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Steve Harringtons Personal Guide to B̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ Becoming a Pretty Good Guy by rottenaero
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
15 Jun 2024
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Summary
Steve Harrington, which was not a household name whatsoever unless you lived in Hawkins Indiana from the years nineteen eighty-one to nineteen eighty-three, was an asshole.
𝘞𝘢𝘴, he 𝘸𝘢𝘴.
However, a new job at Scoops Ahoy with a snarky coworker and a exceedingly weird metalhead next door may help to change things.
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Trigger warnings are in the notes of the first chapter.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
16 Sep 2025
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The Wreckage of You (I No Longer Reside In) by ahoysteve
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
07 Sep 2025
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Summary
Over the course of four years, Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson's lives keep colliding in ways neither of them can explain. or walk away from. Between bruises, late night rescues, and a quiet force pulling them back into each other's orbit, Steve fights to keep the horrors of the Upside Down a secret. But no matter how hard he tries to protect Eddie from the truth, circumstance keeps throwing them together.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
14 Sep 2025
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I Made This House a Home (With My Blood, Sweat, and Tears) by Lucky_Van084
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
03 Aug 2025
Summary
In which Steve Harrington steps up for a group of kids who needed him. He hadn’t expected the upside down and all its horrors to give him the family he’s always wanted, but he’ll be damned if he lets them go now.
- Words:
- 18,796
- Works:
- 3
- Bookmarks:
- 63
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
15 Sep 2025
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Summary
“Is that Steve fucking Harrington?”
“What’s it to you?” Mike asks snottily. Max turns toward him, already snarling in protection, but Wheeler’s got Steve’s head cradled in his lap, and he’s got his arms raised like he can shield him from this nameless threat.
“What’d you do to his face?” Eddie demands, almost whining, like Steve Harrington having his face bashed in is an affront to him personally.
Or: on the way to the tunnels with Steve Harrington passed out in the back seat, Max crashes into Eddie's van.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 16,958
- Chapters:
- 7/7
- Comments:
- 287
- Kudos:
- 1,132
- Bookmarks:
- 222
- Hits:
- 11,369
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
13 Sep 2025
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Jackson's walls are a freshly cauterized wound; darkly charred with pain that threaten to spark up from deadened nerves.The front gates high post sits eerily empty. For the first time in his life, Jesse is forced to yell repeatedly for attention.
(Ellie's panicked declaration puts the skii lodge in an uproar. Sometimes the difference of a few minutes is all it takes to save a life.)
Scenes include the rescue and immediate aftermath. Check the tags for warnings and other info.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
09 Sep 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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Summary
“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:
- 813
- Kudos:
- 1,158
- Bookmarks:
- 258
- Hits:
- 27,570
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
24 Aug 2025
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Tomorrow, When the Games Began - Ellie Williams Hunger Games AU by amortetia
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
01 Mar 2025
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Summary
Ellie Williams, a scrappy farmhand from District 10, never expected her own neighbours to vote her into the Hunger Games during the third Quarter Quell. Beside her stands Dina Woodward, the mayor’s sheltered daughter, completely unprepared for the horrors ahead.
Her only hope lies in Joel Miller, a grizzled former victor consumed by grief and bitterness after losing his daughter to the FEDRA Government. Reluctant to mentor but unable to turn away, Joel must teach them the brutal skills needed to survive FEDRA’s deadly arena.
With trust scarce and the odds stacked against them, Ellie and Dina must decide: can they depend on each other—or will survival demand sacrifice?
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
24 Aug 2025
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All the missing crooked hearts by stardreamer25
Fandoms: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies), The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
02 Sep 2025
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Summary
Joel Miller had never stepped out of line.
He had listened and done exactly what Coriolanus Snow expected of a Victor. When he was told to smile, he smiled. When summoned for interviews or propaganda spots, he showed up clean-shaven and compliant. When his body was auctioned off to the highest bidder, he walked into hotel rooms and did what he was told. He had played the game.
So when Sarah Miller’s name was drawn for the 48th annual Hunger Games, Joel Miller nearly fell to his knees.
And 20 years later, the hardened man is drawn out of his shell when he mentors Ellie Williams in the 68th Annual Hunger Games.
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this heart of mine that's guilty, not remorseful by eedsknees
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
27 Apr 2023
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Summary
Ellie does not trust people easily.
Which – thank you captain fucking obvious – makes sense, and honestly, it’d be fucking creepy if she did trust people in the snap of a finger. Ellie can imagine it in her mind: a weird kind-of-old man (it’s not David. Not fucking David) offers her a home, somewhere safe, he gives her food. All he asks for is for her to see him as family.
He doesn’t say it though. He fucking implies it.
No, it’s not fucking David. It’s Tommy.
So, when they’re all at the mess hall on Sunday night, shoveling away at their dinners – her, Joel, Maria, and fucking Tommy – she can’t help but feel the need to actually fucking explode when Joel says: “I’ve got a three-day patrol comin’ up tomorrow at noon. I was, uh, thinkin’ that you could stay with Tommy and Maria while I’m gone. Sound alright, Ellie?”
Series
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
12 Aug 2025
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Summary
In the aftermath of Kansas City, Joel and Ellie keep going for family.
- Words:
- 27,651
- Works:
- 2
- Bookmarks:
- 31
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
11 Aug 2025
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Summary
Maria honestly thought that they wouldn’t come back.
Even with all the stories her husband told, of a hardened survivor who was just too stubborn to die, when the months passed and the seasons turned she believed they weren’t going to return.
Tommy knew she thought that, even though he never said it. Maria was considered a pessimist, which all in all was not an unfair judgment, but it had helped her stay alive for the past two decades. Before the apocalypse she was still a bit pessimistic, but never to an extreme. In the job that she had— putting bad guys in jail, simply said— you had to be realistic, and while her realism had turned into cynicism over the years, she’s very rarely been wrong.
So when Joel and Ellie showed up, walking up to the gate standing side by side, Maria could definitely say she was surprised.
or: Maria has concerns about Joel and Ellie after they come back.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
11 Aug 2025
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mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing by flannelfeelings
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
30 Apr 2024
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Summary
“We’re having a baby. Jesse’s the father.” The words come out of her mouth so quickly she nearly stumbles over them.
Joel freezes.
In that moment, he feels everything and nothing simultaneously. Looking up at this girl, just 20 years old, wide-eyed and freckled, clearly terrified of what he’s going to say, he feels utterly unraveled.
And suddenly he’s in the Boston QZ, with this little pony-tailed brat nagging him about Before, asking too many questions, clinging to Tess like she’s never had an adult be nice to her in her life. He’s walking along cracked pavement, listening to shitty puns and trying to suppress his laughter. He’s looking up at a petrified little face through blurry vision, listening to her tell him it’s all gonna be okay, feeling the stab of a needle through his wounded stomach. He’s holding her bloody cheeks in his palms, cradling her face like she’ll disintegrate at the slightest touch. He’s carrying her limp body from a hospital hallway with lights blaring and gunshots echoing.
Having a baby?
(the everyone lives AU where baby JJ gets to be born into a big ole happy family)
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
10 Aug 2025
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- Words:
- 75,917
- Works:
- 2
- Bookmarks:
- 24
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
10 Aug 2025
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build it better by dancingonmoonbeams
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
15 Aug 2024
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Summary
When Tommy Miller lost his niece, he lost his brother too. Joel became a shadow of himself, a stranger Tommy felt tied to by blood and obligation and nothing more. Tommy pushed his own grief aside while Joel’s swallowed him, avoiding talking about Sarah or their shared loss because it would only make Joel lash out. When Tommy couldn’t take it anymore, he left and found a new life in Jackson, a community where he can finally revisit all the memories he’d tucked away when Joel needed him to. He builds a new life, finds a new family, and thinks he’s finally moved on from the hurt his brother put him through when Joel suddenly appears in Jackson, asking for a favor and threatening to drag Tommy right back into his darkness.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
10 Aug 2025
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Summary
“What do you want to hear about tonight, kiddo?”
The corners of Ellie’s lips scrunched to one side as she pondered. “What’d you do?” She finally decided. A smile settled over her face. “Were you a millionaire, Dad?”
A chuckle fell from Joel’s chest. His laugh was warm, hearty, strong, just like him. “No, baby,” He replied, amused by the thought. “If I was a millionaire, we’d have us a fancy bunker to live in.”
Ellie lit up at the idea. “With a rocket ship?”
Joel smiled. “Sure, kiddo,” He answered, his tone soft. “And so much food that we’d get sick.”
TLDR// Joel is Ellie's biological father. We enter the first season and its events with a clear and close relationship between them. Marlene doesn't hire him to smuggle a kid, she's his daughter, and he just wants a better world for her. This will cover the entire first season.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
09 Aug 2025
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Summary
“Please,” and if it were any other time he would hate the desperation that has leaked into his voice, “you don’t understand.” That’s my kid, he doesn’t add, the thought scraping him raw, unwilling to give voice to something that personal to fucking Marlene. He’d been fighting it since Kansas City, allowed thoughts of her as his kid in after Silver Lake, but then outside the hospital…
I’m supposed to protect her, and I’ve already failed her too many times. You can’t take her from me.
Please don’t take her from me.
“I do,” Marlene says softly, sounding pained. “Her mother was my best friend. I was there when she was born, Joel. I held her as a baby, watched her sneak out and get into trouble as she grew up. But I have a job to do.” There’s a moment of silence, tense hesitation, and Joel feels his chest crack in two before she even draws breath to continue. “And you’re too late - she’s already gone.”
(or, the fireflies decide not to jump straight to brain surgery, but they don't exactly want joel hanging around while they do their little experiments) (marlene is a goddamn liar)
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
09 Aug 2025
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Summary
When it’s done, she drops the knife because it’s covered in him and staggers outside, breath whistling around the puffs of frigid air and the swell she can feel where he kicked her ribs. Back home, she tells herself. She’ll just get home to Joel, and she can lay her head on his chest to check for a heartbeat and she can pretend it’s yesterday. If she can just get back to Joel, she’s sure everything else will sluice off her like dirt in a river. She’ll be fine.
Ellie and Joel deal with the aftermath of the pedo-cannibals from God.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
07 Aug 2025
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one single thread of gold (tied me to you) by BarlowGirl
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
30 May 2025
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Summary
The words remind her of something. There was that voice, Ellie remembers. It said she was safe too. And it sounded… nice. Like she could believe it.
Slowly, she settles down.
Eventually, she learns the voice that found her belongs to a man called Tommy Miller, who took her back to his town.
An actual town, not controlled by FEDRA.
Holy shit.
Or: AU where Ellie and Joel don't meet in Boston, but they find each other anyways. Featuring, cryptid Joel!
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Kind Fuzzy Caterpillars by Chocolatecookie123
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
27 Jul 2025
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Summary
Surprisingly, Ellie’s job at a fast-food restaurant wasn’t the shittiest part about her nineteen-year-old life.
Granted, it was still pretty shitty. But compared to her dodgy apartment, which for whatever reason costed an arm and a leg in rent a month, and that both her parents were dead and she’d been moving in and out of foster care until she’d finally turned eighteen, her job at KFC was a minor dissatisfaction.
None of her foster families had ever connected with her emotionally, or even really tried to. Ellie could admit that she caused trouble occasionally, and wasn’t the easiest child to raise, but a bit of familial love couldn’t have been too much of an ask for any child, right?
AKA: Ellie hates everyone at her job except for a certain regular, who has a liking for flannel shirts and has a strange sadness about him, who comes in and orders the same thing every day.
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
28 Jul 2025
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Monsters that Talk (Monsters that walk the earth) by Mistysharks
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
22 Dec 2022
- Words:
- 30,141
- Works:
- 4
- Bookmarks:
- 56
Bookmarked by leverage_ot3
26 Jul 2025