#i used to love tlou too but now i know the truth tlou just makes me feel sick | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

endlessthxxghts · 5 months

Text

Joel Nye, The Science Guy

no outbreak!Joel Miller x afab!reader || W/C: ≈4.6k

"Is he really choosing coffee right now over having you? I mean, not to toot your own fucking horn, but seriously. Who would delay an orgasm for some coffee? Apparently, Joel fucking Miller would."

Summary: Joel stumbles across an article online about the effects of coffee on the body. Determined to uncover the truth, he tests the hypothesis with you as his subject.

Contents/Warnings: Any physical description of reader is neutral (no size descriptions). Joel is bigger than you though (but he’s fucking huge in general, so…). No age mentioned for reader or for Joel. Implied established relationship. No matter what age, Joel is a grandpa when it comes to technology. Mentions of Amazon LMAO. SMUT 18+ MDNI (mutual masturbation on the phone, touching yourself in the workplace, dirty talk, sexting [kinda], ..kitchen activities…reflections…, finger fucking, lots of liquids, squirting, cumming untouched, drinking coffee with an ulterior motive!, allusion to further sexual endeavors). Please let me know if I missed anything!

A/N: Happy New Year, my loves! I just got done rewatching TLOU for the millionth time while drinking some coffee, and for some reason, this was born. I have no idea wtf this is, so don't ask me.💚 Also let’s thank @javierpena-inatacvest for titling this silly thing for me hehe. Fucking iconic. I love you, bestie.🥹 Here's to my first fic of 2024, and to many more! I hope you enjoy.💚

MASTERLIST

Joel’s number one favorite sensation every morning was when the first drop of the bitter, black liquid met his tongue, consuming all his senses into nothing but pure coffee. It was one of his favorite things—past tense—because then he got to experience what it was like waking up to you every morning, what it was like tasting you every morning. The first drop of you blessed his tongue one year ago, and he never looked back.

That is, until now.

You had work today and Joel had the day off, a rare occurrence. You forgot to set your alarm this morning, so you broke from his hold in a rush, leaving him nothing but a sweet kiss to last him the day.

Usually your mornings together are spent tangled in his sheets until he leaves you with less than twenty minutes to get ready for your day. Too addicted to the way he makes you feel, you mastered the art of quick change, using the rest of your time to do your morning skincare routine. This, you’ll never skip—subjecting yourself to a few scoldings by your boss because of it.

Joel allowed himself a few more hours of sleep after you left, his body needing extra rest from his unusually crazy day at the job site yesterday and from the way you pounced on him as soon as he came home. You promised him it would be you doing all the work, but like the addicting little thing you are, he couldn’t help but take charge so he could watch you fall apart over and over and over again.

Joel pulled himself out of his bed, a chill running down his body from leaving the trapped body heat of the sheets. He was hard, of course, and usually you’re there to help with his morning problem, but apparently today’s full of rare events for Joel. He grumbles to himself as he makes the way to the bathroom, not wanting to take care of himself without you, not anymore. He could wait for you to be home, but he knows he’d be a leaking, grumpy mess all day—God forbid he has to interact with another human in that aroused, frustrated state. He checks the little clock you bought for his bathroom counter when you moved in—so I can watch the time when I get ready for work, you scolded him when he made you late for the first time.

11:48 the clock displays; twelve more minutes until your break. He can wait twelve minutes. You usually close your office during your lunch, don’t you? Maybe he can call you. He might as well do his own morning routine while he waits. Joel’s old morning routines consisted of brushing his teeth, then washing his face with soap and water. Though, upon witnessing his wretched routine the first morning you two spent together, you were utterly appalled at his actions, forcing him to the store and spending the first half of your morning educating him on proper skincare. His morning routine went from four minutes to fifteen with your influence, but because he didn’t want to be a minute late in calling you, he shaved three minutes off from his task.

As soon as the clock hit twelve, Joel plopped himself in bed, leaning against the headboard, and reached for his phone, immediately dialing you.

Two rings later, and your sweet voice fills his ears. “Hi, baby,” you say. He can hear the small smile on your face.

“Hi, darlin’,” Joel rasps, his voice still groggy from the lack of use.

“You just wake up?” You jokingly scold, knowing damn well what the answer was. You like when he sleeps in. He deserves the rest from all that hard work he does.

“Maybe,” he tells you. You can hear the smirk on his face now. “How’s work goin’? On your break now?”

“Work is… definitely going,” you huff. “And yeah, I’m on my break now, which means I’ve got an hour to counterproductively stress about these reports that have to go out.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” he tells you softly. But then he’s smirking again. “Can I help?”

“Help?” you repeat.

“Yeah,” he states like it’s the most regular answer ever. “Lemme help de-stress ya,” he adds, his voice dropping an octave.

A heat consumes your face, but you remain calm. “Yeah?” You breathe. “And how would you help me, cowboy?” You ask him as you swiftly stand from your desk to lock your office door and close your blinds.

“I reckon you just locked that door of yours, huh?” He asks rhetorically, knowing you better than you know yourself. Not even your past lovers would be able to pick up on the slightest of changes in your voice when you’re aroused. Joel picks up on it instantly.

“Maybe,” you repeat his sentiment from earlier.

“If I’m remembering correctly,” Joel says as he rubs his hand over his tenting bulge in an attempt to ease his ache. “You’ve got a couch in there, baby?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Well, you know what to do next, babygirl.”

Glancing at your door to make sure it’s really locked, you make your way to your couch, unbuttoning your jeans in the process and shucking them down as your ass meets the cushion. Fuck, you’re already soaked.

“Where are you?” You ask him, your fingers ghosting your core over the wet patch on your panties.

As soon as the words leave your mouth, your phone buzzes. Joel sent you a text. An image. Clicking it, a breathy little whimper escapes you. “Fuck.” He’s leaning against the headboard, legs pushed open, his thick thighs on display. He’s just wearing his boxers, and his hand is inside, gripping onto his length. His leaking, angry tip is showing from the top of his boxers. A little circle catches your eye, and- oh. It’s a live photo. You hold down on the image, and you see his hips jerk into his hand. “Fuck,” you say again, your pussy twitching in excitement yet frustration that you can’t have him inside you right now. “I need you so fucking bad, Joel,” you whine into the phone as your fingers finally dip inside.

“I need you, too, baby,” he groans, “I’m fuckin’ dyin’ over here.” He sounds so pained. It riles you up even more. Your fingers speed up at his words, breathy moans escaping you. You circle your clit a few more times before reaching lower and dipping your middle and index finger inside of you. Joel hears the faintest sound of a squelch, and the grip on his cock tightens. He pulls his boxers completely down over his thighs, his cock completely free, and he tugs at a slow, teasing pace in an effort to build himself up the way you normally do for him. “Let me hear you, baby, let me hear you touch yourself for me.”

Lord, you hope your room is sound proofed enough because without any hesitation, you’re putting him on speaker and setting your phone down near your cunt, pumping in and out of yourself faster and deeper for him to hear. “J-Joel, f-fuck,” you stutter, “I- I’m-”

“You’re close, baby, I know,” he says soothingly. You can hear the slick sound of his hand speed up. Your other hand falls to your clit as your fingers continue inside. “Let go for me, mi amor, soak those fingers as if it were my cock fuckin’ you,” he rambles. “Just like I know you can, baby, atta fuckin’ girl.”

With the help of his filthy mouth, your body seizes up and you’re seeing stars, your eyes falling to the back of your head as you remove your hand from your clit to slap it over your mouth in an attempt to stop the high-pitched, purely pornographic moan of his name from escaping the walls of your not-so private office. You can hear the moment Joel cums, too, a painful groan roars from his throat as you hear the movements slow but get slippier with each pass over.

You’re on the phone for a few moments more, listening to each other’s breaths, slowly fixing your clothing as you let your heart rate return to normal.

“Joel,” you finally have enough strength to say.

“Yeah, darlin’?”

He hears a faint knock on your door. You pull the phone away to lessen your volume on his end. Just a moment, he hears you call out. “Gonna need more of you when I get home.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Joel replies more than happily.

After your phone call, Joel cleans and dresses himself up and heads to the kitchen.

Joel can’t help the way your words bounce around his head. Gonna need more of you when I get home.

��And I’m definitely gonna need a fuck ton of you today,” he mutters to the bag of Colombian coffee grounds he pulls out of his kitchen cabinet. He refills the machine with water, inserts a filter, pours two heaping spoonfuls of the ground beans into the compartment, places a mug, and hits start. He goes to put the coffee away, but it’s then he feels how lightweight the bag is starting to feel.

Genuinely, he begins to panic. He needs to order more, and he needs to do it now. He cannot go a day without his precious coffee. The brand he orders is online only, and usually he would wait for you to help him place the order, but he doesn’t want to risk hitting the cutoff for same day delivery.

Joel isn’t that old, and he certainly grows with the time period, but when it comes to technology, he’s worse than your 97-year-old grandmother who attempts to group FaceTime both of you every night. Sure, he knows how to send you pictures, but that’s the extent of his ability. Truly. With his coffee in mind, though, he puts on his bravest face and opens Safari. He searches for the website you’re always on. A, he types. M. A. Z.

There! Amazon. He clicks the website, not knowing the app is already installed on his phone. He sees the smiling logo, and, proud of himself, he smiles back at it.

The smile is quick to fade, however, because the intricacies of working the website is giving him heart palpitations. He sets his phone down and reaches for his reading glasses in his pocket and slides them on. He picks up his phone again.

The thing about using Amazon on a phone through a search engine, though, is that the website is constantly glitching. So when he types in the word coffee, he has zero idea how he ended up on a completely different website, his original search lost in the complicated webs of the internet.

It takes him a moment to realize what he’s reading, but once it registers, it’s way more interesting than his original task.

Women reporting intensified orgasms after drinking coffee, the headline read. His eyes begin to scan lower. Researchers concluded there was a “correlation between caffeine and sex” after testing its effects on rats.

Oh, yeah, he’s intrigued.

After reading the article, Joel restarts his original task and ends up ordering a larger amount of coffee than he normally would. In the name of science, he rationalized with himself.

Satisfied with his accomplishments, he grabs his mug and takes the time to enjoy his cup of pure caffeine. He needs the energy after all.

You get off promptly at 4pm, not wanting to spend any more time in your office—especially with the way you’ve been buzzing with need ever since your noon phone call. As soon as you park, you see an Amazon delivery person dropping off a box. They don’t ring the doorbell, and you know Joel doesn’t pay attention to the delivery notifications.

You get out of your car, leaving your things to get later. You reach the front porch and unlock and open the door first, bending down and picking up the box second.

Joel greets you at the door, immediately cursing himself for not paying attention to the door, resulting in you doing the heavy lifting. He knows you’re more than capable—Hell, you could probably handle his job better than he can—but his Southern upbringing is too deeply rooted into him to allow anything less.

“Hi, my love, I’m sorry, I coulda brought that in, baby,” he tells you as he takes the box from your grasp, giving you a forehead kiss as a trade off. The warmth of his lips physically relaxes you.

You two walk towards the kitchen, Joel sets the box down on the counter. “I just parked as they dropped it off, honey, it was no biggie,” you reply softly.

“I know, baby, but you know I-” he starts. You don’t let him finish as you grab him by his biceps and pull him into you, your arms finding their home wrapped around his neck as his grip completely wrapping your waist. Your lips slot together in a slow, needy embrace—your tongues slowly breaching each other’s mouths. You swallow the groans escaping his throat as you pull away from him.

“I know,” you say breathily, eyes as dark as his morning coffee. “Won’t do it again, promise,” you smile, knowing this is the only false promise you’ll ever make. At the rate of how hard you work him in other things, carrying a few heavy boxes is the least you could do every now and then. “Now, please undress me, baby,” you whimper, your hand skating down the front of his body, your deft fingers sliding into his waistband.

With one arm around your waist, another claws at your top, untucking it from your jeans to lift it over your head as he kisses and nips all over your jaw and neck. He turns your body so that your ass meets the counter, pushing his hips into yours, silently telling you to jump up.

Too eager, you don’t realize the trajectory of your jump, and your ass smacks the package, causing it to almost slip off the edge. The impact to your rear surprises you enough to pull away from Joel and look back. Apparently, your brain is already turned to mush because you completely forgot about that box’s existence.

However, now that you’re looking at it, you’re confused. You haven’t ordered anything recently. Did Joel order something? But he doesn’t even know how-

“You okay, darlin’?” Joel asks, pausing all his movements.

“Did you order something?” You ask.

His cheeks go red. “Yeah.. we were runnin’ out of my coffee ‘n I didn’t want to not have any for tomorrow or for later ‘n I wasn’t sure what time you’d be home to help me-”

The bubbly sounds of your giggles are what cut him off. “What?” He asks, slightly defensive and slightly giddy at the sweetness blessing his ears.

“You ordered something!” You exclaim. “You ordered something! And you were successful with it!” You’re gasping for air, speaking your excitement into his chest as you wrap yourself around him.

“Don’t make fun a’me,” he pouts, grabbing your chin with his thumb and forefinger, giving your face a little scolding shake.

“Oh, baby, no,” you coo, your laughter calming down because of the pain in your cheeks from smiling so wide. “I’m not making fun. I’m so proud!” your voice raises back up, as if you were talking to a baby who hit their first big milestone.

He rolls his eyes. “Baby, don’t be like that,” you say as you lean in to give him a soft kiss. He gives in, of course, and he deepens it. “I really am proud,” you say as you attempt to pull away.

He doesn’t let you. “Yeah, yeah,” he says sardonically in between kisses.

Your hand drags up and grabs at his jaw, pulling him away so you can speak. “Now you don’t have to ask me to order things for you anymore,” you say with a smirk.

“Mmm, I don’t think so,” he breathes, trying to push against your hold on him. “Worst experience ever, I even-”

He cuts himself off because he was so caught up in you when you got home, he forgot about the little detour his internet experience took him on today.

Women reporting intensified orgasms after drinking coffee.

“Actually,” he redirects. “Can we have some now?”

Your eyes pop out of your head in astonishment. “Right now?” you ask in disbelief.

He gulps. “Y-yeah, right now. That okay?”

You don’t see why not besides the fact that his erection has been perched right against the soaked fabric of your panties for the last fifteen minutes and you’ll probably go mad if you don’t actually get relief in the next five minutes—but yeah, sure. Why not?

“I guess?” You say. Or ask? You really don’t know anymore.

Is he really choosing coffee right now over having you? I mean, not to toot your own fucking horn, but seriously. Who would delay an orgasm for some coffee? Apparently, Joel fucking Miller would.

You’re not really a coffee person. Sure, you have a cup here and there—mostly iced and from your favorite local shop on your way to work—but compared to Joel, you are nowhere near the level he is.

“How do you want it?” He asks, his back turned to you as he prepares two mugs.

“Rough,” you mutter, slightly annoyed. You can feel the slick in your underwear start to get cold—and dry.

Joel briefly turns around catching your eye; he points to his ear. “Say that again, sweetheart?”

Fuck. Okay, maybe you’re being a little too bitchy. You rise from your seat at the counter, perching yourself right beside him, reaching your hand into his curls to give him a little head scratch. “I’ll do it, baby,” you say. “Thank you.” With your hand still at the back of his head, you guide him to look at you as you stand on your tippy toes to give him a soft kiss.

The coffee, honestly, wasn’t that bad. Yeah, you put your usual creamer and sugar, but you put slightly less—curious to get a glimpse of the natural flavor Joel loves so much. You could get used to it like this, you think. One thing is for sure, though: the brand Joel buys is fucking strong. You’re on your last sip, and you are struggling—you can feel your heart pumping out of your chest, and you swear you feel like your entire body is pulsing. Like you can hear your blood coursing through your veins. You don’t tell Joel because you don’t want to sound weird, so you shrug the feeling away and take your last sip. Perfectly in sync with you, Joel finishes off his coffee and reaches for your mug to also bring to the sink.

Quickly letting the faucet run into the mugs so the coffee doesn’t stain, Joel speaks up. “How was it, darlin’? I know you don’t really enjoy coffee the way I do,” he notes.

“Actually, baby, I really enjoyed it,” you say with a genuine smile.

“Yeah?” He asks, a boyish grin sneaking past his lips.

“Yeah,” you reassure. “It was really strong, though,” you add.

“Strong?” he asks, eyebrow quirked.

“Yeah, um-” you start, unsure of how to describe it. “I don’t know, I just- I’ve never had coffee make my entire body feel like- like it’s buzzing or something. I don’t know,” you ramble.

“Huh,” he says to no one in particular. “I mean, it is one of the stronger roasts,” he tells you. Is this because you were already severely worked up beforehand? It can’t be the placebo effect—he didn’t even tell you about his discoveries.

Guess there’s only one way to go from here.

Not giving you a chance to respond, his hands find your waist, pulling your back flush to his chest. He kisses your jaw, trailing his lips down the juncture of your neck and shoulder. Your head falls back onto him, your eyes fluttering shut as you give him full access. His fingers skate across the front of your jeans, your shirt already untucked from his earlier attempt. Your hips buck into his hands in response, a whiny little please leaves your mouth.

“Shh, I got ya, sweet girl,” he rasps in your ear, his drawl licking a heat up your spine. He adjusts himself so he’s the one leaning against the kitchen counter, your body entirely relying on his support to keep you standing.

He’s unbuttoning your jeans and right away you’re reaching for the zipper, helping him pull your bottoms down in one go.

You’re shaking in his grasp, too pent up with a need your body doesn’t know what to do with. “Relax, baby, I’ma take care a’ya,” he says with a nip to your shoulder, his middle and ring finger already finding their place running through your soaked folds.

Your eyes shut at the sensation, your breathing erratic and vocal. He drags your slick up to your throbbing bundle of nerves, circling with a precision only he knows how to provide. “F-fuck,” you moan. His other hand slides down to your sex, his two fingers going straight for your entrance and sliding in with ease with how much is pouring from you. “Fuckfuckfuck-”

“Gonna cum on my fingers, babygirl?” He’s pumping in and out of you at a languid pace even with the squirm of your hips. The stimulation on your clit never falters. “I can feel that pretty pussy flutter ‘round me, darlin’, I know she’s close.”

“J-Joel, please,” you let out, your head bobbing back and forth, unable to keep its heavy weight up.

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s using his foot to kick your legs further apart, settling yours on the outside of his, and then both of you are dropping to the ground. His back is to the wall of the kitchen island while you land perfectly spread open atop his lap. Not worried about his or your balance anymore, he fucks into you harder, applying more pressure on your clit—the kind that makes you want to force your legs shut but you can’t, not with the way his own legs are keeping you open. “Open your eyes, sweet girl, need ya to look at yourself when you fuckin’ soak me.”

You open your eyes immediately and cast your eyes downward to his hands on you. “Nuh uh,” Joel tuts. His hand working your clit comes up to your jaw, your slick dampening your jaw as he guides you to look straight forward. Your reflection stares back at you from the dark oven window. Even in the dull image its showing you, you can see the way your pussy is glistening in the fluorescent kitchen light, the sweat dripping down your temples, your fucked-out face with Joel’s dark gaze ravaging every part of you.

Everything—all of your senses—is completely Joel, Joel, Joel, and before you know it, you’re gushing into his hand; his newfound liquid gold ever since he met you, collecting into the depths of his palm, all while you’re roaring and thrashing out in pure bliss on top of him.

The sight, sound, the feel, everything—just like you—consumes him whole. His lust takes over now, and his hands aren’t stopping. They continue their pace—their assault—on your sensitive core. He peers down over your shoulder, and his cock grows impossibly harder at the messy, slippery sight before him. “Christ,” he mutters under his breath. “Gimme one more, c’mon,” he breathes in, your scent beginning to linger into his nose, crawling into his skin and finding its home there. “I know you can gimme one more, baby, always such a good fuckin’ girl f’me.”

Your head is nodding furiously as you fight with your eyes to stay open and locked on your reflection. Your babbling, spit thick and coating every inch of your mouth as you try and respond. Mhm and one and more and fuck break free from your mouth, giving all the green light Joel needs to know he isn’t going too far.

You turn your head to face Joel, your hand flying to the back of his curls and pulling him for a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue—an intermingling of each other’s spit as you swallow the other’s coffee-tinged breaths.

He feels the flutter in your cunt once more, but this time it’s stronger, tighter. The way you’re clamping down on him sends him into a frenzy, his hips rutting his erection into your lower back at the feel of your warmth wrapped around him. “C’mon, baby, let go, I feel you,” he encourages.

“Fuck-!” A high-pitched gasp turned whine comes out of your mouth as your entire body goes rigid, your pussy uncontrollably fluttering and spasming as Joel fucks you through your high. All you see is white, your body is engulfed by a tingly feeling that only describing it as TV static could do it justice. Your breathing is deep and shallow all at one, but more notably, you feel wet. Completely and utterly soaked, you can feel liquid pooling at your asscheeks and on the hardwood floor.

You finally gather the strength to look down—Joel too, and he steals the words right from your mouth. “Holy. Fuck.”

You two stay there for a moment, trying to gather your thoughts on what the fuck just happened, and finally, you speak first.

“I just-” you start.

“You did,” he finishes, equally as shocked. Amazed.

“How are we gonna-”

He rubs your thighs. “Can you stand?”

You think for a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I’ll get up first. Then I’ll pull you up. Just don’t move, I don’t need ya slippin’ on-”

“Yeah, okay,” you stop him, feeling slightly embarrassed about it all.

He stands up, avoiding the little puddle below; then he pulls you up, kneeling to pull your underwear on for some sense of emotional comfort. “Hey.” He nudges your face with his hand to look into his eyes. “That was fuckin’ incredible. Ya hear me?” Heat washes over your entire face. You say nothing. “It was so fuckin’ hot and sexy and so so beautiful, I’m fuckin’ lucky to have witnessed somethin’ so heavenly, darlin’.” He pulls you in for a kiss. “Ya hear me?” he repeats his question, softer this time.

The embarrassment washes away in an instant. “Well,” you look into his eyes, a flash of trouble dancing across your orbs. “Felt fuckin’ incredible, too.”

“Yeah,” Joel says, grabbing and guiding your hand down to his cock. “It did feel mighty incredible,” smugness written all over his face.

He dips your hand inside his pants, and you're met with his half-hard, sticky length. “Joel, did you-”

“That I did, baby, that I did.”

A moment passes, and you burst out into laughter for the second time tonight. Only this time, Joel joins in, completely taking advantage of how sweet the comedown always is with you.

“I think I oughta drink more of that coffee,” you say out of the blue, taking Joel completely off guard as he finishes wiping up your… spill.

“Why?” he asks, trying to maintain a normal tone.

“I swear, Joel,” you whisper as if there’s other people listening in. “I swear that coffee is the reason I finished so… intensely,” you finish, your eyebrows raised in intrigue and curiosity.

“You really think so?” Joel asks, a victory smile threatening to escape him.

“Yeah,” you tell him. “I think we should test it out. You’re off tomorrow, yeah?”

“Well, I am now.”

End note: The article Joel stumbled upon is a real article LOL. Here it is, in case any of you were interested. The article is from 2023, so by all means, picture 56 year old Joel. I’m imagining him a bit younger in this lil AU, but there’s no explicit age description, so imagine whatever the hell you want😘. And in case you were wondering: yes, he ends up telling you about his intentions behind wanting to drink coffee first. Let's just say... you both end up getting hyperfixated on trying to "prove" this theory even though you both damn well know what the result is. ;) All my love, I hope you guys enjoyed.💚

Be sure to follow @endlessthxxghtsnotifs to stay up to date with my stories!!

Utilizing my taglist a few more times just to have a slow transition to my updates blog! @katiexpunk @janaispunk @farmerlarrry @mellymbee @jobee403 @soavenuepenguin @rainbowcosmicchaos @untamedheart81 @lilynotdilly @babygal-babygal @pedritoferg @pedrostories @akah565 @getitoutofmymind @axshadows @survivingandenduring @joels-shitty-puns @its-nebuleuse @axshadows @yorksgirl

470 notes · View notes

lily-fics-11 · 27 days

Text

Good Luck, Babe! Part 1 (Ellie Williams, TLOU)

Good Luck, Babe!

Part 1 (Part 2 here)

(Inspired by Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan)

@dynsdiary made a post about Ellie x closet!reader Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan and I couldn’t go to sleep without writing it, so this is not super well edited

Word count: 1.2k

CW: Angst, profanities, allusions to sex, internalized homophobia, drinking, not well edited

After spending another night with Ellie you slip out of her bed while she’s still asleep, around sunrise, like you always do.

The feelings you have for Ellie Williams are undeniably strong, but you won’t let yourself take things further than your sexually explicit kind of love affair. You are straight. “I just needed a little lovin’,” you reassure yourself every time she has you moaning her name.

The feelings you have for Ellie Williams are confusing. Undeniably strong, but you won’t let yourself take things further than your sexually explicit kind of love affair. You are straight. “I just needed a little lovin’,” you reassure yourself every time she has you moaning her name.

*****

Waiting for your drink at the bar, a mere 12 hours later, you feel an arm slip around your waist. Your head snaps around to see Ellie’s mischievous grin emerald eyes. You push her away from you and hiss “not here Ellie, not in front of these people, not in front of anyone.”

Ellie looks heartbroken, running her hand through her auburn hair and averting her eyes. “You know I cry when you leave without saying goodbye. It’s not fair.” She whispers in distress. That rips your heart in two. A vulnerable Ellie is an extremely rare occurrence. Ellie deserves so much better than this but you are too selfish to let her go. “Can we please talk about this?” She begs.

“Fine, but not right now.” You promise her and she looks relieved. You instruct her to find you before she leaves and she bites back a smile before disappearing into the crowd. Thoughts of Ellie consume you for the rest of the night. The loud music isn’t enough to drown it out so you come up with a different plan.

You find the most eligible bachelor in the bar and bet him a kiss if he can beat you at darts, knowing you wouldn’t win. You are more than happy to oblige when one of his objectively attractive friends wants to make the same deal.

Approaching the poker table without any cash, you put in 5 kisses to the winner as your buy in instead of the $5 they were asking for.

About three drinks in, you tell one of your close guy friends that you would finally give him the chance he has always wanted with you. If he could take the most shots in 30 seconds. You know he could out drink you on your best day, and he celebrates his victory with a passionate make out session against the wall in a dark corner. When you finally pull away from him you stumble out of the bar and sit on the curb, you need a little air.

Ellie is the only thing on your mind, she has anchored herself there and held on through every forced kiss. Sitting in the curb, at first you think you are imagining her beautifully familiar laugh. When you look up and see that she is actually there, she rolls her eyes. “You are so cliche.”

“Who cares?” You reply nonchalantly with a smirk and you can see a darkness grown in her eyes as she is overcome by anger.

“What the hell were you doing in there?” She snaps.

You bat your eyes at her the way you always do, hoping it will calm her down. “I’m just having a good time.”

Your flirty disposition does nothing to soften her anger. “Right in front of my face? With this…this thing between us?”

“Ellie I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, there is nothing between us. We are not together. We are nothing,” you remind her.

“You know what, it’s fine.” She spats. “It’s cool. I may be a fool but I know that you know the truth. Make a new excuse, another stupid reason. I know how I feel about you, and I can’t do this anymore.” Ellie turns to walk away and you grab her hand. “I don’t want to call it off!”

“But you don’t want to call it love!” She yells at you.

“Ellie please keep it down, we aren't the only ones out here.”

She obviously doesn’t care. “You can tell me you want that, why can’t you tell me what you really want?!”

You squint your eyes, growing irritable and raising your voice. “I’ve told you what I want, so please, tell me what you think I want.”

“You only wanna be the one that I call “baby”.” Ellie tells you as she kicks a rock.

You stand up. “So what if I like being called “baby” by you? So what if I have feelings I don’t want to admit? That doesn’t mean I’m going to throw my life away. This is just the way I am. I will do whatever it takes to fight the feeling.”

Ellie gets right up in your face. “You can say that’s just the way you are, but do you really think this is a battle you can win? You came onto me. I see the way that you look at me. I’ve heard the sounds you make when I touch you and I’ve listened to you beg for more. Go ahead, you can kiss a hundred boys in bars. I’ve seen the way you cringe away from them.”

“I just get nervous.” You roll your eyes and take a step back. “Nothing a few drinks can’t fix.”

“You’ve had plenty to drink. But feel free to shoot another shot to try to stop the feeling. Eventually you’ll drink yourself to death and that’s the only way you are going to escape.” Ellie has never been so harsh with you and her words hit you like a freight train.

“I would stop the whole world if it meant I could stop this feeling!” You cry out, on the verge of tears.

“That’s not how it works, babe. I can see it all now. You, in the years, with some sad excuse for a husband and a couple of bratty kids. You’ll wake up next to him in the middle of the night and look over at him in disgust. Put your head in your hands and cry because you are nothing more than his wife. You are going to think about me, all of those years ago, and want to sneak out on him while he sleeps, like you always did to me. Oh how the tables will have turned. But you won’t leave. You are too proud to come face to face with I told you so. You know that I would hate to say it, but all I would be able to say is ‘I told you so’.”

The tears start to fall, you can’t hold them back any longer. “Fine Ellie. I’ll admit it. I don’t want to be stuck with some man for the rest of my life.”

She crosses her arms. “I think I’m going to call this off.”

You try to plead with her. “Please don’t do this to me Ellie. I just wanna love someone who calls me ‘baby’. You call me baby. Would you still leave if I called this love?”

“Even if you call it love.”

You literally get down on your knees to beg. “Please Ellie!” You sob pathetically.

She backs away from you, and her face is saying that this hurts her more than it’s hurting you. “Good luck, babe.”

Update: Someone mentioned wanting a happy ending and I had so much fun writing this, so I will be writing a part 2! If you are here for the angst you can end here but a happy ending will be coming soon in part 2!

128 notes · View notes

indianamoonshine · 10 months

Text

adonis & rainwater | joel miller x reader | one shot

summary: joel says he can’t do this anymore. you don’t believe him. and that’s how you ended up on his porch during a thunderstorm.

rating: m. this is filthy.

warnings: piv, oral (female receiving), d*rty talk, kind of soft. fluff. loss of virginity. age-gap (reader is in her twenties, joel in his early fifties!). when i wrote this, i was thinking of TLOU 2 joel. i love pedro but pixel joel is forever my baby.

word count: idk!! it’s long.

His name is called out in the midnight summer rain. It’s the discombobulated voice of loss; a woman he never imagined he’d mourn since meeting in the saloon last autumn. He never suspected he’d wrestle with the innermost parts of his shadowed conscience after her — of pleading with himself to touch those softer parts he’d hidden away for over twenty years.

It’s you. Your voice.

He’s strumming at his guitar on the porch, mind tangled with thoughts of you ever since your argument earlier this evening; ever since he said with stoney face that he couldn’t do it anymore. You’re too precious — too angelic — for his affection. He’d scald you with hellfire; infect you with something that didn’t rot in the runners or the clickers. He’d prodded parts of human nature that should’ve died out hundreds of thousands of years ago.

He hadn’t told you this, though. He’d been vague — sparing details of the sentiments he tried so hard to keep buried. Fatherhood was different; it was an ancient response.

This was different.

It doesn’t belong in the human timeline anymore. You don’t need to have feelings for someone to survive. You didn’t even need to have attachments to make the contributions to repopulating. Sex was just technical these days — didn’t require a degree of intimacy that it used to. Romance had no meaning anymore — no aspirations or benefactions to society.

That’s what he told himself — kept telling himself. And he continued to long after he left your house a couple of streets over, ignoring the tugging at his chest and the whispers of a man who lived over two decades prior: “Turn around, jackass.”

But it wasn’t his voice he was hearing now. The moment he hears his name his attention is pulled away in a reflex he lost sleep over at night. When he finds you at the end of his porch steps, doused in rainwater, he lets out a sigh of relief. You’re still in the white linen dress you wore earlier this evening except now you’re soaked to the bone. He can see the outline of your body through the fabric, of the bra and panties he hadn’t yet the chance of sliding off you with shaking fingers. The two of you hadn’t gone that far yet; he hates it.

He couldn’t take that risk. Not with the idea of loosing you.

He stands at the sight of you, abandoning his guitar.

“Petal!” he calls out. It’s the nickname he’d given you a few months prior and it stings like barbed wire when he says it. “What the hell are ya doin’? Get out of the rain! You’re gonna catch your death!”

You shake your head. “No!” you shout through the storm. A chain of lightning appears over your head. “Not until you tell me the truth!”

The thunder rolls. It vibrates the skin on his bones.

“What the hell are you on about?”

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. “Say it, Joel! Say what you want to say!”

He runs a hand down his face. This can’t possibly work on him. It can’t. There’s no way you’re capable of scyring out the truth in him.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” he shouts over the thunder. “Now get in here, please! You’re soaked!”

Your pretty eyes well with tears. He can barely hear your voice over the storm. “You love me, Joel.”

A crack of lightning ignites the silence with electricity. He stares you down like he would an enemy. You’re not allowed to do this to him — to conjure these proclamations. Neither of you can afford his love. It’s toxic, rancid — the expiration date past due. He’d be tainting you.

“Don’t,” he warns.

You stand your ground firmly; you’re good at that — at stubbornness. You’ve gotten your way many times before because of it. Of course, it could’ve also been due to the uncomfortable truth you were now attempting to pry from him.

He…

“You. Love. Me.” you push.

The two of you stare at one another for a while. It’s a show of strength for the both of you. The shallow part of him wants to lie - to claim it wasn’t as serious as you’d hoped, that his time with you was nothing more than a passing fancy. He wants to protect you from himself - to shelter you from any of his misery and defeat, of his loss and his grief. You had no idea of the things he was capable of — of the things he’d done. The crimes against humanity that he had committed keep him up at night and beckon him into a blackness that was too hard to claw out of. He couldn’t pull you down with him.

But you were a lantern in that darkness. You’d witnessed his anger and carried his grief too. He’s watched in awe as you dusted the sadness from his shoulders, of sharing the burdens with him. He’d noticed the way you observed his complexities and then created something fruitful from them. You kissed the frown from his grimace and watched with smiling eyes as it faded from his mien.

He was reluctant to admit it.

You’d chipped away bleakness from him.

He watches as you allow yourself to be pelted of rain in a post-apocalyptic world; a reality where violence managed to flay underneath his muscles and bear its teeth in his form.

And still it loved you.

He loved you. Even his violence.

“Goddammit,” he grumbles.

He turns for the steps, ignoring an animalistic instinct to shut the door in your face. When he reaches for you, you gasp in the rain and shudder when he pulls you into his arms and grips your cheeks in one hand.

“I love you, goddamit.” He shakes you a little bit, watching as the tears fall from your eyes. “Are you happy now? Huh?”

You nod feebly in his grasp. “Only if you mean it.”

“You know I do,” he growls before kissing you.

—

It’s the kind of kiss you read in those paperback romances; the sparse library in town carried them. Your favorite was a western.

It had nothing on this.

Joel pulls you into him, hands gripping at your waist. Your arms instinctively wrap around his neck, kissing him with a fervor you hadn’t experienced before. His mouth opens, tongue shoving its way against yours, and you expected to hate it but don’t.

You haven’t french-kissed a man before.

He knows it - has talked about it with you. The two of you hadn’t been seeing each other for very long romantically - were just friends up until three months ago. He didn’t want to pressure you into anything but you were aware that a man like Joel Miller had needs. You tried so desperately to convince him you were longing for it - for giving him your everything - but he brushed off the idea.

Until one night he got a little handsy.

It was two days prior. The two of you were watching a film at his house. It was some kind of classic Joel had dug out from under dusty artifacts while out on patrol. His attention was on the film like a baby and a shiny thing until you laid your head against his lap.

The two of you kissed of course but only with closed mouth. You would’ve gone farther earlier but you were a pansy - too afraid to disappoint him and too expectant of loosing him. But that night the kiss began to get heated and his hands started to wander. And right as you opened your lips just slightly…

He pulled away.

After that night, he avoided you for over twenty-four hours until you finally cornered him at the community garden. While you expected there to be some tension, you hadn’t expected him to break things off with you a few hours later. His monotone voice and clipped edges punched a hole into your gut. But…

No. You saw through him.

Which is exactly why you came here in the pouring rain, insomnia coursing through your veins, and fury along with it. Joel Miller would not leave your side. You were a lot of things: a chicken, bad with guns, and the last person to ever survive in a world like this. But the greatest thing you were?

A hopeless romantic.

Which is how you knew Joel Miller had fallen in love with you exactly one month ago when he brushed his calloused thumb across your cheek and whispered, “Hey Petal. Pretty girl.”

You weren’t an idiot.

Neither was he.

Joel lifts you in his arms and you gasp against him, unaware that he was capable, but pleasantly surprised. The thunder grows louder, the rain heavy upon the sidewalk. The weather makes his natural scent more potent: a heady blend of a spice you can’t name, pine, and ash. You claw at his t-shirt; the patience within you is growing mighty thin.

“Joel,” you whisper against him.

He walks the two of you up the steps, one hand cradling your ass while he opens the screen door. It slams behind him with a loud bang, the sound of crackling lightning camouflaging the noise. Inside is warm, candlelight flickering against the windows. Joel prefers to save as much electricity as he can, especially at night. Maybe twenty-years of burning wax became something of a solace for him.

“Living room,” you gasp, breaking free from his kiss.

He looks puzzled, one hand splayed across your back. “What? Why?” He’s breathless, accent thick in the throes of pleasure.

You rub your nose against his, feeling the scar across the bridge of it. It’s Joel. “I’m impatient. I’m also very wet.”

Joel raises a brow.

You blush, realizing what that sounded like. Not that it mattered. “I don’t want to get your bed wet is what I mean.”

He chuckles darkly. “Babygirl, I plan to get it wet either way.”

—

He practically tosses you into his bed.

You giggle, bouncing slightly upon it, and stretch like a cat in sunshine. He takes a moment to admire your female form; the curves that show so beautifully under damp clothes, the way your eyes glitter in the candlelight, and the illumination of your skin with it.

If he hadn’t believed in a God before, he did now.

Joel’s been out of practice for a couple of years but he’s tried to convince himself it’s like riding a bike. He and Tommy had broached the subject rather drunkenly a few months ago at the saloon. Tommy claimed it was different since the world ended - more satisfying than it had been before, like tasting chocolate for the first time. Joel didn’t agree at all; sex for the past two decades had been almost clinical in nature, but maybe that’s because he was fucking women he didn’t have any emotional attachment to.

This…this was not void of sentiment.

The last woman he — well, made love with, he supposed — was Sarah’s mother. There was one night he and Tess had fooled around and that had been something but not even close. With Tess, he felt a sense of devotion - not passion. Not intimacy.

He goes for your neck, eating up the little moans you allow to slip from your plumped lips. His hands glide down your thighs until they reach the hem of your dress (the one you’d made on your own and he’d been so impressed by it). He lifts it over your shrugging form and finds the valleys of your body are just as divine as what he imagined.

The luxury of Jackson allowed your tummy to be softer than what he’d been used to all these years — it was unbelievably sexy. He hadn’t cared about it either way before but knowing you were well fed now brought him a sense of peace. He kisses down your sternum, unclasping the bra at your back, and almost fucking loses it when you throw it in the corner of his bedroom.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers, taking your breasts in each hand.

They’re soft against his calloused palms — smooth compared to every inch of him. He leans down to suckle the right, your nipple peaking gently against his tongue.

You whimper, arching into him.

A wicked — and treacherous — thought manifests. He imagines your tits swollen with milk, a child resting deep in your womb. He groans, wrapping his arms around your waist as he laps at each breast, silently entertaining the idea.

You grumble in frustration, pawing at his shoulders. “Your turn. I want…”

He releases you with a wet pop and then smirks a little in the night. A crack of lightning ignites outside.

—

You skipped all the frivolity.

There’d be time for that soon.

You just wanted him. Wanted the thick length of him between your legs, hot and heavy, and pulsing. When he stripped bare, your jaw almost hung open in shock at the size of him. You had a suspicion — hell, all the women in town did — but to see it now was…

God, it was almost too much.

It was…pretty, which you didn’t expect. It wasn’t like the ones you’d seen in medical books or in person at the quarantine zones. While it wasn’t pornographic, it certainly wasn’t disappointing. Joel was thick, a prominent vein running down the side, and flushed with red at the head. The length was more than adequate — so much that you did some quick calculations to yourself. That was supposed to fit inside of you?

Joel chuckles when you subconsciously lick your lips, leaned upon your elbows, and waiting with bated breath. He kisses your mouth closed and then your cheek before whispering, “Lie down, babygirl.”

You do, taking in a deep breath. You feel him rub at your slit with the head of it, teasing your fluttering hole, and gathering the slick you’d released.

“You ready?” He noses at your hairline.

You nod. “Yeah,” you breathe, nudging against him. “I’m ready.”

—

A vise.

(Vice.)

A vise in the sense that your insides envelope around his cock. You suck him in noisily, though hesitantly, and he groans with embarrassing volume. You whimper, shifting your hips, and it tickles down the base of his cock.

“Jesus, fuck.” He clenches the sheets in one hand, the thread stretching around his knuckles. The other hand palms the side of your neck.

“Oh, god. Joel.”

A vice in that your body was now a cathedral for his debauchery.

His hips still when he bottoms out, your pelvis against his. He can feel your fucking pulse. He’s not sure how he ever lived without this. Tommy was right.

You’re babbling sentences he can’t understand; it’s as though you’re speaking in tongues. Your neck arches against the mattress, eyes rolling in the back of your head. He hasn’t even moved yet.

He whispers your name — your given name. “I know, baby,” he groans, face falling into the crook of your neck. He begins to thrust shallowly. “I know.”

You bring your arm to cross your face, biting at your own flesh to keep from shouting. Joel wants to tear it away, to hear everything you can give him, but he’s far too busy trying to keep from coming. When his thrusts begin to speed up, you abandon all attempts of keeping silent.

It’s like an orchestra. Joel remembers Tchaikovsky. It reminds him of that; of canons betwixt strings and brass. The juxtaposition of shouts dedicated to pleasure and groans of ecstasy was the closest to nirvana he’s ever gotten. He can’t remember the last time he left his body for anything other than panic and fear.

He takes a hold of your hips, bowing you against him, and begins to thrust into you with a wild pace. “Jesus, this cunt is fucking perfect,” he growls.

“Joel, I think…” you start.

But your mewl is cut short. Joel feels a pressure building and then suddenly…

“Oh god,” you whine.

Joel looks down, hips still pistoning against yours.

He realizes you’ve just squirt, your cum dripping around his cock where it makes a sinful noise with each thrust. He growls, ripping himself from you, and dragging you to the edge of the mattress.

“Joel! What…”

Your protests are cut short when he drops to his knees, wraps your legs around his shoulders, and then presses his mouth against you.

“Oh. Oh…” you purr, hands tangling in your hair.

Din hums against you, the vibrations causing you to shiver and murmur his name. He laps up every drop of you; it’s a nectar sweeter than Georgia fuckin’ peaches. He moans, tongue weaving between your fucked out hole and your puffy lips.

He brings a hand to his cock.

—

He’s close. You know he is.

The feeling is incendiary. His tongue is warm and wet against your poor, swollen cunt. He is a salve, his expertise rinsing away the remains of your previous orgasm.

He grunts against you. You sense the grip he has on your hip begin to tense, the blood rising to the surface of your flesh. You grab his hand at your center and squeeze before interlocking his fingers with yours.

“On my pussy,” you beg in a whisper.

He growls, separating himself from you and craning his neck backwards. The veins throb against his skin, a flush creeping down into his collarbones. He’s never looked more beautiful than he has now.

An adonis with rain in his hair.

Joel comes with a broken grunt — something manly and full of testosterone — before a pearly wad of cum spurts upon the folds of your pussy. You whine at the vision, the sensation of it dripping down your sensitive lips almost enough to get you to come again.

When Joel’s finished, he kisses the skin of your thigh and tummy before reaching your mouth. Your taste lingers against his lips - something earthy and sweet and mixing with him.

The two of you exchange breath for a few moments, unabating in each other’s company. Your soul feels something like a specter; drawn out into the afterlife and existing in a patch of time frozen in his arms.

Joel cups your cheek, thumb brushing your lips. His furious kiss has reddened the skin and making them tender. He kisses them softly. Once. Twice.

You slide your hands up his broad chest, stopping at the sides of his neck, and massaging gently. He closes his eyes, relaxing into your touch.

“I knew you loved me,” you whisper in the darkness. The candles have burned out. The rain still falls.

And so does Joel.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #mw1 #tlou2 #joel tlou

284 notes · View notes

bingbongsupremacy · 11 months

Note

yes part 2 please, and of pen pals and how to kiss

Wish You'd Make Me Cry Pt. 2

I'm working on the other 2 rn as well. Should be out in a couple days if not today!

Pairing: Ellie Williams x reader

Warnings: Alcoholic Ellie, Cursing

Summary: Ellie realizes she's been taking her anger out on you, but is it too late to save your relationship?

Idea from the song : Wish You'd Make Me Cry by UPSAHL

*Not Proof Read* TLOU Masterlist

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt.3

Pt. 3 on the way.

***** Third P.O.V. *****

Snow crunches beneath Ellie's tattered converses'. Anger and frustration seethe through her body, getting worse the more she thinks back on her conversation with Y/N.

'What the fuck does she mean. I do talk to her. I talk to her all the fucking time.'

Ellie yanks open the squeaky bar door. A few heads snap towards the direction of the sound, quickly turning away once they spot the angry woman. She's not one to mess with when angry.

Ellie takes a seat at her usual spot at the bar.

" Hey, Ellie. What can I get ya tonight? " Jesse greets.

" A drink. " She replies curtly. All she needs is a fucking drink. It's what helps her forget. It's the only reliable thing in her life. Alcohol doesn't lie and it sure as hell doesn't argue.

Jesse lets out a sigh. He can tell she'd had more than enough to drink already. " I don't know, Ellie..." He replies gently, not wanting to piss her off anymore.

Ellie looks up at the man. " Jesse, just get me a fucking drink, alright? I don't need you to do whatever the fuck you're doing. You're not my father. "

Jesse throws his hands up in surrender. " Whoa, calm down, Ellie. What the hell is wrong with you tonight? " He grabs a glass, against his better judgement, and pours a little moonshine into the glass. He passes it Ellie who immediately takes a sip.

" Fucking Y/N. " She mutters while wiping off her mouth. All her rage from the night seems to pour out uncontrollably. " I don't get what their fucking problem is. No matter what I fucking do I'm never right. I go on patrol, I come home and I want to relax, right? And all they wants to do is fucking talk about shit we've talked about a million times. It's always the same thing with them. ' How did this happen. ' " Ellie mocks Y/N. " ' How did it get this way '. I don't fucking know, Jesse. I honestly don't know. "

Jesse patiently listens to Ellie rant. He'd heard about the couples' marital problems from Y/N before, but never Ellie. Ellie's not one to share about their relationship.

Ellie takes a breath. " When I used to look at Y/N I felt this... " Ellie's brows furrow. " I felt this strong love. I felt like I couldn't breath without them. Like I'd die without Y/N nearby. Now...I constantly feel like I'm suffocating in my own home. And-and I don't know why. I don't know why I'm such a fucking cunt to Y/N. It's just whenever I see their face I feel so trapped. " Ellie finishes. Guilt rises in Ellie's stomach. She'd never admitted her feelings to anyone.

Jesse nods slowly. " Do you think that maybe this all started last year when you guys got married? " He asks, nodding to the small silver band around Ellie's finger.

Ellie looks down at the glimmering jewelry. She'd spent weeks looking for the perfect ring for Y/N. She'd learned pretty early on that Y/N wanted to get married, and she wanted to make sure she found the perfect ring. All she wanted to do was make Y/N happy.

Ellie thinks back to when she proposed, taking Jesses' words into deep consideration. Did this happen because they got married. Ellie hadn't been completely truthful when she'd told Y/N she didn't want to get married. In reality, she'd been pretty excited to propose. She just needed something to say she new would hurt Y/N.

" I don't know. " Ellie sighs while running a hand through her hair.

Jesse thinks before lowering his voice. " Do you think you could be taking your anger at Joel out on Y/N. "

Ellie hadn't thought of that. The week before Joel died Ellie found out what he did at the hospital. She was fucking livid. She didn't talk to him at all. She never got to say goodbye.

She never told Y/N.

Ellie decided to bury it. Joel wasn't here anymore so it didn't need to be addressed. At least that's what she thought.

Sure he'd sometimes creep into her thoughts at night. She'd wonder if he died thinking she hated him. She really didn't. She wondered if there was any way she could've saved him.

The easiest way to kill the thoughts was to drink. The memories seemed to blur when alcohol was involved.

Jesse takes Ellie's silence as an answer. " You need to talk to Y/N. You need to be honest and tell them what's going on with you. They don't deserve to be left in the dark because you don't know how to deal with your shit. That's not how relationships work. You're going to lose them if you don't get it together. " Jesse grabs the empty glass from in front of Ellie. " You're destroying yourself and your partner. "

Ellie's stomach sinks. She hadn't thought about how what she did to deal with Joel might have been affecting Y/N. All she wanted was a little relief from the never ending thoughts that raced through her mind.

With a groan, Ellie stands up. She needs to fix what she fucked up.

_____

All hopes of Y/N still being awake are immediately crushed as Ellie walks up to their dark house. She quietly opens up the front door.

She tosses her coat to the side before making her way to the couch. There's no way in hell Y/N would let her in the bed after what happened.

Ellie lets out a small sigh, trying to make herself as comfortable as possible. She needs to make this right.

_____

Sunlight pouring in from a the window wakes Ellie up. She sits up, immediately getting a headache. She makes her way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. A small glimmer catches her eye. Ellie peers down across the counter at the silver object.

A ring. 'Y/N's ring.'

Ellie picks up the ring in confusion, flipping it over in confusion. She grabs the small paper underneath, her heart dropping as soon as she reads the words.

Ellie,

I'm done. I'm done fighting for whatever the hell this is. You're right, we never should've gotten married, especially not this young. We're not ready for this.

I've tried talking to you. I don't know what else to do. I don't know what the fuck I did to make you so upset all the time. You're free now, Ellie.

I'm sorry you felt pressured into marrying me. I really loved you, Els. I really did.

Y/N

Ellie really fucked up this time.

Ellie's heart begins to pound faster. She drops the ring and note onto the counter before bolting up the stairs. She pushes open the door with fear in her heart.

Empty.

Ellie opens up the closet to reveal your half empty and a suitcase gone.

" Fuck! " Ellie grabs her hair in frustration. " She sits on the end of the bed, staring down at her knees. " Fuck fuck fuck. " Panic runs through Ellies' head. 'Where the hell could they be?'

Suddenly a name pops into Ellie's head. 'Dina'

Ellie jumps up from the bed. She hurries out of the house, not bothering to lock it up. She needs to get to Y/N. She needs to fix what she fucked up.

She only hopes you accept her apology.

A few minutes later, Ellie arrives on Dina's porch. She knocks on the door, her foot tapping anxiously.

Hushed whispering pours out through the other side of the door. Ellie's heart clenches, hoping Y/N's at least here and safe.

The door opens up slightly to reveal Dina. She gives Ellie a tight, sympathetic smile. " Hey. "

" Is Y/N here? " Ellie rushes.

Dina's eyes fall back into the house. She hesitates for a second before responding with a head shake. " No. "

Ellie narrows her eyes. " Don't lie to me, Dina. I know they're here. I just need to talk to them. Please. Just-just let me talk to Y/N. "

Dina's eyes wander back into the house. " I'm sorry, Ellie. Y/N doesn't want to talk to you right now. "

Ellie lets out a sigh. " Yeah, I get it. Just...let them know I'm sorry. Please? I'm really fucking sorry. And I have a lot to talk to them. I know it might be too late but...fuck...I have to try. "

Dina nods and moves back to close the door. " I will. Bye, Ellie. "

Ellie watches as Dina disappears behind the door.

For the first time in months, the alcohol isn't here to shield her from her pain.

Sorry forgor to tag u . Do you guys want to be tagged? Lmk.

@octavias-next-meat-bite

#fanfic #fanfiction #ellie the last of us #ellie williams x you #ellie williams x reader #ellie x you #ellie williams tlou #ellie williams #ellie tlou #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams x plus size reader #ellie x fem reader #ellie x y/n #tlou 2 #the last of us 2

100 notes · View notes

mandoalorian · 1 year

Text

Look For The Light

Prologue: Part II

[read prologue part I here]

Summary: You are a hardened survivor trying to navigate your way in a post-apocolyptic world when you bump into an old friend who goes by the name of Joel Miller.

Warnings: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH(s). All TLOU relevant warnings such as gore, violence, guns, drugs, and cursing. dickhead boyfriend gets his karma<3

Author’s Note: This chapter was such a challenge to write! I'm not used to writing action sequences, or horror for that matter. Now that the prologue is over, I'm excited to officially explore the post-apocalyptic universe and write battle-hardened Joel. The best is yet to come! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Word count: 5,000 words.

Masterlist | Want to support me? | Listen to ‘Look For The Light’ on Spotify

----

You didn’t speak to Michael for the rest of the evening. Battling with your own concerns and your feelings towards Joel, you told yourself you were just worried about Tommy. That was enough to justify your heart-wrenching fear of regret. You liked Joel, you always had, and you didn’t want to leave it too long to tell him. So, you decided that tomorrow, during movie night, you’d pull him to one side and tell him the truth. If he rejected you, then so be it. You’d be hurt for sure, but what kind of life would you live if you weren’t honest with yourself?

At around 7 p.m., you started to get hungry and contemplated ordering a pizza. You dragged your feet out of bed and padded into the living room to check in with Michael, who was just sitting on the edge of the sofa, playing on the PlayStation 2. You flinched at the blasts of gunfire that emerged from the television set as Michael’s character shot down what looked like monsters made out of pixels.

“What are you playing?” you asked your boyfriend, trying to push to have a conversation with him. Truthfully, you just wanted Michael to apologise to you. You deserved that much, and if you could swindle an ‘I’m sorry’ out of him by taking interest in his dumb video game, then you’d be more than satisfied. You felt shameful, having to jump through hoops in a pitiful attempt to get him to say sorry to you.

Michael grumbled something incoherent and then violently threw the controller at the TV. You jumped, your lips parting in shock at his sudden outburst. His character had died. On instinct, you bounced back, not liking this angry side of him. Sure, Michael could be a jerk sometimes… or, all of the time, but the violence he was displaying ever since coming home today was unusual, to say the very least. He was normally more than comfortable making snide comments about your appearance or backhanded misogynistic jokes, but today he was yelling, breaking what little furniture you had, and he had even kicked one of the chairs over, cracking the leg.

“If there were ever a zombie apocalypse, I know damn well I’d survive,” Michael smirked. He seemed to have calmed down pretty quickly, picking the video game controller off the floor and starting the game back up. “But you…” your boyfriend looked at you up and down. “Well, at least you’d lose a little weight.”

There was the Michael you had come to know. You narrowed your eyes in his direction. No pizza then.

You felt so fed up, and you contemplated just calling Joel. Did you really have to wait til tomorrow evening to see him again? You’d do anything to leave this life behind and go back to the neighbourhood you were brought up in; back to your family and your easy old babysitting job. You didn’t care for your new job at the office, and you didn’t care for your faulty apartment and shitty boyfriend either. You missed your friends back home and you missed your old life. If you just had one chance to go back and change everything, you would do it in a heartbeat.

If only you didn’t feel so trapped. If there was a chance to leave this life behind, you sure as hell would take it. No matter the consequences.

“I’m going to bed,” you announced flatly, anticipating that Michael would spend the entirety of the night playing his video game anyway. You figured that you weren’t going to force an apology out of him, especially if he wasn't prepared to give one. As you used to tell Sarah, ‘if men wanted to, they would.’

“Could you pass me the rest of the cookies?” Michael asked, not even tearing his eyes from the screen. His tone was crass.

Without another word, you tossed him the plate of cookies, dropped it by his side and marched into your bedroom. You felt tears burn your eyes and you were furious that you had obliged with his request. You were a people-pleaser through and through, and no matter how much Michael irked you, you hated to be on his wrong side. The only thing stopping you from breaking down and crying was that you got to see Joel again tomorrow, and Sarah, of course. It may have still only been earlier, but the quicker you managed to get to sleep, the quicker tomorrow would come.

Only between the sirens outside and Michael’s yelling from the other room, you found it hard to settle down. You glanced at your bedside table and looked over at your phone. You could just call Joel, find a good excuse to talk to him… ask him about Tommy. You decided against it though, believing that Joel certainly would have had better things to do than spend his Friday night on the phone with you.

However, while you were tucked up in bed trying to sleep, Joel was in Arlington County Jail with the full intention of busting his younger brother, Tommy, out of his cell. Fully aware of the chaos outside, Joel knew that he didn’t have long and that he had to get home to Sarah.

When Joel arrived at Arlington County Jail, Tommy appeared distressed, his black curly hair out of place and beads of sweat lacing his hairline. Joel found him alone, pacing back and forth with his arms crossed against his chest. There was no security, no cops. It was unusual for the jail to be this isolated, especially down in the cells.

“Where’s the sheriff?” Joel asked, busting through the door.

“Gone home,” Tommy said quickly. “Left me here to rot. Everyone is gone. They all left me here. And—and there’s something going on out there—I don’t know what but I can hear the screams and—”

Tommy’s heart pounded against his chest as he gazed through the small grid-locked window at the top of his cell. There was no way he could see out of the window, which made it all the more terrifying. He couldn’t put context to the sounds he heard.

“I know Tommy, I know,” Joel replied, equally as stressed and confused as his brother. Joel didn’t know much, but he knew more than Tommy at this point. He’d heard things about the Cordyceps. Things he couldn’t believe were true… but right now he had no choice but to not question them. He could only think about his daughter. “We have to get back to Sarah. Where’d the sheriff keep the damn key for your cell?”

The older brother scurried around, checking all the pots and trinkets on the sheriff’s desk and even on the hangers behind the door, making a mess of the ornaments and décor in the meantime. A loud scream from outside the jail made Joel freeze in his footsteps, his entire body tensing up as a person’s painful cries echoed throughout the station.

Snapping Joel out of his thoughts, Tommy clapped his hands together. “Top drawer to the left of his desk,” Tommy pointed. “Hurry up Joel.”

Joel opened the drawer and located the small silver key, twisting it into the cell door and unlocking it. The cell door swung open and Tommy immediately dived out of the hole and jogged around the sheriff's desk, opening the much longer bottom drawer and bringing out a rifle. Tommy had seen the sheriff leave it in there before he left the station an hour ago. Like second nature, he slid the weapon over his shoulder and grabbed the sheriff’s pistol from the desk. He offered it to his brother, but Joel merely shook his head.

“Jesus Christ Tommy, really, a gun?” Joel asked, bringing his hand to his face.

“We don’t know what’s going on out there, but with all this gunfire and sirens and screams—well shit Joel, I guess you ain’t gonna be the one shooting anyway,” Tommy said as coherently as he could, but the words ended up jumbled in the panic he was currently facing. He slid the pistol into the back of his jeans and kept his hand armed on the rifle. Tommy was a US veteran; he’d fought in wars… he was a survivor, but if there was one thing he hated, it was not knowing what was going on. It was being without a plan.

Tommy’s gaze located the fire alarm which was guarded by a glass frame. Next to it, was an axe on the wall. Tommy grabbed the axe and handed it over to Joel, his eyes wide and pleading as he issued Joel a compromise. Joel hesitated for a moment, looking at the axe, but his thoughts were quickly interrupted by a large explosion that erupted outside, making both of the brothers crouch down and cover themselves on impulse. Joel took the axe from Tommy and adjusted his grip around the wooden handle.

“We have to go, now,” Tommy announced, and Joel swallowed. He could barely get his words out as worry filled the pit of his stomach. He said a silent prayer, hoping that Sarah was safe and had locked all the doors. She was a smart girl, Joel told himself. She wouldn’t do anything rash that would put herself in danger.

Joel nodded in agreement when he’d registered Tommy’s needing words. Finding his feet, Joel stood up and followed Tommy outside of the station and to the truck. Hundreds if not thousands of people fled the streets, running away from something that had yet to reveal itself. Bodies massed the ground, some injured and some dead, and the smell of smoke filled the air.

Joel slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. He skipped through the radio channels, hoping to hear a broadcast that would give him some information as to what exactly is going on. But all that could be heard was loud, crackling static.

“Call Sarah,” Joel requested Tommy as he pulled out of the driveway.

After multiple attempts of calling his niece, Tommy shook his head in defeat.

“She’s not answering?” Joel quizzed hurriedly, slamming his hand on the steering wheel as he continued to navigate the streets. His palms were clammy and his heart slammed against his chest.

“It’s not that,” Tommy huffed. “I can’t get through. The line must be down, no service…”

“Fuck.” Joel hissed through his teeth, now speeding down the highway, doing his damn best to avoid the traffic and cars that were offside the road.

When Joel and Tommy pulled into the driveway, Sarah was already standing outside, waiting for them. Her brown eyes were wide, her mouth was agape and tears stained her cheeks. Behind her, Mrs Adler made rapid movements, crawling across the porch and eventually standing up.

Joel and Tommy sprung out of the car and Tommy raised his rifle, getting a clear shot on Mrs Adler as she approached the family at a rapid speed.

“Sarah get in the truck!” Joel cried, and the young girl quickly obliged.

“Joel! What are we doing?” Tommy quizzed frantically, his index finger hovering over the trigger of his rifle as Mrs Adler’s body twitched and quivered. The infected old lady growled in pain as Joel took his axe and with all of his pent-up brute force, hammered it into Mrs Adler’s skull.

Sparing not even a second, when Mrs Adler dropped to the ground, Joel and Tommy clambered back into the front seats of the truck. Tommy this time took the driver's seat so Joel could give directions, but also comfort his daughter who was silently sobbing in the back.

“You—you killed her.” Sarah whimpered, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hand as she looked at her father in horror.

“I’m sorry baby girl,” Joel whispered, leaning back and outstretching his arm. He took Sarah’s hand and with his thumb, began to rub comforting circles into her skin. “I’m so sorry.”

It was late when you woke up; two maybe three in the morning. Michael’s side of the bed was still empty, and as you sat upright and rubbed your eyes, you doubted that he was still playing his game. It had been hours. The sky was painted a velvet blue-black and in the far distance, you could still hear sirens, albeit it was now a lot quieter.

You contemplated for a moment, wondering whether you should go back to sleep or check in on your boyfriend who had been acting out of the ordinary all evening. After a few moments, you breathed out an audible sigh and determined that you should probably check in on him. He had work first thing in the morning and should’ve been asleep long ago. You slipped out of your bed and throw over your robe, sliding your feet into your favourite fuzzy slippers and opened your bedroom door.

The first thing you noticed was the crackling sound of static on the television, almost as if the power had cut out. Your gaze followed a pile of crumbs on the floor which traced back to a crumbled-up cookie and a smashed china plate that you had previously presented them on. You adjusted your vision, your tired eyes still getting used to the bright light of your living area, and noticed Michael who was standing tall and upright, staring out of the kitchen window.

“Michael?” you asked, slowly walking up to him. “Have you seen the time? You need to go to bed.”

Michael didn’t respond, other than a small twitch of his fingers at the sound of his own name. As you closed in on him, you noticed his breathing was very heavy and he moved very little.

“You ignoring me now?” you whined. “Look, you’ve been nothing but a dick to me ever since we moved in together, but if I’m willing to move past your attitude, and the fact you broke a chair and smashed one of my china plates, then you should really—” the second you placed your hand on Michael’s shoulder, he let out a high pitched shriek and darted around 90 degrees so he was facing you.

It all happened so fast. His skin was pale white and his pupils appeared dilated. Not only that, but the white of his eyes was bloodshot red and you noticed the veins in his temples pulsating. Michael looked at you and for just a moment, his expression appeared soft and regretful, but then, within a mere second, his movements became quick and animalistic. Michael dived on top of you, letting a growl escape his lips as he pushed you down onto the hardwood floor beneath you. You yelped as your body came crashing to the ground. Michael was stronger than ever and it took all your might to escape his grip. You felt his muscles spasming and his body twitching as he eagerly tried to pin you to the ground, but as he struggled, you managed to shuffle your body backwards in the direction the TV set and closer to your bedroom.

You couldn’t draw your eyes away from your boyfriend, despite feeling the pure terror rage within you. Your back hit the bedroom door and you cursed yourself for closing it behind you. Dead end.

Michael came closer and closer, and in an effort to evade him, you stumbled to your feet. And squeezed behind the television. It was a cube-shaped 28 inch Sony TV box, typical of 2003, with rounded corners and a mighty weight to it. He grappled to get to you and you noted just how determined he was. He kept growling, his mouth watering as he punched his fists into the television and scream with rage. He seemed unfazed that his hands were now bleeding, and that the glass had smashed into smithereens around his feet on the floor.

“Michael,” you sobbed quietly, helpless warm tears rolling down your cheeks. “Michael, you’re scaring me.”

Michael snarled and shrieked in response, and his bleeding hand found your face, grabbing onto it in an attempt to get closer to you. You screamed into the palm of his hand as his fingernails dragged across your skin, scratching down your cheek and neck. You knew if you stayed here, Michael was going to hurt, maybe even kill you. Something had happened to him, and you were in danger, that much was clear. But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to go. The TV set was the only thing blocking Michael from you, and if you were to slip out now, his fast and primal instincts would have no qualms with attacking you again.

And then, an instinct which was driven by nothing short of raw, unfeigned fear – you knew what you had to do.

With all the power and energy that you could muster, you shifted your entire body weight and applied pressure to the TV. Slowly but surely, your force began to move the TV away from the entertainment centre and closer to Michael. You let out a scream as your muscles tensed and your arms began to hurt. One more big push and the TV would fall atop of Michael.

You blinked away the tears that filled your glossy eyes and whispered. “Michael, I am so sorry.”

And with one final push, the weighty TV box crashed on top of Michael, pushing him to the ground. Michael’s shrieks were no more and his body lay there, a pool of blood emerging from his lifeless frame.

You heaved and cried and screamed as you slid out from the entertainment centre and looked at Michael’s corpse. You’d killed him. You had killed your boyfriend.

You were a murderer.

Pacing around in circles you wondered what to do – whom to call. So you took out your phone and dialled the one person you could trust the most. Joel.

When Joel woke up, he was on the ground. As were Tommy and Sarah. Flames engulfed their surroundings and the truck had been turned over on its side as a result of a plane crashing into them. Joel wasn’t sure how long he’d been knocked out for, but it surely couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. It was the ringing of his cell phone that had awoken him. Joel didn’t move until the ringing stopped, his phone was too far to reach anyway, and then he tried to gather himself.

“Daddy?” Sarah croaked. “Daddy? Wake up.”

“I’m here baby girl,” Joel assured quietly, reaching his hand out and interlocking his fingers with his daughter’s. Sarah breathed an air of relief as she felt her father’s hand on hers. For the first time all night, she felt safe. Joel gave Sarah’s hand a reassuring squeeze and then reluctantly drew it away, placing both of his palms flat against the roof of the car. Sarah felt her heart deflate. “Watch out.” He warned, before shifting position and pushing his foot into the main window of the car, overhead the bonnet.

He kicked open the car window and crawled out from the remains.

The second Joel found his feet, an infected man grabbed onto him, and Joel wrestled for freedom. Within seconds though, Tommy appeared, smashing a brick into the man’s face causing him to lose consciousness and fall to the ground.

“Dad?” Sarah called again, alerting Joel.

Joel knelt down and Tommy covered him as he helped his struggling daughter out of the car. She whimpered in pain as she found her balance, with the help of her father who wrapped an arm around her shoulder to prop her up. But Sarah was struggling to stand.

“What is it?” Joel questioned with concern.

“I think it’s my leg,” Sarah replied and Joel noted her injured calf, blood seeping through the material of her pants.

“How bad does it hurt?” Joel asked, bringing his hand down to the wound.

“Pretty bad.” With hesitation, Joel knelt down and tried to take a closer look. It seemed as though some part of the car had impaled his daughter and she was bleeding out pretty badly. Joel noted just how strong she was. He was so proud of her.

“Okay—we need to go, now,” Tommy warned quickly, interrupting Joel’s sentimental thoughts and picking off the infected with his pistol as he covered his brother and niece.

“Can you run?” Joel asked Sarah hurriedly.

Sarah didn’t reply. The girl winced with pain as Joel’s hand moved over her leg and she shook her head ‘no’.

“Come on Joel.” Tommy urged, firing another shot.

Joel muttered a curse under his breath and swept Sarah off her feet, cradling the little girl in his arms. “Cover us.” He told Tommy, before following his younger brother down the infected-ridden main street. It was hard to tell who was ‘normal’ and who wasn’t as shrieks and screams and cries filled the atmosphere. Everyone’s movements seemed panicked and erratic and as Tommy continued to shoot down oncoming enemies, Joel noted his daughter tensing up in his arms.

“Don’t look at them sweetheart, keep your eyes on me,” Joel said softly. Sarah’s big brown eyes gazed up at her father but when she noticed the hoards of infected chasing the family from behind, terror filled her gut once more.

“Quick!” Tommy shouted, pointing his finger at an abandoned diner up ahead. Speeding up, the brothers raced to get into the diner. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Tommy removed a wooden beam which was barricading the door, and opened it, inviting Joel to slide inside, still holding onto Sarah. As Tommy tried to shut the back door of the diner, three infected people jammed their way into the opening, growling and clawing at Tommy. Tommy scuffled to fight them off, but at least he was winning against them.

“Uncle Tommy?” Sarah cried with hysteria as she saw her beloved uncle struggling against the mania.

“Get to the highway!” Tommy instructed as he held back the infected.

“I ain’t leaving you!” Joel cried out in response, his eyes darting around the diner to look for something he could use to help Tommy fend off the infected.

“Go! You got Sarah!” Tommy reminded his brother. He was right. Sarah was Joel’s number one priority, and Joel just couldn’t play hero right now.

As Joel turned his back on his brother, Sarah cried out for her uncle once more, tears streaming down her cheeks as her father ran out of the front door of the diner.

“Daddy no! We can’t leave him!” Sarah sobbed as Joel closed the front door to the diner.

“He’s going to be fine,” Joel promised his daughter. Breathless, he jogged down the muddy embankment that led onto the highway. At least now he could see the bridge. That was his way out of here. “Come on honey, we’re almost there.”

As Joel ran up the road leading to the bridge, two infected chased after him. Joel could taste blood in his mouth and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it until he saw a bright, blinding white light ahead.

Pointing an assault rifle at Joel was a man, a soldier perhaps, dressed in an armoured black uniform. He was wearing a gas mask and had grenades strapped to his chest. Joel had never seen anything like it before. Not even in movies. The soldier fired his gun and picked off the infected that were behind Joel and Sarah, before slowly approaching the pair, not lowering his gun once.

Sarah was shivering in Joel’s arms, her eyes wide as she watched the man direct the barrel of his assault rifle into her father’s face.

Joel held Sarah’s hand in the hope it would help ease her anxiety. “It’s okay now. We’re okay. We’re safe.”

Joel swallowed and turned to face the soldier.

“Help us,” he begged. “Please. It’s my daughter. Her leg is injured.”

Joel took a few steps closer but stopped abruptly when warned by the soldier.

“Stop right there.” The faceless soldier said, his index finger hovering over the trigger of the gun.

Joel hesitated, his lips parting in shock and confusion. “We—we’re not like them. We’re not sick,”

The soldier clicked on his radio. “Got two civilians in the outer perimeter. Please advise.”

“Daddy? What about Uncle Tommy?” Sarah whispered as the soldier spoke over the radio. Joel drew his eyes away from the man and looked at his daughter.

“He’s gonna be all right, don’t you worry about him. We just need to get your leg better right now.”

“But—there’s a little girl,” The soldier’s comment alerted both Joel and Sarah and they looked over at the man again. “But—” the soldier’s protests were weak and eventually he settled on a simple. “Okay.”

The radio became silent and the soldier let out a huff of air before pointing his rifle back at Joel and Sarah.

“Listen, we’ve just been through hell, okay? We just need—” Joel noticed the shift in energy and the way the flashlight on the gun focused on him. He was going to shoot. “—Shit.”

Multiple shots. In an attempt to take the blast and cover his daughter, Joel turned his back on the oncoming fire. He threw himself and Sarah down to the ground and rolled down the hill as the soldier continued to spray shots. The soldier jogged onto Joel and aimed his gun at Joel’s head. Joel raised both of his hands in a surrendering motion.

“Please—don’t—” Joel whispered under his breaths.

BANG. Another shot. The soldier fell to the ground. Joel jumped and sat upright, looking up at his younger brother who had just killed the soldier. Joel let out a groan of pain as he peeled back the hem of his navy blue t-shirt and examined the wound on his stomach. The grazing off his bullet. The pain was so immense, he didn’t even hear the whimpers and cries of his daughter who was only a few metres away.

“Joel…” Tommy interrupted his brother’s thoughts and nodded towards Sarah, his eyes wet and horrified. Joel’s entire body jolted upright when he overheard Sarah’s pained cries, and he crawled over to his daughter who was laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. Her t-shirt was soaked red.

Joel picked up his daughter and held her in her arms. Her breathing became short, loud gasps for air and when Joel found the main source of the bleeding in her abdomen, he pressed his two hands on the wound. It needed pressure. Sarah’s entire body jolted and she screamed as blinding hot pain ran through her body.

“It’s okay baby, it’s okay baby,” Joel tried reassuring Sarah but he appeared even more panicked than before. When he saw the tears fall freely from the corner of Sarah’s eyes, he couldn’t help but hold back his own. He didn’t know what to do. Sarah’s gasps became quicker and more panicky and she couldn’t get her words out. She couldn’t tell her father how much she loved him, or how grateful she was for the short years that she spent with him. Sarah’s grip around Joel’s neck tightened as she felt herself becoming increasingly lightheaded, and she let out another cry with pain.

Joel leaned into Sarah, rocking back and forth. “I know, I know baby, I know it hurts. You’re going to be okay,” all he could do right now was reassure his daughter. He didn’t know if it would be ‘okay’, but it had to be, right? It had to be. “Baby, baby, listen to me. C’mon, I’ve got to get you up. Come on baby—” Joel stopped and looked over at his brother.

Tommy was just standing there, his gun lowered and his entire body weak with shock.

“Tommy help me!” Joel cried out with anguish as he tucked Sarah into his chest, holding onto her limp frame with the utmost desperation.

Tommy swallowed and lets his own tears spill from his eyes. “Joel.” He said weakly, nodding his head towards his niece.

Joel turned back to Sarah, who wasn’t moving anymore. She wasn’t making a sound. Her eyes closed, Joel clutched onto her and gave her held her tighter than ever before, crying out her name.

“Sarah?” Joel’s voice was quiet as he looked down at the fragile girl. “Baby? Don’t do this to me, baby. Come on. Come on, baby. No. Oh no. Please don’t do this to me. No… no…”

And at that moment, time stopped for Joel. Sarah was gone.

-----

Taglist: @onlyrealjoy @honeybunzzzz @hawkins-2000 @keepingitlokiii @januarycolor @anapnovo-blog @pardebellesnuits @mi0o@supervengerslock @bigpepperpicker @alitaar @pedrostories @pedroprinces

#Pedro pascal #Joel miller #Pedro pascal x reader #Pedro pascal x you #Joel miller x reader #Joel miller x you #look for the light #tlou #the last of us

124 notes · View notes

magnoliabutters · 1 year

Text

• CLOSE CALL •

pairing: joel miller x (18+, she/her) reader

summary: who are you to joel now? still cargo? wait, who is he to you?

warnings: 18+ content, mdni, adult language, cordycep apocalypse related violence, gore, & weapons, canon divergence, tlou part 1 & 2 spoilers; angst, medium to slow burn; fingering (reader receiving), pet names, dom & sub dynamics, much internal dialogue/processing, etc.

word count: ~7k

support your writer: reblogs for daddy joel ✨🌿

• part one • thought you didn’t care •

request: by @yourmomsmilfmistress babes! i definitely think you should do a part 2 to the joel miller one!!! the first one was SO GOOD. and this one should be them actually getting to have sex and he's such a whiny subby mess for reader, ya know?

note: oh fuck yeah do i know. thing is, we gonna work for that ♥️ i hope that’s ok! I def want to make this a series for sure. here’s part two of my love letter to tlou fans! playing by hbo last of us rules 🌿 also sorry if there’s some inconsistencies between part one & two, but promise they’re the smallest of details

Joel pulls away from the kiss. Your eyes slowly flutter open to see the man before you. It's almost as though this was the first time seeing him. All that hardened traumatic exterior shit is gone. You see his beautiful dark eyes, youthful and happy. You see the smile on his face that forces your heart to stop beating here and there. You see the wrinkles that form beside his eyes when his smile gets too big. He is so soft under that incredibly thick layer of protection. A protector for those he loves, but also a barrier of protection for himself.

Without much intent, your hand travels to the side of his face. It cups his cheek as you gaze deeper into his eyes. You could stay here forever. The lust, the power that you held over him just lifts away. There's another force leading you actions now. Another force consuming you. You have never felt this before and you need to know more. You need to know more about Joel Miller.

Joel catches a shift in your eyes as you peer deeply into him. "Is everything okay?" he asks softly as he brushes hair out of your face. Immediately, you are snapped back into reality. You laugh nervously. "Yeah, I - I," you start. You quickly decide to make fun of yourself. "I just got lost in your eyes," you say with sweetness and confidence. He immediately scoffs and rolls his eyes. Little did he know you were telling the absolute truth. "You're sweet, darlin'," he murmurs. "But I think I owe you a little somethin'," he says as he bites his lip.

With slight hesitation, he raises your shirt to expose your stomach. You shiver at the sensation. You haven't been touched here in quite some time. Most of your hook ups have been primarily focused on what's in your pants. You usually don't even have enough time to get your shirt off. He lowers his mouth onto your soft skin. His lips leave little pecks from the bottom of your ribs to the tops of your hips. It feels incredible.

You close your eyes, something you are not usually comfortable doing. You let your sensory receptors tell you who Joel is. His soft hands gently grasp your sides. He pulls you further down into himself. You let him. You let him take you wherever he wants. In this unexpected moment, you give him everything. You let go of everything. His kisses write a story across your stomach. His hands hold you tightly, as though they never want to let go. Your heart feels things ... things that are unfamiliar to you.

Joel hooks his fingers underneath your waistband. Your eyes open widely as excitement fills your chest. You quickly arch up to see his sincere and innocent eyes look back up to you. "Is this okay?" he asks. Your brain goes blank for the first time since you were 15 years old. You are lost with words. You open your mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. You quickly decide to nod, nod as quickly as you can. He must not have noticed your nerves as his smile returned when he directed his eyes back towards your waist.

You feel his big hands pulling down your shorts. You take in a huge breath as he runs them down your thighs. He kisses your lower stomach. His thumbs rubbing circles against your outer thighs. He is a gentle lover. You have never been touched quite like this before. You rest onto your back. Your eyes open this time as they stare into the ivy covered ceiling. You blink once as you take in a slow breath. His kisses feel scruffy as he begins to lower your panties.

The lower he goes, the more your knees pull together. He invites them to collapse around his face and ears. His hands travel to your ass. Your breathing escapes you as you feel him grab harshly against your muscle. You like it. You like everything he is doing. You want it to never stop. With the bare of his teeth, he pulls down your panties with a devilish smile across his face. You sit up on your elbows to look back at him. Your movements persistent, showing all your nervous cards out for him to see. This - you hate. Vulnerability is not something you would be described as. Not anymore.

You watch as Joel places his thumb into his mouth. His eyes remain on you. You swear everything is going in slow motion. He lowers his thumb against your slit. He rubs ever so gently until he finds himself between your folds and atop your throbbing clit. His eyes continue to watch you as your chin raises. Your eyes finally find themselves closed again as you let out the lightest moan. It is enough to get him more than excited. He adjusts himself so that he lays on his stomach between your legs. His prickly kisses now on your inner thighs. Your hands find their way into his salt and peppered hair. God, does he feel good. And fuck, did he know exactly what he is doing.

Next, you feel his teeth against your most sensitive skin. You jump at the sudden sensation, letting out a weak laugh, which then cued him to laugh along. When did his laugh start becoming so mesmerizing? Is it because you've never heard it before? You feel his kisses and love bites get closer and closer to your heat. Your legs desperately wanting to clench together. Your body already overwhelmed with the amount of care and attention you are receiving.

Suddenly, his tongue starts to float about. It lightly licks the bit of chub at the top of your thighs. Then it trails, closer and closer to your center. Before you knew it, it replaces his thumb. His fingers then travel to circle your hole below. Your entire body fills with fire as his kisses and tongue now envelop your clit. Are you shaking? You feel like you might be shaking. Another moan falls from your lips. It prompts him to groan against your clit. Fuck, did those vibrations feel absolutely perfect.

Your hands start to tangle deeper in his hair as your lower back arches off the floor. You pull him closer as your insides scream for more. "Oh shit," you breathe as you become lightheaded. Your chest raising up and down as your butt digs into the cool surface below you. "That's right, baby girl," he mutters against your delicate skin. Your entire body fills with adrenaline when the words "baby girl" fall from his lips. A pet name so gentle and sweet. Not as simple and meaningless as the names other men and women have called you.

His tongue continues to flicker against your clit. Your breath intensifies as you start to grind against his face. His hands grip harder against your ass, which feels incredible. "Oh my god," you whimper as his finger begins to slide inside you. "Do you want more?" he asks as his innocent eyes look up to you. "Yes," you murmur. "Tell me," he says as a grin grows upon his face.

You quickly crunch up to look at him. A small unexpected laugh falls from your mouth as you throw your head back. You recollect your feelings, to give him a confident and sly face. "Put another finger in," you demand. "When?" he asks as he sticks his tongue out and lightly taps it against your clit. You gasp for breath and shoot another look down back to him. "Now, god damn it," you say firmly. "Yes, y/n," he whispers playfully.

Joel slowly pushes a second finger in. Your head falls back as you push him closer to you. Your eyelashes start to flutter as his fingers float in and out of you. "You're so tight," he whispers as he bites against your inner thigh. You let out a gasp as his movements start to quicken. "Mmm'Joel," you whine as your body starts to move alongside him. "Faster," you direct as your fingers curl into his hair. You grip harder against his locks and start to tightly pull with each of his thrusts.

His movements quicken as he lets out simple moans. "You're so tight, baby girl. You have to cum for me. Please," he mumbles against your heat. Your eyes roll back as you hear where both your bodies meet. He feels absolutely incredible. His fingers begin to curve within you. His fingertips lightly touching your bumped surface. Another gasp escapes your lips as your hips begin to rut. "More," you moan as you begin to feel his full force pressing in and out of you. "More!"

"I'm going to cum," you whine as you can barely catch your breath. "Fuck, please cum for me, baby. Please," he whimpers as he pulls his eyes away from between your legs. He watches your elongated neck hangs back off your shoulders. How the sweat has started to form at your forehead. He watches you in absolute admiration. He wants to see you cum. He's desperate for it. "Please. I beg you. Please cum on my fingers," he pleads in a whimpering voice you don't recognize.

With that, you let everything go. The rubber band in your stomach immediately snaps. Joel starts to coo sweet words as you tighten around his fingers. Words you can't even truly hear as you wriggle around from the intense pleasure. As the waves of pulsating friction move through you, you fall limp before him. Your knees still up as he rests between him. His touch now soft and supple, as opposed to the cause of the now existing red, moon shaped marks against the skin of your waist.

Joel slowly slithers over you. His hand resting against your cheek as his other hand is flat against the surface beside your face. "You are so beautiful," he whispers. He flashes those dark marmalade eyes at you. It melts your heart. You take a breath, attempting to gather your strength. You want more. He wants more. "I want to feel you," he murmurs as his fingers now trace down your neck and on your collarbone. “I want you to feel me,” he says softly against your skin. He kisses you once more as your body slowly comes down from its high.

The moment is here. The moment you have been dreading since the second you realized how much of an impact Joel Miller had on you. You couldn’t. You can’t go forward. You can’t do this. You have a mission. You have to get to San Diego. It’s life or death. It’s unavoidable. Fuck, if he meant nothing - absolutely nothing but a good fuck. Someone you’d hook up with and leave high and dry, like the rest of them. Someone who you wouldn’t care about never seeing again. If he was that kind of someone, this internal debate wouldn’t be happening. You’d already be half way into riding the hell out of him.

But … Joel’s someone else. He made her think beyond tomorrow, and that’s … well, that’s unforgivable. He made her think beyond herself. You can only keep yourself alive, that’s your mantra. But now? Your mind wonders how he might fit into that. How could he? How could you let yourself think like this? You won't punish him for this. This is on you - for letting Joel Miller in.

With a deep breath, you lean into that chaotic overly confident self of yours. The part of you that has gotten you out of many life and death situations. You reach for his chin, squeezing your fingers and thumbs on the sides of his cheeks. You pull him up to meet your eye line. “All in good time, lover boy,” you whisper as you lean in for a sloppy kiss. You try to maintain a calm and collected speed, but you quickly pull yourself from below him with an unconvincing smirk. You grab your clothes and slip them on as easily as they fell off.

As you reach the hallway’s door, you look back towards him. Joel rests, confused and naked against the ground. He looks up to you with an enjoyable smile. A bit of laughter falls from his lips as he thinks this is one of your teases. You shoot him a smile, this time a genuine one. He looks incredible from here. Every muscle in his arms on full display as he starts to stand and grab his jeans. His strong, lightly hairy chest spreads excitement in your body. A chest you could curl up against any time, any where. The sun starts to shine in through the boarded up windows. It hit against his skin in the most perfect of ways.

You quickly rush out into the hallway, closing it behind you. You put your hands to your eyes as you slide down the door. “Fuck,” you whisper. “What did you do, y/n?” You pull your knees to your chest as you rest your eyebrow bones against them. How will you move forward with this? How will this work? Are you going to do it again? If you don’t, what are you going to tell him? Your mind rushes with endless possibilities. Primarily, your mind blames you for your stupidity. You have a job to do and you recklessly risked it. All for Joel Miller.

“Y/n?” you hear above you. A foot steps against an old plank of wood, jumping your heart out of your chest. Without thinking, you grab an old chair beside you and begin to swing. “Wait wait,” Ellie yells as her hands raise. You finally awake from your trance. “It’s me,” she says as you recognize her and disarm. “It’s me,” she repeats softly. Her eyes fill with worry as she attempts to process what happened. You sigh as you fall back against the hallway wall. “You good?” she asks as she crouches beside you. She’s fully dressed and prepared to move forward with the day.

“Yeah, yeah Ellie. I’m good,” you say carelessly. She places out a hand to support your standing. “Thanks,” you mutter. “I’m gonna go get dressed so we can head out.” Ellie nods, her stoic eyes follow you down the hallway. You pray she doesn’t connect any dots. Just as she places the hand on the knob, your brain screams for you to distract her. What if he isn’t dressed yet? What if it still looks like a sex dungeon in there?

“Wait! Ellie?” you say as you awkwardly push your hair back behind your ear. “Yeah?” she says as she turns around in confusion. “Do you think, uh, do you think,” your mind runs blank again. You begin snapping your fingers. What the hell is going on? This isn’t you. “Do you think we’ll hit Utah by the end of the day?” You squeeze your eyes shut at the moronic question that leaves your mouth. You’ve barely just left the Wyoming border. “No,” Ellie says slowly. Her brow raises. “Okay, no worries,” you laugh as you continue down the hallway. An elongated “fuck” rushes through your mind.

After a stern talking to with yourself, rapidly throwing on clothes, and packing your gear, you walk back out into the hallway. You carry your shoes with you as you kindly provided yourself with the added pressure of hurrying up. As you open the door, you hear the butt end of a conversation between Joel and Ellie. “She’ll be ready soon, okay, El?” he says passively. “She’ll be ready soon?!” she asks in absolute confusion as her eyes study his face. “Almost ready,” you share with a monotone as you drop your bag beside the couch. You crouch down to start working on your shoes. Your eyes focus on said shoes, desperately away from his gaze.

“Okay, well, we definitely need to get some food before we do another long jump,” Ellie starts as she crosses her arms upon her chest. Her hand holds a folded map. “What city are we in again?” Joel asks as he points towards the map. Your eyes cautiously lift to see that his tough exterior is back on. He wears a new green plaid shirt. His arms look great it in it. Ellie opens it up, pointing as she answers, “Geneva.” Joel rolls his eyes as his hand presses against his forehead. “Fuck, Geneva,” he whines.

Ellie laughs. “Why don’t we like Geneva?” she asks. You tie your last lace and stand beside them. Finally, the group becomes a trio once again. Joel looks your way. Your heart stops. He nods and looks back at Ellie. Your brow furrows. “Geneva was a ghost town before. Still is. Practically picked clean,” he states as he pulls his backpack over his shoulder. Ellie’s finger follows along the route. “Next city would be Montpeleer,” she says as she looks up, awaiting his approval. He smiles. “It’s Montpelier,” he corrects with a subtle laugh and shake to his head. “That’ll do.”

“We huffin’ it?” you ask as you put on your backpack. Joel looks your way. His eyes cold again. You feel as though your body implodes on itself. “Yeah, we should be able to get there and do some lookin’ before dark,” he says. “Let’s go, kiddo.” He tussles the top of Ellie’s hair as she pushes his hand away with a smile. They both work together to move the old soda machine away from the entrance. Then off you three go on your next adventure.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Ellie starts as she is still in the midst of a laughing fit. You trail along the pairing as you watch with amused eyes. “Dina told me this one. Okay,” she says, trying to calm herself. “What do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common?” Joel lets out a quiet laugh under his breath as he shakes his head. His eyes still forward on the road as the trio passes into the Montpelier city border. “What?” he asks playfully. “They’re both Paris sites,” she says confidently and ends with a laugh. You let a little giggle out as you cover your mouth. “Oh common, Joel,” she yells as she points back towards you. “Even y/n laughed!”

Joel turns to look back at you. A glimpse of warmth within his freezing cold gaze as your eyes meet. Yet, you still feel static in the air between you two. You are starting to doubt yourself after 5 hours of him giving you a cold shoulder. He tilts his head as he looks back towards his daughter. “Eh, it was okay,” he says. “Fuck that, Joel. That shit was funny,” Ellie says with a smile and chuckle. You have grown very fond of their relationship. The love, the bickering. It's hard to find that type of connection, and hold onto it, in a word like this.

“What should we be looking for out here?” you ask as you stare at the city as a whole upon the edge of a hill. “Oh, she speaks,” Ellie says sarcastically as she turns back towards you. Apparently you were giving a cold shoulder as well. “Food first. I’m seeing a market over there,” Joel points off to the left. Squinting your eyes, you read the sign Broulim’s. You shrug, “Sounds good to me.”

Ellie nods as she reaches to the side of her pack for water. With a big gulp still held between her cheeks, she offers the water to both you and Joel. You put your hand up to pass, but watch as Joel takes his sip. You distinctly remember exactly what that mouth can do. Blush spreads across your cheeks. “Let’s keep movin',” Joel says as he hooks his rifle over his shoulder.

All three of you remain on your guard as you walk down the road. Another city with no runners, no people as far as they can tell. You have a bad feeling. Cars are practically disintegrated from the heat, pushed off onto the side walks from when FEDRA must have come through. Your heart races as you watch the roofs of the buildings beside you. You don’t like being so out in the open. You hold your shotgun tight to your hip. Always ready.

“Y/n,” Joel says as he places a hand to your forearm. You jump at his touch. “Yes,” you whisper harshly, attempting to collect yourself. You peer past him and notice that Ellie is gone. Your heart starts racing, but is confused by how calm Joel is. His eyes rake over your panicked face. “I sent Ellie to find place for us tonight,” he says calmly. A soft, concerned smile forming on his face. All of a sudden that rocky exterior has dropped again. “She’s also running her own thing for Dina and JJ,” he adds. “Will she be okay by herself?” you ask with worry. Ellie has grown on you a bit more than you would like to admit. “Ellie'll be okay,” he comforts. “She’s handled much worse than this.”

You nod, suddenly uncomfortable with being alone with him. With being tempted to give into this hopelessly romantic future. “You alright?” he asks as he continues forward. You trail behind him. That shotgun still glued to your hip. “Yeah,” you scoff. “I-I’m just hungry.” You give him some stupid excuse, hoping it’s believable. “After last night, I definitely owe you some brunch,” he smirks. You let out a laugh, blushing your way through.

The market is finally in sight. You hurry your step to walk beside Joel, no longer behind. “I haven’t done that in quite some time,” he shares. You smile, pausing to look at him. "You haven't gotten brunch in some time?" you ask, playing dumb. He scoffs as he rolls his eyes and starts walking again. “Well, I would’ve never known,” you grin with your eyes forward. He turns back to you, smiling as sucks his lips against his teeth. “I’m happy you found me,” he states with his eyes on the store. You bite your lip. “I’m happy I caught you,” you correct.

“I’d love to have you in my mouth again,” Joel says nonchalantly. You close your eyes as your mouth gapes open. You turn to look at him with your tongue pressing against your teeth. “Just let me know when,” he says as he shoots you that killer smile. “Fuck, Joel,” you curse under your breath. An unfamiliar giggle leaving your lips. “Don’t tempt me with a good time,” you taunt. He stops dead in his tracks. His face soft but serious. “I ain’t tempting. It’s a promise, darlin’,” he states, calm as ever.

Your heart drops as you let out a soft, yet shaky exhale. Joel’s eyes rake over you, leading him into a deep grin as he begins to walk again. You cover your mouth, shaken by his words. You let out a deep breath and follow behind him once more. You are starting to love this cute, sexy banter you have with each other.

“This place is looking rough,” you say as you stand underneath the barely discernible grocery store sign. You look out into the parking lot, noting only two cars. "Yeah, it's probably pretty picked through," he says as he scans over the windows. "We should still take a look." The window sills are paneled over. Cardboard is plastered through each one. It is impossible to see inside.

Upon observing this spot, you decide that someone's lived here. Emphasis on the past tense. The dust is filled throughout the wood panels. A pair of windows are broken. You look up to see black ash scorched into one of the broken window sills and the ceiling above. "Looks like something fun went down here," you say as your eyes fall from the scene before you. You turn to see Joel staring at you. His face serious, with a hint of passion. "What?" you laugh, as you drop your chin in slight embarrassment. "Just taking a look," he whispers as he takes a deep breath.

"Alright, so I saw a way we can get in through the side here but it's probably only small enough for you," Joel quickly changes the subject. You are left staring at him in confusion as he points around the corner of the store. You can barely keep your head straight. He moves so fast, back and forth between flirting and surviving.

With a shake of your head and a soft scoff, you follow behind him. Your hand brushing through your hair as you do. He stops in front of a small covered vent high upon the wall. You look around quickly in the side alley. You tap Joel's shoulder as you walk around him and point at a dumpster nearby. Without a word, you both walk over to it and hull it closer to the market's wall. You climb onto the dumpster, holstering your shotgun over your shoulder. His hand slowly hovering your body, just in case you might fall. He hops up next to you and pulls against the metaled and broken grate. He lightly lands it against a pile of twenty year old trash.

He steps down gracefully and peers up to you once his feet land upon the asphalt. "You get on over and open this door for me, alright?" he asks. Almost as if he doesn't trust you to do so. "We'll see, lover boy," you taunt as you place your hands into the vent and haul yourself up and into it. The small square steel tunnel is mossy at the least. You try not to gag as you feel the slimy texture against your skin. Turning the corner, you start to listen in. You hear nothing. Something you have learned to deeply hate.

Luckily, the vent is wide enough where you are able to shift your body around. You aim your feet at the center of the vent before you. With a force, you kick down the vent. Only, it lands upon an old ice cream freezer and shatters glass everywhere. “Shit!” you whisper as you look down at your destruction. “You okay?” Joel yells from outside.

Before you can even begin to process his words, a runner shows up from around the corner. Your eyes widen as you hold your breath. It runs up to the glass, stepping on it itself. It’s breathing rash as grunts pour from its mouth. It looks around, desperate to know exactly where the sound came from. Fungi has started to form around his forehead and ears. Its button up shirt white and bloodied. You wonder if the blood is his or someone else's. You gulp as you watch its eyes begin to travel up. You lean back into the vent as quietly and quickly as you can. You pray it did not see you.

Another crunch on the ground and you recognize that it’s moving along. You let out a shaky breath as you close your eyes. You slowly move and lower yourself out of the vent. Your feet attempting to land on a shelf above the glass, avoiding it completely. Once you have a good stance, you climb down and reach your leg to a spot on the old carpet that didn’t have glass shards. Your eyes remain on the runner the entire time.

You reach into your back pocket, grabbing your knife, as you crouch behind it. It’s arms and neck twitching about. The soft and subtle mumbles and moans it creates sound almost as though it was talking. Your eyes shift into looking for others. Hoping that there are no more infected. You don’t even have the time to look for any resources, any supplies. You have to clear the place first. As you side step behind it, you finally launch yourself and collapse your arm around its chest. You stab your knife into the base of its skull and slowly lower it against your body to reduce further noise.

Your breath is still heavy as your eyes cannot see too much further in the darkness of this place. Without much thought, you place your knife back into its designated pocket. You look around to find a bottle, a brick, something to confirm that the place is clear. The only light funneling in is from a hole in the roof. You immediately look to see if there are any creaks or cracks in the ceiling. It may be unstable. Grabbing a piece of concrete beside the light beam, you throw it deep into the darkness as you hide behind an aisle shelf. Nothing comes of it. No sound. No yells or groaning. No clickers, no shuddered movements of stalkers, and no screaming runners.

You sign in relief as you stand and brush off your pants. Something you often do to cope with dangerous situations. You turn to walk towards the front doors that have seemingly been blocked by two pairs of bookcases. You grab hold of one case and shimmy it to the covered window beside the door. A groan falls from your lips as you use a good chunk of strength to move it.

Once it’s clear, you can see Joel’s outline in between the wooden panels. You grab hold of the side of the sliding door, and push it far enough open so that he could get his hands in. He jumps at the sound and rushes in concern to peer in through the door's crack. You smile, appreciating his worry. "It was just a runner. All good," you reassure. He nods, letting out a sharp breath of relief. He then supports you in pushing the sliding door open. “Come on in,” you say as you gesture him a welcome. He shakes his head, laughing under his breath. The light shines in through the door, filling half of the market’s floor.

Finally, you can take in the store’s sights. Someone most definitely lived here, you note. There is a designated area for sleep in the produce aisle used to be. A base of operations and weapon repair area closer to the cashiers. A pharmacy in the back that’s hidden behind a few moved aisle shelves. You observe the black scorch on the ceiling and how it travels form the outside down into the middle of the space. Molotovs, you think. They must have been taken out by people.

By the look of the standing aisles, there’s not much to go around. But you keep your eye on the pharmacy. “I bet you the good shit is back there,” you say as you point towards the back of the store. Joel looks and nods. “I’m gonna check this living area. You go on ahead,” he states as he walks off. “Yes, sir,” you sarcastically mumble under your breath. He scoffs and rolls his eyes with a smile. Walking towards the back, you carefully step over the runner.

There is no need to remain quiet. The place is cleared, and Joel’s here worst case. You want whatever’s in that pharmacy, badly. You grunt to move the aisle shelves out of the way. It’s a lot heavier than you imagined, but fuck if you were going to ask Joel for help. You push it away with one last fit of strength. Your arms feel like jelly. Your shoulders barely holding the straps of your backpack up. You lower your shotgun beside the doorway, shaking out your upper body.

With satisfaction with yourself, you reach to open the pharmacy door. Locked. There is a keypad on its door handle. Your head falls back as you let out a loud groan. “Shit, shit, shit,” you whisper as you look around. There has to be something in this place that’ll get you back there.

You turn back to the lifeless runner and begin to check its pockets. As much as you wish you could still gag at the thought of touching a dead body, searching infected kills is way too easy. You reach into its pant pocket to find a wallet. “Louis Arroyo,” you read the driver’s license aloud. You slide it out of its intended pocket, turning it over. “Florida,” you read. “Far from home, huh?” you say to yourself carelessly. “Same here.” You put the wallet back and continue checking, just to find absolutely nothing.

With a huff, you stand and look down the aisles. There is no way you are not getting into that pharmacy. You are stubborn as all hell. That will not be happening. You continue looking around and spot a manager’s office. “Ooo!” you say as you rush towards the “employee’s only” door. Just for the door to be locked again. Fortunately, you note a counter you can crawl over.

Quickly, you hop over and land gently onto the floor below. You begin opening cabinets, desk drawers, anything to give you information to get into that damn door. You open a cabinet to find a dirtied note. Not exactly what you were looking for, but you are intrigued. You begin to read, wondering if it may have any information about what happened here, or most importantly about the damn pharmacy.

Olive,

I don’t know what Kev’s doing anymore. Those fuckers are coming back and he’s just pretending like it’s a normal day! If we stay here, we’ll die. I’m taking Nina and the kids to Soda Springs. I promised to keep them safe and I will be making no apologies for doing just that. We plan to stop in Georgetown to scavenge a bit. I hope we’ll be able to meet you there.

Stay safe,

Adam

You flip the letter around to see blankness on its other side. “Nothing!” you whine. Joel peers his head out from another aisle. “Everything okay?” he asks with a laughable smile. “Yup,” you fake smile so hard that your cheeks hurt. “Everything’s just dandy!” He laughs as he mutters, “Okay then.” You let out another groan as you jump back over the counter.

As you glance around, you see a supply closet off on the other side of the store. You roll your eyes, expecting yet another locked door. Yet, when you twist the handle, the door becomes ajar. Hope fills your chest. You slowly walk into the dark room. Your eyes attempt to adjust to the light, but you choose to click on your flash light to be safe. Your hand rests on the handle of your knife as it still rests in your pocket.

You shine your light around, hoping for some clues, but you end of finding a boot. A boot connected to a skeleton. As you raise the flashlight, you see red writing on the wall. “Should’ve listened, Kev,” you read aloud. You pull your brows together. “Shit, Kev,” you whisper to yourself. You shine your flashlight around to continue looking. In the corner of the room, you see a blue stained smudge against the wall. You move a trash can and office chair out of the way to get a better look. “I’m sorry. You deserved better,” you read aloud. “We changed the lock to Louis’ birthday. I hope you found peace. Olive.”

Your eyes light up as you recognize the name. Not a single worry about how morbid you have gotten. Dropping everything, you rush out the door to the runner laying in the middle of the dairy aisle. You dig into his jacket pocket once again and retrieve his license. “February 9th, 1989,” you read as you excitedly smack the plastic card against your hand. You rush to the pharmacy door and input the numbers: 2, 9, 8, 9. Click. It’s open!

In your excitement, you push to open the door, only to find yet another barrier. Something is pressed up against the door. You push and push, until a loud groan escapes your lips. Finally it gives and whatever was blocking the door falls and hits a medicine shelf. Both items topple over as you fall onto the ground from all your efforts. Your hands barely taking the brunt of the fall. You look up to find a clicker peering down at you. It’s clicks dissipate as it screams and attacks.

With a panicked breath, you are quick enough to get up onto your knees before it crumbles atop of you. You are able catch its neck, but it’s entire body weighs heavily upon your own. You yell out Joel’s name as it starts to scratch at your chest. Your entire body is fueled with energy as you are brutally attacked by this cordycep monstrosity. “Joel!” you scream again as you struggle to get your hand under your waist to grab your knife.

Suddenly, you hear moaning and rushing feet. You pop your head up to confirm your worst fears. It isn’t Joel. It’s another runner. You kick out your leg and hold your foot against its chest. It’s nails begin to dig into your upper shin and thigh. “Joel!” you scream so loud your voice cracks. You quickly decide to cover your torso with your arms and hands.

Bursting through the door, Joel stops to process the scene before him. Without another second passing, he tackles the runner. His machete crashing into its forehead. You scream in pain as the click atop of you digs deeply into your forearms, biceps, and chest. He lands his entire machete deep into the skull of the clicker. He hacks again to confirm the kill. It’s now limp body resting against your open wounds. You let out a groan as he pulls the infected off of you. As soon as your hands are free, you start to apply pressure against the blood seeping through your clothes.

“Let me see, let me see,” Joel says hurriedly as he pulls up your shirt. “Shit, shit,” he expresses as tense up from pain. He continues to move up your jeans, your shirt as he rapidly checks your body for bites. You curl into yourself as you let him toss your body around. Without question, you are fully prepared for Joel to take off one of your limbs with that very machete if needed. He sighs in relief as he nods and returns his attention to you. No bites, you think. You close your eyes and rest your head back onto the pharmacy floor.

“Keep the pressure on,” Joel instructs with a nod. You lazily whisper “Yes, sir,” back as your adrenaline begins to wear off. Your pain receptors begin to signal your brain. You press against your chest as you let out sharp breaths. Joel attends to your leg. He quickly unbuckles his belt and pulls it from his jeans. He places it around your upper thigh and buckles it loosely. “This is gonna hurt, darlin’,” he starts as his sweet eyes look up to you. “You ready?”

You watch him with empty eyes and lean your head back onto the ground below you. You begin to shake your head furiously as you push hard against your chest with a wince. You attempt to spread the pain across your body, rather than to pinpoint it on your left leg. Joel swiftly tightens the belt above your knee. You cannot help the yell that floods your throat. Your hand forms into a fist and bangs furiously against the floor beside you. “All done,” he soothes. “It’s done. It’s done.” His nervous hand rubs against your shoulder.

“Joel,” you whisper weakly. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” he starts. The words coming out seem to be more directed to himself than you. “We just have to find some alcohol.” You attempt to rest up on your elbows. “Alcohol?” you ask as your head rushes. You will not sit idly by if there’s an opportunity to make someone laugh. He starts to chuckle as his hand rests against your cheek. “For your wounds,” he trails. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what I was thinking,” you whisper. The pressure is becoming more painful against your chest. The bleeding is not as profuse, but fuck, are you going to have scars.

“So, I’m just gonna lay here for a bit,” you start. “You should just take a little look around here.” You wave your finger as you attempt to rest back. “Oh, no you don’t,” he says as he pulls you up and drags your torso against a wall. “Sit up and stay up.” You blow a raspberry his way as you rest against the flat surface. Your attempt to pull at your shirt but it’s heavily stuck to your skin. As you slightly separate them, you feel the intense pain of oxygen hitting your cuts. You seethe out as you try not to yell.

“Lucky you, darlin’,” Joel hollers from the other side of the pharmacy. “They got a four pills of antibiotics.” You gasp dramatically. “Four whole pills?” you exaggerate your excitement. “Hey, that’s better than nothing,” he laughs as he walks back your way. “Don’t need this getting infected,” you laugh weakly. “Definitely not, that’s one of my favorite parts of you,” he states.

He kneels beside you, placing a gentle hand to your knee. “How you feeling?” he asks. You laugh, shaking your head and shrugging. “Could be better,” you joke. He smiles as he hooks your arm around his shoulder. You wince as you stand. Breathing out sharply as you lean deeper into him. He smells good. How did you not know he smells good? A smile forms across his face as he enjoys your head resting against his chest.

“How ‘bout we find Ellie?” Joel asks with a comforting grin. You look into those sweet eyes before he pulls away. You realize in that moment that you don’t want to go another day without seeing that smile.

note: oh, i'ma do more. writing zombie/infected apocalypse stories are my fucking jam. hope y'all will join along.

taglist: @fan-fiction-floozy, @dirtydianaahah

reblogs are much appreciated! feel free to comment or message if you’d like to join a tag list! 🌿✨🌿

• nav • no-no plagiarism • one shot • requests open •

#joel miller fanfiction #sub joel miller #joel tlou #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel the last of us #Joel miller #the last of us fandom #hbo’s the last of us #tlou2 #tlou fanfiction #tlou hbo #tlou show #pedro pascal

109 notes · View notes

ljbrary · 5 months

Text

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @anxiety-banana HEY AB ILY I'M SORRY I KNOW YOU TAGGED ME IN THIS A MONTH AGO SO THIS IS SO LATE BUT STILL

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

101,550

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now ive been writing for the last of us but most of my fics are star wars (specifically most of them are the clone wars) and i have one six of crows fic

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

all of them are star wars fics

lean on me (but let me laugh, first)

don't fix it if it's not broken (but broken's only a point of view)

fill the hollow space with silence (and other words of comfort that aren't so comforting)

it's a process (you wouldn't understand)

it's not good grief (but it's better)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i think i get to most of them and i seriously try my best to but like i struggle with replying to even my texts irl and i have no concept of time at all (the adhd is adhd-ing unfortunately) but every single one literally makes my life

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i think either the love only lasts so long (the grief lasts longer, the guilt never leaves) or this silence hurts worse than the truth (if only you would tell it) which are quite literally the same exact situation just from different povs because i have never had an original thought in my life. it's post-mortis arc in the clone wars with anakin and ahsoka and the transparently trauma-shaped elephant in the room between them.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i honestly have no idea? so im just going to say my tlou fic statistically significant because although its bittersweet it ends with joel and ellie together and thats literally all i need to be happy at this point in my life.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

no, but i probably should.

(that was a joke. but like if i did its fine bc i have 3 brothers who've already found my ao3 and bullied me for it so the hater would prob need to get real creative after all that lmao.)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

no i dont have the executive functioning skills necessary to plan one of those out but they sound interesting.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

guys my fics aren't that good. if someone stole it they'd just return it no worries.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no i haven't but that would be sick.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

like ab said in her post, ab, ash, and i tried but it just never came to fruition but it was a fun attempt

also my older brother and i when we were younger tried to write a percy jackson fic together.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

i like found family more than romantic stuff, but if i have to choose definitely percabeth because they are the reason i have unrealistic expectations in life.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

ALL OF THEM IM SO BAD AT FINISHING THEM

16. What are your writing strengths?

thats so funny lmfao

okay but self deprecation aside idk maybe like imagery or metaphors sometimes? also apparently writing emotion ig? my english teacher in high school told me i was good at the psychological aspect of understanding a character and their actions/emotions but i don't know man

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

for starters, starting. im supremely bad at starting things. i always struggle with intros/the beginning of writing pieces. and i struggle with plotting/planning things. i also am incapable of writing genuine dialogue, every conversation i write sounds so disjointed and awkward. i also tend to focus too much on the introspective aspect of characters and forget about that irrelevant little thing called a "plot."

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i made up my own language for a few star wars fics and it was so atrocious that i can't even bring myself to reread them again so i think i'll be staying away from that one for a little while.

however if i was smart or savvy enough to pull it off i would totally do it that would be sick.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

percy jackson when i was 10 years old on wattpad. my older brother and i co-wrote the fic and then i made my friend at school edit it on the computers in the library. still have yet to live that one down.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

weighted words hurt more than loaded fists (if you know how to use them) i have a soft spot for it even though it's one of my least popular fics in terms of like hits and kudos. its just a found family (shocker, i know) modern/foster care au with rex and ahsoka. i like the imagery, metaphors, and just the vibes overall.

okay leaving this open to anyone who wants to do it!!

#fic

1 note · View note

archadianskies · 3 years

Text

wingspan

→ on Ao3

@dbhrarepairs Monday Day 1: Post-Apocalypse • Sacrifice; Hank Anderson/Rose Chapman TLOU AU

“Alice needs medicine.” It’s said in a whispered hush, paired with nervous glances over at the feverish child labouring in bed. “Her coughs are wet and her chest sounds congested.”

“Adam’s still about a week out from being able to drive back here,” Rose chews her lip, shaking her head.

“Doesn’t matter,” Hank shrugs, “I’ll make the exchange by myself.”

“No!” Her voice is stern, her gaze even moreso but she knows it won’t dissuade him. They both know this has to be done.

“Make the call. Luther can help me load up the truck and I’ll go.”

“Hank-” Kara, sweet Kara with anguish on her face weighing her down, wearier and wearier with a sick child already.

“I’ll get it done, for your little girl,” he pats her hand and there’s conflict mixed with her gratitude. “Luther will keep everyone safe here while I’m gone.”

They’re easing into winter and they all know if he doesn’t go now, there won’t be a chance later when the roads are covered in snow. Doesn’t mean Rose is any more comfortable with the plan, not when the world isn’t what it was and every single day they’re out here they know they’re all on a knife’s edge.

“The cold slows them down,” Hank tries to placate and she raises one brow and he drops that line and goes for another. “I’ll be careful.”

“You better,” Rose says firmly and eases the beanie on his head. “North’s making the drop this time.”

“Doubly, extra triple careful then,” he mutters. North’s tempestuous at the best of times, so Hank knows there won’t be any casual banter or interesting snippets of news exchanged with the goods.

Usually Josh is the one he meets with, sometimes Simon, and on that one occasion which he still is half-convinced never happened- Markus himself turned up. Jericho is one of the largest communities flourishing in the aftermath and has a functioning hospital, and the Chapman farm has, well, fresh vegetables and poultry. It’s a good relationship in this hellscape, one that gives him hope for a future.

“Truck’s all loaded,” Luther thumps the hatch as Hank makes his way over. “If you leave now you’ll make it back before nightfall. I’ll keep an eye on the house, I promise.”

Hank claps his shoulder. “Thanks Luther, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Thank you,” the man murmurs, his voice more like a deep rumble in that broad chest. “Thank you for doing this for us.”

“Hey, I’d do anything for her,” it’s the goddamn truth and he isn’t too proud to admit it. “I’d do anything for any of you.”

“Be safe,” Luther squeezes his arm. “It’s your turn to read to Alice tonight, remember?”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

He pulls out of the driveway, sparing Luther one last glance in the rearview mirror before it’s just him and the road and all the thoughts he tries so desperately to keep at bay. It’s been ten years since the outbreak, ten whole years since that cursed day he held Cole as his son bled out in his arms. It’s been nearly five years since Rose Chapman found him, half mad with grief and nearly feral with hunger yet too stubborn to die.

He doesn’t really remember the years between Cole’s death and him wandering onto the outskirts of Rose’s farm. She’d saved him, continues to save him day in and day out because he has a purpose here, he matters here, and there are people here he’d kill to protect.

Once the initial wave was over, once the violence cannibalised itself, people did what people do best- they come together, they rebuild, they reconcile, they strive forward. It doesn’t mean it’s completely safe, it doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing, but Hank can see a future now where he couldn’t see one before.

*~*

There’s three kids walking along the tree line; it’s a blink and miss situation, but he definitely didn’t miss it. Three kids, all alone, heading somewhere but nowhere close enough they’ll make it by nightfall. Ah shit. Hank pulls over and the kids are smart enough to dart for cover.

“You kids alright?” He takes out his gun and sweeps his gaze around, trying to spot any infected who might be lurking nearby.

“We’re alright!” One of them calls out.

“Shut up Connor!” One of them hushes the one named Connor.

“It’s only a couple of hours until sundown and there’s no camp you can reach safely on foot in time,” Hank approaches slowly, keeping his voice low. He sees them now, all three of them, skinny boys in ill fitting clothing with backpacks too big for them.

One of them has a bandaid stuck to an old crusted wound right in the middle of his forehead. The other has a bandage wrapped around his forearm, brown with age. And the last one is pointing a gun at him.

“We said we are alright.” The one holding a gun says icily. He can’t be more than ten, yet the look in his eyes says everything; the boy has been through things a ten year old shouldn’t have, but then the same could be said about most children in this hellscape.

“Two of you are hurt. I’m going to Jericho and-”

“Jericho?” The one named Connor perks up. “We’re going to Jericho!”

“Shut up Connor!” The other says exasperatedly, and Hank can see they’re identical twins with the only difference to be found in their expressions.

“I can take you there. Plenty of room in the truck.”

“What will it cost us?” The one with the gun demands, and Hank shakes his head.

“Nothin’. I just don’t want you boys out here all alone, especially once it gets dark and the temperature plummets,” he tries to reason with them, but can’t fault them for their caution.

“We managed to make camp just fine,” one of the twins says stubbornly but Hank can see it, can see that small hopeful expression he’s trying so desperately to mask.

“I’m sure you did, and I’m sure you can tonight. You just shouldn’t have to, that’s all,” he gestures at his truck. “This way’s pretty deserted but Jericho’s much safer and the truck’s much faster than going on foot. What do you say?”

“If you try something funny, Ronan will shoot you,” the stubborn twin threatens, and Hank nods.

“Alright.”

It’s a tight squeeze but three boys under ten are about the size of one grown man so it spares Hank the effort of rearranging the produce on the back. There’s a blanket Kara crocheted on one of the seats, and he tucks it over them and doesn’t miss the way they snuggle closer, huddling for warmth.

“Is Jericho nice? How long have you lived there?” Connor asks after a while.

“Jericho is very nice. It’s big and safe and there’s other kids in there too,” Hank explains, “but I don’t live there. I live on a farm down the other way, and we supply vegetables and chickens to them in exchange for meds and materials and shi- stuff.”

“You’re making an exchange now?” The one named Ronan asks quietly, the gun still held tightly in his hands now resting on his lap.

“Yeah, uh, Alice, a little girl about your age, she’s sick,” Hank spares them a glance. “Her cough’s getting pretty bad so we’re hoping to get some meds to help.”

“Maybe they’ll have something for me there?” Connor says so softly Hank barely hears him.

“Are you sick? What do you think you need? I’m sure they’ll have it there.”

“You’re not sick!” The other twin hisses, and Connor huffs stubbornly.

“That’s the problem Sean, and maybe that’s why I need help!”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” Hank looks over at them and both boys click their jaws shut and refuse to meet his gaze.

“It’s fine,” Ronan says, the ice back in his tone. “We just need to get to Jericho.”

They spend the rest of the drive in silence, and Hank’s glad when the large gates loom up on the horizon. He doesn’t drive up to the main entrance, but takes a side road and stops the truck by a clearing where there’s another car waiting.

“Hey Hank,” the redhead greets with a lazy wave, leaning against the trunk.

“Hey North,” he nods respectfully as he kills the engine and hops out.

“Oh,” she blinks in surprise, “new survivors?”

“Yeah I picked ‘em up on the way,” Hank gestures over at them before busying himself with removing the tarp over the cargo. “They were headed this way so I thought I’d get ‘em here safely.”

“Doc will want to check them over,” North looks at the boys and Connor is the only one who offers a wave. “It’s just protocol of course.”

“They’ll need her help anyway- Sean has that wound on his forehead and Connor has the bandage on his arm,” Hank looks over his shoulder at the boys. “Blood looks old but it can’t hurt to give it a once over and a dressing change.”

“And the other one who looks ready to murder me?”

“That’s Ronan. He’s holding a gun.”

“Clever boy,” North smirks, coming around to the driver’s side and peeking in through the open door. “You boys want to come stay here with us, you have to get checked by the Doc first okay?”

“Okay,” they chorus obediently and Hank finds himself grinning helplessly.

“Got the meds and some honest to god wool yarn for Kara,” North informs him as she loads up a crate onto the back. “Otto farm about six hours away made the exchange and I kept a couple of skeins for her.”

“She’ll love that, thanks North,” he pats the crate happily. “And we all profit it from it, so…”

“It’s more an investment than a gift,” she grins before beckoning to the brothers. “Alright kiddos let’s go. Come in and grab a coffee Hank, while the guys unload the rest and refuel.”

“You’re a saint, thanks.”

*~*

Jericho is a nice place. It’s a really really nice place. It’s full of life and learning and healing. No matter how hard others try to take this place for themselves, no matter how much violence they try and inflict, the sheer resilience of its people keeps the place running. That, and well, having nearly an entire SWAT team complete with a Captain in residence can’t hurt.

Far better, kinder, saner team than the rabid FBI team led by Prickins from a few years back who tried to destroy Jericho and take it for themselves. The whole debacle saw over half of Jericho burned to the ground and dozens slaughtered.

It’s when he and Rose took in Kara and her family, because the sheer trauma was too much for Alice to process and she could never return. Adam stayed on as a nurse and found his calling. It feels like a lifetime ago too.

He takes his coffee over to the little clinic at the side entrance where newcomers are screened because he wants to make sure the boys are alright.

“This is a burn,” Adam frowns as he inspects the wound on Sean’s forehead. “How did you get this?”

The boy doesn’t answer, looking over nervously as doctor Anthea unwraps the bandage from Connor’s arm.

“Oh my god-”

“Fuck!” The expletive leaves his mouth before he can stop himself.

“It’s three weeks old we swear!” Connor cries, nursing his arm to his chest, tears in his eyes. “It’s three weeks old!”

Before Hank can comment any further he’s being slammed to the wall, North placing a gun under his jaw. “You brought a fucking kid with a bite into Jericho and expected to leave him here?!”

“I didn’t-”

“He didn’t know!” Ronan shouts, clenching his trembling hands into fists. “We didn’t tell him in case he left us behind!”

“He should’ve left you behind!” North growls.

“It’s old,” Anthea raises her voice. “The teeth indentations have healed over. This is new scar tissue right here.” She’s gently tracing the mark on Connor’s arm, the boy’s bottom lip trembling as tears spill down his cheeks.

“How the fuck is that possible?” North steps away and lowers her gun, too shocked to be angry now it seems. “Everyone who’s ever been bitten turns after eight hours at the most.”

“He must be immune, then,” Anthea smiles in disbelief as she smooths Connor’s hair away from his face. “You are one of a kind, Connor.”

“We keep him in holding overnight,” North declares, crossing her arms over her chest. “Just to be sure.”

“No, you keep us together!” Sean spits, fuming at the mere suggestion of separation.

“I don’t have time for that, I have to get back to Alice!” Hank argues and North cocks her brow.

“No one’s asking you to stay, Hank, you can go.”

“Bullshit! I’m not letting you lock up these kids outside of Jericho’s walls!”

“You can go, you got us to Jericho, you don’t need to do anything else!” Ronan adds and oh Hank can see it, Hank can see the fear of being left alone in those big grey eyes.

“I’ll go, I know the way,” Adam offers, holding his hand out for the keys. “It’s my home, after all. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“I’ll spend the night in holding, then,” Hank nods as he hands over the keys to the truck. “Tell Alice I’m sorry I’ll miss storytime.”

“You spend the night in holding,” North orders as takes his gun from the table and presses it back into his hand, “and you put him down yourself if he turns.”

“And then us too,” Ronan says in a voice so steady, so resigned for a child. “If you shoot him, you have to shoot us too.”

“It won’t come to that,” Hank says firmly.

“For everyone’s sake, I hope you’re right,” Anthea runs her fingers over the bite on Connor’s arm again before gently thumbing away his tears. “I guess we shall see in the morning, hm?”

The holding area must have been a security control room at some point. It’s now been caged by wire completely, with a chained and padlocked gate. He must be losing what little sanity he has left, but at least he’s not losing his compassion. No way in hell he’s about to abandon three boys to an uncertain fate, no matter how brave they’re trying to be.

“You could’ve gone back to the farm,” Ronan points out as Connor curls up on the lumpy mattress under the covers with his twin.

“Yeah I know,” Hank shrugs, nursing his coffee mug. Simon had left them with provisions to last the night, including a large thermos of coffee because he’s an angel in this apocalyptic hellscape.

“What if we’re lying and Connor turns and kills you?” Sean demands, though it’s not so effective given Connor’s clinging to him tiredly.

“Then I’d die,” Hank offers them the soup thermos. “Alice is still getting her medicine tonight, so that’s perfectly fine.”

“Don’t you have family at the farm?” Ronan accepts the thermos and pours out a cupful, handing it straight to Connor.

“Losing me won’t be that big a loss for them.”

“That’s a lie! Everyone has someone who’d miss them!” Connor shouts, nearly spilling the soup in his outburst. Hank admits defeat there. Rose would miss him, he thinks, because she’s all heart and soul.

She took him in when he was a husk of a man and together with Adam they toiled and tilled the land, took in every broken survivor and sent them on their way to Jericho with a full belly and provisions to spare. And Hank shot anyone who ever dared to raise their hand against Rose because people like that, greedy fuckers who want to take and take, have no place in this new world.

“What happened to you boys out there? What happened three weeks ago?” It’s The Question and no one seems to want to answer it.

“We wanted to go to the stream to see the fish,” Ronan eventually starts quietly. “We snuck out because Amanda didn’t give her permission.”

“It’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have insisted,” Connor stares into the soup as if it could offer comfort. “I just really wanted to see them.”

“We didn’t see the infected one until it was too late and it bit Connor,” Ronan reaches over to hold his hand. “We tried to hide it but it was bleeding a lot and Amanda heard us in the bathroom getting the first aid kit.”

There’s a pause and Hank realises Sean hasn’t said a single word, resolutely avoiding everyone’s gaze.

“She dragged Connor out the back and-” Ronan falters, pressing his lips into a tight line as he darts a look at Sean. “She gave Sean a gun and told him to shoot Connor as punishment for sneaking out.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hank swears, recoiling in horror and it makes sense now; the small burn mark on his forehead is from the shell casing hitting him.

“She made you do it, Sean, I don’t hate you!”

“Well you should!” Sean yells. “You should because I pulled the trigger!”

“She made you do it!” His twin insists, squeezing his hand. “She made you and if you didn’t she would’ve killed you!”

“So I killed her,” Ronan says evenly, as if he’s simply stating the sky is indeed blue. “I took the gun from Sean after he missed, and I shot her in the chest and after she fell over I shot her in the head.” Ronan looks at him defiantly. “So we’re fine. We can look after ourselves, you don’t have to care about us.”

Hank slowly sinks to his knees, taking the cup of soup from Connor and setting it aside before gently gathering the boy into his arms and reaching for the other two. He’s a big guy, he has enough wingspan for all three, and he enfolds them in as tight a hug as he can manage and that’s it, that’s what sends the last of their defences tumbling down. They cry loudly, the trauma of it all finally being given a proper outlet and he holds them and he vows to himself that he’s never letting them go. There will be no more Amandas in their life, not now, not ever again.

“Takes us with you,” Connor sobs. “Don’t leave us here.”

“We’re leaving once Adam gets back. All of us,” Hank promises. “I’m never letting you out of my sight.”

He’s used to watching the dawn, used to getting up this early now to feed the chickens and collect the eggs. He’s even used to waking up with a child still fast asleep on him, now that Alice treats him like a grandfather. There’s something different about this moment, though, with all three boys snuggled against him.

There’s something hopeful about this because it’s eight hours later and he’s still whole and alive and unbitten. And that means Connor is indeed immune. With Sean being an identical twin, that means he too could carry the natural immunity. The hope of the entire world, fast asleep in his arms. It’s a beautiful sentiment.

“Good morning Hank,” greets a voice at the gate and there’s Mister Markus Manfred himself; Jericho’s saviour and leader. “It’s good to see you.”

“Is Adam here yet?”

“Not yet,” the man shakes his head. “But Simon made breakfast for you and the boys. They’ll have a room near the creche with the other children, and we can get them settled in afterward.”

“We’ll have breakfast, and then as soon as Adam gets back, we’re heading for the farm,” he meets Markus’ gaze steadily. “They’re not staying.”

“Hank, Dr Anthea told me Connor is immune. That means we could work towards developing a vaccine.”

“You still can,” he shrugs as best he can with three sleeping kids piled on him. “We can make the trip every weekend. But these boys are coming home with me.”

Markus looks at him, scrutinising him, and Hank can see both the leader and the saviour at work, weighing up the pros and cons and trying to find the common ground for the greater good. Hank would never want to be in his shoes, no sir, no thank you.

“Breakfast, then?” Markus smiles one of his charming presidential smiles as he unlocks the gate and gestures towards the entrance. “Simon made pancakes and we cut up some of the strawberries you brought over from the farm.”

“Pancakes?” Connor stirs sleepily, rubbing his eyes and there it is, there’s the bite on his arm, three weeks and one day older.

“Yeah kiddo, pancakes for breakfast before we head home.”

“Home,” Ronan echoes with a soft smile.

“We’ll be good, we’ll help out on the farm and work extra hard,” Sean whispers nervously, and Hank runs a hand through his sleep-tousled hair.

“I know you will.”

Connor and Sean Dechart are ten years old- very nearly almost eleven, Connor points out. Ronan Dechart turned nine two weeks ago, a birthday forgotten entirely in the struggle to survive so Hank makes note to bake a cake. Their parents had died in the initial outbreak, and Professor Amanda Stern had taken them in after finding them hiding at the nearby university where she taught. The story unfolds on the drive back to the farm and the more he learns about their time with Amanda the more he’s glad Ronan shot her and shot her again.

Luther greets them on the driveway, Alice bundled up in a thick down jacket and blanket sitting on his arm. She waves enthusiastically, cheeks rosy and smile bright and Hank feels his heart squeeze in his chest at the sight. Rose is standing on the porch and she’s giving him A Look and he wants to say sorry reflexively but he’s not actually sorry for anything.

Alice takes Connor’s hand and drags him inside, the boys trailing, and she announces loudly that she’s giving them the grand tour. Luther claps him on the shoulder before following Alice.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Rose sighs heavily as she pours him a generous mug of freshly brewed coffee. Her tone is reprimanding, but there’s something fond in her eyes as they take a seat at the dining table.

“I couldn’t leave them,” he shakes his head. “Not out there on their own, and not even at Jericho. Not after all the shit they’ve been through.”

“Because you’re a parent, Hank,” she says it so softly, so gently and his breath hitches in his throat. “You’re a father. It’s just what you do. It’s just who you are.”

“They’ve been through hell, and they deserve better. They deserve a second chance.” His vision blurs as he raises his head and looks at you. “You taught me that.”

“I did, and now you’re teaching them that,” Rose is smiling, a big radiant smile and he can’t help but lean over to kiss that beautiful smile. As far as second chances go, he reckons this is about as perfect as it gets.

#Hank Anderson #rose chapman #connor rk800 #rk800 60 #rk900 #Detroit: Become Human #detroit become dad #dbhrarepairsweek #tlou au #annie writes: dbh

20 notes · View notes

mellow-em · 3 years

Text

Bedlam (Sam Drake)

PROLOGUE: ALL GONE

The life she had built in only a year had disintegrated, and she was set on her stubborn mindset of finding her purpose away from Jackson.

I DO NOT OWN ANY TLOU OR UNCHARTED CHARACTERS! ALL RIGHTS GO TO NAUGHTY DOG!

(This is a tlou x uncharted crossover. It’s set in tlou universe, but its a fic between an oc of mine, and Sam! I’m not sure how this is gonna turn out so please bear with me)

Chapter 1

_________________________________

Jackson, Wyoming

______________________

His face was illegible beyond compare, signifying my speculations were true. My recollection of the previous year had felt feverish now, as if I couldn’t graze my fingers on the memories we held between each of us.

“You’re fucking lying.”

Denial.

He lowers his head, only showing the textured black hair, that glistened with flecks of grey and white. His shameful stature made my fists clench beside me. If I didn’t know any better, I would collide them with his face; a face that held floods of imperfections already.

The pitiful man that stood before me couldn’t even relay a word out into the open. He remained mute, and shook his head at the ground.

I hadn’t realised my breath was held at my throat, creating a hoarse sensation that began choking me. I was drowning in the searing atmosphere around the both of us, as it was anything but tranquil.

Regardless of my state of pure vexation though, I took it upon myself to suck in a breath of dry air, only to release it in a huff. I mirror his actions as well, bowing my head to take in the details of my shoes.

We had found these a few months back, along with some for Ellie. Her harsh aura had been flipped as soon as I presented her with the idea that we would have matching pairs of sneakers. It was the smallest of gestures, but it was done at a time of hope.

This version of hope so happened to be revived ten times greater than before, when we finally reached our goal given to us a year prior. But now, I finally realize that it was false hope.

With my reclaimed memories flooding back, a final statement replayed in my mind: If the fate of Ellie and I had looked like this before, I would have turned my back on the journey immediately.

“After everything we’ve done,” I felt the salt-tasting droplets of tears fall from my eyes, and down my reddened cheeks as I looked up at the selfish bastard I thought I knew, “after everything Ellie’s gone through, she-” I quickly lowered my head again, suffocating from my own words.

I sat myself down on the steps of his home. It had become habitual for me to reside at his place ever since we made it back to Jackson. Sitting on his porch, with a plate of food in our laps as we talked endlessly began to give me a form of peace after our horrific adventures across the country.

Now, it felt like I was stuck in a sustained deception of what I thought was a simmering hush from reality.

With my head in my hands I let out a soft stifle of a cry, as I sat there in complete disbelief.

Then my heartbeat fastened, and my rapid movements from my anxieties stopped as I realised something.

“Ellie doesn’t know… does she?” my voice was delicate, but it still held every sparing trace of anger sternly.

The silence continued to speak the answers for him, giving my hunch an even bigger victory. I truly didn’t want to believe this.

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god,” I groaned in agony as I stumble off the steps, feeling the sheer pain overwhelming me.

I clutched my chest as I felt it ring itself out, creating a boulder of tension within my entire body. I stood in the middle of his lawn, hyperventilating from the truth bearing its sharp daggers deep into my frame. The world around me was spiraling out of control, causing my balance to falter slightly.

This resulted in him rushing to my aid, but we damn well knew I didn’t want it. As soon as his hand grazed my arm, I swatted it away harshly, and twisted my body to face his worrisome one.

The developing resentment I had for him was far from dwindled, staying true within my eyes as I bored my stare into his. As I looked into his hazel ones, I could see each memory through them; the good and bad.

Floods pricked at my waterline again as I stared him down. Keeping myself contained from lashing out was becoming harder with each passing minute.

That was when one final memory was displayed through his dilated pupils.

The words replayed within my head.

“Swear to the both of us that everything you said about the fireflies is true.”

“I swear.”

Actuality set in again as I felt his hands gently caress my shoulders. The touch created fumes of heat that set themselves off completely, and my exasperation manipulated my system. I hadn’t realized I had my hands clenched in tight fists again until one finally met his face. Maybe I didn’t know any better.

He stumbled back slightly, his hand jerking its way to hold his pained cheek. He now had a wave of anger across his features, with his hardened attitude spiraling as much as mine.

Only my excuse wasn’t as far fetched as his must have been.

I tried to keep a firm stance, even with the overwhelming feeling of unconsciousness threatening the adrenaline and I.

I still kept my fists clenched at my sides, with my knuckles fading into a white color,“You’re fucking selfish, and I hope you fucking know that.”

He mimicked my demeanor, as he stepped over to me. The closer he got, his frame began to tower over me. Though if his plan was to intimidate, he should know by now that it doesn’t work on me anymore.

“I did what I needed, to save you both.” His venomous, southern tone reverberated down to me, while his words contradicted it.

“Save us? “I laughed sarcastically, with a malicious hue coating me. I began to pace back and forth in front of him as I spoke, “Is that what were calling mass murder of the innocent these days? I suppose that goes for lying and manipulation too?”

“Kate-”

“Joel.”

His name drenched my mouth in poison.

Joel let out a heavy sigh, from what seemed to be frustration, while I wiped my tear-stained face aggressively.

He brings his hand to his face once more, stroking his unkempt beard while looking away. I held my gaze on him however, draining every last second I needed to be around him for.

An uneasy feeling began to settle within the pit of my stomach; I knew exactly what it was about.

I couldn’t bear to stay here any longer. This truth made the relationship I had with him, and life in Jackson unsalvageable. There was something pulling on my arm, however.

It was the thought of abandoning Ellie, knowing damn well I couldn’t do such a thing to her without letting her know. It would haunt me.

But, I wasn’t going to sit here while people were perishing by the second. I wasn't going to pretend life could feel normal again, regardless of my urge to live in such a fantasy. It may be something I wanted, but not something I needed.

I knew for a fact that Ellie would feel the same if she knew the truth, but for once, I wanted the kid to live in this unrealistic version of tranquility; she needed to try an experience of what her teenage years could be like, even if it’s fucked up to extremes.

It wasn’t long before my contemplative thoughts were put to rest as Joel’s voice rang in my ear. I sigh, transferring my focus onto him. I knew what needed to be done.

“Kate, listen I-”

“Ellie,” I gulp down the saliva building up in my mouth, “I need you to take care of her.”

His face was glistening with confusion now.

“And tell Tommy and Maria I said thank you for letting me stay here.”

“Kate what the hell are you on abo-”

“I’m leaving,” I direct my eyes to the mountains beyond the borders of Jackson, crossing my arms in front of me, “I should be gone long before sunrise, so.”

I glance at Joel without moving my head, and see his face noticeably falling as the words fell from my lips. Silence tore a hole within us for a short time, only for Joel to be the first to speak.

“Do I need to remind you what is out there?”

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, Joel, I can take care of myself just fine.”

I begin to walk past him fixing my attention to gathering my shit, and getting the hell out of here. Though, Joel’s hand firmly grabs at my wrist, halting my attentiveness to the steps of the house ahead of me.

I yank my arm back to its rightful place at my side, shooting him a final look.

“Goodbye, Miller. Don’t come looking for me.”

I then walk myself into the house, deserting the former smuggler out in his front yard.

____________________

The life within the town had lessened to the hidden infestations of crickets that were scattered throughout, and the sounds of my converse crunching the textured, dirt paths of Jackson.

There was a slight alteration to the electrical systems around here, leaving the barbed wire on one section of the fence to loose its function; along with sneaking past guards, it was the perfect getaway without getting noticed.

Before even reaching a few yards towards the fence, I remember something. I still had one last thing I needed to do before returning to the life away from here.

I exhale a large puff of air in frustration, and turn back towards the direction I had come from. I reach into my jacket pocket, just to be sure I had what I needed.

My hands held a letter, along with a worn out, yet surprising functional cassette. As I ventured down the roads, the written prompts from the letter replay.

Ellie,

I wanted to give you a proper goodbye, but it just wasn’t possible.

I’m sure you’ll be wondering where I have run off to, and why I won’t be in bed when you go to rudely wake me up by jumping on me.

I’m leaving Jackson. I have some personal things that have been eating at me, and I need to sort them out myself. I told Joel to watch over you, and make sure you live as much as possible.

I’m not just talking about breathing. I need you to live your life up in Jackson as much as you can.

You deserve more happiness than anyone on this earth, Els.

And speaking of, I know you loved the song I sang to you at the bonfire the first night we were here. I found this a long time ago even before I met you and Joel. Consider it a very early birthday gift from me.

I love you kiddo.

-Kit

I felt something wet trickling down my face, only for me to abruptly swipe them off my scar-stained complexion.

I soon made it back to square one, making sure I remained quiet so both Ellie and Joel continued to sleep. If it were other situations, I wouldn’t mind too much. But I couldn’t face either of them any longer, as cowardice as it is.

I twist the doorknob to Ellie’s place, begging for it to be unlocked. Luck was my side, with the handle gently twisting with my hand.

With a few swift motions, I sneak myself in, silently closing the door with delicacy so Ellie wouldn’t wake up.

Her room was just coming together from it’s appearance; her worn furniture had been disarray across the wooden floors, along with several new articles of clothing scattered throughout the room.

My eyes wandered to the posters plastered across the walls, that I assume were freshly hung up. It was beginning to look like the small garage was home to Ellie, making my anxieties for her adjustments here less of an issue than before.

My attention finally directed itself to her frail stature, cuddled in a bed much larger than her. If it was possible, she could get lost in a bed like that due to her small frame.

She had a quilted blanket lazily draped over her, and a wide range of pillows supporting her head. She had been facing away from me, but I knew she was sleeping with her mouth open, as I could here the loud sounds of her breathing.

I smiled, wishing I was able to stifle a laugh without releasing her from her slumber. She had always been one to leave her mouth hanging open as she slept. The result was constant bantering between me poking fun, and her becoming defensive.

Our relationship had developed so well over time, and it had begun to feel like she was my daughter. My other half.

My smile immediately dropped as I dragged myself back into reality, and the reason why I was even here in the first place. I needed to do this, for myself and for her. I shook my head from its thoughts, and started for the direction of Ellie.

I made sure to walk to her bedside table as quietly as my frantic self could, hoping I didn’t disrupt her sound sleep. With each step closer to her, I held my breath, hesitant to even do this at this point.

As soon as I make it to her, I took in the features grazed upon her round head; her large cheeks sat with a shade of pink coating them, along with her freckles overriding her paler skin. Her eyes were closed gently, with her brows flatlined.

She was so peaceful when she slept.

I took out the letter and cassette from my pockets, gracefully placing them both on the table without a trace of a blare.

I held my fingertips on the letter, as if I were glued to the rustic piece of paper. I was hesitating again, so it was time for a push.

I released my hand from it, and turned to Ellie. Before I could even think, I leaned towards her, and kissed her temple weakly, and backed away.

As I had done before I went to the door with as little sound following me as possible, and twisted the knob of the entryway.

The door was open now, blowing the soft, night winds onto my face as if it were patches of silk.

As a final goodbye, I mentally threw a farewell into the open, as I gazed at my surrogate daughter one final time. Before I could shed a singular tear, I rushed out of there as fast as I could, releasing the tension-building breath I had forgot to unleash before.

“I’m sorry.” I mumbled, with my voice becoming fragile as I spoke two final words in Jackson.

It was time to walk away.

As I venture back towards the fence as stealthily as I could, another set of Joel’s wise words skipped on a countless loop in my thoughts.

“No matter what, you keep finding something to fight for.”

I needed to search for my own answers, whatever they were.

This was, and still is something to fight for.

I’m sorry.

17 notes · View notes

technoskittles · 5 years

Text

Catradora fic rec list

I mentioned making one of these awhile ago and I’m finally sitting down and compiling some of my all-time favorite fics. I’ve read a lot (like, a LOT), but I feel like a few of those really deserve an extra shout out.

I’ll separate them between multi-chap and one shots, but other than that they won’t be in any particular order. I’ll also try my best to tag the authors here on tumblr if I can find them, but if not, just lemme know if you see your fic and I can edit this later.

I’ll also be including ratings/word count/trigger warnings/etc

(I’ll mostly be including common tw’s so please make sure you also read the tags for anything that may affect you personally! Also, if I miss any, please keep in mind that it’s been awhile since I’ve read some of these so I may not remember all of them!)

Key:

[E] - Explicit

[M] - Mature

[T] - Teen & Up Audiences

[G] - General Audiences

And for the multi-chap fics:

(O) - Ongoing

(F) - Finished

(?) - Not finished and they haven’t updated in awhile so the author probably died

So let’s get started! (Get ready for a long post obviously)

Multi-chap fics:

1. upper west side by ceruleanstorm (F) [T] ~190,000 words

TW: past child abuse, alcohol abuse

@princessofgayskull

I feel like this is definitely one of the top must-reads for all Catradora fanfics. I know I’ve seen this on a couple different lists but I’m including it on mine as well because it really is just that good.

The chapters are lengthy (but in a good way!) and the story really takes its time to flesh itself out. The character development of the characters as individuals is beautifully done and wonderfully realistic. The pacing of the development of Catra and Adora’s relationship is also sweetly slow, a steady slowburn that invokes that deep-rooted yearning feeling mirrored by the characters themselves.

It’s a really clever premise that takes place in the modern world but implements the canon universe in the form of the book that Adora’s writing that ties back to her and Catra’s shared childhood. The way that aspects of the show were revamped into this fic are so creative and I just....ugh. LOVE.

This fic also has a oneshot compilation that takes place after the events of the final chapter which is currently ongoing and I HIGHLY suggest checking that out as well once you’ve finished this.

The sister fic for those interested: she’s god (and I found her) (O) [T] ~40,000 words

2. The Devil Is In (The Details) by SeasInkarnadine (O) [M] ~58,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, child abuse, emotional abuse, use of recreational drugs, Major Character Death

@seasinkarnadine

This is a really great fic where Adora is an undercover cop who sidles her way into one of the largest gang syndicates to bust whoever killed Hordak, a big gang leader and drug trafficker, whose death was originally ruled as an accidental overdose. Her and Catra (one of the gang members) both know foul play was involved and work together to figure out the truth.

The dynamics between these two is so casual and hilarious but still has those gut-wrenching moments that really ground you and realize that their relationship is dysfunctional on a few levels. The exploration of Adora’s conflicting feelings towards Catra hurt in such a good way as she realizes that she does genuinely care for Catra, but also is aware that what she’s doing will eventually screw her over and land her in jail. It’s the best kind of underlying angst and I highly recommend it.

Another really great selling point that I particularly love is that Adora is deaf in this AU and the author really shows this in such a realistic and natural way that shows she really knows what she’s talking about. It makes the dynamic between the two even more interesting considering that Catra also knows sign language which give the two a lot of moments of mutual understanding that doesn’t extend to the other characters. It’s something that the two of them have that’s sort of just for them to be on that level of understanding and it’s so great.

Also, Morgan is just a great writer in general and I highly suggest checking out more of her stuff (her art too!). She’s one of the writers I’ve looked up to since my beginning days in the fandom and it’s still amazing seeing all the great stuff she puts out.

3. Skinny Love by Maychup (O) [M] ~100,000 words

TW: past child abuse

@maychup

Another staple of big fics in the catradora fandom but for good reason. This fic is a wonderful exploration of events taking place after S1 illustrating Catra & Adora’s relationship in a different path that the rest of the show takes. It focuses heavily on their past experiences with each other and how that affects their current situation being on opposite sides of the war.

This fic is older, published just after S1, so canon divergence is an important aspect of its build. But the way the story is written is so beautiful and grounded that it’s still interesting even now knowing what really happens in the show.

Their dynamic is kind of back-and-forth, with Catra figuring out what Adora means to her and vice versa and where the two of them want to go from that point. It has so many sweet moments and steamy ones as well (btw, there’s a lot of smut) and the exploration into each of the character’s pysches is so compelling and intriguing.

4. Faded With Feelings by yesimgay (F) [T] ~24,000 words

TW: recreational drug use

This was such a cute, short multi-chap fic. It’s a bit older but I think it’s still one of my top faves.

A modern au, Catra & Adora are roommates post-college and trying to make their way in the adulting world. Catra has ADHD and smokes weed to help with that. One day Adora accidentally eats a couple of her edibles and cute shenanigans ensue. And that’s just the first two chapters.

The rest of the fic goes on to the girls figuring out their feelings for each other, especially Adora who, in this case, isn’t really sure of her sexuality. All-in-all, a really cute fic that’s a nice break from all the angst that typically saturates the fandom.

5. Chasing the Spotlight by holymountain (?) [T] ~20,000 words

This is an AU where Adora is hired to be Catra’s, a pop singer, bodyguard. There’s so many cute moments in this, though admittedly it’s been about 6 months since it’s last updated so be sure to keep that in mind.

6. we’ve been making shades of purple out of red and blue by darklady21 (?) [t] ~24,000 words

An “and they were ROOMMATES” au. In this one though, Catra and Adora don’t actually know each other and really only get to know each other over time. It’s cute and has a lot of interesting interactions between the two, but it hasn’t updated in about 7 months.

7. Tuning Out by FaiaHae (?) [T] ~2500 words

I actually really loved the whole concept of this fic but it hasn’t updated in like, an entire year so...only read if you’re okay with the fact that it probably won’t ever be finished haha

8. burnt sugar by jeserai (O) [G] ~11,000 words

@jeserai

Oh god YES this fic. The classic “fake dating” au except Catra is a rich kid inheriting a business who essentially hires Adora, a broke college student, to go on a date with her to this big business function. There’s not a lot to say about it other than that without giving too much away, but the fic is about halfway done at this point so it’s a pretty short read as of now.

Just be warned, it’s currently on a MASSIVE cliffhanger so if you wanna wait until it updates I totally understand lol

9. still waters by summerson (O) [M] ~28,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, self harm

A “The Last of Us” AU. Personally, I’m not super familiar with TLOU because I could never get into the game myself, but this fic is so well done and the writing style is so interesting and well-executed that I still love this fic to bits. But obviously, for those of you who are aware of TLOU, you already know that this fic is going to contain quite the fair share of angst so be ready.

10. Whispering Dreams by dragonesdepapel (F) [T] ~7500 words

It’s been awhile since I’ve read this one so I don’t remember everything, but I do remember really enjoying the writing style and the construction of this fic. It’s a short read, but it’s totally worth it

11. please could you be tender by erce3 (F) [G] ~40,000 words

@figbian

please please PLEASE go read this fic. I’m actually begging y’all to go read this one I loved it so much it’s still one of my top 10 faves out there.

This fic is set in a modern setting where Adora & Catra were childhood friends and are in college and god it’s just SO. GOOD. The writing style and composition of the flashbacks with the present events is so beautifully done and organized and I really cannot hype this fic up enough GO READ IT

12. buried a hatchet (it’s coming up lavendar) by erce3 (O) [G] ~12,000 words

on the note of that last rec, I highly rec their other work which is currently in progress. It takes place after S3 but it’s an exploration on if Catra and Adora got trapped in the portal instead of Angella and FUCK this person is genuinely amazing go read their stuff

13. Senior Year by SimplyAbsolute (O) [E] ~98,000 words

@simplyabsolute

This is a really cute fic about Adora and Catra in their final year of college and I guess for me personally it really just hits hard because I’m also in my final year of college lol. But really, it’s a great fic and I suggest checking it out. It’s actually only got one more chapter left too so it’s almost done!

14. Assassinating Adora by Wicked42 (F) [T] ~13,000 words

@wicked-42

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Jeez this fic was a real rollercoaster of emotions. I loved every bit of it.

Basically, some people try to assassinate Adora and Catra stops one of them, but both girls are still inflicted by the poison and....it just gets crazier from there. Don’t wanna spoil it too much but this is a must-read for sure.

And this one may seem like cheating but I’m gonna plug one of my own multi-chap fics here

15. Pure Feeling (O) [T] ~30,000 words

TW: brief mention of sexual assault in Ch 5

This is a modern AU set after all the kids have been out of college for a few years.

Adora and Catra were childhood friends but ended up drifting apart and falling out during their college years. Fast forward about 6 years and they run into each other again, except now Adora has a daughter and is struggling to balance her life as a single mother. Overtime the two girls work on rebuilding their friendship and somewhere along the way might even realize that they’re feelings for each other never really went away. But of course, like all things in life, this isn’t an easy process and they run into more than a few complications - internal and external.

One Shots:

(there’s so many of these I’ve loved so I’m really going to try and narrow it down to about 10. If yours didn’t make it, no offense! I just have WAY too many to include and this post is already so long haha)

1. The Interlude That Never Ends by FMLClexa [M] ~2500 words

TW: Major Character Death, brief mention of sexual assault

Okay I’m gonna be honest: If you ignore all the other fics on this list, READ THIS ONE. This is absolutely my #1 favorite without a doubt. It’s a soulmate/reincarnation au and it’s so wonderfully executed that I honestly cannot even begin to tell y’all how much I love this one. It’s old and one of the first fics I ever read, but it’s so timeless and excellent and I promise you won’t regret reading it. I know I’ve read this about a million times over.

It’s been a whole year and this has held my #1 fave position the entire time. READ. IT.

2. after party by summerson [M] ~2000 words

TW: recreational drug use

God this fic was so great I read it last night and I’m still in awe in how well it was written and the emotions it managed to invoke in me. My favorite scene is the part where Catra tells Adora “I love you” because it’s so raw and desperate and I vibed with it so hard. It’s really difficult trying to tell someone how much you love them with just a few simple words because they really just don’t convey how much you love them and it’s so frustrating and GAH this fic was fucking great please read it.

3. jigsaw by jeserai [G] ~2500 words

@jeserai

This fic is so great and I felt so warm inside reading it. Definitely read if you want sweet, slow friends to lovers burn.

4. Vicious by SeasInkarnadine [M] ~3500 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

I really highly recommend this one if you can get past the trigger warnings. It was so well written and very suspenseful with the juxtaposition of the timeline between current events and snippets of what had happened just hours before. But the ending is really sweet and the way that Catra cares for Adora after the whole thing squeezed my heart to pieces.

This is one I’ve read a few times over because of how much I love it. Def in my top 3.

5. Basement by spookyscaryskeletons [G] ~2800 words

This was such a great rendition of “Adora and Catra are forced to talk” and the emotions were raw and bleeding and I love the character portrayals.

6. Coming Apart by Whorls [E] ~13,000 words (or ~6,000 words each chap)

@crazy-pages

Okay this fic technically has two chapters but I’m including it here in the oneshots because the chapters are identical in the sense of story but the only difference is that in chapter one Catra is a cis woman and in chapter two she’s a trans woman pre-op. Other than that the chapters are identical so it’s mostly based off which experience you would rather have while reading.

This fic was. So. Fucking. Good. Sen did such a fantastic job with both aspects of this story and I love it to bits and pieces. The smut in the beginning is delicious as can be, but then towards the latter half it absolutely sucker punches you with feelings but in a good way. I really, really fucking love this fic and I think it needs more attention than it initially got so I’m imploring you all to please go read this fic. It’s fantastic.

7. Seconds That I Cannot Replace by Mogatrat [M] ~7800 words

TW: child abuse, underage(?)

This is a really heartbreaking fic set before canon. It’s about all the times that Catra and Adora started a romantic relationship only for Shadow Weaver to come in and ruin everything by constantly erasing and resetting Adora’s memory. I still think about this fic from time to time. Give it a go.

8. Come morning light by dragonesdepapel [T] ~1800 words

TW: Major Character Death

Another one that’s technically two chapters but it’s the same events, just covers the perspective of each girl. Adora’s dying and asks Catra to stay with her.

Basically this fic ripped my heart out and I still think about it sometimes.

9. someone you like by caela [T] ~5100 words

oh fuck me yes this fic. A modern au where Catra sorta stalks Adora on instagram and accidentally likes an old picture. Fluffiness galore.

10. When You Came Calling by ActuallyMe [E] ~5200 words

TW: Major Character Death

A 1940′s Mob AU where Catra is a private eye and Adora married high-ranking mob boss Hordak...who’s just been murdered.

Really great one shot. Personally I would’ve loved to see more come of this but it’s great on its own.

And once again, this is cheating but here’s a couple oneshots of my own that I wanna plug real quick

11. hang tight (all you) [T] ~9200 words

Modern AU fic set when Catra and Adora are in high school. Adora struggles to come to terms with her sexuality in an discouraging environment as well as the fact that she’s had a crush on her best friend since middle school. Personally I think this was one of my best works and a lot of other people seem to have liked it too so yeah!

12. as my World d[ivides] [E] ~2500 words

TW: Rape/Non-Con, Underage

One of my darker fics, but still one I’m pretty proud of. Without giving too much away, Adora suffers from a trauma and engages in unhealthy coping mechanisms and Catra enables her because no one’s taught them any different.

#she ra #spop #catra #adora #catradora #she ra and the princesses of power #fic recs #long post #thanks for hanging in with me guys #but yes I highly suggest all these fics

725 notes · View notes

danurso · 4 years

Text

About The Last of Us 2 (Spoilers)

So, i just wanted to get my opinion of this game out in some way, so i'll just put it here.

I don't think i need to say anything from a technical standpoint, the graphics of this game are insane and the gameplay works very well too.

The thing though that most packed a punch in this game was the story and the message it conveyed to the player. I'm not the best at interpretation but after thinking a lot about it, i see TLOU2 as a game about revenge, not archieving revenge but learning about how terrible it can be, and how much of a destructive cycle it is.

We have to see ellie who was our beloved kind-of-daughter in TLOU do horrible things and become a monster in sake of revenge, just as we see that abby isn't a complete monster, but just someone who has been pushed to the brink like ellie was, there are no bad guys in the story just good people forced to do bad things, and i think the game managed to convey that very well.

That being said, do i think the story was well constructed? Yes, aside from the way joel was captured and the fact that we only get to see abby's past after 10+ hours of gameplay i think it has a good structure. Do i like it? No, i absolutelly hate it.

I had really high hopes for TLOU2, i expected it to take me to a ride equally as emotional as the first one, i wanted to go through the highs and lows just like the first game, but this game was mostly just low points.

I like the first game because of how well the story managed to play with your emotions, both to make you feel good and bad, and by how it made you love joel as a character who grew during his story and ellie as her own character too, and at the end, even after what joel did, you got a bittersweet ending, knowing that even if because of a lie, he had a second chance to live out a normal life with his new daughter. The first game was so good because it didn't held back its punches but still rewarded you with sweet moments that showed that even in a post-apocaliptic world, there was still a way to have a happy life.

What did TLOU2 gave us? It took away most characters we came to love while cripling some of the few left, at the end ellie is left alone without even fulfilling her revenge, i get it, it's suposed to be a moment where you think "wow, she's alone now because she pursued revenge too much, if she hadn't done that she would have a happy life now." But it still feels terrible, this whole game is about making its characters and the player suffer as much as possible, what good moments did it had? I can only think about the flashback sequences which were honestly the best thing in this game, yeah she had some good moments with dina but if i'm being totally honest, i don't really care much for their relationship at this point, this game made the heart of the player a punching bag from start to finish, just giving us a few moments to breathe.

Also, i can't forget about abby, the game made a lot of efford to make us simpatize with her and see her as a human and a victim of joel's actions, and i think it worked to some degree, yes joel was a monster, i get why she hated him so much and why she did what she did, but i still hate her guts.

No amount of context in the world can fix my first impression of her, again, if they showed us a bit of her past beforehand and made us care about her maybe i wouldn't hate her as much as i do, but the way things are, i feel amused with her suffering, seing her cry because of the death of her father, her friends or just seeing her being screwed by the world in general gives me a twisted sense of satisfation, it feels good to see her going through all that shit after she made me go through so much as well, and its another reason why i hate the ending of this game.

The end is supposed to be a moment where ellie finally realizes that revenge isn't worth it, and it will only hurt her more than before, killing abby will not bring joel back nor it will make her nightmares stop, that's something she had to learn how to deal with as her life goes on, but it still feels so wrong to let abby just go like that, i don't care if she went through hell after what she did, she could go through that ten times over and i still don't think it would be enough, so at least ellie could finish her off, but the message the game is trying to convey wouldn't hit home if she did so, and so abby is left alive and runs away with lev while ellie goes back to find her home empty, both women now having to deal with the fact that their lifes were now in shambles, all because they choose to pursue revenge no matter the cost.

I honestly think the writters did an amazing job at developing this theme, you can see throughout the game both ellie and abby breaking more and more because of their revenge and in the and losing nearly everything.

But that being said i still hate this game and don't ever want to get near it again, i love games with deep and complex stories but this one was just a tearfest after another, i honestly think that if they took just the flashback sequences and made this game about ellie finding out the truth and joel trying to regain her trust it would've been a ton lot better, this is supposed to be the sequel to the game with one of the best stories i've ever played, i had tons of expectations for this game but was deeply hurt and disapointed, i understand when a game wants to change its tone or convey a new message but when it's done in a way that only hurts the player it will never become a good experience, it will probably be a memorable one but not for the good reasons.

(*sigh*, i wasn't planning to make it this long but at least i managed to get it out of my chest, if you enjoyed the game good for you, but i doubt i'll ever be able to, specially because i don't ever want to look at it again.)

#tlou2 #the last of us 2

21 notes · View notes

smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

Text

Smokey brand Postmortem: Missing Number

It’s weird writing a postmortem for a game so soon after release but, with these leaks and the disheartening truth behind them, The Last of Us II might as well have been out for months. i wrote, at length, about the biggest issues I saw while experiencing this game and wanted to double back a little bit. I have a few ideas about how to fix what was so obviously broken. So, now that we have all mourned for what could have been, let's dissect what ails this death on arrival.

Issue: The writing is absolutely abhorrent for these characters

A few days ago, i addressed why i thought TLoU II failed so miserably upon release; Poor writing and even worse execution. The Last of Us II has an interesting and compelling narrative, the bones of this story are dope, but the execution is the absolute worst. In a vacuum, this story could have been something, but by using established characters and events, it becomes a disgusting mess.

Fix 1: This should have been the third game in a trilogy

Why was Joel such a weenie? Why was Ellie so blood thirsty? Who the f*ck even is Abby? Either this sh*t was addressed superficially or not at all during the course of the story we were given. That doesn't cut it. Thee is too much missing from everyone involved. Ellie, in the first title, would not have been driven for such violent revenge. Not even a little bit. When we last saw her, she was just beginning that descent into darkness. Joel was the murderer. Joel was the monster. Joel was the antagonist of the first game. Joel was what that world made him. The sh*t Abby pulled would never have flown with TLoU I Joel. What the f*ck happened during the time jump to make him so goddamn gullible? More important than anything, who the f*ck is Abby? She has such an emotionally driven tale of revenge and we don't even know who the f*ck her parents are? We are given a glib idea but, as someone experiencing a story that demands you emotionally attach to it's characters, what we got was not enough. There is an entire chunk of character development, world building, and crucial narrative growth that should have been explored BEFORE we got where we are in this current title. The Last of Us II should have been a III.

We should have got another title where we saw Ellie strain and eventually break from Joel. We should have seen him lose another daughter and watch as that slowly erode the Joel we knew, into the Joel we have in II. We should have seen bits of Abby struggle alone in the world, finding her way through a darker version of what was left behind. We should have been able to play as Ellie, maybe learning of hints to what Joel did for her, to her, coming across the name “Anderson” during her soul-searching. Hell, she could have actually helped Abby at one point, neither really knowing each other during a mission or, maybe, Ellie having a feeling about this new girl. Maybe she senses the animosity and you, as the player, have to witness Ellie debating whether to kill this girl, even if she hasn’t done anything just yet. All of the bloody pathos that will bind them together, curdling just under the surface of this budding relationship. There is so much fertile narrative ground there to build an awesome third title, to make what we got, great, because The Last of Us II has the bones to BE great. The execution, though, kills it all.

Fix 2: Give Abby Some DLC

Abby is mystery and not in a good way. We don’t know anything about this broad outside of her paper thin motivations. She’s the main antagonist and half the protagonist, but we are playing a stranger. That’s just poor writing right there, especially coming off of how rich everything we got with the first title turned out to be. How can you follow such story driven girth, with such limp drivel? Give Abby her own DLC. Make it follow her growth into the murder revenge machine she turned out to be. Why is she so yoked? How long was she been part of that crew? How many motherf*ckers did she kill on her blood-soaked rampage? We don’t know. This doesn't fix the left-turn Ellie and Joel make, i think you’d need to release an entire game to develop that sh*t properly, but giving Abby more agency can go a long way to making people care about who we fans see as a story-derailing, sour puss, homewrecker.

Fix 3: Make a prequel

That game i said we were missing in the middle? Yeah, make it anyway and call it III. Look, to make II worth a damn, you need those missing narrative beats. You need to explain why the characters we spent so much time with in I, characters we learned so much about and were so connected with emotionally, act completely different than where we left them. That’s how you tell a compelling story. That’s how you develop characters. That’s how you build worlds. You can’t just drop us in the middle of an arc that has nothing to do with anything we actually know, and expect us, as the player, to care. I mean, you can if you’re good at your job but it’s very obvious the writers were more concerned with agendas, rather than creating a great narrative and plot. You bring in Anita Sarkessian and you’re story is about to go straight down the toilet. That’s exactly what happened here. Motherf*ckers got bogged down by politics and forgot to tell half the story. Well, get to it, Naughty Dog. Show us what we missed. Convince us that Joel would willingly abandon his agency and why Ellie can be a straight up murderer. We need THAT story to give value to THIS story.

The Last of Us II isn’t a bad game. It’s decent to play. The narrative, itself, isn’t terrible, if you remove our principal characters. If this had a cat of brand new motherf*ckers, okay. Great story. Holy sh*t, things have gotten bad. I wonder what Joel and Ellie are up to? Right? Next game, guess who’s back? Nah, that’s not where we went with this thing. Instead, they pulled a Last Jedi and alienated everything about the characters we journey with before, in favor of uplifting OCs and Mary Sues. I love the idea of exploring what it means to live trauma. How people survive with everyday horrors. The PTSD all of these people have must be devastating. hat does that do to a person? How does that effect them? Why was this story told, the way it was told, with the characters it had, when there was so many other ways to go with this narrative? In this world? It doesn’t make sense and the overall narrative suffers for it.

#Smokey brand Postmortem #The Last of Us II #The Last of Us

10 notes · View notes

being-worthy · 4 years

Text

The Last of Us Part II – Adding my two cents to the game

Just so we’re clear, let’s establish a few things first:

MAJOR TLOU II SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I also spoiled myself ahead because I needed to know what would happen to Joel and Ellie… and the ending as well.

I’ve played the first one. I liked how it ended and totally support the ending!

I haven’t played the 2nd part but I’m watching the playthrough on YouTube in small doses. My heart can’t take much of it at once lol (and being poor and paying of debt for a loved one is no fun because I don’t have much money to spend on myself).

Right now, I’m at the part where Joel goes with Ellie to the museum for her birthday – it’s so cute and fatherly and my heart can’t take how bittersweet this is …

The 2nd part was rushed and has some bugs that could’ve been avoided, whether you like it or not. That’s a fact and we’re here for the facts not the truth (if you want the truth join a philosophy course).

The parts with Abby are too long, more than what they should’ve been and her vengeance is 💩.

English is not being my first language but I do my best (that’s all I can do).

I’m listening to Bryan Adams and Richard Max while writing this because I’m still not over Joel…

You may voice your opinion but remember this is my space! Be respectful at all times and absolute no hate here!

The first part ended with Joel bringing an unconscious Ellie to the hospital where the last Fireflies are, she almost drowned and he had to perform CPR on her. He’s rendered unconscious too and wakes up on a hospital bed with Marlene and Ethan (the guy who hit Joel in the head with the butt of his rifle) in the room.

That’s when he starts asking where Ellie is and Marlene informs him that she’s not his problem anymore and being prepped for surgery. Here, we need to note the following things: Marlene had sworn to Ellie’s mother to protect and to keep her from harm’s way but TAKES the decision to practically sentence her to death and yeah, she gives a speech that it’s not easy for her either yada yada yada but it’s all bs. The reason why is because:

a) making a decision refers more to the process and is something that takes time, while taking a decision is the act of deciding something that happens in an instant. Ultimately, Marlene decides for HER!! What about ‘my body, my decision’? Or in this case ‘her body, her decision’? It doesn’t matter if it’s related to an abortion or having your skull opened, the same principle should be applied!

She even says to Joel ‘because this isn’t about me. Or even her. There is no other choice here’. – Firstly, there’s always another choice! Secondly, Joel replies to her saying ‘yeah, you keep telling yourself that bullshit’ and he’s right, it’s total and utter bullshit. Even later on, when he’s carrying Ellie into the parking lot (I believe it was a parking lot), he tells her ‘that ain’t for you to decide’. Again, he’s right. It isn’t Marlene’s decision nor his but Ellie is still unconscious, so what do you want to do? Let them butcher her open? He crossed with her through half the country and ended up caring profoundly for her – she became like a daughter to him. He doesn’t have an on and off switch to turn off his feelings towards Ellie. Moreover, do tell me, if you’d like a doctor or someone else TAKE such a decision for you, instead of waiting for you to wake up and then tell you about the procedure and what this will entail. I get freaking furious whenever someone takes a decision for me or without asking me first.

b) Neither she nor the doctor wait for Ellie to regain consciousness and since she’s unconscious, they see it as the perfect importunity to just go ahead and rummage in her brain to see if there’s something that could help them developing a vaccine or a cure.

c) That’s another thing. They had zero guarantees, not even a 0.1 percentage of probability that they’d find something – nothing, nada, zilch. Just a hunch and maybe in an apocalyptic world for some people this might be enough but then why not wait until she wakes up and tell her ‘we don’t know for sure if your immunity will help us finding a cure or a vaccine. So that’s why we need to open your skull and see what makes you immune which ultimately, will kill you’ (in some nicer words though lol). Because they know she might not fully agree with it and they give a sh*t about what she thinks/wants and have that narrow military/cult mindset of ‘a sacrifice for the greater good’ and/or wouldn’t care either way because she’s a kid. I’m no fan of sacrificing one or a dozen people to save billions. If we can’t save them all or at least try our damn hardest, then we’re doing something terribly wrong! Also, she’s a freaking kid!! She hasn’t seen much and has her whole life ahead, doesn’t matter if it’s in the apocalypse. The thought that they’re willing to sacrifice her, a kid, without batting an eye shows me that all Fireflies are terrorists.

d) Now to the doctor (the one with the scalpel) – according to the internet this guy was Abby’s father and his murder was why she tortured and slaughtered Joel. First things first, every doctor has to take on a Hippocratic oath. There are many different variations but they all come from an old one that states the following:

… I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness, I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favour of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

… If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honoured with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

The doctor doesn’t keep her from harm or injustice, he isn’t even there for her well-being, only to see how her brain ticks. So, that immense violation of his oath doesn’t make him a doctor anymore but a BUTCHER and don’t come to me with ‘but it’s the apocalypse or it’s for the greater good blah blah blah’, then how better are we compared to rapists and people who murder out of fun? If we throw our principles out of the window just because it’s the apocalypse and/or it’s for the greater good, then with all due respect we all should just go ahead and jump from a building and burn in hell.

e) I got to the part where Joel and Ellie went to the museum for her birthday and at the end there’s a graffiti that says ‘liars’ with the fireflies’ symbol above. Even at the end, their own members saw that they Fireflies were only a bunch full of hot air and nothing else. They ended up being terrorists and forgot what they once stood and fought for.

So, taking all this into consideration - who wouldn’t have saved her? And yes, Joel saves her out of selfishness, so what? True, that he didn’t tell her the truth either, but can you resent him for this? He’d have to tell her that Marlene betrayed her, betrayed her trust and her mother’s trust in her and was willing to let her die and let her body being violated (rape is not the only way to violate someone’s body – FYI). This would have impacted Ellie’s state of mind too. She’d have ended up resenting Marlene and the Fireflies or worse. She had gone through so much already and didn’t need more on her plate. So, he spared her that betrayal and resentment.

Now let’s talk a bit more about Joel. Joel is no saint or hero but no villain either. He’s just a man who was willing to doom the whole already-damned world to protect the girl he adopted. He does what he needs in order to survive but within some reason and hasn’t lost his humanity (it’s just deeply hidden in him), he’s a person trying to survive. He tortures people - yes, but only to get information and makes sure to end them quickly afterwards. I agree that one of the main things you’ve to do during such times, is to adapt or you’ll die or worse. In the 1st part he’s rough, tough, strong, stubborn, resilient, experienced in the world he lives in and wary of strangers (just remember that scene on the highway with the stranger pretending to be hurt and Joel knew from the moment he saw him that it was a trap), someone you don’t want to mess with, etc. On the other hand, there’s this other side of him where he teaches Ellie to swim, tries to joke with her, to play the guitar, takes her to beautiful places, he takes her to a museum with dinosaurs and stuff from space, that proves he’s capable for carrying deeply for someone, in this case Ellie, and don’t get me started on the gift he gives her when they’re in the space capsule (!!), and so on. Ellie and Joel have this great dynamic. Then in the 2nd part, they made him to be so trustworthy toward a young unknown girl, tells her even their REAL names, like he literally says ‘my name’s Joel and that’s my brother Tommy. We live further down’. Dude, why don’t you just go walking around with a banner around your neck stating who you are to the whole freaking world. At some point he even said the name of their home (Jackson)!’ - WHAT THE HOLY F*CK?! He even offered her to go with them and take her to their home and give her supplies. Then, even BLINDLY and WITHOUT ANY WARINESS follows her to a place with an unknown sized group, where he and Tommy don’t know anyone - HOLY FREAKING HELL?! It’s not like it could be a trap, I mean it’s completely normal that there are many survivors camping up in the mountains in the middle of a snow blizzard, it’s the perfect season for doing that ¬¬. We’re living in times were everyone is kind to each other… I just don’t get it. This behaviour change is too radical and old habits die hard, especially ones acquired and used for decades!! That’s a big flaw from Naughty Dog regarding Joel. They portrayed him as someone stupid (sorry Joel but it’s true), sloppy, too soft, etc. He’s older and fatherlier with Ellie all fine and good, but he’d still be very cautious toward outsiders, particularly when they outnumber him!! It’s true that at some point we’ll have to be more trustworthy toward others in order to try and reestablish society or something close to it but you’d still be wary and wouldn’t take them right to your home first thing!! I had also into consideration that they were being chased by a horde of runners and clickers and their options where limited but still!

In some games the death of an important and primary character is sometimes essential. TLOU II is one of them because this was necessary for Ellie to grown and learn more about herself, the world she lives in, among others but Joel deserved way better than what he got! I feel for Tommy too, he didn’t deserve to split up with Maria or lose an eye but I believe the reason as to why he became obsessed with avenging Joel was because he already thinks he failed him in the past already, either when Sarah died, or when he joined the Fireflies and Joel wasn’t happy about it, or when they blindly trusted Abby and her friends.

Before I start with Abby, we need to establish something else first: revenge is about retaliation; justice is about restoring balance. The motive of revenge has mostly to do with expressing rage, hatred, or spite. It’s a protest or payback, and its foremost intent is to harm. And because it’s so impassioned, it’s typically disproportionate to the original injury—meaning that it usually can’t be viewed as just. The punishment may fit the crime, but it’s often an exaggerated response to another’s perceived offense. Nevertheless, I do believe that justice comes from vengeance but that type of justice only breeds more vengeance, and this is what Abby essentially does, avenge her father (even though I believe he lost his way and became unscrupulous) and ends up being capable to live with herself with little to no trouble after what she did to Joel, after repeatedly hitting him over and over and over again with a golf club, and forcing Ellie to watch the last bit. Abby and a bunch of others, who were also aware of her secretive plans, travel thousands of miles just to find Joel and brutalise him and massacre him. That scene was really brutal. But at some point both Abby and Ellie have to realise that vengeance is not the answer and if everyone keeps coming back seeking vengeance, then they’ll move around in a vicious circle until someone decides to forgive because killing like this not only hurts themselves, but also those they love and love them.

I don’t see the WLF as a whole as someone who deserves sympathy. They’re quite similar to the Fireflies who maybe at some point had noble goals (or almost) but ended up strayed from their path. They loot and kill everyone they see, no questions asked (much like the police these days in our world), even if they’re just passing by and aren’t affiliated to any group and just want to survive.

The ending of TLOU II couldn’t have been better. Ellie was happy with Dina and the baby but deep down she knew she didn’t close the chapter with Joel’s murder. Abby, and knew that at some point, she’d have to revisit that part to close it entirely. Her leaving with Tommy was the right decision, even if Dina wouldn’t/couldn’t fully understand why and I feel sad for Maria too but I strongly believe that she’ll return - whether or not Dina will wait for her is another story.

This is all I’ve to add. I’ve been sitting her for about 5+ hours writing this because I wanted to put my perspective of this masterpiece out there and show people that the game is still great.

Let me know your thoughts!!

#the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou #tlou2 #tlou2 spoilers #tlou joel #tlou ellie #the last of us 2 spoilers #joel miller #ellie williams #tlou abby

8 notes · View notes

biestcallisto · 4 years

Text

TLOU 2 as a sequel

fails. And it’s not because it’s different. Resident Evil went from being a horror zombie game to a shooter to a different horror game. It never lied about its changes. You didn’t want a shooter, you didn’t play the shooter sequel, you only care about zombies, not something else, you don’t get into the next sequel. It’s fine. No lies, no 180° on the game before. Just evolution.

But TLOU had a fine ending and message. But I get the impression the message I got was widely different from the one Druckmann wanted to tell.

And in the sequel Druckmann took everything from the original and set it on fire. So let me talk TLOU.

1) The lie: before Release Druckmann said, the first game is about love and the sequel is about hate. After release he revealed, this was a lie, the sequel is also about love and about obsessing and loving too much. That’s what he said. And I get that. When I played the birthday part, I realised the lie “he said this was about hate, but this here: that’s love”. When I heard Druckmann say the sequel was essentially “too much love is bad”, lots of things started to make sense.

2) Was TLOU about love? Yes, it was, but it was ONE of two things TLOU was about. For me TLOU was much more about HOPE. While we develop the adopted parental relationship between Joel and Ellie, the whole journey started on HOPE. Hope, that Joel can be a father, that Ellie gets a father, but most importantly it was about SAVING THE WORLD.

3) TLOUs ending. People say the ending was ambiguous. For me it clearly wasn’t. For Druckmann it was a sad ending because no vaccine is being made. So why was TLOU at the end hopeful for me? Because they went to Jackson w a stable parental relationship. And Jackson, building a good community, in my opinion is how the world is saved. A vaccine, even IF they were able to make it would still have to be mass produced and distributed but it would not end the dangers already infected pose nor the dangers by rogue human groups. How do you end those dangers? By building a safe community, which Maria and Tommy did.

4) You matter. In TLOU Ellie is experiencing survivors guilt and hopes that, if they make a cure or a vaccine, her surviving was “worth it”. That her life matters. To the fireflies she as a use. To Jerry she has a use. Not as a person. But as an object. Joel says No to that. Joel says to me “YOU matter. Not as cure or vaccine but YOU, not your use, your utility.“

_____________

So what does the sequel do? It invalidates all good messages about hope and finding family and community, about Ellie mattering as Ellie, not as just an means to an end.

Troy Baker said in his Lets play of TLOU that Ellie was on her death march. That Ellie wanted to get to the Fireflies knowing it would mean her death.

Ellie is a kid with survivors guilt. She’s literally a KID. And Troy Baker says, she should have been murdered for the sake of humanity.

Let’s talk moral superiority. Some people who love the game, claim they’re morally superior to people who don’t like it. Because the dislikers don’t empathize with Abby enough.

But the sequel is so messy in their message and the delivery of their message. Cause the message from TLOU FOR ME was: Don’t see people as just a means to an end. If you need to kill an innocent person to save humanity, humanity doesn’t deserve to be saved. Just because you have survivors guilt, means you should die. You find something to live for. It’s extremely hopeful that no matter what hardships you face, you can build relationships, find friends and hope and endure and survive. And when someone is going to kill your friend for no reason, you can do something about. Take a stand against murder and oppression.

And: it had it’s redemption arc. We KNOW Joel did bad things. In the end, he’s not going back to being a smuggler or whatever. He goes to his brother, to Jackson and wants to be father again.

What does the sequel do with this? It takes a firm stand that Joel made the wrong decision when he saved Ellie. That Ellies life should have ended back then. That no matter what, her usage was in the vaccine. That Ellie doesn’t matter at all. Not as a person.

The sequel takes characters from TLOU and destroys them.

Tommy - Someone who had a long journey behind him, when we meet him. Did bad things, left the fireflies, now he is married and building a future. In the sequel? In TLOU he did the most heinous things together with his brother and BLAMES his brother. Now, that his brother also changed and lived in his town, Tommy is the one out for revenge? I might buy that, when he’s doing it so Ellie is safe. But Joel told Tommy what happened and sure, Tommy wanted him safe but you think Joel of all people would want either in danger? You think Joel said “if they get to me, avenge me?” No way. Joel said most likely “If they get to me, keep Ellie safe”. So I get him going, so that Ellie is being kept safe. But in the end, when Tommy goes to the farm as a bitter old man? Please.

Joel - What’s there to say, they beat him into pulp. After he happily offers his name to strangers. Like, ok, I get it. He lived a quiet civilian life for four years... but did he, really? He knew the danger and he was out there on patrol multiple times. He lived twenty long years always on edge. Surviving, spotting dangers from far away, being a danger. That survivalist shit is conditioned into him. That doesn’t go away after a few years, while he’s still going out on patrol. Time in the town might be safe and quiet, but he’s still a survivor.

Ellie - She probably was the truest to her TLOU character. But damn, was she depressed. Like, from the start. Is it teenage angst, is it because she can’t process her survivors guilt? Like, come on. She lived two years happily as a kid and when she finds out the truth, she AGAIN thinks she should have died? And in the end, when she forgives Joel for fucking saving her, she ends up alone. While Ellie is the truest to TLOU, the sequel tried so hard to make her unlikable.

Sorry for rambling, but the only thing that makes this sequel as a sequel is, that it takes the same gameplay from TLOU and uses it with barely any upgrade. That’s the sign that it’s a sequel. In theme and delivery it’s not a sequel at all.

Is it about revenge, forgiveness, redemption? With Druckmann saying it’s about too much love and obsession the sequel is probably about letting go. Why it needed to be such a misery porn is a mystery to me. He thinks the ending is hopeful and why? Cause the screen changes and the sun comes out with the boat in the sand. That’s his idea of hopeful. While in-game Dina didn’t even leave a note. TLOU had an open end, where we didn’t arrive in Jackson yet and didn’t know what would happen. But we knew they were together, where they’re heading. There was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t arrive. With Dina telling Ellie off and then moving back to Jackson, we have to imagine their happy ending. But we only see Ellie alone.

And Abby? What’s the message there? Cause it seems, they’re “both siding” us. They literally show us a fascist top scars killer and try to make us empathize with her, try to “both side” us. This is revolutionary? It wants to force us to empathise with both sides, to not choose and stay silent, but when one side is the oppressor, you chose to side with the oppressor if silence is your answer. The one single moment Abby had my sympathies were literally in her very last scene. Was her saying “enough” not wanting to fight Ellie. I was like “Oh, you learned in the last couple of months, nice” but that is way way too late. That’s not a redemption arc, that’s the beginning of a redemption arc.

Maybe Druckmann was simply tired of TLOU fans wanting a sequel and thought “You will let this game go. I’ll make you”

#TLOU #TLOU 2 #I wanted to make a concise post #but you get rambling

5 notes · View notes