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anyasathenaeum · 4 months

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Guide (Inexperienced!Choso x Reader smut)

A/N: This is another thing nobody asked for, but... listen, I have a pantheon of anime husbands and Choso is WAY up there. So yeah, uh, have this inexperienced!Choso x flatmate!reader piece because I love him and my husband deserves nice things and sMASH SMASH SMA- Warnings: MINORS DNI, AFAB!reader, female terms and body parts are used, mentions of penetrative sex, oral (m receiving), unprotected sex (WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT, FOLKS), rough sex (a bit? not really, maybe if you squint lol), overstimulation, swearing.

Choso couldn't sleep.

3:24am.

The red, glowing numbers on the clock face by his bed seemed to mock him, reminding him of his inability to sleep and drawing his attention to the feelings coursing through his body. The very same feelings he was trying so very hard to ignore.

Choso may have been over 150 years old, and yet, this body, HIS body, was new to him. Its needs, its functions, the feelings it caused, every little detail was new. Despite his 150 years on this earth, he was still new in almost every single way.

Thankfully, you had been there for Choso every step of the way as he learned to understand his body and what it meant to be human. Besides being the person with whom Choso shared his apartment, you were also undoubtedly his best and closest friend, his favourite person outside of his family and the person around whom he always felt at peace and... happy. You were always open and accepting of him and his seemingly endless questions about the feelings and sensations in his body, never brushing him off or making him feel bad about his lack of knowledge or understanding.

But this... this was different.

Choso's brain suddenly seemed to be lacking an off switch, his mind conjuring up all sorts of images that he couldn't understand. Why was he constantly picturing you underneath him, your cheeks beautifully pink, your body bare and your skin pressed against his? Why did Choso want nothing but to rip the clothes straight off of you every time he saw you now? Why did picturing these things make his whole body feel like it was on fire, as if pure lava coursed through his veins? Why did his pants around his crotch suddenly become very, very tight every time those images flashed in his head? Why did it feel like you had become his very center of gravity?

Why? Why? Why?

Choso didn't understand this constant, desperate, aching need inside him. He didn't understand why you triggered that need every time he saw you or caught your scent. And so, despite it being the early hours of the morning, he decided that he would do exactly what he had always done when he didn't understand something about his body - he would ask you.

Slowly, Choso got out of bed and padded down the hallway to your bedroom. He knocked on your door loudly enough for you to wake, and he could hear you shuffling slowly in your room for a few moments before your door opened.

The sight of you before him, all sleepy and cuddly-looking, made Choso's heart squeeze in his chest for some reason. Your expression was scrunched up in confusion as you gazed at the man in front of you, stifling a small yawn before speaking to him, your voice thick with sleep.

"Choso? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry for waking you, (Y/N). I couldn't sleep. I'm experiencing some new feelings and they don't make sense to me. They're keeping me awake. Could you help me?"

Your eyes widen a bit as you hear his explanation, and the small, warm smile that appears on your face makes Choso want to grab your face and smash his lips against yours while tugging each scrap of clothing blocking him from feeling your warm skin off of you. However, he restrained himself, his hand tightening into a fist as he struggled to keep himself in check as you invited him into your room.

'Why? Why do I wanna do that?' The voice in his head inquired, but Choso simply brushed it off before following you into your bedroom.

The moment he crossed into your room, it was as if a haze came over him. Your scent seemed to envelope him, clinging to his skin as he walked behind you, filling him to the brim with a fire that seemed to burn in his very bones, refusing to be quenched no matter what he did. He watched as you snuggled back into your bed and patted a spot next to you, inviting him to sit with you and explain whatever was bothering him.

Carefully, Choso sat next to you in your bed, his body stiff as he tried to find a comfortable position without making you uncomfortable. However, you never complained when he brushed up against you, instead just snuggling in a bit closer, your warmth radiating against him and warming him in a different way than the fire in his bones did.

"So..." You spoke gently, gazing up at your best friend, "What's troubling you?"

Choso took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to express what he was feeling to you. After a couple moments, he began to speak, his voice low and almost embarrassed as he tried to explain his situation.

"Well... my body seems to feel like it's constantly filled with fire. My brain just seems to race constantly, showing me all sorts of images that make my body feel hot. Once I get hot, I feel this... pressure inside me, almost bordering on pain, sometimes. My pants tend to get tight and I feel some kind of desperate need. I don't know what my body wants, but there's usually a throbbing feeling and hardness between my legs that comes with it. I don't really know how to explain it or how to make it stop. It only seems to happen around you, (Y/N). Am I... sick or something? I don't understand what's happening to me."

When Choso looked at you, he was surprised to see that your eyes were wider than he had ever seen, your expression one of completely shock and surprise, as well as something he didn't quite know how to describe.

As Choso explained this new sensation, you felt your heart beginning to race in your chest and heat rising to your face as you realized exactly what he was talking about, and you pointedly tried to ignore the heat that suddenly throbbed between your thighs. You blinked a couple times as he spoke, trying to figure out if you were truly hearing him right.

What Choso was experiencing was sexual attraction. To you.

"(Y/N)?"

Choso's voice was now worried, and when you looked up at him, you realized he was watching you attentively, concern evident on his face as he no doubt waited for your reply. You quickly cleared your throat and sat up, trying not to let your own emotions stop you from helping Choso understand.

"Sorry! So, uh.... w-well, you're not sick, Choso. What you're feeling, u-um... is pretty common amongst humans."

You found yourself struggling to get the words out, even more heat rushing to your face as you tried to continue your shaky start of an explanation. It didn't help that you had Choso's undivided attention, his eyes trained on you with surprising intensity and interest. You took a deep breath before continuing.

"What you're feeling is sexual attraction. It's basically your body signaling that you're interested in somebody in a sexual sense and that you'd essentially like to... um... mate with them, I guess? That's probably the simplest way to explain it. It's thanks to your instincts, really. Of course, most people just refer to it as being "horny"."

Choso's eyes were wide as you finished talking, and he looked at you curiously for a couple moments before asking bluntly, "So that feeling is my body wanting me to mate with you?"

Your face felt like it was on fire as you tried not to choke on your own spit at his question. After taking a second to recover, you simply shrugged, acting as if this was a totally normal conversation to be having at 3 in the morning with your best friend that you had secretly been pining after for God knows how long.

"I guess so. H-Have you felt that for anybody else?"

"No," Choso replied immediately, studying you carefully as his emotions began to take over his words, "You're the only one who ever makes me feel that way. Being around you makes me want to do things to you, with you. Being around you makes me want to hold you. Kiss you. Rip the clothes off your body because I can't feel your skin when you wear them. And..."

He trailed off, looking down at his hands for a moment before looking back up at you, his pale face now flushed with colour and his voice dangerously low.

"And it's all driving me crazy. You, (Y/N). You're driving me crazy."

Your heart all but cheered in your chest at his admission, and you couldn't help the smile that appeared on your lips as you felt a surge of relief, happiness and desire course through your veins.

"Do you want me to help you with those feelings, Choso?"

In any other circumstances, you wouldn't have been brave enough to be so upfront in your question, but the part of you that had been longing after the dark-haired half-cursed spirit for so long had taken over and thrown caution to the wind. You would be damned if you would let this moment pass you by.

Choso's beautiful honey-coloured eyes widened at your question, nodding his head immediately in reply, "Of course I do. I don't want anybody except you, (Y/N). It's..." His voice faltered, falling to so quiet a whisper that you almost missed it. "It's always been you."

Before you could stop yourself, you shifted forward and gently pressed your lips against his as your heart sang in your chest at his confession. As you kissed him, you were careful not to overwhelm him by kissing him too hard or too passionately right from the start, knowing that this was definitely his first kiss. However, regardless of this being his first kiss, Choso was kissing you back immediately with enough energy and passion that he just about knocked you backwards into your bed.

His taste was addictive, and you found your hands burying themselves into his dark hair as you shifted closer to him, his tongue swiping your bottom lip as though asking for permission to deepen the kiss. You happily allowed it, relishing every second of the kiss with the man you'd been quietly yearning for. You gasped softly as Choso lifted you with ease, as if you weighed nothing at all, and placed you in his lap, never once breaking away from you or stopping your kiss.

Now that he finally understood what he was feeling for you, and to see that you felt the same way about him, Choso felt truly happy. His soul itself was filled with a warmth that he hadn't ever felt before, not even for his brothers. These feelings he had for you were something else entirely, powerful in their own right and a different entity than the love he harboured for his family. Sure, there was the sexual attraction you had described to him, but his feelings for you weren't comprised of just that. This was something more, and while Choso didn't exactly have the words to describe it just yet, in this moment, he didn't care. He had you, and that's all he needed.

You pulled away from Choso suddenly, both of you panting and with swollen lips from the intensity of your kissing. A soft whine escaped him the moment you stopped, an adorable pout appearing almost immediately on his lips as he leaned towards you, clearly wanting nothing more desperately than to continue kissing you.

"No... (Y/N), please don't stop..."

You wanted to coo at how sweet Choso was, and you fought hard to resist the temptation of kissing him once more, instead moving backwards a bit and grinning at him warmly.

"Now, now, patience, Choso. You'll get more kisses, don't worry. I just want to do something else for you first. I'm going to take your pants off. Is that okay?"

Choso pouted a bit at not being able to kiss you more, but gave you a nod in return, the colour in his cheeks darkening. With his consent, you gently brought your hands down to the waistband of his sweatpants, where there was a very obvious tent. Gently, you tugged the sweatpants off of his hips, pulling them down oh-so-slowly as you revealed more and more of Choso's bare skin, his treasure trail, and eventually, his dick finally sprung free. Your eyes widened as you stared at his cock, at its angry red tip, already dribbling precum from its slit and how it seemed to throb gently in time to Choso's heartbeat. While it wasn't super big, it was definitely much thicker than you expected and your pussy positively throbbed at the thought of having his cock deep inside you, stretching you out in a way nothing else ever would.

"I-Is it okay?"

Choso's voice quivered a bit, giving away his nervousness as you continued to stare at his cock with wide eyes. He couldn't help but feel a bit self-conscious at being bare like this before another person for the first time, let alone it being you.

"You're beautiful, Choso."

You response was breathless and sincere, your eyes glimmering as you looked up at him, the warmest smile you could possibly give him on your lips. The small whimper that escaped Choso at your response made your heart flutter, and you could see his cheeks darkening as he looked away, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I'm going to touch you now, okay?" You said softly, watching Choso carefully to ensure he was comfortable with you proceeding.

With another small whimper from Choso and a quick nod of his head, you gently reached your hand out and wrapped it around his shaft. The moment your soft, warm hand made contact with the silky skin of his cock, without you so much as moving, Choso suddenly shuddered and let out a loud whine. In the same instant, to your surprise, warm cum suddenly dribbled from his slit and got all over your hand.

"H-Hah... hah, fuck, 'm sorry... 'm so sorry, (Y/N)... i-it just... felt so good... I've never felt anything like that before..."

Choso couldn't meet your eyes as he whimpered out his apology, his cheeks a deep shade of red, embarrassment and a hint of confusion clear in his expression. Your heart lurched in your chest once more at just how sweet he was, and you couldn't help but giggle a little.

"Don't apologize, Choso. You came, that happens when you feel really good. It's normal. Nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact..." You smiled seductively as you looked him in the eyes, feeling more playful than before, "I plan on guiding you through it all and making you cum a few more times before the night's over."

The look on Choso's face was absolutely priceless, his eyes wide in surprise and his the colour in his face somehow darkening even more than before. Wiping your hand with a face cloth, you helped him get more comfortable, letting him rest against your headboard as you wriggled off his sweatpants the rest of the way followed by his shirt, revealing his toned and muscled torso, his defined abs, arms and back.

You could feel your own slick soaking through the pants of your pyjamas just at the sight of Choso naked in your bed, and you struggled to restrain yourself from touching yourself throughout all of this. How badly you wanted to sink your fingers into your weeping pussy, just for some hint of relief. Or better yet, have Choso use his long, thick fingers to make you see stars. But this was about him, now, and ensuring he had a good first sexual experience. So, you kept yourself in check and just focused on him, getting yourself comfortable as you laid between his thighs, once again taking his still-hard cock into your hands. You heard Choso let out a soft hiss and felt his dick throb and twitch in your hands at the contact, making you smile softly - he was so sensitive.

"Ready for the next part?" You teased gently, gazing up at the beautiful man before you.

"Yes, (Y/N)... p-please... more," Choso whined softly, squirming slightly beneath your touch as his cock twitched once more, his desire obvious in his voice and in his eyes.

Without so much as an answer, you leaned down and took the tip of Choso's cock into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the tip slowly. Choso positively mewled at the feeling of your warm mouth around him and the feeling of your tongue teasing his sensitive tip and slit, his orgasm already building once more as you continued.

"(Y/N)... o-oh, fuck... o-oh, yes, please, more! Please!"

Hearing Choso beg you for more made your pussy throb and drove you to take more of him in your mouth, taking his cock as far down your throat as you could as your tongue traced the thick vein on the underside of his shaft. More beautiful sounds came from Choso as you did this: moans of your name, curse words and soft whimpers and whines filled the room, until suddenly-

"'m gonna cum! F-Fuck, (Y/N), 'm gonna cum! (Y/N)!"

You felt a large hand tangle through your hair and push your head down a bit as Choso bucked his hips upward, forcing his cock just a bit deeper and making you gag slightly and your eyes water a bit as copious amounts of cum gushed down your throat. You squeezed your thighs together at the unintentionally rough treatment Choso had just given you, his fingers still tangled in your hair as he pulled you gently off his cock, his eyes filled with worry.

"Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you or be rough, (Y/N). I'm really, really sorry."

Even in the midst of recovering from his orgasm, Choso was still worried for you, which made your heart flutter and your pussy practically gush. You shook your head, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand before answering.

"It's okay, Choso. Don't worry about it, I'm alright. You didn't hurt me, it was just a little surprising, that's all."

Relief coursed through the man's veins as you confirmed that he hadn't hurt you or gone too far, a shaky breath escaping him as he leaned back against the headboard, still panting softly as he tried to regain his wits after his second orgasm of the night.

As you took in the sight of Choso naked in your bed, sat against your headboard with his arm slung over his eyes, his dark hair loose and his chest rising and falling with each breath, you couldn't help but be completely mesmerized by him. He was truly the most beautiful man you'd ever seen. It also did not escape your attention that somehow, even after two intense orgasms, his cock was still rock hard. Just how much more could he take?

Without much more thought, you found yourself stripping off your pyjamas, leaving you naked at last. You shivered and felt goosebumps erupt as you felt the cool night air brush over your skin, especially the skin that was positively soaked on the inside of and between your thighs.

"Choso," You called softly, wanting the man to look at you, to see you like this.

When Choso lowered his arm from his eyes and caught sight of your naked body before him, his honey-coloured eyes widened and became bigger than you'd ever seen before, his mouth dropping open slightly and his cheeks flushing once again.

You were so beautiful. Choso couldn't have even begun to imagine this kind of beauty, and to see you like this made his heart race frantically in his chest. He took in every detail of your body, his gaze lingering on your breasts for a few moments before continuing down your body. You looked so soft, your skin lit by the soft glow of the moon, and Choso wanted nothing than to touch you, hold you, stroke you, caress you and never let you go. Not even for a second.

Yet, when his gaze got down to your thighs, where he could see the slick coating your skin and the way it glistened, the scent of your arousal just barely teasing him, something inside Choso snapped. Gone were the thoughts of simply holding you or caressing you softly, instead replaced by a burning, all-consuming need. The same fire from before, multiplied a millions times in intensity, coursed through Choso's veins, and all he could do was give in to his instincts as they took over.

"Choso? Are you oka-ah!"

You yelped as Choso practically pounced on you, pressing his lips against your passionately as he flipped you into your bed so you were laying beneath him. You moaned into the kiss as he slipped his tongue into your mouth, kissing you deeper and more hungrily than you'd ever been kissed before.

Following his instincts, Choso rolled his hips, letting his cock drag through the soaked folds of your pussy and against your clit, making you moan out loudly from beneath him. You arched your back to allow him to keep grinding his dick against your cunt and clit, reveling in the feeling of pleasure he was giving you. Pulling away from your kiss, Choso brought his head down so his lips were by your ear so you could hear him panting softly.

"W-Want you," Choso whined, pressing desperate kisses to the side of your face and down your neck, "W-Want you so bad, (Y/N). Wanna... wanna be inside you."

As he whined those last few words, you felt the head of his cock catch on your entrance, making you gasp and jump slightly at the feeling. You could only bring yourself to nod your head, unable to speak as you felt Choso gently nuzzling your cheek with the tip of his nose. Without any other words, you felt him press his hips into yours, driving his cock into you slowly, inch by inch.

The stretch stung, a small hiss escaping you as you felt your pussy adjusting to the size of him. You'd never felt a cock as thick as his, and you let out a low moan at just how full you felt.

You could hear the man whining and whimpering your name over and over as he continued to slowly press himself into you to the hilt, the feeling of your warm, tight, spongy walls clenching around his cock and the way they seemed to pulse driving him dangerously close to cumming already.

"C-Cho... C-Cho..." Your voice wavered slightly as you struggled to form coherent words, "Feels s'good... you're... so big..."

Just feeling him inside you, pressing perfectly against that spongy, gummy spot, made you see stars. It felt as if you were made for each other, with him filling you just right and making you feel things nobody had ever made you feel before. However, before you could open your mouth to guide Choso through the next part, his instincts took over and he pulled out until just the tip was left inside you before thrusting back into you. A cry escaped your lips at the sudden feeling, your back arching in response and pleasure erupting through your veins as Choso observed you, his eyes trained on you carefully despite him panting softly. When he saw how you reacted, he took it as a sign to continue.

Without hesitation, Choso began to thrust into you almost desperately, hitting that perfect spot inside you over and over, his fingers intertwining with yours and holding your hand close as he fucked you into the mattress.

"F-Fuck, (Y/N), you're so tight... pussy's so good... so wet..." Choso whimpered, his movements suddenly stuttering and a low groan escaping him, "(Y/N)... g-gonna cum... gonna-!"

With a final thrust, he slammed himself to the hilt inside you, spilling himself and letting his cum fill you to the brim, coating your walls and pulling a moan of his name from your lips.

"C-Cho... God, th-that felt so good... so-ah!"

You cried out as Choso suddenly continued to thrust into you, slamming his hips against you even faster and harder than before, driving his cock deeper into you.

"'M sorry, (Y/N). 'M sorry, need you. Need more. 'M sorry, need you. S'good, 'm sorry, (Y/N), can't stop," Choso babbled in your ear as he continued to thrust into you, his large hands coming up to grasp your hips with a nearly-bruising grip.

The way Choso angled your hips allowed him to hit even deeper, that perfect spot being massaged continuously by the head of his cock, likely without him even realizing what he was doing to you. All you could do was focus on the feeling of him inside you and just good he made you feel.

Your nails dug into his back as you felt yourself coming close to cumming, your whole body tensing as you practically sobbed out, "'M gonna cum! C-Cho, 'm gonna cum! Cumming!"

Your orgasm hit you like a train, overwhelming you and washing over you in wave after wave. The way your pussy spasmed around Choso's cock made him cum again, yet unlike the first time, he didn't stop his thrusts. Instead, he continued to thrust into you, prolonging your orgasm despite overstimulating himself.

You thought he'd stop once your orgasm subsided, but how wrong you were. Choso kept going, fucking you relentlessly and cumming inside you over and over again, apologizing, whining and moaning your name until he was babbling complete nonsense and tears coursed down his beautiful face from overstimulation. He'd made you cum countless times, and you found your whole body feeling like your bones as disappeared by the time he'd finally pulled out, too tired ad overstimulated to continue.

Neither of you had the energy to get towels to clean yourselves off, but you couldn't care less as Choso collapsed into your bed next to you, his face red and his chest heaving from his exertion. As soon as he laid next to you, you found yourself being pulled into his arms, your face coming to rest against his bare chest as he held you close, your skin pressed against his. Gone was the intense, aroused Choso from earlier, instead replaced by his usual, tender and gentle counterpart. You could feel Choso nuzzling his nose into your hair, inhaling your scent as he held you close, endorphins surely coursing through his veins like crazy at this point.

You sighed as you snuggled in against him, your voice no louder than a whisper, "Jeez, Choso... I don't think you really needed me to guide you."

A low rumble of a chuckle escaped him, and you felt him press a gentle kiss to your temple as he answered softly, "Yes, I did. You helped me learn, (Y/N). Thank you." His expression fell a bit as he continued, "Was it too much, though? I'm really sorry. I just... couldn't stop. Something in me just... wanted to keep going."

"No," You giggled softly, looking up at him with a smile as heat rushed to your face, "It was amazing. I just wasn't expecting you to keep going like that."

Choso shrugged before leaning forward, a lazy grin on his face as he whispered lowly into your ear, "What can I say? You drive me crazy, (Y/N). And now that I know that this feeling is me wanting you, I'll only ever want you more and more than ever before. You're mine (Y/N). And I'll always make sure you remember that."

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softlyspector · 6 months

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Born lucky, under a bad star.

Summary: Joel has always been lucky, in the worst of ways.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~13k (sorry)

Warnings: game!Joel, major spoilers for tlou part 2, angst with a happy ending, major injuries and recovery, anxiety, depression, relationship healing, mentions of death, mentions of violence, suicidal ideation

Disclaimers and A/N: Though this fic was based around some events in tlou part 2, almost all of the canon after the divergence from the canon timeline is thrown out. This fic is also based entirely around game events, characterization, and canon. This is honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever written. It took months and many many drafts, but I'm very proud of her. I hope you love her too, she was a labor of love.

As always, thank you for reading! I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. - Kait Rokowski.

The lights of the clinic are so bright they’re blinding.

Your hands are still shaking, covered in Joel’s blood. It’s been hours since you returned to the safety of Jackson’s walls but there’s still a frantic, frenetic energy in the air. Everyone is shaken. It feels a little like a thousand year old tree has been felled, like a giant has been swung at and leveled, like something monstrous and infallible has been brought to its knees.

You’ve seen it happen before. Rebar right through his belly. It should have killed him. It would have killed anyone else. You’ve pulled more bullets out of Joel than you would care to count, and swaddled him in probably several football fields worth of bandages over the years.

Still, nothing like this.

Because Joel has always been lucky, even when he hadn’t wanted to be.

Lucky, in all the worst ways.

That fucking rebar, you think bitterly. It should have hit at least one organ, should have severed his fucking spine. But it didn’t. He walked it off, really, mostly, at the end of it all.

This though — to see him tortured, beaten, bleeding to death slowly—

Your edge of your vision tips black, like your mind is already refusing to go back to that room, like you’ll pass out if you think of it for too long.

A part of you wonders if maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you forgot to stick lavender in his pocket before he left that morning, like you always do.

Someone pushes the door open, snow swirls in against the tile. Voices, rising and falling. The cold that rolls through the tiny waiting room is frigid.

It’s still so red, his blood, even dried and crusted around your fingers and up your wrists.

Tommy is still bleeding and even Maria hasn’t been able to convince him to sit down and let someone look at him. No, all attention needs to be focused on his brother. Anyone with any medical know how, has to be with Joel.

You agree.

Tommy, you, anyone else—can fucking wait.

Ellie is sitting next to you, looking just as numb and shocked as you feel, her fingers twined with Dina’s.

The chatter reaches a crescendo. Something about the worsening storm, something about tracking folks with that big of a headstart through a storm like this one, something about the rapidly deepening darkness, night coming on, something about well who could do something like that anyway? Who the fuck would we even send?

The quiet that follows is painful.

Joel.

Joel is the one you send. Joel is the one that could get a job like this one done, the one that could track people through a blizzard with a dogged determinism, with pragmatism and infallibility.

“What did they want?” Someone asks the room at large. You aren’t sure who asks, you can’t make the shapes in the room resolve into people you know. “Why us? Why Joel? They wanted something right? Who were they?”

You and Tommy look at each other, Ellie makes a half muffled, pained sound beside you. Joel crossed a lot of people, maybe there wasn’t any sense in guessing.

No one answers. You look at your hands again and wonder if the crimson will ever fade.

Someone says your name and you look up. A coat is tugged over your shoulders. You didn’t realize you were shivering and you don’t know what happened to your own coat. One of the patrolmen is looking at you, his name slips your memory but Jesse is standing behind him, Maria on the other side.

You feel the ghost of Ellie’s hand against your arm. Odd, you think distantly, because she hates you. She has for a long time.

“What happened?”

You look around, but Tommy isn’t where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Did they ask him, too?

There’s a dark hole in your memory.

“I don’t know.”

And it’s the truth.

There’s no one more dedicated, more involved, in keeping Jackson safe, than Joel.

Aside from Tommy, maybe.

Joel is an effective killer, like an executioner with a mission. It’s the thing that scared Tommy the most about his brother, and it’s also the thing that had kept him alive long enough to get his second chance in Jackson. It’s the thing you have always loved most about Joel, the violence born of necessity.

And, you suppose, that’s what he’d been. Dispatcher, destroyer.

Protector.

At the heart of it all, the meat of it is, that it had always been that with Joel. It had always been in the name of protect, provide, survive. He never shied away from telling you of his days as a hunter, or, something close to a hunter. And even then, it was keep Tommy alive, it was survive until Boston, it was we needed fucking food.

Survive and provide and protect.

Joel.

Jackson had been wary of him, at first. The stories of his dealings with infected and raiders alike at odds with the way he moved in the commune, with kindness and a certain gentleness, a competency and dependability, with something so soft in his gaze when it came to that little girl he arrived with.

That reticence and worry had dissolved as quickly as it had come.

They describe him as quiet and funny, because he’s prone to good natured teasing. They describe him as fierce and short to anger, because no one can say a word about him or his. They describe him as wonderfully dependable, ask Joel for something on a supply run and you would have it in short order; sigh about the state of something in your home and it would be taken care of, fixed, the very next day.

Jackson loves Joel.

Especially that softened up, gentle creature that had emerged in the wake of everything that had happened between Boston and Jackson. Joel had always had a soft interior, trotted out in brief glimpses over the years, but the shell he wore had been so thick and sharp it was near impenetrable, nearly unknowable.

Ellie is around plenty in those first couple of weeks after. She even takes to sleeping on the living room couch. She doesn’t say much to you or Joel, hardly anything at all, but she’s there and you figure that’s what matters. It seems like she isn’t sure what to say, and desperate for the connection that nearly shattered.

The first few days when Joel comes home from the clinic, someone knocks on the front door every couple of hours and you open it and have the same conversation over and over and over again. It’s always people worriedly asking after Joel’s wellbeing, dropping off food, expressing their anger that something like this could happen to one of their own, that it could happen to someone so widely and wildly beloved.

When the knocks finally stop coming, and you can convince Tommy to go home to Maria, before Maria has to walk over and collect her husband again, you take the stairs slowly up.

You’re exhausted. You hardly sleep and when you do, you have nightmares of Joel. Formless, mind numbing dreams that you can never remember when you wake up gasping. You aren’t sure if Joel dreams of it, too. He’s always mumbled in his sleep, eyes flickering behind closed lids, so it’s hard to tell.

And he hasn’t really been coherent enough, awake enough, to ask, anyway.

“Hey,” Ellie says when you round the doorway into the bedroom, lowering the comic book in her hands. She’s beside Joel, sitting on your side of the bed, back against the headboard. “Sleeping again.”

“Was he awake?”

“A little. Drank some water.”

Despite the tension of the last few years, you know she’s thinking of another time that Joel had slept a lot, injured and only half alive.

Now isn’t like then, but in some ways, it’s worse.

You nod and take a seat at the edge of the bed by her feet. “That’s good,” you reassure her. “It’s a good thing that he’s sleeping. He needs it.”

Ellie just holds up the comic in her lap and then jerks her chin at the box on the bedside table, Joel’s glasses and book about space pushed aside. “I, uh, found them in the study.”

You shrug. “He always picked up any he found on supply runs.” You watch her from the corner of your eye and then shift your gaze to Joel. The slow rise and fall of his chest is reassuring in its steadiness, though you hate how still he is.

The skin by his temple is puckered and red, the stitches a neat little row up to his hairline. It still looks raw as a live nerve, the swelling extending to his eye, purple and shadowed in a dark bruise that trails down his cheek and jaw.

“He never said—” She stops and shakes her head. “So stupid.”

“Well,” you scoot closer and pat her extended leg. “You didn’t exactly want to talk then. We tried giving them to you, once. Left them outside your door. They got a little rained on.”

“Yeah,” she says, mouth twisting to the side. “Some of them are. . .can’t fucking peel the pages apart.” In that moment, she sounds like that little kid you left Boston with, being told not to touch something and doing it anyway.

That might have been when you fell in love with Ellie, watching her snap at Bill, and watching Joel react like any father would. It had come back to him so quickly, so naturally.

There’s a long pause in which Ellie flips rapidly through the comic book and doesn’t say anything, her fingers nervous. She looks how you feel — exhausted. “Why don’t you go get some sleep in your own bed?” You ask, reaching out to twitch a fallen lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “You’re just across the yard. If anything happens, you’ll know.”

She looks up at you, eyes flicking over your face. “I was fucking mad at you too, you know,” she whispers suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You drop your hand and shake your head before looking back at Joel. He sleeps deeply now, deeper than you thought possible for someone like him, even drugged and injured.

There’s a knot tangled in your chest, that only tightens further with her question. “It wasn’t my place. He didn’t. . .he didn’t say anything to me about it for a long time, either. Wouldn’t explain what happened while we were separated. He told me the same lie. And you were going to be mad at me, too, no matter what. It had to be between the two of you.”

“And you think he was right,” she accuses hotly.

“And,” you level your eyes to hers, “I think he was right.” You dip your head. “I wouldn’t change anything, Ellie. I wouldn’t. You know Joel wouldn’t either. You matter more than that.”

Her bottom lip trembles for just a second. “Even knowing this happens?!” She gestures around the room, maybe just the situation at large.

Some of the tension knotting up your shoulders bleeds away. “He’s still here. It’s not too late.” She glances away and sucks in a harsh breath. You wait until she meets your eyes again. “And Ellie, it is not your fault. It’s not. None of it.”

“It almost was.” Her voice is strained. “Too late.”

You shrug. “He knows you care. Trust me, he does.”

She scrubs roughly at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “Yeah, uh, well, I’m still gonna sleep on the couch.”

“Why don’t you just stay right here, then? With Joel?” You ask and stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”

It is the ultimate admission of how scared she is, that she does not argue, doesn’t even try to.

For the first few weeks after the attack, Joel is in and out of consciousness. He sleeps much more than he’s awake.

And, it’s hard to tell, at first, why he’s sleeping so much. The pain medicine? That carefully doled out, nearly impossible to come by miracle drug — was it just knocking him out? Was he just sleeping because that’s what his body needed? Or, was it something deeper? Brain damage?

“He’s fucking. . .old!” Ellie says to you one morning around a mouthful of toast. It’s kind of odd, how easily she’s taken to old routines. And how weird the old routine is, because the third piece of your puzzle is missing, sleeping. “Old people take longer to heal, right?”

Right.

But he’s also Joel. And he isn’t that old.

It feels wrong, that he’s so still and silent.

“It’s not—” Her fist opens and closes. She sets down the toast in her other hand on the plate and turns, pacing the length of Joel’s kitchen, fidgeting with her fingers as she goes, white morning light slatting over her. You eye the toast. It’s hard to get her to eat, these days but you figure most of one piece is better than nothing. “His leg. It’s not infected or something, right? We’d know if it was.”

“It’s not infected,” you agree. When your own hands start to shake, you set down your mug, afraid to drop it or spill hot tea all over the floor, and make Ellie even more anxious in the process.

You don’t like to talk about it. You don’t like to think about it. The memories are like a hot brand.

The staircase creaks with the heavy thud of footsteps, before Tommy appears in the kitchen archway. You’ve always thought Tommy and Joel resembled each other, but now you see similarities in the kinds of expressions they make, too, the quirks in their movements that only siblings could share, and Tommy is sometimes a little hard to look at.

“Heading out?”

“Yeah, he’s, uh, sleepin’ again.” He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest.

Ellie doesn’t say anything, just slips past Tommy and heads up the steps. Tommy looks after her and then back at you. “She won’t say it but she doesn’t like leaving him alone,” you explain.

Tommy nods and then pushes away from the door to settle at the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t like the idea of it either. Good she’s with him.” He tips the chair onto its back legs and tilts his head. “How ya holdin’ up?”

“Probably about as good as you are.”

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Maria told me you want off partols.”

You swallow and look away from him as you take the seat across from him at the table. “I - I know we’re down people already but I can’t. . .Tommy I can’t even look at the goddamn gate without feeling like—” You shake your head. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’d get somebody killed.”

“All right,” he says, not unkindly. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”

A burn starts at the back of your eyes so you stand again and swipe your fingers against your cheeks. “You want coffee before you head out?”

“Nah, save that for Joel.” Then, “How you think this is gonna go? When he’s awake more?”

“I don’t know. You’d know better than me.”

Tommy laughs. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. He looks tired, and worried. It’s an odd look on him. It isn’t like Tommy at all. You and Tommy have always bonded over teasing Joel. There’s none of that now.

“Like hell. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with him, not me.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And you’re the love of his damn life.” He pauses and leans on the counter next to you.

That makes your mouth twitch, the pleasantly warm feeling in your chest consumed in the next second by a lancing pain that can only be an approximation of grief for someone and something that still breathed.

“I just can’t help worryin’,” he continues. “This might be enough for us, but not for him. If Joel can’t ever do anything again—”

“He just needs time, Tommy,” you cut him off quickly. Not able to stomach the thought. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out,” you say with more conviction than you feel. “We can probably figure something like a prosthetic out. People have been making them for thousands of years. We can do it. It’ll be fine. But it’s going to be different.”

Tommy’s right. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with Joel. You aren’t sure who you are without him anymore. You aren’t sure you know how to get along without him anymore. And you never want to have to find out. “He’s alive,” you finish with a nod. “Everything else, we can figure out.”

He nods. “You think we shoulda went after ‘em?”

“Maybe. But this is more important.”

Before he goes, Tommy wraps you in a hug. “So long as you and that girl stick around, it’ll be all right.”

“Ellie’s been playing the guitar up there,” you answer.

He nods and pulls back, one big hand clapping down on your shoulder. “See? Things might be all right yet. Always told Joel she’d come around eventually.” He releases you and heads toward the door then. “And get some sleep. Y’look terrible,” he calls over his shoulder. “Orders from Maria.”

For the first time in weeks, Joel wakes with some semblance of clarity. The bedroom is warm and dark, the tiniest pool of light washing over the form next to him from a little light plugged into the wall.

It’s the nightlight he found for Ellie when they first got to Jackson and her nightmares gave her more grief than she cared to admit to.

His whole body aches. He feels sick.

The sharpness of the pain is disorienting. He’s only been awake in brief, muddled flashes, the dulled fingers of drugged pain lancing through him and consuming most of his thoughts. He’d only been awake long enough to eat or drink or be helped to the bathroom like some kind of damn—

He remembers Tommy at his bedside. He hears the ghost notes of music in the air, your voice in his ear, the gentle slide of warm fingers over his skin. He remembers Ellie reading aloud, curled on her side next to him, like she used to do when she was younger, like when they’d stop for the night on the road.

That can’t be right, though. She hasn’t done that in years. She wouldn’t do something like that. Not anymore.

You’re next to him now, face tilted against the edge of his pillow. It’s hard to make you out in the dark, the shape and slope of your features hidden in the dim light.

When he says your name, you twitch, the slightest wrinkle to your nose, the tiniest spasm of your fingers against the sheets. “Darlin’,” he tries again. His voice grinds, catches and snags around his teeth. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in years.

He reaches for you and it’s agony, because his shoulder must be broken. His ribs contract painfully right, like the shrapnel of the bone is digging up into his lungs, piercing his heart. But your skin is soft and warm, pliant, beneath his fingers. It smells like you’ve been burning sage again. He wants to burrow his fingers beneath your skin, you’re so warm.

The cut of your cheekbones are sharper, the angle of your jaw reminds him of winter in the QZ, winter traveling with you and Ellie. Discolored circles line the space beneath your eyes like little hollows. You look exhausted, wan.

You blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. “Joel?” Your voice is a whisper, like the dark is stealing it away.

Your fingers slide through the backs of his against your cheek when you shift closer, so careful about it, until you’re pressed to his side. “Joel,” you repeat, eyes sliding shut, forehead against the edge of his sore jaw.

He breathes you in, the warm scent of your skin, the smells of hearth and home, lavender and sage and woodsmoke. He closes his eyes for just a second when you shift up and tilt your forehead against his, breath whispering against his chin. “Joel.”

“You all right?” His voice still sounds rocky but clearing it doesn’t seem to help any.

Slowly, you sit up, hand still in his when you pull it away from your face. “You’re asking me that? You’re kidding, Joel,” your voice creaks. You’ve never really been a crier, but there’s a thickness in your mouth, softening out the vowels and snapping at the consonants. “Are you - We didn’t want you to be in pain. But you’ve been sleeping for so long, we gave you a lower dose so that—”

“I feel okay,” he interrupts your fretting, sweeping his thumb against the back of your hand. “Considerin’.”

You swallow and nod. “Hungry?” You glance at the window, where a gray, pale morning light is starting to leech into the room, the color of dirty snow.

“Yep.” He wishes you’d keep your eyes on him. “If you’ve got somethin’ ready.”

“We have anything you want,” you assure him. “Anything.”

Joel nods and attempts to push himself up next to you, chest and shoulder aching something awful. He bites back a groan but it still pushes past his teeth.

“Careful,” you say sharply. Before he can protest, you’re up and around the bed, one hand behind his back. “Your shoulder is broken in a million places.”

“A million?” He grunts.

“Three.”

“That ain’t a million.”

You don’t laugh and your hand doesn’t move from his back. “And broken ribs. Now lean back.” He does as you ask, real careful about it so you don’t worry.

An odd feeling creeps up inside his chest, dulled by the lighter dose of pain medicine coursing through his veins. It ain’t just a sick feeling, but something else. A helplessness, maybe. It feels wrong, in more ways than one.

Joel becomes acutely aware of what he already knows, every single injury, the graveness of them. He knows about the broken shoulder and ribs that had to be reset, torn skin that had to be stitched together, that he has internal bruising but by some miracle no internal bleeding. His face throbs suddenly, his temple tight with pain. He feels his heartbeat behind his eye and in the swelling in his cheek.

And, the worst of it, leg amputated to just above the knee. Sick crawls up the back of his throat. He doesn’t dare look.

The feeling in his chest swells until it chokes him.

Helpless, useless — something hard and fanged digs into his mind. It feels like grief, but what is he supposed to be mourning, exactly?

Everything, maybe.

His whole damn life.

“I’m fine,” he grunts suddenly. Sharply. “Quit fussin’.”

He feels like fucking crying.

“Just - shut up, Joel,” you snap back. “You almost fucking died.”

A fist curls around his throat, warm and tight. He almost can’t breathe through it. “Yeah,” he croaks, voice breaking the word in two.

“Yeah,” you snarl. “So shut up and let me fuss.”

You turn and leave before he can say anything else, footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Voices trundle up, creased and folded, rising but muffled. You’ve always been mean when you got scared, ever since Joel can remember. You were mean as hell when he first met you, a hissing kind of frustrated, new to the QZ and new to trying your hand at smuggling.

You’ve softened up over the years. He hasn’t seen you like this in a long time, maybe not since you got separated in Salt Lake City.

More footsteps, this time heavy, stomping, coming upwards.

Ellie appears in the doorway a second later. Her hair is messy; her eyes are wild. She’s in sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for her. She looks tired but unharmed. The knot tangled up around his lungs eases just a little. “Hey, kiddo.” He tries not to sound surprised.

Her eyes flick over him and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. Instead she picks up a book from the corner of the dresser and settles in the chair across the room.

A firm but unyielding presence.

He closes his eyes, tips his head back against the wall, and tries to push down the feeling of failure rising in his throat like a tide.

Joel’s fingers are clumsy.

He can’t walk, can’t work, can’t do much of anything without irritating every ligament and tendon and bone in his body.

But even worse than that, he can’t remember how to play the guitar.

And nothing makes him feel so helpless as that.

Even after not playing for twenty odd years, the notes and the placement of his fingers on the strings and frets had come back easily to him, almost like he’d never stopped playing at all.

Now, it doesn’t.

In part his shoulder is to blame. Even nearly healed, it’s stiff. But the other part of it is that he can’t remember how to play. Every note seems wrong, and he can’t decide if he’s hearing it wrong, if there’s something wrong with his hearing, his perception, or if the note really is just wrong.

Ellie plays for him, instead.

It’s easier than talking. Neither of them are really good at that, anyway. He’s just glad she’s around at all.

He can’t help but think of that last conversation he’d had with her on the back porch, that she wants to try to forgive him, even if she thinks she might never be able to. He supposes this is her way of trying her hand at that.

Sometimes he wonders if it would be like this if he hadn’t almost died, if he wasn’t collecting sympathy from everyone like there was some kind of shortage. Maybe that conversation on the porch would have meant nothing, otherwise.

The thought hurts him, no matter how glad he is that she’s there.

One evening, pretty late, as snow peppers down through the early winter black that curtains the window, she stops playing.

The living room is quiet, aside from their breathing and the crackle of flames in the fireplace.

“I was going to invite you over to watch a movie.”

The metallic twang of the last note she plucked hangs in the air.

“I was - I was going to fucking ask you to watch a movie with me. That night. One of those dumb action movies you like. Like the ones we used to watch, remember? Curtis and Viper 2.”

She doesn’t look at him. She stares at her fingers, idly, nervously, twisting the tuning pegs of the guitar. “Think I saw that one before,” he answers, voice a little choked. “Pretty good.”

Ellie rolls her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Yeah, you would think so, old man,” she replies eventually but still doesn’t look up, her mouth twisting to the side. “I just - don’t want you to think I’m only here because you—” She shakes her head, and props the guitar against the wall before she stands and paces the room twice, toying with her fingers in that way she always has. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Even when I was really mad.”

“Ellie,” he says but she doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know.”

“Anyway, I meant what I said.”

“Ellie.”

“I wanted things to get better. I wanted to try. I was going to.”

“Ellie.”

She spins suddenly toward the front door, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I gotta get going.”

“Kiddo.” This time she turns and finally looks at him. The scent of pine and smoke fills the room. The red of the flames flash across her face, so serious and anxious.

When they first came to Jackson, they spent a lot of nights on the couch together. His neck always ached the next morning from sleeping upright but he’d never complain about it. Then the distance between them had grown, and he doesn’t know when the last time something like that had happened.

But that same distance is slowly shrinking now, even if things might never, never be the same again.

So many times when he looks at her, he still sees that fourteen year old kid. He’d had the same problem with Sarah, looking at his twelve year old and seeing her at five and eight. It was just how it went, being a parent.

“I know, Ellie,” he reassures her. “I do. It’s all right. Even if you didn’t mean a word of it, it’s all right. I meant what I said, too.”

And even though she said she needed to leave, she nods and sits down again. She plucks a few notes out on the guitar when she pulls it back into her lap.

“D'ya still wanna watch it?”

She does.

Joel is whittling.

It is decidedly not going well.

He’s too distracted for it. He never realized how much pressure settled on his shoulder, how much it pulled at the muscle around his ribs, from doing something as simple as this, and he doesn’t like the nausea that comes with the pain.

But it’s something he can do, so he does it.

It’s snowing outside again, wind raking against the siding, rattling the window panes. There’s a thin stream of air coming in around the window’s frame, cold.

His hands are chapped and raw, blood pooling at the seams of his knuckles.

The fix would be easy enough, but everything he needs to do it is in the basement. And the basement is a near impossible location for him to reach, so he puts up with it, hands growing more frustrated by the second because he wants to fucking fix it.

You use the office, his work space, often enough, and it’s one thing for him to be cold and uncomfortable, but another thing entirely for you to feel that way.

But he can’t make it down to the living room without help these days, let alone down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then back up them, too.

“Joel?”

He glances over his shoulder to find you standing in the doorway. You have a pair of shears in your hands.

“Still want me to cut your hair?”

He wants to do it himself. But you’d offered earlier, because you’ve been doing it for him for a long time, for years and years now. And he’d always liked it because your hands are kind with it and you’re better at doing it, anyway. But now it just feels like one more thing he can’t do for himself, one more thing he’s relying on someone else for, and that makes guilt and shame choke him.

Joel can’t seem to do a damn thing, not for himself, but, worse, not for anyone else either.

“Joel?” You ask again when the silence stretches until it’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have to; you can do it yourself.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s all right, darlin’.” You start forward when he labors up from the chair, teeth gritted, but quickly stop when he meets your eyes, warning you away with a glance.

You don’t say anything else, just back out the door and pad down the hall to the bathroom.

He isn’t sure if your feelings are hurt or not, all his focus directed on hauling himself upwards and then limping down the hall with one crutch under his arm. Feeble threads of pain lance up his leg, centering in his joints, the hinge of his knee. The space under his arm is sore too, from the crutch, even wrapped in cloth.

Joel is used to pain. He’s used to temporary aches, the sharp stab of healing wounds, the quick rip of a bullet or knife through skin, chronic pains from age and long healed injuries. On cold days, his side aches something fierce, like that rebar never really came out of him.

But this pain is different, without origin, and he’s having a hard time adjusting to it. Or maybe he’s just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this is not a healable injury, at least, not in the way he wants it to be.

For the rest of his life, he will be disabled. He’ll never get back to himself, never be what he once was.

The bathroom light is gold. It washes his skin into a better color, not so pale and strained and pained looking.

He hates looking in the mirror now. Joel never considered himself particularly good looking, never thought about it much, really. And, for most of his life, looks haven’t really mattered anyway.

But seeing his reflection now is a reminder of his failures. It’s a reminder of everything he can’t do.

His whole body is nothing but reminders.

He is a patchwork quilt of scars.

He doesn’t know how you can stand to look at him. But you just brush your hands through his hair when he leans the crutch against the counter and sits heavily on the stool you dragged upstairs.

The bathroom is thick with the scent of lavender and earth. Every winter it turns into a makeshift greenhouse, all the plants that can’t survive the winter dragged inside for the season.

The feeling of your hands through his hair is soothing and the tension in his shoulders slides away.

“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, despite himself, and without conviction when you run a comb through his hair.

You hum under your breath, not really paying him any mind. You know he doesn’t really mean it. Even if he feels like a fucking burden for it, it’s something you’ve always done for him, so it’s a little easier for him to accept. “I know. I like to.” You tilt his chin up and Joel steadfastly avoids looking in the mirror. “Besides, I’m better at it. You take to it like it’s a hack job.”

The trim doesn’t take long, since he keeps his hair longer anyway. It’s mostly an excuse for you to rake your fingers through his hair.

“The window needs fixin’,” he says when you slide in front of him and set about trimming his beard without asking. That’s fine, too. “I know you been, uh, kinda cold in that room.”

“It’s not so bad,” you say when you finish with him, brushing your fingers against his cheeks and then through his hair. You smile, eyes crossing his face, tracing his features like a well known map, before you twitch a lock of hair away from his forehead. “You gonna fix it for me or what?”

“Mighty big ask of ya,” he grouses, irritation itching at the edge of his mind.

You’re still smiling faintly, touching his face, the curl of hair behind his ear, the scar along his hairline and then the one over his nose.

“I just can’t see how,” you say and Joel almost snaps. He wants to. He wants to say you don’t fucking get it, that you don’t want to get it, that it’s different now. He wants to say he’s not the man you’ve always known, that shit ain’t as easy as it’s always been. He can’t do shit for you, anymore, and isn’t that the reason you’ve stuck around all these years?

But then you continue. “I left that damn caulking gun on the side table three days ago.”

“You what?”

You shrug. “Thought you might have noticed it too. And I’ve always been so bad at that stuff.”

The guilt that settles in him is heavy, but familiar. The shape of it is different, but it's still like shrugging on an old coat, it’s so natural and intimate.

He must be destined for some kind of failure, born under a bad star, something.

Everything he touches falls apart, no matter what he does. Everyone he holds dear, leaves him, one way or another, somehow. His mama, Sarah, and then Tommy, and then Tess. Most recently Ellie, though maybe things there were being mended. Maybe you were next, soon as you came to your senses.

Joel has spent most of his life taking care of people. And when he wasn’t taking care of people, he was moving, working. He hardly ever sat still. He didn’t have time to sit still.

Not before the outbreak, and certainly not after.

Even in Jackson where the pace of the world is slower, he was always busy. If he wasn’t on patrol, he was on wall duty, looking after Jackson’s security. Or, he was fixing something for someone, building something, helping with the horses. If he wasn’t doing any of that, he was improving his house, he was working on a new carving, he was playing the guitar.

Healing up, it’s involved a whole lot of sitting still and feeling useless. It had involved a lot of other people fussing over him.

A lot of sitting still and feeling like he was failing everyone he knew. Like he had already failed everyone he knew. For all the effort he put into it, it would never be enough. He cares wrong, he loves wrong, and now he can’t even do that.

He fails you in this, too. Of wishing he could accuse you of all the things he thinks of himself.

Joel knows you think of it too, you just haven’t gotten frustrated enough with him to say it yet. You haven’t had the full weight of his broken, uselessness on you, yet.

That day will come. There’s no way it won’t, because he can’t do for you what he’s always done, what he was put on this god forsaken earth to do. The one thing he’s always been able to do. Not just for you, but for everyone. Ellie, Tommy and his family, Jackson at large.

It’s always been the thing he could point to and say look, this is why I am like this, this is why you need me, why I’m around. You survived because of me. Because I made sure you did.

So he’s not worth much now, really, and all the promises he made you and all the promises he made to himself, he can’t keep them anymore. And isn’t that why you stuck by him all these years? Despite all his shortcomings?

“Sorry, darlin’,” he cups your face in his hands, smoothes his thumbs over your cheeks, the hinge of your jaw. “I’ll get right on fixin’ that for you.”

“I know you will. Thank you, Joel.” The full weight of your head tips into his hands, and your eyes slide shut. His hands are large against your jaw, scarred and calloused, harsh. Reminders, maybe, of what he used to be. He looks at the hollows beneath your eyes, the raw, worried skin of your bottom lip.

You don’t sleep anymore and when you do you have nightmares. You hate to leave the house. And sometimes you flinch even when nothing is happening around you, like memories are snapping at your heels.

He did all that to you, too. Terrible gifts he’s given and can’t take back.

When he glances back up to your eyes, you’re staring at him, a worried, anxious kind of look lodged there that he absolutely hates.

“What?” He asks, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks and then the delicate hinge of your jaw.

“Nothing.” Your eyes shift away from his, and you twitch in his grasp. He already knows what you’re about to say, because you’ve never gotten better at saying it, just like him. He doesn’t need you to say it, but you do anyway, and he hates how much he likes hearing it. It’s like a ray of golden sun. “I love you, Joel,” you murmur and hook your hands around his wrists.

For a long time, you just look at him, the silence is heavy with unsaid words, but he isn’t sure which of you is the one not saying something. “That enough?” He eventually grunts. “For you?”

You frown. “Why wouldn’t it be? Do you think it’s not?”

It shouldn’t be. All those promises stack up in his mind again, everything he can’t keep.

“It shouldn’t be.”

You pull his hands away from your face with a shake of your head and lean in to kiss him. Your lips part softly against his, the hitch of your breath sweet against his mouth. The heat of you is so close and intoxicating, it’s something he never wants to have to give up, not when your thumbs are pressed to the pulse in his wrists, and not when you taste like apple, honey.

He shakes one of your hands away to wrap his arm around your back and pull you closer, until the warmth of your body is pressed securely to his chest. Your tongue slides against his, teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip. Something warm floods his cheeks and his chest goes tight.

When you pull back, you tug on a piece of his hair then touch the blush pinking on his face. “You look real handsome, Texas.”

He tucks his forehead against your collarbone, and you fold your hands against the back of his head. “It’s enough,” you say. “Always has been.”

The next day, he finds that most of his tools have been relocated upstairs, either to one of the cabinets in the living room, or to the office upstairs.

Either way, he no longer has to traverse two staircases down and back up.

He isn’t sure when you had the time to do it, or why he didn’t at least hear you doing it.

Joel’s chest swells with love for you, right alongside the guilt that does nothing but grow.

He fixes the window.

Some days are easier than others.

He has good days and bad, and some of the bad days are worse than others. He sows the feelings up inside himself, cocoons the bad away inside his chest. It’s easier that way. And it’s necessary now. It’s just another thing you’d have to deal with.

He’s never been good at saying the things that needed said, anyway.

He tries not to snap at you. He’s trying not to get mean, and he can’t just walk away like he used to be able to when his mind got messy. But he’s been failing because he wants you to fight with him, wants you to hate him.

Joel wants you to say that he fucking failed, that he’s been failing his whole life at the one thing he was supposed to be able to do. The one thing he’s really good for.

“Stop it,” Joel snarls one day in the spring, when you offer your hand down the steps to the living room.

He doesn’t mean to snap at you like that, but he doesn’t take it back either. He’s in too much pain. And he doesn’t want to admit it.

The smile slips off your face as you step back from him, a stoney expression sliding over your face instead. It’s routine, you helping him, and maybe that’s the problem. He grits his teeth, that look reminds him of Boston, reminds him of the time before you used to trust each other.

“I ain’t helpless.”

You raise your hands and take another step back, looking away from him as you do.

The breeze that comes in the landing’s open window is cool. It isn’t quite warm enough for the window to be open but the house needs airing out after such a long winter, such a hard winter. The air is crisp with the scent of pine and the lavender hung in dried clumps above each doorway.

“I know, Joel.”

When he looks at you, you visibly brace yourself.

A wave of self-hatred so hot it burns immediately follows the guilt. But it also doesn’t stop the angry, frustrated pulse beneath the surface of his skin, pressing against the back of his teeth.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just leave me there.” The words are bitter, poisonous. Accusatory. “You should have left me to fuckin’ die.”

Whatever you might be expecting him to say, it isn’t that. Your breath catches hard.

You can be cruel, too. He waits for your anger, the burn of words he deserves to hear, something mean and hateful but true.

But the words don’t come; your anger doesn’t come. You just look tired and empty, sad.

You pace the landing, the soft shush of your footsteps echoed by the creaking of the floorboards. Your silence pricks at him. He wants you to scream at him, blame him, for failing, for being so fucking stupid.

“What if it was me?”

Your voice is so low, he almost doesn’t catch your words.

The quiet of your footsteps come to a halt. “What if it had been me, Joel? It could have been. It could have easily been me. They knew who you were. We’ve done a lot of the same shit. We’ve made a lot of the same enemies over the years.”

Your hands are shaking, your breath comes in quick little pants. The acrid, bone aching feeling of cresting anxiety and panic floods the little landing. “Me and you and Tess, we were kind of a package fucking deal. So, what if it was me?”

The breeze sliding through the open window feels different now. Colder, older, more brutal.

“That’s fuckin’ different and y’know it,” he snarls.

“Why?” Anger floods your face, the curl of your fingers harsh against your arms when you cross them. “Why would that have been different? Because you think I always need to be taken care of?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks away from you, but he can’t go anywhere. He’s at your mercy and you both hate it.

Joel leans heavily against the wall, his right hand curling around his left wrist, a nervous, anxious tick he’s never been able to shake.

“Tell me,” you beg. “Say it, Joel. How is it different? Why?”

He shakes his head once, slowly, and doesn’t look up at you. “You can say it,” you continue, your voice eerily quiet. “You never trusted me to have your back.”

That ain’t it at all.

It’s not your failure. It’s his, in every single way. He doesn’t blame you or Tommy or Ellie or anyone else. He doesn’t believe for a second that you don’t know that.

It would have been better, probably, if he died.

He doesn’t understand the guilt you feel.

He can’t take care of you anymore, can’t protect you anymore.

Worse, he can’t do that for his kid.

If he’d died, maybe that final sacrifice would have been enough to make up for everything else. Maybe it would all just be done.

He’s the one breaking promises, not you, just like he always has been.

Sometimes, when he thinks of Sarah, he can only remember her final moments. He can’t think of anything else but her blood, how red it was in the dark. He can’t think of anything else than what could have been. He can only see the halo of that mounted flashlight glaring into his eyes, his own voice pleading. Please don’t.

If he’d just been shot, he would have died first, he wouldn’t have ever known how bad he failed in that moment. He would have died first, like a parent was supposed to. No good father should ever outlive his kid.

Maybe, this had been his second chance, to finally die first.

Born lucky, bad star, like always.

So, what would he do, if it had been you? He’d have taken care of you, just like you’re doing for him. But that is not anathema to him; that is just how things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t have been a failure.

He’s no use to you anymore, no use to anyone.

He doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, he nods.

“You’re right.” He shrugs and pain splinters across his shoulders. “It would have been different.”

Your expression flickers blank and you turn away. It would have been easier to stomach if you screamed at him, if you slammed a door.

But you’re just quiet.

Once, during the late autumn, when you were traveling with Joel and Ellie, you noticed Joel wasn’t eating.

Food was in short supply. None of the houses or buildings you looted turned up anything edible, and wild game had been elusive for weeks as the weather turned wetter and chillier.

You’d noticed him doing it a few times before, but nothing like then. Joel would dole out carefully rationed food and not allocate any to himself. The bags under his eyes deepened. His temper was shorter. He’d gotten pale and hollows appeared in his cheeks that meant he hadn’t been getting enough. Joel had always been huge, broad and strong and tall, with thick arms and thighs, but when he dropped weight, it always showed in those little hollows first.

Then, one evening, after clearing out a barn of infected, he’d stumbled, hand to his forehead, pale as you’d ever seen him. “Christ,” he’d mumbled.

“Joel?” Ellie’s voice had pitched up with worry. She’d looked at you, and said, “He hasn’t been eating.” The words were all a rush, accusatory and begging for you to do something.

“Ellie—” He’d growled.

“I know she’s right, Joel,” You’d interrupted with a snap. “You think we wouldn’t notice? You think I wouldn’t notice?”

He’d gotten pissed off and marched off into the woods to the stream to refill your canteens. You’d given him a wide berth for several hours, making the newly cleared barn into something livable for the night with Ellie. When dark had started to set in you went after him, boots crunching through frozen leaves.

He’d been sitting by the creek bed, an inscrutable expression on his face. “We ain’t got enough,” he’d said, not looking at you. “You and Ellie need it more. I’m fine.”

“But you're not. You can’t just not eat. You can’t take care of us if you aren’t okay, Joel.”

The air had smelled like earth and decaying leaves and stagnant water and ice. The scent reminded you of better times, of apple cider and cinnamon and new beginnings, of autumn fairs and coffee shops.

You’d sat behind him, pulled him against you for just a moment, chin on his shoulder, and said, “It’s all right to let me look after you, too.”

You figure that even with the change in circumstances, things are still like that with Joel. He’s always doing the metaphorical equivalent of making sure everyone else eats first, even if it means he’s starving.

He’s never been one to give up or give in or let go. When Tess was bitten, Joel hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay and fight. To fight a useless and unwinnable fight. That mindset was never going to fade.

You don’t speak for a few days. Guilt swallows the whole of your heart and leaves you dry and empty. Joel blames you, you think, even if he won’t say it.

He comes to you late one night.

It’s dark and the bedroom is overly warm. He sits heavily but without help at the edge of the bed. He’s getting better at that, even if he doesn’t think he is.

His hair is longer and it falls into his face when he leans over you, fingers against your forehead and temple and then your cheek.

“When I was real young,” he says. “My dad died. We didn’t have much money and my mama worked all the time.”

You turn on your back and try to make his face out but his expression is unreadable.

Joel hardly ever talks about his folks.

“I got my first job when I was fourteen, to help with the bills. Money was better on account of half of it not bein’ drank away, but we still needed the cash.” Joel pauses and you scoot over. It takes a minute for him to find a comfortable position with you but when he does, he continues. His voice echoes against your ear, the beat of his heart pounds against your cheek. His chin rubs against your forehead, one large hand splayed across your shoulders.

“Since she worked so much, I was always takin’ care of Tommy, of damn near everything else. And my mama, too, sometimes.” He swallows, and you feel the bob of his throat against your forehead. His chest is warm beneath your cheek, even through the two layers he always wears. “So I knew I was young when Sarah came along, but I didn’t really feel it. I took care of her and her mother, ‘til she went her own way. Just the way I always had.”

The rise and fall of his chest is steady. He cups his free hand around yours and tucks your palm against his heart.

“I know I’m not easy, in any sense of the word. I never have been.” A heavy tug of shame weighs his voice down. “Too mean and bitter, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and you want to protest but you’re sure if you interrupt, Joel won’t finish saying whatever it is he needs to.

“So anyway,” he continues. “I try to make up for it. By doin’ what I always have, even if it means I end up alone. I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know what I’m good for if—” His hand slides up your spine, thick fingers resting at the base of your neck. “And I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take care of ya. So, it woulda been different, if it had been you. Because it’s you we’re talkin’ about.”

Joel goes quiet after that. His palm continues its nervous path over your spine. The bristles of his beard are soft against your temple. The rhythm of his breathing is still slow and even, but you feel the prickle of nerves in the way he touches you.

It isn’t easy for Joel to say the things he feels, even to you, even all these years later.

His body is so familiar to you, so warm and strong beneath you. Comfort, in short, in its purest form.

You aren’t expecting him to say any more, but he does. “Things. . .they always have a way of fallin’ apart, in the end.”

When you lift your head, he doesn’t look at you. You press a finger against the edge of his jaw, turning his head gently until his eyes meet yours. “Joel,” you touch your forehead to his. You aren’t good with words either, but you try. “You are more than that. More than what you can do for people.”

He’s quiet for a long time, eyes fluttering closed, his breath a calm pool against your mouth. “And I’m more than that? To you?”

“Joel, if I only wanted some guard dog, I would have gotten one that could listen better.”

He snorts, and a little of the tension melts away. “Yeah, I reckon you would have.”

The dark is a warm cocoon of things less easily said in the light.

“Yes,” you say quietly after a long, peaceful silence. “Joel. You’re so much more to me than that.”

It’s late spring again. The Wyoming air is mild, and heavy with the scent of blooming life.

Sage grows in dense clumps up in the mountains, deep between the ridges of the sharp peaks. The smell of it, earthy and crisp, chases itself on the breeze, all the way down to Jackson. It twines with the smell of flowers painstakingly planted along his front path.

Arrowleaf. Goldenrod.

Lavender, right by the mailbox, courtesy of some superstition held onto from before the outbreak.

It’s thick, cloying, pungent.

It’s overripe, rotting. It smells like death.

It’s making Joel fucking nauseous.

He squeezes your arm, a warning without words that he needs a break.

It’s the smell.

It’s the sun and the gentle breeze.

He tells himself the sick, crawling pain mixing sourly in his stomach has nothing at all to do with his newly fitted prosthetic leg.

Slowly, without a word, you turn and guide him back through his familiar backyard to the porch.

He sits heavily on the steps, just inside the cool pool of shade, and pulls in deep breaths that rattle in his lungs and do nothing to stave off the dizziness, or the pain.

Your hand slides up and down his back before your palm settles against the back of his neck and urges his head down between his knees.

Joel feels like a fucking kid. His hands are shaking.

“Damn thing is useless,” he growls after a minute when the nausea passes and he can lift his head, because it’s the only thing he can do, because it’s goddamn humiliating.

Everything is, these days.

You just bump your shoulder into his and hum low under your breath, used to his attitude, used to his bark that only sometimes has a bite.

You’re patient with him, but tough, not willing to indulge his foul moods. “It’s just something you have to get used to,” you assure him. “It’s not going to be like before.”

Joel doesn’t want to admit that he wants to take the prosthetic off. It’s like admitting defeat before he’s even gotten a chance to fight.

And he’s tired.

Exhausted, really.

“Hey,” you dig your nails into his wrist. He meets your eyes, pragmatic, practical, his match in everything. “We aren’t supposed to go at it so hard anyway, remember? You did really well.”

He doesn’t want to admit that, either, that your praise washes pink in his veins, that he likes to hear it, thrives on it. If he’s doing right by you, good in your eyes, things can’t be awful as they might seem.

That’s what he latches onto. Your pride. Your acceptance.

“This was just the first time, Joel,” you continue. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

He ain’t so sure about that, not with the way his leg aches. A leg that isn’t even there anymore, chopped off right above the knee, to save his life, apparently. It’s part of why it hurts so goddamn much. Feels like he’s pushing his calf into something it can’t fit in, like the long gone meat and bone are getting ground up into his thigh.

But if he gets the hang of it, then things will be better. He’ll at least be able to move on his own. He might be able to find some way to work again. Wall duty was looking pretty good, because all you really have to do is sit there and watch the horizon and be able to shoot pretty well.

There is hope in the future. There is hope in you reminding him of that, realistic to a fault, pragmatic to your core.

And unlike Joel, you’ve never had it in you to lie.

Joel tightens his hand on your forearm again, pressure on your sun warmed skin. It’s a poor substitute for the thank you that you deserve. You seem to get his meaning though. Your hand feathers through his hair again and the sun doesn’t feel so abrasive, and the smells of spring don’t seem so weighed down by death.

“Ellie’s coming for dinner,” you offer. “Said she’s got a movie or a game or something that she wants to show you.”

Yeah, so maybe the day ain’t so bleak as he thought it was.

“All right.”

You offer him a hand up, and slip your arm behind his back. He carefully drapes his arm around your shoulders, mindful, even now, of his weight against yours. “What a strong thing you are,” he comments, not able to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. You look so determined.

It’s the way you always look, when put to task.

You roll your eyes. “Lucky for you.”

“Lucky for me,” he says, soft about it.

The stairs are the worst part of getting back inside, but it's much easier than it had been before.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch and take the prosthetic off. The phantom pains still ache and stretch painfully tight, like the skin is being pulled taut, like there was a knot that just needed massaged out. He grits his teeth and represses the urge to reach down and rub sore muscle that no longer exists.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch, even if guilt punches him in the chest for it.

It’s an even bigger relief when you press yourself into the space next to him. He doesn’t know how you stand it sometimes. How you can look at him and still not hate him for every mistake he’s ever made.

“Knee always fuckin’ bothered me anyhow,” he comments, turning his head so his words brush against your temple. “Don’t gotta worry about it gettin’ stiff now, I reckon.”

You reward him with a snort, the scrape of your fingernails against his cheek, a kiss.

It’s easier to get around, with the prosthetic that he hates.

But he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been in his whole life. And sometimes, most times, it frustrates him.

Being able to walk is one thing. It’s a fine thing. But he needs to be able to do more than that. Run, fight, shoot. A fucking pipe dream. But he’s back to building, carpentry, and that’s something at least. Something useful.

Joel has tried asking you about that day, because he doesn’t remember a whole lot besides the pain. But your chest goes fluttery with panic, the rise and fall of it unfamiliar to him. You don’t get nervous. You never have, not over anything.

But when he asks about that day, you mutter something about Tommy and blood, and he can’t get anything else out of you. Tommy does the same, eyes cast to the side, thumbs hooked in his belt, foot starting a nervous rhythm.

He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with either of you, what the goddamn problem is.

In some ways, Joel’s always thought you were tougher than him, a balance of brutal and rough and unforgiving with softened sweetness. Bash the skull of a hunter in with a metal pipe, then use your unsullied hand to stroke back Ellie’s hair, to offer help to strangers, to pat the nose of your horse gently.

He would never want to be on the other side of the wrath you kept wrapped up inside your heart.

But, now, you don’t leave Jackson anymore. You haven’t been outside Jackson’s walls since that day.

Tommy tells him you can’t even bear to take a shift on the wall, which mainly comprised of sitting at the top of the wall and doing a whole lot of nothing, looking at the horizon, shuffling your feet to keep warm.

It’s unlike you. You love to patrol, just like him.

That’s his fault, too. Your nightmares, your sleeplessness.

Ellie plays the guitar for him, even after he gets the hang of it again, even after he’s walking on his own again, the chords coming back to him easier and easier. They don’t have to talk much, that way.

She’s still mad, but he almost died, and she’s willing to try with him.

She comes over for dinner. She always brings a movie.

It gets easier.

And slowly, by the end of the summer, she smiles when she sees him.

He’s gotten the hang of walking again, which is never a sentiment he thought he’d have about himself. Joel always assumed he’d be killed before something like really old age could set in, or something like this, a disability he doesn’t want to learn to live with.

It’s rained recently and the yard smells like perchitor and the ever present mountain sage. The grass is just a little muddy from the many loops around the yard. “You’re going to fall and break your neck, old man.”

“Breakin’ my neck can’t be much worse than what it is right now. We ain’t goin’ around the yard anyhow. Now c’mon, put your shoes on, kiddo.”

“It’s still raining,” she complains.

“Means no one’s outside to see me humiliatin’ myself.”

Ellie only rolls her eyes but does it anyway. He doesn’t need a hand anymore, but he’s shaky sometimes and despite your best efforts he’s still refusing a cane. But he also hasn’t been using the track in the yard in weeks.

That, and he actually has somewhere to be these days, figuring out better security for Jackson, looking after the patrol teams, assessing who was ready to be put into rotation. Managing is what he should be calling it, though he doesn’t care for it. He and Maria butt heads too often for it to be anything close to enjoyable.

When they pass the mailbox, Ellie points to the lavender. “I never thought to ask about it before. It’s everywhere. Some nailed above the door and everything.”

“Some kinda thing about protectin’ the home,” Joel explains. “Far as I remember, it protects from bad energy. Somethin’ like that.”

“I thought that was sage?”

“Sage you burn,” he explains. “And we get plenty of that too. Whole damn house smells like it.”

“Seems like the kinda thing Dina would do,” she says and then seems to realize who she’s said it to. But she doesn’t change the subject. “Didn’t take her for the superstitious type. Doesn’t seem like it really works anyway.”

Joel shrugs. “She was before the outbreak, I guess.” He watches Ellie from the corner of his eye. She’s steadfastly not looking at him, but she also doesn’t usually say so much to him. “Didn’t have reason to think of it for a long time. Lavender wasn’t exactly in high supply in Boston.”

Ellie nods.

“She used to, uh, put some in your backpack when she knew you was goin’ out. Same with me, always put some in my pocket.”

There’s a long silence. Jackson’s streets are oddly empty in the pouring rain. Lights glow in the windows; inviting, homely. “She didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs and his shoulder only aches a little for it. “It’s just the kinda thing parents do, even if it don’t make any damn sense.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as the turn toward the center of Jackson. “You wanna stop in the Bison?”

“Sure,” he agrees. “For a minute.”

“Full schedule?” She teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your sunset years?”

“Well, gotta have something to fill up the days, kiddo. Maybe one day you’ll actually be able to keep up.”

She just scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

Joel tries not to smile.

Being mobile again, busy again, feels good.

It feels good, but it also means he’s in near constant pain.

He tells himself it’s good, that pain sharpens him, makes him better.

Until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, heaving his guts up from the ache in his leg.

You find him there, sweaty and panting, with a glass of water in hand. Joel pushes himself upright against the wall with a sigh as you close the lid of the toilet and flush it before sitting beside him on the cool tile.

“You’re overdoing it again,” you say, not unkindly.

“I ain’t tryin’ to,” he mutters and takes the glass of water when you offer it to him.

“I know.” You cover his free hand with yours. “Wanna get up?”

You smell faintly of peppermint, burned incense.

When he shakes his head, you stretch to flip the light switch over your head. He’s plunged into darkness, alone, for just a moment, before you settle again. The warmth of your head against his shoulder feels stolen.

For a long time, neither of you say anything. He breathes through the pain still crawling around his knee, the phantom flesh of his calf.

“I was a goddamn fool,” he whispers into the silence. “You know what I was thinkin’ that day?” He’s not sure where the words come from, the confession. It feels a little like the words are being pulled up out of his body, yanked right from the center of his chest.

“Tell me,” your nose is warm when it bumps against his collarbone.

“‘Bout Ellie. How I’d want someone to help her, if she needed it. So I helped that girl. Almost got all of us fuckin’ killed.”

You don’t answer, not at first. But eventually, you lean into him and say, “If you want me to blame you, I won’t. I will never find fault in kindness.” Your thumb strokes his knuckles slowly. “Never. Especially not yours.”

He brushes his mouth along your hairline, skin silken against his mouth. “Y’know when we was on the road, I was sure you’d get us killed. But y’always knew when to trust someone. How much to trust ‘em.”

“I. . .” you start and then trail off, fingers squeezing around his. “I was always lucky, and I always knew I had you at my back. If I messed up, you were always there.”

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom, and when he meets your gaze, he can see the glaze of tears in your eyes. You suck in a shaking breath and clear your throat but don’t continue. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there the same way.”

“This ain’t on you,” he says. “Don’t think that. It’s me. It was a long time comin’ somethin’ would catch up to me.”

You settle in against him, one hand digging into the sore muscle of his thigh. The heat feels like, the flex of your gentle fingers even better. The pain that doesn’t exist fades just a little.

“And for the record, darlin’, you were there the same way.”

It’s autumn again when you go back onto the patrol rotation. There’s frost on the windows and on the spikes of overgrown grass in the front yard. He just got back from a night watch on the wall.

You’re taking his old routes with Tommy, and you don’t tell him about it until the morning of. Not a fucking soul breathed a word of it to him, and he’s the one figuring out the goddamned rotations.

And Joel realizes though he’d been worried about you not wanting to leave Jackson anymore, not even being able to go near the gates, he was glad you hadn’t wanted to. It meant you were safe. Even if he couldn’t keep you safe anymore, the walls of Jackson could.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” you say before you leave, pretending like he can’t clearly see your hands shaking before you walk out the door.

He follows you onto the porch. He can’t remember what he says, just that you look upset and then hurt, just that you don’t say goodbye when you walk away and that you probably don’t have lavender tucked into your pocket like he always did.

“Please.” A word he hardly ever says, a plea he never gives into.

He says it to your retreating back as you pass the mailbox, but you either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him.

Maybe he didn’t say it at all.

That day is hell. It’s long and pocketed with anger and anxiety. If something happens to you, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. He doesn’t like that you left him upset.

Maria doesn’t entertain his outburst about it when he finally corners her after looking for her all morning. “She was ready.”

“I didn’t even know we were considerin’ sendin’ her back out!”

Maria just levels him with a glare that could freeze hell over. “That isn’t up to just you. And why do you think she didn’t want to tell you?”

He’s at the stables with Ellie that evening when you come home, waiting. It’s cold and his leg is aching something bitter and awful but he doesn’t move and Ellie doesn’t suggest going back home because she knows he won’t hear it. Dina stops by and he listens to them talk. Ellie’s face softens when she looks at Dina, cheeks a soft pink in the fading light, ducking her head and fidgeting with her fingers.

Joel tries not to pay them any mind, but it's hard not to find endearing.

When you and Tommy get back, it’s full dark. He wants to throttle his brother for not telling him you were going back out on the trails, but it’s too cold for much of that. All thoughts of strangling Tommy fly from his head as soon as he sees you, because you have a smear of blood on your cheek and down your neck.

“Goddamn it, what happened?” He demands, hands against your face before you’ve even fully dismounted.

“I’m fine.”

“That ain’t what I asked,” he sweeps his thumb over your skin, flakes of red shifting to the ground. The knot in his chest tightens as he watches it flutter through the air. “What happened?” He growls again. “Tommy?”

“The usual, Joel,” you pull his attention back to you. “It was just cleanup. A couple of infected. Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” he tilts your face one way and then the other.

“Just some splatter.” You shrug and smile at him; your mouth twitches, and he realizes you’re teasing him.

“Splatter,” he repeats flatly. “That ain’t funny. You ain’t funny. C’mon, let’s go home.”

Ellie and Dina have disappeared with your arrival but they aren’t far; he can hear their chatter as they walk along the street toward the center of Jackson, the echoes of their voices reaching back towards him. “I’ll deal with you later,” he says to his brother.

Tommy just raises his hands and says he’ll stable the horses. But he’s grinning and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s been awhile since his brother has seemed himself. It’s been awhile since the two of you have given him grief together.

“Leave Tommy alone,” you say as you walk toward Rancher Street. You seem steadier than you had been that morning, more confident, more yourself. It isn’t a long walk back, even with his leg, though he limps worse than usual because of the cold. You wrap an arm around his waist, your fingers digging into his back pocket, body warm against his side. “We did good together today.”

“Mhm. I’m sure you did.”

“You mad at me?”

“I wish you’d tell me,” he murmurs. “When you’re goin’ off to do somethin’ stupid. I need you to talk to me. Worried the whole goddamn day. You ain’t exactly in practice out there anymore.”

You hum and then nudge closer to him. “Put your arm around me.”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, maybe a little harshly.

“Joel,” you laugh and nuzzle your face against his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m cold and I had a rough day. Put your arm around me.”

So, he does. And he leaves it there until you’re in the bathroom, sitting on the counter in front of him, lavender plants stacked in the sink behind you once again as the colder weather sets in.

This is better. So much fucking better, than the other way around. This is right.

He cleans the blood away, finds the swell of a bruise on your shoulder and a cut lengthways over your collarbone.

It’s easy enough to take care of. It isn’t as bad as what he’d been imagining all day long.

He’s well in practice for this sort of thing, for bandaging and assessing wounds.

“Sorry,” he says as he works. “For this mornin’.”

“Mhm.”

“I worried all day. Not much I can do now, if you get into a spot of trouble.”

“I handle myself fine. Tommy was there. He’s a good partner out there.”

Joel grunts, dabs rubbing alcohol along the cut. “He is,” he agrees reluctantly. He supposes if you had to go on patrol with anyone, he’d prefer you go with his brother.

You touch him as he works, fingers patting over his jacket, the collar of his flannel, the frayed edge of the t-shirt beneath that. “I had to go back out, Joel. You would have argued with me and I can’t be afraid and useless forever.”

“Useless,” he scoffs and unspools a length of bandage. “You don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Joel,” you say softly, exasperated. “Baby, you don’t know what it was like that day. I thought you were already dead.” Your voice trembles and you have to swallow harshly before you can continue. “Helpless and useless doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt. What I still feel.” You shake your head and cup your fingers around his. “I dream about it every single night and I still don’t really remember what happened. That scares me a lot.”

He slides his thumb along the gauze, your eyes wide and worried when he meets them.“I’ll never be who I was, sweetheart.” His voice sounds mournful to his own ears.

“You’re exactly the same man, Joel. I’m just happy you’re here and alive and you’re worried you aren’t alive the right damn way.” You shake your head. “I can’t ask for much more than what I have. Than what we do. Me and you. Ellie back in our life. A home. Food. Family. You,” you touch his jaw and smile. “Still here. Still taking care of me.”

There’s a lump in his throat, hard as a stone. “Yep.” He coughs in an attempt to clear his voice but he sounds just as wrecked when he speaks. “Patrol musta been real good to y’today.”

You just laugh, and the sound of it is wet. “Yeah. It was. I thought it would be terrible but I missed it.”

“I know you did.”

“You should come on a ride with me sometime,” you say slyly. “I bet it’d feel good to be back in the saddle. You’ve always been a good shot from the back of a horse.”

He has.

Maybe he should.

💞 If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction

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