughter, Sarah, whom he lost after his birthday when the outbreak happened. While you tried to comfort him, you felt your heart break when you saw tears glimmering in his eyes as he remembered his daughter. His confrontation explained everything that you never understood about him. His distant looks, his strictness, and his uneasiness when either Ellie or you got close to him.
Everything made sense and it meant a lot to you that he trusted you with his grief and guilt.
You didn’t tell Austin why was Joel acting that way, it already took him months to address your closeness toward each other, it wasn’t your place to spill his secrets.
When Austin saw how lost you got in your thoughts, he started to talk about the old times, distracting you.
As you were sitting there with him, warmed up in his presence, resting in his arms, it felt like nothing has changed. You still felt something for him and when you remembered that Joel never tried to make an effort to get closer to you, you realized that you deserved better. You deserved someone who truly cared about you and didn’t think of you as a waste of time.
Before you knew it, you were leaning in and kissing Austin. Feeling relieved and sad that Joel probably never felt the same way as you did, you concluded that it was time to let go of him after holding into delusions for so long.
You couldn’t force someone to stay who wanted to leave.
If Joel truly cared for you then he would have done something about it instead of dancing around you while talking with double meanings. He was never straight about his feelings, maybe because you weren’t good enough for him but since you spent so much time in each other’s presence, he might have started to play with the thought of you being a physical pleasure.
But you never wanted to be just physical. You would have never been able to just distract him at night and act like nothing has ever happened afterward.
Accepting the familiar sadness creeping its way into your heart, you promised yourself to never think about Joel ever again.
And for the next few hours, you didn’t. Austin didn’t give you a chance to think about him again while he undressed you and spoiled you with his love and affection.
***
“Look at you, you are actually smiling,” Tommy teased you once he approached you later in the evening.
“Didn’t think I was able to?”
Tommy shook his head and you laughed.
“You jerk!”
“Hey, don’t need to be so harsh on me,” he put his hands up in defense while a smile flickered on his lips. “I saw you disappearing in Austin’s house, figuring you were the woman he always talked about ever since he showed up.”
Your eyes lit up. ”He talked about me?”
Tommy nodded. “All the time. I felt sorry for him when he told me when was the last time he saw you but the more he’d mention you, the more I wanted to punch him so that he would finally shut the fuck up for once.”
Instead of being embarrassed, you felt your heartbeat speed up. Austin was always an emotional man and you loved that he knew no shame when it came to you.
“I assume, you guys caught up with each other then?”
“Yes,” you nodded.
Tommy gave you a satisfied look. “I’m happy to hear that.”
“What about Joel?” You asked, rubbing your arm. “How is he holding up?”
“Mad that I didn’t answer his calls but he’ll come around, I hope.”
You nodded silently. You understood Joel’s frustration with Tommy’s missing and you felt just as relieved as Joel that nothing bad had happened to him.
“I think you got off the hook pretty easily if you ask me.”
“Why?” Tommy asked.
“If it was my sister who’d disappeared while living her best life with someone, I would have definitely punched her in the face for making me so worried over nothing.”
At first, Tommy looked startled by your words, but his face softened when a smile eased your expression.
“Where is Joel?” You asked, suddenly feeling helpless. You didn’t know if now that both of you reunited with your people made you officially separate ways. If so, you needed closure after everything that happened between you two.
“At the workshop, he seems a little lost,” Tommy admitted sadly.
“Probably because he doesn’t know how to act around all these people and Maria who is your…”
“Check on him for me, okay?” Tommy asked and you nodded.
“Of course.”
Tommy gave your arm a reassuring squeeze before he walked off, leaving you alone in the dark.
While you were walking toward the workshop, you were surprised to find yourself nervous the closer you got to the lights beaming through the windows.
You didn’t even know what to say but you knew you needed to see him.
Swallowing your worries, you pushed the door open and noticed Joel’s crouching figure sitting on the other side of the room.
When he heard you closing the door, he looked up at you in silence. He looked exhausted, overwhelmed, and sad at the same time. You wished you could help him fight his doubts and worries but he was never that good with words either to express his feelings.
Walking over to him, you took a deep breath as you came to a stop in front of him.
“Hiding from all the curious eyes, hm?” You asked, trying to sound confident and calm.
Joel’s eyes found yours as he touched the broken watch on his wrist. The little gesture made you frown but you didn’t say anything.
“Where were you?” Joel asked.
Ignoring when your stomach turned at the sound of his defeated tone, you took a seat in front of him while gathering your thoughts.
“At Austin’s house.”
Joel remained silent as he was studying you with intense eyes. You wanted to know what was going on inside his head but you were also afraid to let things come to the surface.
“Austin is…”
“Tommy talked about him.” Joel interrupted you, not wanting to hear you finish the sentence.
You held your breath as you took his sight in. You’ve never seen him like this and you didn’t know how to react now that you came to face a different side of him.
“I thought he died,” you admitted, dropping your gaze to the ground. “But meeting him again after all this time… it feels like now everything has fallen in its place.”
Joel moved his head to the side. “Has it?”
You narrowed your eyes and leaned forward. “What is going on with you, Miller? We went through hell to get here and you finally found your brother… and I find out that Austin isn’t dead. We did it. Why are you this cold now?”
Joel looked around the workshop, his expression dropping as he tried to bring himself to look into your eyes again.
“You never talked about Austin,” he murmured.
“Talking about people I love is not something I do quite often,” you admitted.
Joel’s eyes jumped up to you, not missing how you said love instead of loved.
“Love?”
You let out a shaky breath, holding into the edge of your seat and fighting the urge to run out of the shop and hide in Austin’s house from Joel’s intense glare.
“He is my boyfriend,” you encountered and Joel leaned back.
“Even after not knowing anything about him for… how many years?” Joel asked doubtfully.
You didn’t want to answer because you didn’t want to think of that now. It took decades but you finally found your other half whom you’d lost many years ago. You didn’t want to think about anything else at the moment.
“I know that he still has a place in my heart after everything that happened,” you stood your ground, not understanding why was he doubting your relationship in the first place.
He never truly cared about you anyway. He always made sure you knew that.
Joel looked visibly uncomfortable hearing you talk about Austin like that.
“What is your problem?” You snapped, losing the last drop of patience that you’ve had with this man.
Joel sniffed and clenched his fists while fighting his thoughts.
“Nothin’... if after everything you still want to be with him then just do it,” Joel said with a serious glare. “I ain’t stopping you.”
Crossing your arms over your chest, you studied the way his stormy eyes glared at you with uneasiness but also a glimpse of sadness.
“Why would I not want to be with him?”
Joel closed his eyes for a moment before his expression hardened. It looked like he was desperately trying to keep himself together.
“You two… uh…”
Not understanding his stutter, you shifted in your place as you glared at him.
“Yes, we did.”
Joel’s face fell as he slowly tore his eyes away from you. It looked like he didn’t want to know the details but still chose to fumble about it. And you weren’t in a mood to be merciful with him.
“I thought after all this time you cared for my happiness,” you said and he looked at his hands.
“I do… you know I do.”
“You don’t seem like who does.”
Joel took a sharp breath and glanced up at the ceiling. That was the brief moment that made your heart drop. Because if you blinked, you wouldn’t have noticed the tears he was fighting to hold back.
Feeling exposed and clueless, you looked at him as if he was trying his best to not fall apart under your gaze.
“So, what now?” he asked, his voice low and vulnerable.
“Well, you don’t need me anymore, so I guess I’ll just stay with Austin.”
Joel glanced up at you, tears blurring his vision. Your heart shattered at the sight of him trying to hold back his tears.
“Why would you think I don’t need you anymore?” Joel asked, his eyes never leaving you.
You shrugged, trying your best to keep your voice at bay. You didn’t want to cry. Not this time, not when you decided you moved on from him.
“I only helped you get to Wyoming and now we are here, I’ve done my part.”
Joel didn’t look relieved by your response. In fact, he looked more devastated as you tried to cut him out of your life now that you reached Jackson.
“Is there something I don’t know?” You tilted your head to the side as his lips trembled.
“I thought you…” his voice trailed off before he shook his head. “I thought that we…”
Realizing what he was trying to say, you tried your best to cover your sadness. He had his chance and he never took it, you had to remind yourself.
“I thought we had something,” he finished in a muffled tone. “Something more than just a partnership.”
Your breath got caught in your throat as he stared into your soul, not even trying to hide his sadness anymore.
You hated to see him like that but he got himself into this. Not you.
“I did too,” you admitted and his eyes lit up, not expecting an answer from you.
“You did?” his voice was husky and deep.
You bit into your lower lip and gave him a nod.
“I cared about you more than I should have,” you said, feeling pain aching in your chest. “And I always made excuses for you but I’ve had enough of being nothing to you.”
Joel gave you a desperate look. “You were never nothing to me.”
Dropping your gaze as you realized it was a mistake to come here. You didn’t expect him to admit his feelings anytime in this life and now that it happened, you didn’t know what to do.
When you refused to look at him, he slowly stood up and walked over to you. The closer he got, the faster your heart was beating, threatening to break through your ribcage.
Joel lowered himself to his knee with a grunt to be the same level as you were and reached out to take your hands in his.
Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t ignore what his touch has turned you into. His calloused hands made you feel safe and wanted which was something you’ve lingered for a long time while you were traveling with him.
“I tried not to care for you because I knew that I wouldn’t survive if something has happened to you too,” he said quietly, searching for your eyes. “I thought if I pushed you away then I would stop having feelings for you.”
His words both surprised and disappointed you. You always thought you’d done something wrong that made him the moody man he was whenever you were around him. You’d spent countless nights wondering how should you change to make him finally see you.
“If you really cared for me then you would have risked it,” you looked into his eyes with flushed cheeks.
Joel dropped his gaze to your lips before he rubbed your soft skin with his thumb.
“I know, baby, I’m a coward,” he admitted shamefully. “And you deserve someone who is not afraid to be honest. Someone like Austin. I just… I hate that you are with him.”
You felt anger crawl its way through your veins as his words echoed in your ears. I hate that you are with him.
You ripped your hands out of his grasp and stood up, silently ordering him to do the same.
“What is the point of all this now?” You asked in a shaky tone. ”You like to make me desperate just when I found Austin? Now that I’m happy you are quick to ruin it for me, huh?”
“No… that’s not what I…”
Wiping your eyes, you glared at him, burning down every bridge that has ever connected you to him.
“You truly are a coward, if you would have thought about how I felt instead of putting a wall between us then you wouldn’t have waited until the last moment to tell me how you feel about me!”
Joel didn’t answer because he couldn’t argue with your reasons. He knew you were telling the truth and it made him drop his shoulders.
“And you felt the need to tell me all this when Austin came back into my life? It took you this long to realize what you felt was real?”
Joel took a step back, your anger surprising him while also understanding why his speech struck a nerve in you.
“What do you want me to say to that?” You spread your arms.
“I just wanted you to know…”
“Well, it’s too late for that,” you said, your voice cracking. “I don’t want to be with someone who only values people when they leave him.”
Your heart was breaking into million pieces as you took his sad gaze in. Part of you wanted to close the distance between you two, pulling him close and never letting him go, showing him that he was worthy of love but you knew otherwise.
You were the only one between you two who tried to do something about your feelings toward each other while he shut you out every time.
He might have only noticed what he had when he lost you but what about your feelings? He kept sending you mixed signals, one day keeping you close to him only to push you away the next day.
You were exhausted from trying. And you didn’t want to chase dreams that would never come true.
“I thought this would end differently,” he admitted, almost whispering the words into the silence that fell upon you.
“I hoped it would too.” You admitted with tears running down your cheeks.
Joel stepped closer to you, his eyes holding many emotions as he cupped your cheek. You wanted to push him away, slap him, even scream at him for being such an asshole but his touch made you weak and lose your voice.
“I’m sorry,” Joel said, staring into your eyes before leaning closer to place a tender kiss on your forehead.
You were frozen in your place as his lips touched your skin, a tear dropping as he closed his eyes, falling onto your temple.
You would have never thought that you’d make Joel Miller cry and this was the first time you ever felt broken by his touch. Only if things were different…
“Tell Austin that he has an angel in his hands, he better keep her safe and love her the way she deserves to be loved.”
The way he was afraid to love you.
His words made your heart skip a beat. As you looked up at his defeated face, you saw him trying to give you a reassuring smile that only made your pain even worse.
“He will.”
With one last glance, you stepped away from him, wiping your wet cheeks before hurrying out of the workshop, and stepping into the endless darkness of the night.
That was the last time you'd spoken to Joel Miller.
