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White-faced, Ellie's got her eyes clamped shut, lips moving around a silent refrain of what looks like fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…
Fuck indeed.
“Your little friend’s immune,” Tommy says quietly. “That ain’t news to me, and it sure as hell ain’t news to her. Bit twice before she lost her last fucking baby tooth.”
Or:
Two months after the WLF got away without a trace, Tommy learns that Ellie and Joel are more alike than he bargained for.
Bookmarked by graceverse
17 Aug 2025
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Joel POV during and after That Scene.
Bookmarked by graceverse
04 Aug 2025
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tough as nails and built for breaking (but you were just a kid) by howgeorgeusedtobe
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
24 Jul 2025
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It comes up on Tommy’s left, crashing through the underbrush as it takes out his horse by clawing at her legs. Ellie can’t even see it at first, just hears the branches snapping and the horrible staccato clickclickclickclick. Then she watches the chestnut mare—Ziggy—going down, and the shock on Tommy’s face as he scrambles for purchase. She’s reaching for him in an instant, yelling at him to grab her hand or her reins or her goddamn pant leg, no plan other than keep him out of biting distance. There are gunshots ringing out as the other two chaperones draw their pistols and come galloping back from where they’d been ahead on the trail. Over the ringing in her ears from the adrenaline and the shots and the terror that she’ll be too late, she thinks she hears them urging the kids to move forward, away from the action.
Fuck that, Ellie thinks.
Or, Ellie brings the ten essentials AND Tommy on her field trip but it all goes to hell anyways.
Bookmarked by graceverse
24 Jul 2025
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Ellie’s not sleeping much.
Granted, they’ve only been in Jackson three weeks, hardly time to shake the habits of the road like sleeping in shifts for a couple hours at a time. But this is different, Joel can tell. She’s restless, deep shadows under her eyes, and when he wakes in the middle of the night he can usually hear her moving about the house somewhere.
But the house is quiet one night when he pokes his head into her room and finds her bed empty, and his heart damn near screeches to a stop in his chest. It’s almost three in the morning, so why in the hell isn’t she in her bed?
(4 times ellie can't sleep, and 1 time joel can't either)
Bookmarked by graceverse
24 Jul 2025
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Summary
modern au retelling of the last of us + slice of life one-shots (eventually)
- Words:
- 204,832
- Works:
- 1
- Bookmarks:
- 7
Bookmarked by graceverse
21 Jul 2025
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Tommy sighs, scrubbing a hand over his pinched face. He has a pretty good idea about what happened there, and it’s twisting the knife in his heart a full three-sixty. Joel, in pain and delirious with it, stuck twenty years in the past and begging for his baby girl. Probably with a head injury to boot. “My brother has no living children, ma’am. He might be experiencing some confusion.”
“Your brother is unconscious, Mr. Miller. He isn’t experiencing anything at the moment. And I can assure you, the minor in our care is very much alive.”
or:
The story of Ellie and Joel, as told to Tommy, who would have liked to have known he had a niece before it became hugely, urgently relevant. (Modern AU)
Bookmarked by graceverse
14 Jul 2025
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Post 2x02
Joel blacks out in the lodge and wakes up standing on the staircase of his old house in Texas. He and Ellie get the chance to say what they need to say.
Bookmarked by graceverse
14 Jul 2025
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it's a long way back (but a short road home) by cardigains
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
18 Aug 2025
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“It’s okay. I know a guy.” Ellie likes talking about Joel like he’s her mob lackey or something. Makes everything feel a little less looming and leering and lethal. She called Joel "a guy" when it came to getting an extra slice of pie or getting outside of Jackson's walls when she needed a day off of school, when she couldn’t fucking stomach it anymore. He told her to cut it out whenever she called him that. It was a bit. She liked all of their bits these days. “He’ll get you out too.”
“I’m Ellie," she volunteers though she doesn't want to. This woman isn’t an enemy. She’s as caged in as Ellie, worn down to the point that she barely had her wits left about her. There was a look in people’s eyes when they got that way, when they’d started giving up hope. Ellie would fucking know.
The woman shakes something loose from her bones, digs her teeth against her lip before she answers, “I’m Sarah.”
Ellie snorts. “Yeah,” she says with only the edges of humor clinging on. “He’ll definitely fucking save you.”
or: On Outbreak Night Joel and Tommy are separated from Sarah. They spend the next twenty-one years assuming each other is dead. Until Ellie and Sarah find each other in the same awful circumstances.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 152,584
- Chapters:
- 17/20
- Comments:
- 858
- Kudos:
- 1,244
- Bookmarks:
- 279
- Hits:
- 31,444
Bookmarked by graceverse
04 Jul 2025
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memories feel like weapons (i miss who i used to be) by BarlowGirl
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
04 Mar 2023
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Joel pretends he doesn’t notice the toy robot go missing as soon as he and Henry look away. He ain’t going to interfere with Henry and Sam, but if Little Miss Sticky Fingers wants to give the stupid toy to Sam later, well, he’s not going to say anything either. The boy’s just a kid. They both are. And they don’t get to be just kids very often anymore.
Not his place to say anything, but he won’t stop Ellie either.
Or: Ellie steals stuff. Joel doesn't really care, but he notices. He also keeps giving her things. She spends a lot of time thinking about the things she owns.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 34,251
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 96
- Kudos:
- 1,053
- Bookmarks:
- 376
- Hits:
- 13,184
Bookmarked by graceverse
10 Feb 2025
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i may have drew blood (that was true love) by captainredspade (CodenameArtemis) for marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
19 Apr 2025
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In Jackson, Ellie tries to handle some bullies on her own.
Bookmarked by graceverse
30 Dec 2024
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Everywhere, Everything by MessyDepressy95
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
16 Jan 2025
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Summary
Her tears feel scorching against the skin of his ribs as they soak through his shirt.
"You found me." The words are whispered into the sweat damp shirt he's been wearing for more days than he can remember.
Coaxing her face away from the dirty material, he looks into those pretty green, and gold flecked brown eyes of hers.
"There ain't a place you could be that I wouldn't, mija. It's you and me, remember? That's our deal." It's been the deal since she'd wrapped those tiny little hands around what remains of his heart when she was four.
"You and me." She echoes back with a wet sob.
"Always, baby girl." He says it with the same conviction as when he'd promised not to kill her, to not let anyone kill her.
Nine years later, and he's making her a new promise.
He will always find her, he will always come for her, and he will always fight for her.
--
The second part to 'Family By Another Name' that I kept promising. Or, a Fic about a girl and her self-assigned dad figuring out how to live in peace and process the trauma I keep bestowing upon them.Series
- Part 2 of La Familia
Bookmarked by graceverse
22 Dec 2024
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no returns for broken or damaged items by renegade_knight for ciaconnaa
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV)
23 Dec 2024
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Life before Ellie was lost before she realized it was something she could lose.
It was fine though – it would be fine. In the meantime, Sarah adjusted. Ellie borrowed her new boygenius shirt last week and it came back with a big jelly stain on it. That was easy enough, no more letting Ellie borrow her clothes. Ellie also liked to dogear book pages and write in them – in pen. So Sarah adjusted and stopped lending Ellie her books. Ellie took too long in the bathroom, listened to her music too loud, and she was always running late, so Sarah adjusted and adjusted and adjusted.
It was a lot but it was good that Ellie was here now instead of stuck with another family that didn’t really care about her. It was a big adjustment but nothing Sarah couldn’t handle.
Until she found her guitar.
~
or Ellie’s been living with Sarah and Joel for a few months now and everyone is starting to feel the squish of their tiny apartment. after a not so minor implosion, Ellie decides to fix it herself
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 16,668
- Chapters:
- 2/2
- Collections:
- 2
- Comments:
- 84
- Kudos:
- 277
- Bookmarks:
- 48
- Hits:
- 2,889
Bookmarked by graceverse
19 Dec 2024
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Summary
Joel used to be Ellie's favorite person in the world. Her hero. Now, she just glared right through him.
Sarah would yell at Joel for it if she was here.
She wasn’t.
Still, her shadow was sitting in the kitchen with them.
“I…” Halfway through his sentence, Joel turned his eyes down the hallway and instead towards his own room.
“Daddy, I miss you.” Ellie’s little toddler voice returned to his ear, from all of those years ago.
It felt fair, that he hadn’t paid enough attention to those three little words then, and now he was feeling them himself.
Joel felt the burden of tears stinging in his eyes. “I miss you. I miss how we were. You’re still my little girl.”
Ellie’s molars clamped down on the inside of her cheek as anger washed over her face. “I’m thirteen,” She corrected shortly. “And you were the one who taught me not to need you. It’s not gonna change just ‘cause you want to actually fucking be a dad now.”
TLDR: Ellie is Sarah's baby sister. Sarah still dies on apocalypse night, and Ellie is left with their father, broken now. This will go all the way through season one with this muchhhh added baggage.
Bookmarked by graceverse
02 Dec 2024
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corals and kings by ciaconnaa
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
18 Aug 2024
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“Maybe I should sleep here tonight,” Ellie confesses, reaching for her blanket and weakly wrapping it around her. “You can make sure my arm doesn’t peel off in the middle of the night.”
Joel’s face pales at the image; but, he still reaches forward and finishes wrapping the blanket more snuggly around her, tucking her in. “It’d be my greatest honor,” he says.
Ellie could easily poke back in jest, but when he presses a kiss to her temple she realizes that maybe his heart is as exposed and raw as hers. That’s maybe, wrapping her up in a blanket, feeding her soup, and trying to kiss the physical pain away really is his greatest honor. She doesn’t have any reason not to believe him.
After all, he’s always been a terrible liar.
or;
Ellie, Joel, and a collection of important late night sleepovers.
Bookmarked by graceverse
18 Aug 2024
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Summary
She took a step back. “Where’s the escort?”
“Ellie, we don’t have time for this, let’s go,” he said with an impatient gesture.
Something wasn’t right, she couldn’t pinpoint what but the air was thick with it.
“Go where?”
“I’m taking you out of here,” he said, voice dropping to a low hiss. “You’ll understand everything later but right now we need to move.”
A shiver traced up her spine and through her ribs, struck by a sudden and impossible idea. But what other explanation was there? No one else knew she was here. Her heart skipped in her chest, thrumming with the hope she thought she’d burned out of it.
She leaned forward, breathless with anticipation, and asked, “Did Joel send you?”
~
(or, a rooftop interlude)
Series
- Part 2 of Rooftop AU
Bookmarked by graceverse
15 Aug 2024
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Hold Back The River by sporadicallyceaseless
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
25 Nov 2024
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"Maria's gonna be a little late tonight, she’s busy yelling at some kids that got caught jumping off the dam.”
Stunned, Joel eyes the puddle slowly forming under her feet with quiet horror. “But you were smarter than that, right?”
“Or faster?” Tommy cuts in hopefully.
“Both,” Ellie agrees. Then, with a wince, “But also…neither.”
A dangerous dare and a nasty sickness rock the Miller household on an already emotional week. Joel and Ellie learn that something always lurks deeper than the surface.
Bookmarked by graceverse
14 Jul 2024
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Younger than the mountains (growin' like a breeze) by Anonymous
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
22 Jun 2024
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As the dust settles in the aftermath of their ‘trip’ to Salt Lake City, Ellie struggles to figure out her place in Jackson and the Miller family.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 22,454
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 13
- Kudos:
- 152
- Bookmarks:
- 39
- Hits:
- 2,604
Bookmarked by graceverse
02 Jul 2024
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Summary
Ellie sighs and stops her half-spin, planting her feet squarely on the ground. “But maybe they didn’t, maybe they saw it and thought, ‘this looks like a kids backpack, we don’t need it,” and they just left it.”
“Ellie, what is this about?” Joel asks, sighing.
“I don’t know. I just maybe they left it, and if they did, maybe we could, like, go back and get it.”
“Ellie, no. Absolutely not.”
“But why not?”
“You know why. It’s dangerous; we don’t know what to expect goin’ there, and it’s far.”
“We could plan for it, like you know. Maybe Tommy can come with us, and we could take the horses.”
“Ellie, no.”
“Dude, but why?”
IE: Ellie wants to go back to the hospital to see if she can find her backpack. When Joel refuses, Ellie makes her own plans.
Series
- Part 6 of What Family Is For
- Part 10 of A Step to the Left
Bookmarked by graceverse
27 Jun 2024
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Summary
“Miller,” The radio crackled, shattering the otherwise peaceful night. “You there?”
Joel simmered in the quiet for one more moment before sighing and taking his radio from its rest. “Here,” He echoed in a grumble. “What’ve you got for me?”
“I’ve got a missing little girl, possibly seen about two blocks from you. Suspect’s mid fifties, possibly armed. He’s her math teacher. ” The voice over the radio drawled. Tess. Her low, weathered voice, similar to Joel’s, was easy to recognize. They were friends, maybe something more than that, which was why she knew that a call about a missing girl was going to be hard for him. “I know,” She sighed over the microphone. “But, I don’t have anyone else, and this girl’s been gone all day. Every second counts, you know that.”
“I know that,” Joel echoed in a low tone. He sighed, and then reached down and flicked on his siren. "Christ. Her teacher?"
“I know,” Tess echoed. “Just go get her.”
TLDR// Joel was a cop. After a long day of long calls, he was heading home, and then he got the call. It was just another call, just another kid. And then it wasn't. As soon as he saw Ellie, he knew that it wasn't, and he knew that she wasn't leaving his life anytime soon.
Bookmarked by graceverse
22 Jun 2024
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"Joel holds a baby like someone with practice. He soothes the beginning of a cry like a well-versed father.
When they go home that night, his arm drapes around Ellie’s shoulders, and for as much as she wanted to be a seven-pound human that shits herself twenty minutes before, she bristles at the touch now.
Because she’s not. She’s not a baby. She’s not a child. She’s not a daughter.
Ellie looks at Joel, and she sees a father.
Ellie looks at herself and sees nothing but an orphan."
//
or: Joel has almost always been a father. Ellie has never been a daughter.
Bookmarked by graceverse
14 Jun 2024