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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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“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 smallgingeritis
08 Jan 2026
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his strength is making me stronger by buggieb
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
16 Jun 2025
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Sunday dinners just sort of happen to Ellie without her even noticing the pattern. It starts their first Sunday in Jackson, just one week in, and by the time the weather warms up, a month has gone by and Ellie’s eaten at Tommy and Maria’s house every week. Maria is about ready to pop and Tommy keeps badgering her to sit down while he finishes cooking. They’re bickering with two big dumb grins on their faces when Ellie turns to Joel and asks, “Why do you guys do this every week? Don’t you get tired of it?”
Joel pauses. “It’s a family tradition,” he says, musing, like he’s never considered it before. “Growin’ up, Tom and I ate every damn meal together. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our mama would cook, so we’d do the dishes and set the table and all. So, food is - it’s real important to the family. You sit together for meals ‘cause some days it’d be the only time you made time for each other. When things get busy, you forget what’s important. You eat together, because you love each other.”
or: 4 things Joel teaches Ellie about food & family, and 1 thing Ellie learns.
Series
- Part 3 of my love is mine, all mine
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
27 Dec 2025
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blackbird, blackbird, what do you see? by marchflower for historian_in_pearls
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
22 May 2025
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Summary
“I think I - fucked up my ankle.” She points to her left foot. “When I fell.”
Her remorse lies thick and rank between them. Joel imagines he can see it rotting there, in between shafts of honeyed sunlight. Shame, he thinks, fits her so poorly. He’s reminded of Kansas City, of her sitting her with her back to the newspaper lined window, chin on her knees, a single tear on her cheek as she tells him:
It wasn’t my first time.
Little girls, he thinks, have no business carrying that sort of regret. He has no business reading into it this way - thinking about all the tender spots Ellie’s got lying in ruin inside of her, all of the ways this world has failed her. All of the ways he’s failed her, all of the ways he might still. She’s only a job, he tells himself sternly. She’s cargo.
*
Joel patches Ellie up again, and again, and again.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
18 Dec 2025
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they say killing time ain't a homicide (just a prayer for a leap year) by cardigains for captainredspade (CodenameArtemis)
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
30 Dec 2024
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Summary
She doesn’t want to be read for the truth of what she is, what she’s become. Lonely, isolated, a girl who watches TV with the old dude who dragged her ass across the country and then doubled back when there wasn’t anything left for them to find. She’s not meant to be here. Not in Jackson, not in this house, not beside this version of Joel.
She’s a fucking orphan from Boston who’s got the weight of humanity slipped beneath the skin of her forearm, a couple calluses on the tips of her fingers, and a brain that still goes fuzzy at the slightest prodding of any of the pieces of her past that have delivered her to where she is today.
Joel’s shoulder is not for her to lean against. Those kids in her classroom are not for her to bond with. This is a fake life that she’s begun to settle around herself and the only thing that’s less real are the movies that play out on the screen in front of her, filled with animatronic dinosaurs and intricately painted backgrounds of spaceships.
or: Ellie doesn't quite know how to settle into Jackson, friendships, or a family.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 21,098
- Chapters:
- 2/2
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 45
- Kudos:
- 222
- Bookmarks:
- 58
- Hits:
- 4,989
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
12 Nov 2025
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your words mean nothing so take 'em back (i don't wanna be carrying this weight on my shoulders) by cardigains
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV)
14 Apr 2023
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Summary
And then soft, so soft Ellie barely hears from all the way over on her staircase, ear angled down towards the slats in the railing, breath held while awaiting a reply. She needs the truth, too. She deserves the truth. After all of this. The blood on her hands, on her face, on her memories. She gets to know why. Why after all this shit, none of it was even worth it.
What Ellie once believed to be heavy, uneven breathing, she comes to realize, is quiet, fractured sobbing. “I can’t lose her,” he confesses, an omission to what Ellie already knew from the second she woke up in the back of that car, woozy and light and empty. Bare legs, cold and exposed in a hospital gown. The whole car reeked of human blood and sweat, while her skin was the cleanest, the purest, it had been in months.
“I couldn’t let ‘em take her, Tommy.”
It’s all the answer she needs.
------
Through the seasons of Joel and Ellie's first year in Jackson. How the anger she feels at his betrayal wedges its way between them and how they find their way back together regardless.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
10 Nov 2025
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Summary
This is where she'd normally ask him something like "Where do rats go when they have a cavity?" or "What did the cupcake say to the frosting?" or whatever other dumb fucking jokes kids have to memorize now for entertainment because they've never so much as been in the same room as a TV. And Joel would bitch and moan until she'd rattle one off that was so goddamn stupid he'd laugh into his sleeping bag.
But that's not what she does.
She just says, "They put me in a cage."
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
04 Nov 2025
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No Less a Viking by Emachinescat
Fandoms: How to Train Your Dragon (Animated Movies), DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon)
02 Oct 2025
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Summary
A few months after losing his leg, Hiccup finally breaks. Gobber is there to pick up the pieces.
Written for AI-Less Whumptober Day 2: Amputation
Series
- Part 2 of AILESS Whumptober 2025
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,139
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 24
- Kudos:
- 148
- Bookmarks:
- 20
- Hits:
- 881
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
12 Oct 2025
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Summary
Ellie can't talk right now and that's completely fine - Post Ep 8
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
27 Sep 2025
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blueberry alley by marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
23 Jul 2025
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Summary
Ellie slides into her place and picks up her spoon. “What’s this?”
“Porotos granados,” Tommy replies. He sits beside her, squeezing her shoulder as he passes. “Our mama used to make it. She was from-”
“Santiago,” Ellie volunteers. Tommy chuckles.
“Si, Santiago,” he agrees. He says it with a little lilt that’s so different from his normal drawl that it makes Ellie giggle. It’s still weird to her, how sometimes Tommy and Joel switch so easily from one dialect or language to the next. She doesn’t even mind when they talk Spanish around her to keep her from knowing their business. She likes the rapid fire cadence of their words, the way the vowels sound like sugar melting over hot coals on their tongues, the way Joel sucks his teeth and hisses, how Tommy’s voice goes higher when he’s joking. It’s weird sometimes to look around at all the ways her family doesn’t match each other and yet love each other so much. It shouldn’t make sense - they shouldn’t make sense - and still, they do.
*
Ellie's first year in Jackson, told through dinners and lunches and midnight snacks and egg sandwiches.
Or:
Food as a form of love.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
26 Jun 2025
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hang on to the past (because the future will haunt you) by siriuspiggyback
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
01 Jun 2024
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Summary
Ellie stared blankly at the collection of stolen food under her bed, and wondered what the fuck was wrong with her.
If she had been caught, what then? Food theft was a serious offense in the QZ, where rationing was constant. It was probably the same in Jackson. What if she ended up hanging over a stupid can of beans?
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
07 Jun 2025
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Summary
Joel made a choice. He stayed with her. And now mother and father are a blurred line, with no clear beginning and end. He doesn’t pick and choose. He’s everything. He’s Joel. He’s the only person she can think about, when something isn’t right. When she’s curled up on the floor in pain or tangled in her blankets from a nightmare. His name comes to her lips every time, even if she doesn't want it to, a cry that pulls directly from instinct.
She’s Ellie.
Maybe that’s why she doesn’t tell him about what she found in Maria and Tommy’s guest room.
Ellie doesn't have a mother. Jackson gives her space to feel this loss more acutely.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
20 May 2025
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the shirt off his back by BarlowGirl
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
16 May 2025
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“Your clothes,” she says. “I don’t mind them.”
“Well, they’re all yours,” he says. “Whenever you want.”
In the moment, he’d carve out his actual heart and give it to her if it made her feel better. His clothes are nothing compared to that.
Or: 5 times someone stole Joel's shirt + 1 time they didn't
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
16 May 2025
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'Cause Stitches Don't Work On a Cut This Deep by cardigains
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
13 May 2025
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Summary
“Nothing’s different,” Ellie tries to talk Joel off the ledge the best way she knows how. “Except that fucking…thing. It was different. It was smart. And I just thought…What if, ya know?”
Joel’s right in front of her. He sinks to his knees, which is honestly for the best before he passes out and knocks his head against the hardwood floors. “What are you asking me here, kiddo?”
The nickname tugs at years old memories, tussles with months old anger. Settles in her hours old desire to be held by him again. The desire she’s brushing off and shoving down. Even if she is going to die, it doesn’t mean Joel gets to be off the hook. All it means is that he’d ruined everything all so she could die in the name of fucking nothing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming instead.
Ellie squares her shoulders as she tilts up her chin. She holds him hostage with her gaze and implores him with the earnesty of her expression. “I need you to wait with me to see if I turn. And if I do,” she pauses, swallows, wishes she could look anywhere besides right into his eyes, “I need you to put a bullet in my head.”
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
14 May 2025
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right foot on the roses, left foot on a landmine by captainredspade (CodenameArtemis)
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
21 May 2025
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Summary
In the end they let her go without a bullet in her head – which is a small mercy really – but Ellie knows that it's far from over.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
06 May 2025
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Finding Strings - Pluto's Version by plutoslversclub
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games)
12 Apr 2025
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Summary
A screech in the air startles her. She jumps and looks to her right, seeing a Runner crawling it’s way toward her. Joel calls her name, pushing her behind him gently before stopping the runner with a foot to its back and shooting it in the head.
“Thanks,” she mumbles to him, a single grumbled “yeah” being his only reply.
She goes back to focusing on that backpack. She knows it.
Where does she- oh.
“Joel, I think it’s them.” Joel looks at her, confused. “The couple that ran away last year.” She finishes.
Joel keeps her gaze for a second before moving slowly around the body. He holsters his gun before he's kneeling down next to it, nudging the coat slightly to reveal the familiar Jackson logo on the strap of the bag.
Ellie looks away, spotting a note left on top of a nearby table. She goes to grab it, hearing Joel sigh deeply.
“I think you’re right.” He says solemnly.
~~~~
Or, the one where Ellie finds out the truth. And Joel beats the shit out of a bloater without a gun.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
12 Apr 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 smallgingeritis
29 Jan 2025
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memories made in the coldest winter by lkay09 for marchflower, renegade_knight
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV)
15 Apr 2025
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Summary
“Ellie?”
She exhales inside her little pod, toes curling inside their woolen socks. Maybe if he thinks she’s still asleep –
A heavy hand lands on her knee, shaking gently. “Ellie, time to get up.”
Ellie groans, still not emerging. “Don’t wanna. ‘S too cold.”
A rough chuckle, the hand patting a little. “You’ll be warmer downstairs, I got the woodstove goin’. C’mon, darlin’, up and at ‘em.”
“No.”
(ellie's first winter back in jackson, and joel's lie is already exposed)
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
21 Jan 2025
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Those Who Don’t Try, Never Look Foolish by SeraphimAnkh
Fandoms: Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
18 Jan 2025
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Summary
Fiyero Tigelaar was meant to die in that field, but an act of desperation and love brings him back.
Determined to not let it go to waste, he sets out to try and reunite with the one who brought him back in the first place.
Only he meets a girl who fell from a star and realizes he’s in a much bigger plot than he could ever imagine.
Series
- Part 2 of Looking into Different Eyes
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 148,196
- Chapters:
- 19/19
- Comments:
- 515
- Kudos:
- 1,385
- Bookmarks:
- 289
- Hits:
- 42,058
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
01 Jan 2025
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Summary
They were supposed to be back before sunset.
Now the sun is setting, and they’re still not here.
Joel tries to avoid looking out the window, to the orange and pink that streak across the sky in watercolor. It’s a warm night with a pleasant breeze and a cloudless sky. On any other night, he’d be sitting out on the porch or standing in his yard, waiting for the stars, the one constant across all stages of his life. Now, he just feels sick. His chest tightens with each passing minute.
He closes the curtains in Maria and Tommy’s kitchen before lifting JJ from his highchair, wiping off his face, which is sticky with peach juice. The baby lets out an ear-splitting shriek the moment he does so. Lovely.
“Such a drama queen,” Dina says from behind him, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows as she washes the plates from dinner.
“He gets it from his great uncle.” Joel says.
Joel lives to experience the heart-pounding reality of having a grown kid who rides into battle.
Ft. Grandpa Joel
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
21 Dec 2024
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Hold Me Too Tight by TheseAreMine
Fandoms: Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman, The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire
18 Mar 2021
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Summary
Elphaba's never seen her boyfriend like this before, but when he shows up in a foul mood, she's determined to find out why.
Bookmarked by smallgingeritis
08 Dec 2024