Chapter 1: just a dream
Summary:
Ellie’s eyes flutter open, Joel’s words still ringing in her ears. Her eyes are crusted with the remnants of her tears, cheeks still damp, and as she sucks in a shallow breath, Ellie realizes she is still crying.
(the alternate ending to there's nothing surgery can do)
Notes:
this one was a birthday gift for my friend @stillboldlygoing, who has never, not for a single day, ceased yelling at me about there's nothing surgery can do
chapter title from "just a dream" by carrie underwood
Chapter Text
“But no matter what, no matter all the time you have spent hating me, I love you, Ellie. Okay? No matter what, I would always have loved you. And I have never, not for a goddamn second, regretted my choice.”
Ellie’s eyes flutter open, Joel’s words still ringing in her ears. Her eyes are crusted with the remnants of her tears, cheeks still damp, and as she sucks in a shallow breath, Ellie realizes she is still crying.
She might never stop, at this point. She doesn’t see how she can, not with Joel gone, not with what feels like her entire life upended. What the fuck is she supposed to do, with his words and the echo of that gunshot reverberating non-stop in her head? That image of him walking off into the trees is forever seared into her mind.
Another ragged sob slips out of her lips, and Ellie pushes herself upright on her bed, chest heaving –
She freezes, hands gripping the edge of her mattress. Her bed. She didn’t – she fell asleep on the floor after getting back, she fell asleep there and she stayed there. She stayed there, on the cold ground, still in her jeans and flannel and boots, and yet…
And yet she’s in her bed, in her pajamas, boots shucked off messily by the door like she always does. The door’s still locked, and Ellie whips her head around to check her window, to look at the curtains she knows she closed, and yet they’re wide fucking open. Joel’s house is framed behind them, trees swaying ever so slightly and Ellie –
Ellie bolts.
Doesn’t bother with her shoes, just twists the lock and yanks the door open, doesn’t shut it behind her. Runs full tilt across the yard without slowing, even when she steps on a rock or a twig or something that has her swearing and her right foot radiating pain, but she doesn’t stop until she’s up the steps to his porch and outside his door. It’s fucking locked - who locks their goddamn doors in a place as safe as Jackson? - and Ellie jiggles the knob fruitlessly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She gives up trying to turn the handle in favor of banging on the door with her palm, not stopping even when it starts to sting, when the pain is ricocheting up her arm, not caring that she probably can be heard from around the front of the house, that the sun is barely up, that her foot is hurting something awful, just keeps slamming her hand into the door until she hears a noise from behind it and the handle turns and the door swings open and –
Joel is standing there in front of her. Joel, whose expression morphs rapidly from annoyance to surprise to trepidation to worry. Joel, with his graying hair and increasingly wrinkled face, faded shirt and bare feet, and Ellie can’t help the noise that slips from her and has his eyes going wide.
“Ellie, what –?”
But her hands are scrabbling for his arm, his right arm, rotating it until she can see his forearm, the skin unmarked and unblemished and un-fucking-bitten.
Her oh my god comes out wet and garbled, and she slumps forward until her forehead meets his chest. Joel staggers - steadies - and wraps an arm around her shoulder as she twines her fingers into the sides of his shirt and sobs her relief out against him.
“You’re alright,” she hears faintly above her, his hand rubbing a slow path up and down her spine. “‘S alright.”
They stand there together until Ellie’s sobs subside and she leans back, peering up at him as if she can’t quite believe he’s here. And she can’t, not really - the dream was so vivid, so life-like, she can still smell the dirt, can still hear the echo of the gunshot, can still feel the tightness of Tommy’s arms around her, pulling her away from him permanently.
Joel’s staring back at her almost the same way, uncertainty and confusion and hope all warring visibly across his face. He cups her cheeks, thumbs brushing away stray tears as they still fall, and his brows tug together.
“You wanna tell me what that was about?” He asks softly.
“I –” Ellie’s throat closes, head turning enough to catch sight of his bite-free arm again. “I had a nightmare last night, I guess. But it was one of those nightmares that feels so real, everything about it was so clear, I can still remember every little detail of it, I –” She shifts her weight, a hiss escaping when her right foot flares with pain. “Jesus fuck,” she breathes, looking down.
“What –” Joel follows her gaze down, his hands tensing on her face. “You’re bleedin’.”
Sure enough, there’s a small pool of blood on his back deck, her foot throbbing and tacky with it when she lifts it to examine the damage. It’s a deep gash, right through the middle of her foot, and a glance backwards shows a few bloody footprints across the deck.
“Yeah,” Ellie replies quietly, looking back at him, “I think I stepped on something in the yard when I was coming over here.”
Joel shifts to the side of her, hooking an arm under her shoulders. “C’mon, inside.” He nudges her forward, supporting her weight as she hops awkwardly on one foot.
“No, I can take care of it,” Ellie protests weakly, even as she lets herself be led over to the couch. “I don’t wanna get blood on your floor or anything.” Joel props her foot up on the coffee table before disappearing into the kitchen and reemerging with his first aid kit, a dented white case that had been in the house when he’d moved in.
“Yeah, well, you showed up here freaked the hell out and bleedin’, so humor me for a minute and let me fix you up, alright?”
Ellie sinks a little deeper into the couch, watching as he cracks it open and pulls out a wipe and some gauze. She doesn’t know how there’s even anything left in it at this point, after years of bandaging up her cuts and scrapes, not to mention his own. “Alright.”
She leaves him to work in silence for a moment, eyes skating over the room around them curiously. Not really anything has changed since the last time she was here other than a couple more wood carvings, maybe some new books. The clock on the mantel ticks loudly in the silence, right next to the drawing of him she’d made. She can still see his face, gone all soft and pleased in the way she only ever saw from him rarely, staring down at the drawing with his hand over his mouth. Eyes glassy as he’d immediately gone to get a frame for it.
The drawing he’d done of her in turn had been taken out of its frame and shoved in the middle of one of her books. She hadn’t been able to make herself get rid of it anymore than she could stand to look at it.
“So…” Joel draws the word out, glancing up at her briefly before returning his attention to her foot. It stings as he carefully wipes it clean, a towel resting under her heel and slowly darkening with blood. “You gonna tell me about this nightmare of yours?”
Ellie starts to pull her leg back immediately, but Joel’s too quick - his hand clamps around her ankle to keep it in place like he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” she says sullenly, crossing her arms over her chest and feeling for a moment like the fourteen-year-old she had been when they met.
Joel hesitates, hand squeezing her ankle and then releasing it in favor of pressing a bandage to the sole of her foot. He keeps pressure there for a long moment, shifting her foot to rest on top of his thigh to hold it better. “You don’t gotta tell me about it if you really don’t want to,” he says eventually, eyes still on her foot. “I just know it had to have been pretty bad if it had you runnin’ to me all panicked like that.” His voice fades into something a little more forlorn, like he recognizes how out of the ordinary it is now for a tear-stained Ellie to be showing up on his doorstep. For Ellie to be on his doorstep at all, after a year and a half of careful avoidance.
Ellie tilts her head back to rest on the back of the couch, eyes on the discolored ceiling. It’s easier than looking at Joel and seeing all the layers of him as she’d known him overlapping. The utter asshole of a man she’d first met that had flung her into a wall and pointed a gun in her face; the softer version he’d become after their argument in this very house, teaching her about football and how to shoot; his face as he’d admitted to lying to her, to ruining any hope of a cure; the face from her dream as he’d prepared to go off into the woods and die; and the man now carefully bandaging her foot with his head hung. There were too many versions of him that pulled too many of her heartstrings and had her feeling entirely too many different ways.
But her eyes slip shut and the vision of him walking towards the trees with a trembling arm and two patrolmen swims behind her eyelids, and the words fall out.
“You died.”
Joel’s hand stills on her foot, the gauze half-wrapped around. He doesn’t say anything, and it’s like all the air has been sucked from the room.
“You died,” Ellie repeats quietly, swiping a stray tear from her cheek. “You got bitten out on a patrol, and me and Tommy had to go say goodbye to you, and then I watched you walk off to go kill yourself.”
His hands resume their ministrations, but even without looking at him Ellie can feel them trembling. Fuck, she’s already said this much, so she might as well keep going.
“Tommy came to get me,” she whispers, eyes still shut, “and told me you got bit. And so I went out with him to see you before you – before.” Her throat goes tight, and Ellie forces herself to sit up and look at him again. Even feeling him securing the ends of the bandage isn’t enough - she needs a visual reminder that he’s still here, that it was all just her brain’s idea of a horrendous joke.
Joel finishes bandaging her foot but makes no move to stand or to return her leg to the coffee table. One of his hands stays wrapped loosely around her ankle, his gaze on the ground between his bare feet. He’s still in his pajamas, Ellie realizes for the first time. She must have been banging on the door hard enough to wake him - there’s not even the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen.
“Was there more to it?” Joel asks when she doesn’t continue, and Ellie swallows.
“Yeah, it –” she blows out a breath, fingers knotting together in her lap. “We got there and you’d…you’d gotten bit on your arm. Same place as me.” Joel’s right arm twitches slightly, his eyes finally lifting to meet hers. “And…we –” Ellie clears her throat. “We said goodbye.”
“What did we say?” Joel asks quietly, a note of fear in his voice like he doesn’t really want to know the answer.
“Well,” Ellie takes a deep breath, resituates herself a little but doesn’t pull her foot from Joel’s thigh, “I got really pissed at you. Told you it was all your fault because of…because you –”
“Because of what I did at the hospital,” he fills in for her. There’s no recrimination in his voice, no guilt or anger, just understanding. He’s holding her gaze steadily, encouraging her to keep going, something sad lurking in the depths of his eyes that Ellie doesn’t want to try to name.
So she keeps going, spills out all of it - all the things they’d said, the puns, the way she still hadn’t been able to let go of her anger but the way his death had all but destroyed her from the inside out. By the time she stops talking, her throat is dry and her cheeks are damp again. So are Joel’s, his hand still cradling her ankle.
Silence envelops them, the air in the room leaden and heavy with a grief that still feels too real, too raw and present. Ellie still can’t believe how clear the whole dream was - how clear it still was in her mind even now - and she still half expects to blink and be alone in his house. Blink, and he’ll be gone, out in an unmarked grave beyond Jackson’s walls, and she’ll be here with only grief and resentment and fading memories of his laugh to keep her company.
But Joel remains solid in front of her, tangible, his calloused hand still keeping her tethered.
“D’you want some tea?” He finally asks, looking up at her a little uncertainly. “I’ve got some things I’d like to say about your nightmare, but I think maybe we might need some kinda fortification for that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
Joel steadies her as she stands, hands hovering nearby as she limps to the dining room and settles into the chair by the window. It doesn’t hurt quite as bad to walk with the cushion of the bandaging, but she knows she’s gonna have to let Tommy know and probably get herself taken off patrol for a couple weeks.
Ellie sits there, watching as Joel busies himself at the stovetop, pulling down an extra mug to go with his owl mug, digging out a tin of tea that she’s pretty sure she left here after she moved out, pacing back and forth until the kettle whistles and he can pour both of their drinks.
Joel brings both mugs over to the table and sets them down, turning back to dig a small jar of honey out of one of the cabinets and carry it back along with a spoon.
Clearly, he still remembers how she likes her tea.
The smell of his coffee permeates her nostrils as she stirs in the spoonful of honey, and for once she doesn’t recoil from it. She’ll never admit it to him, but the smell had grown on her over the years. Not the taste - never the taste - but the scent of coffee was something Ellie came to associate with Joel, and with safety. Coffee and sawdust and whatever oil it was he used on his wood carvings. She’d forced herself to stop seeking out the smell of it when she’d cut Joel out.
This morning though, Ellie just lets herself take a deep breath and inhale it as Joel settles himself across from her.
“‘M sorry you had that nightmare,” he begins slowly, staring into the depth of his coffee mug like it’ll have all the answers. “And I’m glad that you came here and I could help you out.”
“Like old times,” Ellie can’t help but say, thinking back on bandaged blisters and cut hands, and Joel gives her a brief, wry smile.
“And I don’t expect anything to change, even with how scared and upset you were.” Joel takes a sip of his coffee, setting the owl mug back down with a thunk. “‘Specially once I tell you that I agree with everything the me in your nightmare said.” His voice wavers a bit, but his gaze is steady as it joins with hers. “I don’t regret what I did. I’ll never regret it.”
Ellie’s jaw clenches, but she doesn’t interrupt. This was what her mind had been trying to tell her with that dream, right? Hearing Joel out, letting him say his piece and deciding where to go from there, before it was too late to do anything.
When she stays quiet, Joel’s shoulders lose a little bit of their tension, dropping from around his ears. “I know that’s probably not what you wanna hear. But after I lied to you about what happened at the hospital - what I did,” he clarifies when Ellie’s fingers twitch on her mug, “I told myself that if I ever got the chance to talk to you again I’d be completely upfront about it. So I’ll tell you, I’d do it again. Anything to save your life, kiddo.”
Ellie sits, sips her tea, lets the silence envelop them once more. What he’s saying is nothing new to her - she’s always known he didn’t regret it, wouldn’t change his mind, would kill anyone he deemed a threat to her without a second thought. And it still pisses her the hell off, the way that he’d taken a crucial choice from her, ruined the one thing she was supposed to be good for. It still makes her want to toss her tea in his face and storm out.
But even as she thinks it, she hears the Joel from her dream murmuring I gotta go, baby and sees him vanishing into the woods. Feels the gaping wound left by his death, filled only with her anger and resentment, and Ellie knows - she doesn’t want that. This world they live in now…anything could happen. He could get bit; she could get shot. At his age, he could have a heart attack or a stroke or just fucking die.
And Ellie doesn’t think she’d be able to live with herself if he died thinking she hated him.
“I’m still mad,” she says slowly, and Joel nods, not really looking at her. “I might always be mad. I don’t know how to forgive what you did.”
“Yeah,” Joel says sadly. He rotates his mug between his hands, thumb running over the lip of it almost absently. “Yeah, I know.” He says it like he is already expecting a return to the way things had been, to distant and polite greetings, to separate lives.
“I think I’d like to try though,” Ellie manages, her voice barely a whisper. “Like I think…” The table in front of her blurs slightly and she blinks away the fresh round of tears to look up at Joel. He’s watching her with guarded hope on his face, his own eyes glassy. “I think that if something happened to you, like in my dream, and things were the way they were, I think I’d regret it the rest of my life.”
Joel swallows, hands white-knuckling his owl mug. “I’d like that,” he tells her hoarsely. “I’d really…I’d really like that.”
“Okay,” Ellie says, letting out a breath and feeling like a hundred pound weight has lifted from her chest. “Okay, good, that’s…good.”
They finish their drinks in a quiet that feels less tense and weighted than anything else that’s been between them…all the way back to that ridge overlooking Jackson, if Ellie really thinks about it. Him lying to her there had been the biggest crack in their relationship, made wider and wider by every time he doubled down on it.
But now it felt like maybe it could be fixed, like things between them could start to shift back to how they had been on the road.
Ellie washes their mugs in the sink despite Joel protesting that she oughta stay off her foot. He hovers - nice to know nothing has changed - one hand perpetually outstretched like she’s about to suddenly topple over. He escorts her to the door too, asking only once if she’s sure she’s alright to walk across the yard to her place. He doesn’t ask her to stay - they both know that would be too much, too soon - but he watches from the porch as she hobbles carefully down to her home. She gives the offending rock a wide berth, eyeing the sharp point of it - smeared with her blood - with distaste.
Joel’s still on the porch when Ellie gets to her door and glances back. He gives her a wave and starts to step away like he’s gonna head inside.
“Hey,” Ellie calls impulsively, and Joel pauses. “Wanna watch a movie tonight?”
Even from across the yard, she can see the way his face lights up.
“Yeah,” he’s grinning from ear to ear, “yeah, kiddo, I’d love to.”
Chapter 2: chasing all those stars
Summary:
Ellie doesn’t really remember a time when she wasn’t doing this. Sitting on stage with a guitar, singing songs she scribbled on napkins. First in dive bars, open mic nights, pretty much anywhere that had a microphone and a stool for her to sit on, even places she shouldn’t have been because she was too young.
(a singer-bodyguard au)
Notes:
from an anon on tumblr: Hmm... Maybe an AU fic where ellie is a singer and joel is her bodyguard? Idk
chapter title from "counting stars" by onerepublic
Chapter Text
Ellie doesn’t really remember a time when she wasn’t doing this. Sitting on stage with a guitar, singing songs she scribbled on napkins. First in dive bars, open mic nights, pretty much anywhere that had a microphone and a stool for her to sit on, even places she shouldn’t have been because she was too young. Her voice wasn’t really anything to write home about - she wasn’t gonna be the next Kelly Clarkson - but it was good, and really Ellie’d always had more of an eye to being a songwriter than anything. Plus…she just wanted out of her house, wanted to earn a little bit of pocket money that her foster father couldn’t touch.
But then some record exec had happened to be at an open mic one night at the Mohawk, and before she could blink it felt like Ellie had been swept away to New York to record a demo. And the demo had been well-received, and she’d been given a contract and then she was recording an album, at the grand old age of fifteen. You’ll be the next Taylor Swift, someone had said to her, and then promptly been confused when Ellie had cringed away. She had nothing against Taylor - she had the entire Red (Taylor’s Version) vault on repeat most days- but she couldn’t think of an artist more opposite than herself.
And now here she was, twenty years old, third album almost complete, three Grammys and four People’s Choice awards under her belt, management already gearing up to promote her tour, and Ellie was just…
Exhausted.
She’d bought a house out in Boston that she never got to spend time in because she was always on the road somewhere, doing some promotional appearance, on a tour, filming a music video. Never enough time for herself, barely time to do what she really loved, which was writing songs. Half of this album was songs other people had written, and Ellie felt those songs chafing against her skin every time she sang them.
Ellie’s head rolls along the back of the chair, turning until she’s looking out the studio window to where her bodyguard sits, brow furrowed as he scrolls on his phone.
At least she’s got Joel. Through all the insanity, she’s always got Joel.
He looks up at her now, corner of his lips tilting up when he sees her already looking, and he pushes to his feet when she tilts her head. He moves a bit slower these days - he’s just turned sixty, which is well past the usual age for a bodyguard, but she’s got younger, more scarily muscular men to guard her when she really needs it.
Joel is…he’s like an emotional support blanket at this point, not that she’d ever tell him that.
“You about ready to go, kiddo?”
Ellie sighs and holds out her hands for him to pull her up, which he does obligingly. He’s still strong, even at his age, still could probably hold his own in a fight. Definitely still lethal with a gun when necessary, definitely still willing to kill for her. He’d only had to do it once - and her foster father had really had it coming - but Ellie knew he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Joel picks up her guitar case before she can and slings it over his shoulder, guiding her out of the rented studio with a careful hand between her shoulder blades. Ellie doesn’t say anything as he loads it in the back of his SUV and opens the back door for her - he never lets her ride in the front - and he starts to drive them back to her penthouse.
She stares out the window, not really seeing their surroundings, until Joel calls her name from the front seat. He’s watching her through the rearview mirror, furrow in his brow.
“Y’alright?”
Ellie blows out a breath, watching the buildings grow taller and taller around them. Nothing against New York, really, she had just never quite pictured herself living here.
“Is it stupid that I’m unhappy?” She asks, looking down at her hands. Her cuticles are already picked raw, so she leaves them alone, instead tugging at a loose thread on her absurdly expensive designer jeans.
“Why would it be stupid?” Joel flicks on the blinker, making a right. In the distance, Ellie can see her building. Her manager had said the penthouse was a good investment, prime real estate, excellent price, secure building. And it was all those things.
But it was also all modern angles, glass, dark furniture meant more to be looked at than sat on, and so many goddamn windows. Two years with it as her primary residence and it still didn’t feel like home. It was like a crash pad instead, a place she was borrowing from a stranger - not somewhere she could see herself living forever.
“Because.” Ellie pulls on the thread even harder. “I’m rich and successful and have the life a gazillion people would kill for. What’s there to be unhappy about, right?”
Never mind that she hadn’t been able to make it work with Cat, or that her friend Riley had been killed by a crazy fan who had broken into Ellie’s last apartment, or that her foster father had tried to swindle all her money and then assault her, and she’d had to watch Joel blow the man’s brains out to save her.
It’s Joel’s turn to sigh. “Just because you're rich don’t mean you don’t have problems. You’re allowed to be unhappy.”
Ellie makes a noise of assent but doesn’t say anything else as they pull into the underground parking of her building. Joel carries her guitar again - and he’s the only one she lets handle it, seeing as how he gave it to her - and then swipes the keycard for the elevator.
It’s not until they’re upstairs, her guitar carefully removed from its case and set on its stand, that Joel nudges her to sit down on the couch. He lowers himself to the coffee table across from her and rubs a hand over his chin. He fixes her with that look that he so rarely gets, the one that says he’s about to make her talk about shit she doesn’t want to talk about.
But Ellie doesn’t stop him, because if anyone’s got the right it’s him. She stopped pretending two years ago that Joel was just her bodyguard and not the closest thing she’s ever had to family, and so had he.
“Talk to me, baby girl,” he says gently, and the knot of anxiety sitting in her chest slowly unravels.
Ellie sucks in an unsteady breath, annoyed to find herself blinking back tears, and she whispers, “I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore.”
Joel doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised by her words, just nods slowly. So Ellie keeps going.
“I always just…wanted to write songs. Didn’t really care about performing them, just needed a way to get all this shit out of me. And it felt like suddenly here I was, given all this,” she waves her hand towards the apartment she hates, “over people who worked way harder and wanted it way more. And I feel like an asshole for not being grateful enough for it, not appreciating it, just wishing I could give it back.”
The tears are flowing freely now, and Ellie digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, pressing until roughened hands encircle her wrist and gently tug.
“You’re not an asshole,” Joel says firmly. “You’re not,” he insists when she starts to shake her head, “and you ain’t allowed to bad-mouth my kid like that.”
Ellie lets out a wet laugh, the same flare of warmth erupting in her chest that she always gets when Joel calls her that. “Sorry.”
He swipes at her cheek with a thumb. “You wouldn’t be the first person to achieve their dreams and find out it ain’t what you thought it would be, Ellie. There’s no shame in admittin’ that. And if it’s makin’ you so unhappy, you can always walk away, baby. All the wealth and fame and awards in the world ain’t worth you bein’ miserable.”
“Walk away to where?” Ellie asks softly, hating how much just the suggestion of it has lifted her spirits already. Logistically, of course, it wouldn’t be that easy - she’s contractually obligated through at least this third album and one more tour in support. But after that?
After that, she could just fucking leave, and the realization makes Ellie feel like she can breathe for the first time in…years.
Joel shrugs. “Dunno, ‘s up to you to figure that out. But –” he hesitates, rubs a hand over his jaw again. “When’s your next big thing? Appearance or anythin’?”
Ellie wants to tease him for not knowing when he’s the one that’s supposed to be escorting her to all these things, but it’s not like she can think of it either, so she pulls out her phone to open her calendar. There’s over two dozen unanswered texts and another ten missed calls, and Ellie’s heart rate spikes even as she ignores them.
“Looks like three weeks from now,” Ellie says slowly. “And that’s the time where I’m supposed to be getting a few more songs down for the album.”
“Well,” Joel scrapes his palms over his thighs, “why don’t you and I take a roadtrip? I ain’t been out to see my brother since last Christmas, and he’s been on my ass about it.”
Right, Joel’s brother. The one with a lawyer wife and a toddler son, who owns a ranch out west somewhere. Ellie’s never met him, despite Joel trying repeatedly to make it happen, but she’s afraid that Tommy won’t like her or won’t think Joel should still be guarding her. And what the fuck would she do then? She can’t lose Joel.
“We can drive out there,” he says coaxingly, reaching forward to shake her knee, “spend a couple weeks relaxin’, you can do all that introspection you ain’t got time for anymore, figure out what you wanna do. Maybe even get some songs written while you’re at it.”
He says the last part teasingly, and Ellie whacks him with a pillow, rolling her eyes. “Never should’ve told you I was blocked,” she mumbles, even as she knows it’s not true. She always tells Joel everything, shit that reporters would kill to find out. He was the first person she came out to - she trusts him more than anyone else.
Joel bats the pillow away and leans down, arms braced on his knees. “We don’t gotta do that, baby. We can figure out some other way, but I just thought…couple weeks out in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming might do you some good.”
Ellie chews her lower lip, mulling it over. The more she thinks on it, the more she likes the sound of it. Even if Tommy and his family don’t like her - despite Joel assuring her repeatedly they would love her - she can at least get a bit of peace and quiet.
“I’ll even let you ride in the front seat,” Joel tacks on, grin pulling at his mouth, and Ellie feels an answering one spread across her own face.
“Swear?”
“I swear,” Joel replies, still grinning, and Ellie sticks out her hand for him to shake.
“Deal.”
Chapter 3: (this time baby) i'll be bulletproof
Summary:
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Gentle finger squeeze on the trigger. Exhale.
The target drops before he even realizes he’s been shot, a small pool of blood gathering on the carpet underneath his head. The man had been nice enough - not that he’d realized it - to leave his window open, so there wasn’t even the shattering of glass to alert anyone. He’d be found in an hour or so, when his wife returned home from her nail appointment, and by then, Joel would be long gone.
(the hitman au)
Notes:
from an anon on tumblr: I was watching a movie (that one with natalie portman) and I got an Idea. A ficlet where joel is a professional hitman (or a retired one) and ellie is his daughter. She loves him, and he is devoted for her. He is wrapped around her little finger and he knows that.
What he doesn't tell her tho? he actually killed her father for his client. He only realized there was a baby in the house when it was too late. The truth eats him alive everyday, but he will never tell her. Never.
chapter title from "bulletproof" by la roux
Chapter Text
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Gentle finger squeeze on the trigger. Exhale.
The target drops before he even realizes he’s been shot, a small pool of blood gathering on the carpet underneath his head. The man had been nice enough - not that he’d realized it - to leave his window open, so there wasn’t even the shattering of glass to alert anyone. He’d be found in an hour or so, when his wife returned home from her nail appointment, and by then, Joel would be long gone.
-
Sometimes he regretted the path he’d wound up on, the way his life had diverged from everything it should have been. Joel could look back and pinpoint exactly where the fork had occurred - his daughter, a victim of the wrong place at the wrong time, one man so bent on vengeance he didn’t care who he’d hurt in the process.
He had been the first one Joel had ever killed. Twenty years later, and he hadn’t stopped.
Only difference was, now he got paid for it, and handsomely at that.
-
The television is still on when Joel opens the front door, and he pauses, hand on the knob. It’s entirely too late for anyone else to still be awake, and he turns his head towards the dark hallway that branches off the living room towards the back of the house.
He makes sure he makes a fair amount of noise in the process of taking off his shoes and hanging up his keys. His pistol he secures in the safe over the fireplace, making sure it’s locked again before he slides the wall panel back in place. The TV he shuts off, and he pours a glass of water before finally making his way down the hall to the second door on the left.
“Ellie?” Joel knocks gently before pressing a hand against the door and nudging it open.
She gives an exaggerated deep breath, and Joel chuckles, stepping all the way into her room. He can make out the shape of her under her covers, curled on her side, a faint hint of moonlight trickling through the window.
The glass of water he deposits on her nightstand - he knows she’ll want it later - and lowers himself carefully to sit on her mattress near her hip. Her breathing picks up and then slows again, like she thinks he hasn’t already caught on.
“C’mon, baby,” Joel shakes her shoulder gently, his voice teasing. “I know you ain’t sleepin’.”
Ellie rolls over, blinking at him owlishly. She even brings a hand up to rub her eyes, widening them comically like she’s surprised to see him. “Dad?”
“TV didn’t shut off all the way,” Joel tells her helpfully, snorting when her hand immediately falls from her face and her head flops back dramatically on her pillow.
“Fuck.”
He tucks the comforter around her a little more tightly, brushing a stray piece of hair back from her forehead. “Yeah.” Her hand comes up and wraps around his wrist, squeezing gently. “You’re pretty busted, kiddo.”
Ellie shakes the hand holding his, waggling his arm around. “Why do I even still have a bedtime? I’m fourteen. Dina and Jesse don’t have bedtimes.”
He shakes his arm right back, eliciting a small giggle from her. “Dina and Jesse ain’t been caught sneakin’ out recently, have they? Maybe that’s got somethin’ to do with it, hmm?”
Ellie huffs, but she doesn’t argue. She had been busted after all, caught down at the neighborhood pool with some other kids by Marlene, the HOA president, and brought to his door dripping wet at one a.m. Bedtime and curfew had been reinstated after that, and Ellie had three more months of probation from him before it would be lifted.
It didn’t feel good to do - he’d struggled with punishing Sarah at all too - but it let him give free rein to some of his paranoia, gave him an excuse to keep her locked in the house a little more. It wouldn’t last forever - nor should it, Joel knew well and good that Ellie needed to go out and live her own life - but while she was still young enough, he’d shield her from everything he could.
Sarah hadn’t made it to fifteen - Joel was determined to see that Ellie did.
“Get some sleep, baby girl,” he tells her softly, brushing his fingers back and forth across her forehead in the way he knows will soothe her to sleep best. It’s worked since she was a baby, and sure enough her eyes are already drifting closed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Waffles?” Ellie mumbles, rolling on her side and burying her face into her pillow.
Joel smiles down at her, feeling that same tug behind his heart that he has every time since he first held her. “Yeah, baby, we’ll do waffles.”
This time, her breathing deepens out naturally, mouth falling slack, and Joel bends forward to press a kiss to her temple. “Dream somethin’ good,” he whispers, same as he does every night. He ain’t superstitious - can’t afford to be, in his line of work - but he’s always been afraid that the nights he hasn’t been around to tell her, she’ll have nightmares.
Joel shuts the door behind him, padding back through the living room to double check the locks on the doors and windows and set the alarm. When he’s sure they’re as secure as can be, he makes his way back down to his room. He can’t fight the urge to open Ellie’s door one more time and peek in on her; she hasn’t moved, not that he expected her to.
His own room is dark, blackout curtains preventing even a hint of moonlight coming in. He’d wanted to put the same curtains in Ellie’s room for safety, but she’d put her foot down - I need to see the fucking sun, Dad - and Joel had relented. Her room faced the backyard, and they had no neighbors on that side, just a tall fence with motion sensors spaced carefully along it.
Joel doesn’t bother with a lamp, instead making his way straight through to his bathroom and flicking on the light there. As always, he avoids the sight of his reflection, instead turning his back on the mirror and flipping the handle on the shower. He cranks it as hot as he’ll be able to stand and tugs off his clothes, tossing them into a small pile on the floor. He’ll have to do laundry in the morning, get the first load going before Ellie’s awake.
The bathroom is already filling with steam by the time Joel steps under the spray, the water immediately stinging his skin like a thousand small needles. It immediately starts to soothe the aches in his body though, and Joel turns slowly until it’s beating between his shoulder blades.
He’s getting too old for this. Fifty-six, with nearly twenty years of it under his belt. He’s still deadly, sure, one of the best to ever do it as Tess so frequently tells him.
But his recovery times are slower, his reflexes dulling. His already damaged hearing in his right ear is only getting worse.
He’s not far from being a liability - he knows what they do to liabilities.
And he’s got Ellie to think of.
Joel rotates again, sticks his head under the water and lets it sluice down over his face.
He’ll bring it up with Tess soon, Joel thinks. He doesn’t know what the protocol is here - few in his line of work live long enough for it to be a consideration - but they’ll work something out. Better for him to get out now, after a damn near perfect record, while he’s still got enough health and energy to spend with his daughter.
Better that than him getting old and slow, getting sloppy and getting caught.
He shuts the water off and tugs the towel around his waist. The rest of his evening routine he does by rote - dressing, brushing his teeth, turning down his bed - and by the time his head hits the pillow, Joel’s able to slip straight into sleep.
-
He doesn’t usually dream when he sleeps - a side effect, he’d guess, of the way he lives his life. Maybe there’d been nightmares at first, flashes of the lives he’d taken, faint remembrances. But those had stopped with enough time and blood, and his sleep became peaceful again.
Not this night, though.
-
The hallways stretching before him is dark and long, shadows stretching out like fingers, and Joel walks silently as close to the wall as he dares. The floor is less likely to squeak there, but too close to the wall and he’ll brush against a frame or hanging, send it crashing to the ground. Easiest way to get caught, if you’re stupid.
And Joel Miller ain’t stupid.
The first two rooms - a study and a guest room - are clear. Tonight’s unfortunate soul is a widower, a man whose increasingly large debts to Joel’s employer were beyond the point of repayment. Nothing left to do but put the man out of his misery, leave the murky back-end of liquidating the man’s assets to the techies. His only job was making it look natural.
The third room is the master, a four poster bed in the middle, the target in question asleep under the covers.
It’s almost absurdly easy, and Joel leaves the body behind with a mental note to ask Tess for something more challenging next time. He doesn’t know what it says about him that this murder felt boring, but he doesn’t bother dwelling on it.
This is who he is now.
Joel does a final check, sweeping the hall with a flashlight to make sure he left no trace. He’s just clicked the light off when he hears it - a muffled sound of some sort, coming from the only door he hasn’t checked.
Joel advances, feet light, and draws his pistol as he approaches the door, turn the knob slowly with a gloved hand. A faint beam of light meets his eyes, and Joel blinks, inhaling slowly to keep his heart rate low as his eyes adjust.
The sound echoes again, and Joel pushes the door open carefully, pausing when the hinges emit the faintest squeak. Nothing stirs inside, no other sound follows.
Might be a dog or cat, Joel reasons with himself. Wouldn’t be the first time.
After another moment of stillness, he nudges the door open further, eyes scanning back and forth over the room. Taking in the bookshelf, the night light, the tall dresser, the —
The crib against the wall.
Joel’s hand falls limp next to his side, pistol dangling from numb fingertips.
He doesn’t do parents. He’s made that clear to Tess and her bosses a thousand times over. He’ll kill just about anyone, but not if they’ve got kids, and especially not if those kids still live at home. Tess knows - she knows - that’s a hard line for him. So either he was lied to when given the file, or their intel had been bad and they hadn’t known.
But there is - a chubby hand lifts from the crib - there is a baby in the crib. A small, now orphaned child.
Joel orphaned them.
He tucks the pistol into the back of his jeans and takes a careful step closer. And then another, and another, until he’s right next to the crib, hands gripping the railing as he peers down.
Bright brown eyes are staring back up at him, chubby cheeks framing an open mouth. The blanket covering most of her body reads Ellie.
“Ellie,” Joel repeats softly. “‘s that your name?”
A chubby fist waves up at him as if in response.
He should leave. He needs to leave. The job’s done, and the longer he stays here the longer he risks getting caught or leaving behind a trail.
But Ellie is staring up at him from her crib, rosebud mouth opening and closing and little babbles escaping.
He should leave.
But instead Joel bends down, hands carefully scooping underneath her back until she’s cradled against his chest. She rests there easily, something like a contented sigh - if he thought babies could make such a noise - escaping her. The warmth of her against him has something in his chest fracturing, splintering, breaking wide open. All the pieces of him seem to realign, and without thought Joel bends down to pick up her blanket. There’s a nearly full diaper bag by the door, and Joel snags that too.
Ellie doesn’t stir against him as they exit the house through the back and Joel winds them through the trees lining the back of the property. He doesn’t have a car seat, he realizes. He’ll need to get one of those - for the time being Joel lowers himself to sit in the backseat of the car with Ellie still held against him.
He’ll call Tess, Joel decides, back of his finger stroking gently over Ellie’s cheek. She can come get him, get someone else to get his car out of here. She’ll be mad, probably more than a little freaked out, but it ain’t for her to worry about.
Ellie’s his.
She stretches a bit, a small fist making contact with his neck. Immediately Joel starts to rub her back, low voice murmuring in her ear.
“It’s okay, baby girl. I got you.”
-
Joel blinks awake, the familiar sight of his ceiling coming in to focus above him. He doesn’t dream about the night he found Ellie very often, but every time he does it’s as clear as if it had just happened.
A glance at the clock on his nightstand shows it’s nearing on eight, which means Ellie’ll probably be up soon.
He totes his laundry basket down the hall to the laundry room, hitting the power button on the coffee maker when he passes. He’ll get the laundry going, his coffee made, the waffle batter started. And then they can have breakfast together, figure out how they want to spend their Wednesday. It’s summer, so Ellie’s out of school, and he’s off for the day.
Joel strolls over to the window facing the backyard as he sips his coffee, waffle batter made and sitting in the fridge. He’d moved around a lot before Ellie - hazard of the job - but he’d wanted her to have stability, safety. It made it trickier, meant he could take fewer jobs, but he’d stashed up enough money to make that less of a concern.
Tess had predictably lost her shit when she’d found Joel in the back of his car, Ellie snoozing against Joel, but within a matter of hours he’d had a crib and enough supplies to last two weeks. Within three days he’d had a birth certificate listing a dead woman as Ellie’s mother and Joel as her father. Any trace of her in the target’s house had been swiftly and carefully eradicated.
And Ellie had never known about any of it. If Joel had his way, she never would.
A yawn from behind him has Joel turning around, smile spreading across his cheeks at the sight of Ellie shuffling across the living room towards him in her pajamas, hair tousled and eyes half-open. She all but collapses against him, head thunking against his chest as she yawns again.
“Waffles?”
Joel chuckles, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “C’mon, sleepyhead, let’s get you some waffles.”
There was nothing more important to Joel than his daughter. And nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her from learning the truth.
Chapter 4: the best day with you today
Summary:
Sarah had been astonished - and more than a little skeptical - when Joel sat her down and told her that he and Anna were planning to get married, with her blessing of course, barely ten months after meeting. Joel could see it all over her face that she didn’t think it would last, that he was having some kind of midlife crisis - not helped by the fact that Anna was nearly ten years younger than him - and that they wouldn’t last the year.
(joel & sarah & anna & ellie family shenanigans - joel is ellie's biodad)
Notes:
from an anon on tumblr: Joel and Anna get together after Sarah goes to college. Ellie is their kid and Sarah is the cool aunt figure.
chapter title from "the best day" by taylor swift
Chapter Text
Joel had never really planned on having another kid. Hell, he’d barely even planned on having the first - definitely not as young as he’d been - but Rae had gotten pregnant and they’d gotten married and then barely a year after Sarah’s birth, she’d decided she wasn’t cut out for motherhood, and she bailed. Sarah had no memories of her, but other than a few growing pains here and there, she’d never seemed to be worse off without her.
Joel had raised her and watched her graduate and sent her off to college (all the way to San Marcos, which really isn’t that far, Dad, I’ll come visit plenty) and then realized he had no damn idea what to do with his life now. No soccer practice to cart her to, no sleepovers to host, no extracurriculars to plan around.
Now it was just him and his empty house and enough woodcarvings to fill the time that Tommy finally confiscated his knives and said he could have them back if he left the house once a week for two months.
So, after digging around on the internet a little, he’d gone to the library down the street, picked up their calendar, and signed up for the monthly book club and the Spanish conversation group. Both of which, it turned out, were attended by a woman named Anna who had a habit of shooting him amused looks when one of the other book club members made an asinine remark.
True to his word, Tommy returned the knives to him after two months, but they started collecting dust almost immediately because Joel spent all his free time with Anna. A coffee date turned into a dinner date and within two weeks they were seeing each other near daily.
Sarah had been astonished - and more than a little skeptical - when Joel sat her down and told her that he and Anna were planning to get married, with her blessing of course, barely ten months after meeting. Joel could see it all over her face that she didn’t think it would last, that he was having some kind of midlife crisis - not helped by the fact that Anna was nearly ten years younger than him - and that they wouldn’t last the year.
But she could see how important this was to him, so she gave her blessing anyway. No matter her own reservations, she wanted her dad to be happy. And she liked Anna a lot, thought her a good match for Joel, even if everything was moving unsettlingly fast.
They’d done a small ceremony in the backyard, just Sarah, Tommy, and Anna’s best friend Marlene in attendance. And for another two years that had been their family; neither of them had planned on having kids.
But then Anna started throwing up, missed her period, and those two lines on the test turned pink. And suddenly, they were having a baby.
Ellie made her arrival a week before Sarah’s twenty-first birthday, and Joel’s eldest spent what should have been a night out partying pacing laps around their living room cradling her sister, while Joel and Anna snagged a few precious hours of sleep. He’d been worried that getting a baby sister when she herself was full grown would be a problem for Sarah, but it had been the opposite. Ellie was Sarah’s favorite person ever, a feeling that went both ways as Ellie got older.
Wild, Joel thought, watching Ellie and Sarah float in their tubes ahead of him and Anna, how his girls could be so far apart in years and yet be so close and so similar. Maybe not wild, just…lucky.
The two of them are shooting mischievous grins over their shoulders now, and Joel shares a wry look with Anna. Her nose and cheeks are tinted red with the sun, tips of her fingers tracing lightly through the water as they float down the San Marcos River.
“Here,” Joel says, carefully tossing her the small tube of sunscreen. He points to his own nose and cheeks. “Think you need a bit of a touch up, you’re gettin’ a little crispy.”
Anna gives him a wry smile, rubbing a fresh coat over her face. “Not all of us were made to roast in the Texas sun, sweetheart.”
Joel shrugs. “Can’t help it that I tan and you don’t, darlin’. Y’know –”
Something pushes hard on the bottom of his tube, and Joel goes ass over head into the river, the cold temperature jolting him into opening his mouth and damn near inhaling enough water to fill his lungs. When his head breaks the surface a chorus of laughter greets him - six feet away Ellie is clambering back into her tube while Sarah tries to hold it steady. Next to him Anna is howling, her own hand barely maintaining a grip on his tube while the other clutches her stomach. He doesn’t bother climbing back into it; instead he propels himself forward through the water until he’s caught up to the girls.
Ellie shrieks and tries to paddle away, but she’s too slow, and Joel has her flipped into the water in a matter of seconds. He waits until she surfaces, gulps in a bit of air, and then promptly dunks her again.
She comes back up sputtering, a hand frantically trying to wipe her face clean. “Rude!” is all she manages, scooping a hand through the water to splash him. It hits him in the chest - he can still hear Sarah and Anna laughing - and he propels himself forward to hook an arm around her waist and hoist her up over his shoulder. It takes more effort to keep them afloat - his back is gonna hate him for this later, fifty-seven is really a bit too old to be lifting teenagers, even ones as scrawny as Ellie - but he paddles them unevenly back over towards Anna.
“Caught you something, huh?” His wife calls, shielding her face when Ellie aims a splash of water her way too.
“Sarah neglected to mention the river was full of gremlins,” he says back, giving her a grin before sucking in a breath and plunging himself - and his squirming daughter - under the water once more. Only once they’ve surfaced again does he release her, the two of them treading water.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re an ass?” Ellie says playfully, splashing him again.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a little shit?” He retorts, splashing her right back.
“Anyone ever tell either of you that you're exactly the same?” Anna cuts in from behind them, one hand still holding Joel’s tube.
“No,” they reply simultaneously, and she lets out another bark of laughter, echoed by Sarah on the other side of them.
“I’m never bringing y’all floating again,” she says teasingly, her head tipping back dramatically.
“Oh please,” Ellie doggy paddles forward, hoisting herself back into her tube next to her sister. “You’d be so bored doing this without us. You love us.”
Sarah scrunches up her nose, pretending to think for a moment before she leans over - nearly upsetting her own tube - and smacking a kiss onto her younger sister’s cheek. “Yeah, guess I do.”
Chapter 5: what a way to make a livin'
Summary:
All Ellie can think of right now - with this woman hollering in her face - is that gif of Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada. Red eyes, stuffy nose, clicking around on the computer screen and murmuring under her breath “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.” Like it’s a mantra that she has to remind herself of, like if she says it enough times it’ll be true.
(a stressful day at work for ellie)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: I wish you'd write a fic where ellie was stressed with a job and joel was able to talk her through it and calm her down
chapter title from "9 to 5" by dolly parton
Chapter Text
All Ellie can think of right now - with this woman hollering in her face - is that gif of Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada. Red eyes, stuffy nose, clicking around on the computer screen and murmuring under her breath “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.” Like it’s a mantra that she has to remind herself of, like if she says it enough times it’ll be true.
I love my job.
Except Ellie doesn’t really love her job all that much. She likes it, sure. It gives her a great discount on art supplies, helps her save up a little extra pocket money. Her coworkers are pretty cool too, always a bonus.
But she doesn’t exactly wanna be an art store clerk for the rest of her life, and people like this woman are exactly why.
She seems to have finally run out of breath, standing on the other side of the counter with her chest heaving and her cheeks scarlet, fury in her eyes. Ellie’d zoned out somewhere around it’s only missing one page and it’s barely a week past the return window and so now she stares at the woman a little blankly.
“Well?” She demands.
It’s right there, on the tip of Ellie’s tongue - Sorry, ma’am, I haven’t listened to a word of your bullshit, and I’m not doing your fucking return - but Jace had told her she was one more customer complaint from being canned. So she swallows it, pastes on a smile that probably looks more like a grimace, and forces out through gritted teeth, “Let me get a manager for you.”
She doesn’t get paid enough to get yelled at.
Jace, though, does, and more than that she loves getting to tell customers off; her face practically lights up at Ellie’s frustrated “She wants to return a used sketchbook purchased four months ago” and bolts to the register like she’s been told there’s a stack of cash there. Sure enough, after about a minute, the woman’s throaty yelling can be heard once again.
A customer in the paint aisle gives Ellie a commiserating look as she settles down onto the ground to take over Jace’s restocking.
“People can be such assholes, huh?” He says sympathetically, right as he takes a slurping sip of a McDonald’s drink and then sets it on top of a stack of canvases. He leaves it there too, and Ellie’s seized with the urge to pick it up and chuck it at the back of his head as he walks away.
You’re not any fucking better! She wants to scream at him.
Instead, she just scoops up the empty cup and tosses it in the trash, detouring to the bathroom to wash her hands afterwards.
Sketchbook Lady and Cup Man have both left by the time she reemerges, and Jace is strolling towards her with a vaguely triumphant air.
“Got her down to store credit for a quarter the value of the sketchbook,” she says happily, plopping back down onto the ground with the boxes of paint tubes. “And told her that if she abused any member of my staff next time she came in here I’d take her picture from the cameras and put a banned notice on the front windows for everyone to see.”
Ellie sighs tiredly, giving Jace a small smile. At least, if nothing else, she’s got a cool fucking boss.
One who’s watching her now with narrowed eyes, hands moving on autopilot as she labels and shelves the tubes. “Why don’t you go in the back and work on today’s shipment. Think we got nine boxes needing unpacking and inventorying back there.”
Ellie doesn’t even try to argue it - she just turns on her heel and strides off.
—
By the time she leaves three hours later, Ellie’s sweaty and exhausted, her head pounding with pressure behind her eyes. She’s supposed to get dinner with Dina and Jesse tonight, but she shoots them a text in the group begging off. She can’t, she just can’t, she’s too goddamn fried right now to socialize even with her best friends. So she just goes home. No music on the stereo, just a quiet podcast she’s only half paying attention to.
She doesn’t really feel herself relax until she’s pulled into her driveway.
Joel’s not home yet - his truck’s not in his driveway - so Ellie toes off her shoes by the front door and flops facedown onto the couch. Dina and Jesse like to poke fun at her for being almost twenty-one and still living at home with her dad, but Ellie loves it. She always jokingly replies that it’s cheaper that way, or that she doesn’t have to do her own laundry, or that Joel’s a better cook.
But really she just…hasn’t felt ready to move out. She’s been living with Joel since she was just shy of fifteen, the first home that she’s ever wanted to really stay in and had the feeling returned. All her foster homes before that were a mismatch, and then in a last ditch effort she got put with this cranky old fuck who Ellie had been sure was going to turn her out within a month.
He hadn’t though - he’d been the first person to ever really look at Ellie and see her.
Sue her, she wasn’t ready to move away from that yet.
Ellie gives herself ten minutes to decompress on the couch - with a few muffled screams into the cushions for good measure - before dragging herself down the hall to her bathroom and making herself take a scalding shower. Normally she cranks some music while she does it, but her head is still pounding and right now all she wants is some blessed quiet.
Fifteen minutes later she’s clean, in pajamas, and back on the couch with a bottle of water and her feet propped up. There’s a text on her phone from Joel saying he’s picked up takeout from Casa Colombia - Ellie’s stomach rumbles as soon as she reads it - so he’ll probably be home in another twenty minutes.
Hopefully by then she’s feeling less like peeling her skin off.
It’s ridiculous, Ellie knows that, letting herself get so worked up by a couple shitty customers at a retail job. She’s dealt with worse before, but some days it was just more frustrating than others - a constant stream of people who don’t see her as a person, simply a robot to find stuff for them or stand behind a register. And even the nice ones can get overwhelming when there’s so many of them. Just constant, non-stop interaction with people.
Ellie groans, letting her head fall back against the couch. All the stress that she’d managed to melt away with the hot shower and quiet time has come speeding back as she just sits here and wallows in her stupid, useless thoughts. Maybe she should’ve turned the television on to distract her.
The sound of the garage door opening greets her, and it lifts a weight off her chest.
Joel’s home.
“Food’s here!” He calls down the hall, and there’s a few thuds as he shucks his boots. Ellie doesn’t move, instead craning her head around to see him emerge, bags in hand. He’s grayer than he was when she moved in with him, wrinklier too. But he’s still Joel, still emanates that sense of safety she’s never been able to find anywhere else.
Still her favorite person in the world.
His brow furrows when he notices her sitting there, already in her pajamas - plaid pants and a (definitely not stolen from him) overlarge t-shirt adorned with a faded Cowboys star. He stills, head tilting as he looks her over. “‘Y’alright, kiddo?”
“Long day,” is all Ellie replies for now, pushing herself to stand so she can walk over and take the bags of food from his hands. Joel presses a quick kiss to her temple as she does, a gesture that never fails to fill her with warmth, before he heads to the cupboards to pull down plates.
They set the table and eat in silence, other than the occasional remark about the deliciousness of an arepa or the perfect seasoning on the churrasco. Ellie appreciates that about Joel, always has. He’s not one to talk about his own feelings, and so he doesn’t push her on hers. But when she wants to talk, he’ll be all ears. Probably have some good, weird southern wisdom too, something like you’ve got horse sense or just because a chicken has wings don’t mean it can fly.
Both things she’s heard him say in utter seriousness.
They both eat everything Joel’s brought home, and then Ellie handles the clean up and dishes while Joel goes to his room to shower and change. By the time he comes back in his own pajamas - which she definitely didn’t get him just because they matched hers - Ellie’s resumed her position on the couch, though with much less tension in her shoulders.
Amazing how much a good meal and quiet time with her favorite person can make the world seem like a good place again.
Joel lowers himself to the couch next to her with a sigh, a heavy hand patting her knee. “Gonna tell me what’s got you all up in your head?”
Ellie sighs, leaning over until her head is resting on Joel’s shoulder. “Just one of those days.”
She feels him shift, and then his cheek is resting against the crown of her head. “Tell me about it?”
The gentle question - one Ellie knows she could refuse to answer, say she doesn’t feel like talking about it - asked in his rough twang, does the same thing it has since she was a teenager. It makes her open her mouth and the words come flowing out.
She tells Joel about Sketchbook Lady and Cup Man and the person who’d hung up on her and the older man who’d kept staring at her chest and the woman who had practically tossed her payment in Ellie’s face and the perfectly nice lady who wanted to tell Ellie her whole life story while purchasing one pack of coloring pencils and a single tube of red paint.
It’s still draining, reliving all the seemingly trivial interactions she’d had, but this time it’s like unloading a weight from her shoulders. By the time she stops talking, finally done, Ellie feels like she could just pass out right there against his shoulder and sleep dreamlessly.
“‘M sorry you had such a day,” Joel replies quietly, readjusting them so his arm’s around her shoulders, and he squeezes ever so slightly. “I bet you'll probably have more shitty ones though, sorry to tell you. But just remember that you're good at your job and they're lucky as hell to have you, baby. And you can handle some shitty assholes. 'F you can't, just let me at 'em.” Ellie chuckles softly, burrowing a little closer to him.
They're both quiet for a few minutes, and Ellie's just about to suggest popping a movie in and digging into the ice cream in the freezer when Joel speaks. “You’re off the next two days, ain't you?”
“Yeah.”
His hand comes up to cup the back of her head, tilting her so he can press a quick kiss to her forehead. “Why don’t you ‘n me take a little day trip or somethin’? Go down to San Antonio, hang out at the Riverwalk. Or we could go out to Fredericksburg?” He offers the last suggestion a little hopefully, and Ellie grins.
“You just wanna go back to the World War II museum,” she teases.
“...No.”
Ellie giggles, eyes slipping shut when his dull fingernails start to scratch over her scalp. “Fredericksburg it is, then.”
Chapter 6: call my name and save me from the dark
Summary:
Joel always had a feeling it would end like this. He’d done too many fucked up things, spilled too much blood to deserve anything but a violent ending. The years in Jackson, few though they’d been, had been him living on borrowed time.
He just hadn’t thought he’d be taking Tommy and Ellie down with him.
(a joel comes back to life au)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: Would you please write a fic where Joel dies but he comes back to life?
chapter title from "bring me to life" by evanescence
Chapter Text
Joel always had a feeling it would end like this. He’d done too many fucked up things, spilled too much blood to deserve anything but a violent ending. The years in Jackson, few though they’d been, had been him living on borrowed time.
He just hadn’t thought he’d be taking Tommy and Ellie down with him.
But there’s nothing he can do except peer out through his busted eye at Tommy’s unconscious form, at Ellie pinned down and struggling, tears and blood coating her face. They’d been so close, he and Ellie, so close to fixing things after years of distance. Figures that his past would rear its ugly head now and yank the chance from his grasp.
And he doesn’t even know who this woman is, who her friends are, though he’s got some suspicions. All he knows is that the sight of her looming over him with a golf club is gonna be the last thing he sees.
–
Joel’s never really given much thought to the afterlife, even with as many close calls as he’s had over the years. He figured he’d punched his ticket to Hell a long time ago, and nothing he could do would change that. So maybe he’d thought there would be flames. Fire ants to bite him for eternity, or a lava bath. Anything hot and painful.
He hadn’t expected a giant void. It was kind of like space, he muses, darkness as far as the eye - does he still have eyes? - can see, dotted with the occasional pinpricks of light. But he can’t move, doesn’t think he’s breathing, doesn’t really feel anything. He just…waits.
And waits.
And waits.
And then finally something takes shape in front of him, haloed by an increasingly dense cluster of lights until Joel has to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. Then it’s gone, and someone says –
“Hey Dad.”
Joel’s eyes snap open, and there she is. There she fucking is, right in front of him, his daughter, his little girl, his Sarah. She doesn’t look any different than the last time he saw her - curly hair, purple shirt that’s blessedly free of blood. Wide brown eyes and a soft smile.
“Baby girl?” Joel chokes on the words, eyes brimming with tears. Maybe this is his punishment - the sight of Sarah, close enough to hug, before he’s sent off to whatever really awaits him.
Her head tilts. “You’re old.”
Joel can’t help the laugh that escapes him, wet and garbled, and he tries futilely to wipe away some of the tears streaming down his cheeks. They just keep coming though, and he doesn’t know that they’ll ever stop. “I missed you, baby.”
She blinks, her own eyes glassy. “I missed you too.” She sniffs, taking a tentative step forward in whatever empty space they’re currently occupying, hand outstretched until her fingers curl carefully around his. The feel of her, tangible and solid and real, sends Joel to the ground, knees folding until he’s curled up and sobbing. They don’t ache for once, his knees, and Sarah’s hand releases his in favor of coming to rest lightly on his back, rubbing careful circles as his chest heaves.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Joel gasps. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe, I’m so sorry. I failed you and I lost you and I –”
“Shhh.” Sarah crouches next to him, arms looping around his neck and pulling him closer. His face winds up pressed to her shoulder, sobs that he can’t seem to stop rolling through him again and again. “You’re alright. We’re alright.”
Always taking care of him when he should be taking care of her.
Joel gets an arm around her and squeezes, pressing a kiss to her cheek, her temple, the crown of her head, anywhere he can manage. She smells the same too, like the coconut from her shampoo and the crisp cleanness of their laundry detergent.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever let her go now.
Joel doesn’t think time passes while they sit in the void, at least not that he can tell. But it feels like an eternity and a second before Sarah is shifting backwards, small hands coming up to cup his cheeks. She’s beaming at him for some reason, smile stretching all across her face.
Fuck, he’s missed her so much. Even on his better days there was always a giant, gaping hole in his chest, a limb he was missing, a breath that was harder to catch because Sarah wasn’t there. And here she is again, whole and healthy, fourteen still, brimming with that same bright energy she’d always had. His beautiful, perfect baby girl.
“You gotta go back, Dad,” she says, and Joel rears back until her hands land on his shoulders to steady him.
“Go ba– no, baby, I can’t go back. I’m stayin’ here with you.”
Sarah’s eyes fill with tears again, a few making sparkling tracks down her cheeks as she shakes her head. “You can’t. If you stay, it won’t be…it won’t be with me.”
Right. Of course it wouldn’t. Nothing he’s done earns him the privilege of being with his daughter again, nothing he’s done has given him that right. This brief, beautiful, terrible glimpse was all he was ever gonna get.
But Sarah’s next words yank any remaining air from his lungs. “You have to go back for Ellie.”
“Ellie –?”
But of course. Ellie, his other girl, the one he left behind. The one he last saw pinned to the ground, mouth moving in words he couldn’t make out. Ellie.
Something in his chest fractures, a fissure opening up where his heart had briefly been whole.
“She needs you,” Sarah’s saying, her lower lip wobbling. “She needs you real bad. I can’t - I can’t tell you everything, but you have to go back for her. If you stay here, she’s gonna…it’s gonna be real bad. For her and Uncle Tommy both.”
“Baby, I don’t think I –”
“No, you have to!” Sarah bursts out, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. “You don’t get it, you –” She inhales unsteadily, her fear and sorrow a tangible thing sitting between the two of them in this empty space. “When you’re dead you can…you can still see everything. You can watch what everyone’s doing, the choices they make. You can watch them become someone you don’t even recognize.” The last sentence is a whisper, and Joel feels it slip around his throat to strangle him.
She’d seen it. All the terrible, fucked up things he’d done, the people he’d tortured and killed, the drugs he’d taken, the ways he’d punished himself for failing to save her. She’d watched all of it.
And yet she was still here in front of him with love in her eyes, not reprimanding him or judging him.
He never had deserved her, not for a minute.
“You don’t want to see Ellie go through that,” Sarah whispers. “She’s too much like you, Dad, maybe even more like you than I was. She’s too stubborn and determined and she fights so hard when she loves someone. She’s gonna upend her life trying to avenge you.”
Joel shakes his head, tearing his gaze from his daughter for the first time. “No, Ellie and me, we –”
“I don’t have time to argue with you about it,” she interrupts, her eyes taking on that stubborn glint he remembers all too well from the time she’d wanted a tenth birthday at the Riverwalk. “You just have to trust me, and you have to go back. You have to, Dad.”
“And you called her stubborn,” Joel mutters.
Sarah laughs briefly, but it fades and then she’s placing a small hand on each cheek again and lifting his face. “Go back,” she whispers. “Go back and save her. You couldn’t save me –”
“Baby –”
“– but you can save her. So please.” Her voice breaks, the vision of her blurring as more tears fill his eyes. “Please go save her.”
“Okay,” Joel whispers. “Okay, baby girl, I’ll go back for you. You and her.”
Sarah’s smile is the brightest thing in the darkness around them. The last thing he feels is her hand over his chest, a whispered I love you meeting his ears before everything fades out again.
–
There’s not a single piece of him that doesn’t hurt, even as he feels outside his body. No idea where he is or what’s happening, only a constant, unending pain. It ebbs and flows, some periods unbearable enough to make him wish for the void of death again.
But the tether doesn’t snap this time, and all Joel can do is hold on.
–
The first thing he hears is beeping. Rhythmic, quiet beeping, and after a moment Joel realizes it’s in time with his heartbeat.
It takes an eternity, but he peels open his eyes. No - his eye. His left remains shut, his right only opening with concerted effort. It’s dark, wherever he is, only faint pinpricks of light illuminating the area nearest him. All he can make out is the shape of someone curled in a chair, draped in a blanket.
Ellie.
He can’t see her, but he knows.
Joel tries to say her name, to say anything, but his throat constricts, his chest aching. All he can manage is some kind of grunt, the beep of his heart rate picking up ever so slightly.
But it’s enough - Ellie stirs.
“Joel?” She asks sleepily, shifting and turning bleary eyes on him.
This time, he gets the words out. “Hey, kiddo.”
A ragged oh my god spills from Ellie before she’s kicking the blanket off and stumbling three paces forward and crumpling with her head landing on his chest. It sends flares of pain ricocheting through his ribs, starbursts erupting in his vision, but he doesn’t dare ask her to move. Instead he carefully wraps his right arm around her shoulders, hissing out a breath as his side screams in protest.
“How in the fuck –?” Ellie sobs against him, fingers tangling in the front of his shirt.
“Sarah,” Joel mumbles, throat tightening again and a fresh press of tears welling in his good eye. Ellie tenses against him but doesn’t pull away. “Sent me back. Said you and my dipshit brother were gonna do somethin’ dumb.”
A wet laugh escapes her, shoulders shaking. “Think those painkillers fried your brain, old man.”
Maybe. But Joel wanted to believe it had been Sarah, one of his girls trying to protect the other. “How long –?”
“Three weeks,” Ellie whispers. When she finally straightens, Joel can see the plum-colored shadows under her eyes, the way her shirt - his shirt, his favorite flannel - hangs off her too-thin frame. “You – we brought you back to Jackson and right when we got in the walls you started breathing. Freaked us all out because we checked, a million times. You’d had no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath.” Her voice cracks, one thin hand reaching for his the same as Sarah’s had. “And then we got you in here and you’ve just…you weren’t waking up.”
“‘M sorry,” Joel mumbles, squeezing her hand as best he can.
“It’s okay.” Ellie laughs again, a delirious kind of thing that sends a fall of tears from her eyes. “Just don’t ever do it again, or I’ll fucking kill you myself, got it?”
“Yeah,” Joel smiles, even as it makes the side of his face twinge in agony. “Yeah, I got it.”
Chapter 7: a space bound rocket ship (and your heart's the moon)
Summary:
This was definitely not the plan.
Joel stares down at the little girl, eyes roaming over her worriedly through his visor, and she stares defiantly back up at him.
This was not the plan, and now he’s got a whole bunch of Morgan Elsbeth’s minions after him. All because he couldn’t just walk away when they tried to take her, even though it’s what he had been paid to do. Find the girl, transport her to Corvus and hand her over.
(a mandalorian au)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: Maybe an Star Wars AU where joel is a mandalorian and he has a mission to find and capture baby ellie for someone because she has some kind of value (like little grogu and his powers) but then he is just this hot man in a space bountyhunter suit that has a little girl hanging on his leg across space to everybody, and he can't get rid of her to his motherfucking clients because she's just so cute and likes to mess around on his spaceship and even has her own little chair and always gives a little peck on his helmet!!! And then when he finally lets her see his face, her little hand just grabs his big ass nose and he laughs because he knows it is too big, and then she finally gives him a little kiss on his nose instead of the helmet and their eyes met for the first time🥹and then when he wants to put the helmet back she makes a sad face and tries to put the helmet down, because now that she knows what her space daddy looks like she just wants to see his pretty eyes and kiss his big ass nose all the time.
so, some disclaimers:
--first, i fully failed at what anon requested. literally like read the prompt too fast and spat out the ficlet and then reread the prompt and was like...they don't match.
--second, i have such minimal star wars knowledge. i watched mando and ahsoka and boba fett, but other than that i know jackshit. so if there are inaccuracies, misused words, anything, i'm very sorry and i just ask that you be gentle with me about it. i also wrote this and then realized afterwards that i messed up my own timeline within it. so. it's been that kind of week.
Chapter Text
This was definitely not the plan.
Joel stares down at the little girl, eyes roaming over her worriedly through his visor, and she stares defiantly back up at him.
This was not the plan, and now he’s got a whole bunch of Morgan Elsbeth’s minions after him. All because he couldn’t just walk away when they tried to take her, even though it’s what he had been paid to do. Find the girl, transport her to Corvus and hand her over. The why didn’t matter to him so much as the payment. And maybe if everything had gone the way it should have - three days, max, of traveling with her before handing her over - then he wouldn’t be in this situation. But transport had taken nearly two months for an increasingly absurd number of reasons.
Dodging bounty hunters. Damage to the stabilizer on his ship. Two attempted abductions of her.
So naturally, by the time Joel had gotten her to Morgan, she had walked away with this faintly betrayed look on her face that had wormed underneath his beskar and pressed against his heart until he’d caved. He’d damn near blown the place up getting her out of there, and now she was curled up on the front seat of his ship, chin on her knees, scrapes on her hands.
Joel sighs, the sound slightly distorted by his helmet. “C’mon, Ellie, let’s get you cleaned up.”
–
Ellie’s not speaking to him, it would seem. Even though he went back for her, she apparently wasn’t over the fact that he’d left her to begin with. So she stays completely silent - more quiet than she’s ever been around him - as he wipes down her hands and her face and pulls out clean clothes for her to wear.
Once she reemerges, clean and dressed and still sulking, Joel nudges her gently up to the cockpit of the ship.
“You hurt?”
She doesn’t respond, and when Joel turns back to look at her, she mutely shakes her head.
“Good.” He lowers himself to the seat, tilting his head towards the one to his right. “Buckle up.” They’re sort of just cruising through space at this point, the ship on autopilot while Joel figures out what to do and where to point them, but that won’t be sufficient for long. He’s gonna need a plan, an actual plan. Somewhere safe for them to lay low for a bit.
And he thinks he knows just the guy to help them out.
–
“How old did you say you were?”
Ellie’s arms are crossed over her chest, face turned out the window. “Eight,” she says flatly. She looks younger than it though, probably closer to six if he’d had to guess. He’s got no way of knowing what her genetic makeup is though - and it’d be rude as hell to ask - so maybe she just aged slower, looked younger for longer.
“What did they want with you?”
“How should I know?” She bites out, still not looking at him.
Joel fiddles with the controls a bit, double checks their flight path. “They didn’t say nothin’?”
“Nope.” She pops the end of the word, emphasizing the ‘p’. “Just wheeled me back and started sticking needles in my arms.”
Joel sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opens them, Ellie has finally turned to look at him, staring at him so hard he thinks she’s trying to see straight through his helmet to his face. He’s never been more glad to not take it off - she’s young, but she’s too goddamn perceptive.
“Y’know,” he says slowly, gloved fingers gripping the sides of the yoke. “You asked me awhile back why I wear the helmet and don’t take it off.”
Ellie’s eyes narrow. “Yeah…”
Joel hadn’t given her an answer then, too focused on keeping a distance between him and the target. She was just a job, he’d reminded himself, even when he caught himself smiling behind his helmet at one of her many - many - ridiculous puns. Just a job. So he’d ignored that question and most of the others she’d asked.
Felt a little like he owed her an answer now, after the events of the last twelve hours.
“It’s part of my religion.” He turns away from her, finds the words flowing easier when he’s looking out at the inky darkness of space and not right into the eyes that no longer look at him so trustfully. “It’s complicated, very long story. But pretty much we wear the helmets at all times, and to remove it with those who are not family, or to have it removed, is a great dishonor. I only take it off when I’m alone. But I do that so rarely that it feels strange when I don’t have it on, like I’m missin’ some part of myself.”
Joel hears Ellie move but doesn’t look over at her, more concerned with the appearance of Nevarro in the distance.
“Cool,” Ellie replies after a pause, and he thinks her voice sounds a little warmer than it had before. “Thanks…thanks for telling me.”
“No problem, kiddo.”
–
The house is right where it should be, and as Joel readjusts his landing gear and angles them carefully down, he sees the glint of a sun off the owner’s helmet.
By the time Joel emerges, Ellie in tow, Din is standing in the doorway. Next to his boot, peeking out with wide obsidian eyes, is the small green - Joel feels bad calling it a creature , but nobody knows what species he is - form of his adopted son.
Joel lifts a hand in greeting, and Din matches the gesture. “I won’t stay long,” he says without preamble. “Ran into some trouble, and thought maybe you could help me out. If not, we’ll be on our way.”
Din’s head tilts to the side and then up, as though scanning for anyone who may have followed them. His son shifts over, and Joel catches Ellie’s whispered whoa from behind him.
“Grogu,” Din says warningly, and Grogu stops from where he’d been inching forward. His head turns back towards the Mandalorian, ears twitching, and Din tilts his head back down. Some sort of wordless message seems to pass between father and son, and then Grogu turns back to look at them, a cooing noise emanating from him. He doesn’t move any closer though.
“What do you need?” Din asks, his attention now back on Joel and Ellie.
“‘S a long story,” Joel replies. “But we need somewhere to hide out for awhile, till the people after her stop lookin’.”
Din’s head shifts minutely, as though he’s looking from Joel to Ellie and then back again. Even with two helmets - neither of their expressions visible to the other - Joel feels like he’s having his measure taken.
“She your foundling?”
“Foundl–” Ellie sputter behind him, but Joel cuts her off.
“Yes,” he says firmly.
Din is quiet for another long moment - Joel gets the sense that the other Mandalorian is a man of very few words - and Grogu coos again, his attention now on a bug crawling through the grass near him. His father looks down at him and…it surprises Joel, the visible way Din’s posture loosens and relaxes, watching Grogu waddle along slowly.
“I know a place,” he says softly, breaking the still air. His helmet is still angled towards Grogu, tracking every small move the child makes. “Safe. Quiet. Shouldn’t have any issues there.”
Relief wraps around Joel like a blanket, a weight he hadn’t even realized was on his chest lifting. “Thank you.”
Din nods. “This is the way.”
“This is the way.”
–
Joel’s careful as he sets down the ship in the field, already noting the heads emerging from a nearby field to watch him warily. They were a peaceful people, Din had said, but wary of outsiders. But once he found Omera and introduced himself, they’d relax and he and Ellie would be given shelter.
He looks back at Ellie, watches her peering out the window curiously. “Stay close to me,” he orders. “Don’t say anything.”
Ellie just rolls her eyes at him, traipsing along dutifully behind him. “Yeah, yeah.”
A fair number of people have gathered by the time he lowers the ramp and the two of them descend, the looks on their faces ranging from curious to openly hostile. Joel’s careful to keep his hands visible and away from the weapons on his hips, eyes flicking quickly from one person to the next.
“We’re not lookin’ for trouble,” he says loudly when they’re within earshot. “I was sent here by a friend. I’m lookin’ for Omera.”
A quick flurry of whispers passes through the crowd, heads turning and words hidden behind hands. Two people peel off from the group and dart away, and Joel watches them go with narrowed eyes. Nobody else says anything after they leave, all eyes remaining on Joel and Ellie. He can see them examining him from helmet to booted feet, taking in the dents on his armor, the gleam of the beskar on his chest, the gun at his hip.
But they all remain distant and observant until the two return, this time with a willowy woman with brown hair between them.
“Who are you?” She asks without preamble, coming to a halt ten feet away.
“Name’s Joel,” he replies gruffly. “This is Ellie –” he gestures behind him and sees her lift her hand in a wave from the corner of his eye “– and we need your help. Got some people after her, and my friend, another Mandalorian, said this was a safe place, if you’ll let us stay for a bit.”
“Hmm.” Her gaze narrows, lips pursing. “This friend - tell me about them.”
Joel shifts, eyes drifting past her to the still-swelling group of villagers behind her. “He’s a Mandalorian, like me. Travelin’ with his kid, small green child. Helped y’all get some raiders to leave you alone, him and Cara Dune.”
Omera’s face relaxes more and more with each word he utters, something wistful passing through her eyes before she looks away.
“Any friend of his is a friend of mine,” she says softly. “Come with me.”
–
It takes very little time at all for Sorgan to feel like home. The other children in the village take to Ellie almost immediately, and while there’s some lingering wariness towards Joel, it fades more and more each day. He doesn’t know how long they’ll be able to safely stay here, but he’s content in a way he hasn’t been in years.
“Joel!” Ellie yells, the door banging against the wall as she barges in. “Guess what?”
He uncrosses his boots, smiling behind his helmet at the sight of her. Covered in grass and dirt and what looks a bit like slime. “What, kiddo?”
She kicks off her shoes by the door, chest heaving. “I finally - fucking - beat - Visz - racing –” She doubles over, sucking in air to catch her breath.
Joel chuckles. “Nice. How about you celebrate by goin’ to wash up and get ready for dinner?”
Ellie salutes him and turns down the hall towards her room. Joel gets up to check behind her that the door’s shut properly, the curtains drawn over the windows. And then he sets the table, listening all the while for the sounds of Ellie cleaning up and returning.
Carefully, with a measured breath that does nothing to slow the way his pulse is racing, Joel lifts his helmet from his head and sets it on the side table. The breastplate and shoulder pauldrons follow, one piece at a time until he’s left in a simple long-sleeve shirt and the armor covering his legs.
And then he waits.
It’s only a few more minutes before Ellie emerges, water dripping from the ends of her hair. She’s looking down at the ground as she walks, not paying him the slightest bit of attention until she rounds the corner.
“Hey Joel, did we –”
Ellie halts so fast that she nearly over balances, eyes wide and jaw hanging. Joel doesn’t say anything, just sits with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands clasped, waiting for her reaction.
Her eyes flick to the helmet and back to him again, raking over his face. “You - you’re not wearing your helmet.” Joel inclines his head. “But you –” she pauses, clearly thinking back months ago, when he’d told her why he wore the helmet all the time. Ellie swallows. “You said you only take it off around…family.”
“I did,” Joel agrees softly.
Ellie clears her throat, takes a few careful steps forward. “So…I’m not just cargo?”
Joel’s throat tightens, jaw grinding, silently cursing himself. “No, baby girl, you’re not.”
“Okay.” A few more steps forward, until her feet are brushing the tips of his boots. “Okay, cool.”
He feels exposed in a way he’s not used to, watching Ellie take in every possible facet of his face - the scars, the wrinkles, the gray peppering his beard and hair. Nothing hidden from her this time around.
“You’re old,” Ellie finally says with a giggle. Her hand lifts, one of her fingers poking gently at his cheek. “How do your bones not collapse with all that armor, don’t they deteriorate at some point?”
“Little shit,” Joel says affectionately, batting her hand away and poking her own cheek in turn. She laughs again, hand falling to her side.
“Old man,” she retorts playfully. And then before Joel can blink - or even register the movement - she’s flung her arms around his neck, face buried in his shoulder. Automatically his own arms come up and wrap around her small frame in turn. She stays there for a minute and Joel lets her, hand rubbing softly between her shoulder blades. He waits for her to detach first, watches carefully as she steps back and scrubs at her cheek.
“C’mon, kiddo,” Joel nudges her towards the table. “Let’s eat dinner.”
Chapter 8: you ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Summary:
“You don’t have a collar.” Ellie frowns, reaching down to scratch behind his ears again. “You just stuck out here then, buddy?”
He nudges her again with his nose, for lack of a better response. Not like he has a way to tell her he chooses to be out in this hovel, miserable and dirty because he’s lost the only human that ever really mattered.
(joel as a dog)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: ...A fic where joel is ellie's big ol' dog and the fic takes place in his pov and showing to us how is his daily life when ellie is his owner?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
All he remembered was Sarah. His sweet, precious human. He didn’t know a time before her, a time where he wasn’t sitting at her feet at dinner or chasing her around a yard or curling up next to her in bed no matter how many times her uncle told her not to let him do that. She taught him how to shake and roll over, how to play dead and cover his eyes with his paws.
Sarah was everything.
But then she got sick. And stayed sick, no matter how hard he tried to will her better, how tightly he let her squeeze him. Then her uncle took her out of the house one day, and the nice lady from next door came to check on him and walk him every day.
And then finally - finally - the uncle was back. But he was alone, sitting in the dark in her room, head in his hands and shoulders shaking with sobs. He’d put his nose on the man’s knee and whined until finally the uncle placed a heavy hand atop his head and whispered, “She’s gone, buddy. She ain’t comin’ back.”
He had no desire to be here without Sarah, no desire to wander the too-empty, too-quiet house like her uncle was doing, miserable and alone.
So he runs away.
–-
He didn’t want another human after Sarah. Nobody could possibly compare to her, nobody could ever be as good as she was. As sweet and kind and funny and generous with her love.
So he just roams. Careful to avoid major roads and anywhere he sees too many people. Doesn’t interact with anyone if he can help it, not humans, not birds or cats or other dogs. He’s not quite sure how much time passes since he’s lost Sarah - he spends it eating just enough scraps to keep going - but it feels like an eternity. And then he finds Ellie.
Or rather, Ellie finds him.
–-
He’s laying in the dark of a back alley, minding his own business and keeping one ear on what sounds like the scurrying of rats nearby, when there’s a pain in his side that has him yelping, followed by cursing and thumping and a weight across his back.
“Shit fuck shit god damnit!”
He turns his head towards the noise, ribs aching, and finds a girl sprawled across the ground next to him. In the shallow illumination of a nearby streetlight he can see scrapes on her palms, tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Oh shit,” she murmurs when she realizes what she’s tripped over, eyes widening. “Oh shit.” She scrambles awkwardly towards him, wincing when she puts weight on her hands. “Dude, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there, I wasn’t paying attention, are you okay?” Her hands immediately start patting at his sides, pressing gently around the mats in his fur. “I hope I didn’t hurt you, oh my fucking God.”
He doesn’t move, whining slightly when she presses too hard.
Her hands retreat. “Fucking hell, of course I stepped on a poor innocent dog, as if my day wasn’t terrible enough.” She curls in on herself, fingertips pressing to her eyes. “I’ll just sit here till I die, it’s what I fucking deserve.”
He finds himself scooting forward just a bit, nudging her leg with his nose. She peels her hands away and looks down at him, eyes shining. She sniffs, a hand dropping to rest back on top of his head, fingers scratching lightly. “I really am sorry.”
They sit there together for a long moment, her sniffling and him content to enjoy some petting while he waits for the pain in his side to lessen
“I’m Ellie,” she finally says. “I’m sorry I tripped on you.”
Ellie. He rolls the name around in his head a little, decides it suits her. She’s scrawny, hair in a messy ponytail, clothing dirty - though that could be from the time spent sitting here with him. But she seems nice, and when she finally moves to stand he pushes himself up as well.
“You don’t have a collar.” Ellie frowns, reaching down to scratch behind his ears again. “You just stuck out here then, buddy?”
He nudges her again with his nose, for lack of a better response. Not like he has a way to tell her he chooses to be out in this hovel, miserable and dirty because he’s lost the only human that ever really mattered.
“Bet you’re hungry,” she murmurs. “How about I feed you to apologize for kicking you?”
It has been a day or so since he’s had any good food…but he shouldn’t. He doesn’t interact with humans, not even seemingly nice ones who want to feed him. He swore off hoping for another after he lost Sarah.
So he shouldn’t.
And yet he finds himself trailing Ellie all the way back to her home.
–-
She talks a lot, he notices almost immediately. Chattering at him on the walk, as she pulls down a plate and gets a container out of the fridge. Tells him all about why she’d been crying - the girl she likes is having a baby with her ex-boyfriend - and about an art project she’s been working on. Talks as she heats and slices some leftover meat for him, talks as she fills a bowl of water, as she sits with her bowl of cereal and eats. And he realizes…
She must have been terribly lonely.
He has too, even if he hasn’t let himself acknowledge it. But it’s lonely, being a dog without a human, missing the one you’d had. He was supposed to have Sarah forever, not just a short while.
But maybe, he thinks, maybe neither of them have to be lonely now.
–-
He sleeps on the floor the first night, refusing to get on the bed because he knows he’s really gross right now. And in the morning Ellie feeds him again before leaving to run some errands. He waits by the front door as patiently as possible, pacing at times but careful not to touch anything. He doesn’t like Ellie being out of his sight, wishes heartily he could have gone with her, and barks a little over-excitedly when the front door swings open again and she re-enters, arms laden down with bags.
“Well hi,” she says happily, dropping the bags on the kitchen table before bending down to scratch behind his ears. “I brought goodies.”
From her bags she unloads dog food, treats, a rope toy, and
“Hope you don’t mind,” she says, holding the bottle out for him to sniff, “but you could do with a bath.”
–-
Ellie washes him out on her back porch, and he does his best to stay as still as possible while she scrubs him free of months worth of grime. She gets just as much water on herself as she does on him, and he can’t help but give one or two well-timed shakes just to soak her further. Ellie just laughs when he does, not minding the bubbles and dirt now streaking her clothes.
“You’re so silly,” she chides him playfully, and his tail beats a steady thumpthumpthump against the ground.
When he’s all clean and toweled dry to the best of her ability, Ellie sits back on her haunches and looks at him with a smile, head tilted. “You’re so gray,” she tells him. “An old man.”
He must be - he feels it in his bones sometimes. He doesn’t really have a concept of how much time has passed - how long he was with Sarah, how long he’s been without her - but he knows it’s been awhile.
Ellie chews her bottom lip. “Probably oughta take you to the vet, make sure you’re not microchipped or something. Gonna suck if you already have a home, dude.”
He doesn’t, he wishes he could tell her. He hasn’t had a home in awhile.
Her head tilts. “We’ll do that tomorrow.”
–-
Ellie leads a pretty simple life, from what he can tell. After she washes him, she takes a shower and does some laundry. Sets food out for him, makes herself a sandwich, and settles on the couch to draw in a sketchbook. Talking the entire time, naturally.
“ – and Dina says we can still make it work,” she says, pencil scribbling furiously over the paper, “but I’m barely twenty. Do I want to have a wholeass baby already?” Her hand stills, a sigh escaping her as her head falls back. “But also I just…I really, really like her, you know?”
He doesn’t answer, just adjusts his head over his paws.
She sighs, leaning forward to scratch behind his ears. “Sorry I’m talking your ear off about all this,” she tells him quietly. “I’m sure even dogs like peace and quiet sometimes. You won’t get a lot of that with me. Hope you don’t mind.”
In lieu of an answer, he shuffles forward awkwardly on the couch until he’s practically in her lap, upsetting her sketchbook. She’s laughing though, arms already wrapping around him to squeeze carefully as she buries her face in his fur. “Gonna take that to mean you don’t have a problem with it.”
–-
Ellie doesn’t have a car, so he plods along next to her for the walk to the vet the next day. She doesn’t bother with a leash until the building comes into view. There’s a bit of a wait - he spends it ignoring the puppy on the other end of the lobby who clearly wants to play - and then they’re shown back to an exam room, and he dutifully hops up onto the table.
Ellie fidgets in front of him, hands twisting nervously. “I tripped over him in an alley two nights ago, and brought him home with me. Gave him a bath and fed him and everything, and I just wanted to know if he was microchipped and if he’s healthy.”
He can feel the vet poking and prodding at him but he doesn’t move, content to just lay there and watch Ellie.
“No microchip,” the vet finally confirms, and Ellie lets out the breath she’d been holding, grinning down at him. “He’s all yours if you want him.”
“I do,” Ellie says happily, bending down to press a kiss to his nose. “I really, really do.”
“Do you have a name for him?”
His head tilts - he hadn’t considered a name. He doesn’t remember what Sarah used to call him, had made himself forget those little details a long time ago.
Ellie’s head tilts like she’s considering him carefully. “Well, as tempting as it is to just call you Old Man –” he huffs, and Ellie giggles “ – I think…” She chews her lip, studying him carefully. “I think you look like a Joel.”
Notes:
thanks for reading! chat with me (or request a ficlet) on tumblr @lauronk
Chapter 9: old habits die screaming
Summary:
Joel stares at Ellie’s wrecked cuticles, scabbed and picked at, the nail beds bitten down as far as possible, and feels worry sink like a boulder into his gut. No wonder every time he’s around lately her hands are in her pockets, or she’s actually wearing her goddamn gloves for once.
She’s been hiding this from him again.
(ellie's trauma manifesting itself in small ways)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: maybe a fic where joel is noticing some problems with ellie and somehow knowing what is this coming from, and feeling guilty because he feels like he was also one to blame for her bottling her feelings on the road because he told her on the road they shouldn't talk about feelings.
(this is a condensed version of the prompt, the full one can be found on my tumblr)
title from "the black dog" by taylor swift
Chapter Text
She’s doing it again.
Joel stares at Ellie’s wrecked cuticles, scabbed and picked at, the nail beds bitten down as far as possible, and feels worry sink like a boulder into his gut. No wonder every time he’s around lately her hands are in her pockets, or she’s actually wearing her goddamn gloves for once.
She’s been hiding this from him again.
He’d noticed it first after Silver Lake, when the temperature started to lift and they started to shed their winter layers. Fingernails chewed down to nothing, hangnails picked and pulled until they bled. And then getting to the hospital only to find it empty, no trace of the Fireflies or where they’d gone…it’s a wonder she hadn’t peeled the skin clean off her hands then.
It’s stress, the book he’d borrowed from Jackson’s library tells him. Stress and repressed emotions that need an outlet somewhere.
Repressed emotions, Joel thinks now, looking down at her hands. She’s curled up on her bed, fast asleep, and he’d just stepped in to check on her before going to his own room. But the moonlight slicing through her window had illuminated her hands just right and now he stood here, transfixed.
It’s his fault, Joel knows that. He’s the one that told her all those months ago that they keep their histories to themselves. That they didn’t have time for tears on the road unless something was seriously wrong, and that she was cargo.
No wonder she’s making herself bleed rather than talk to him about what’s bothering her. And now he’s gotta fix it.
—
Joel’s awake before Ellie the next morning, coffee brewed and the strainer with her tea ready and waiting. He thinks for a second about making her some eggs, but he’d heard her tossing and turning last night while he’d been lying awake thinking over his repeated failures. She’d had a nightmare, and she frequently woke up nauseous the morning after.
He’d wait on the eggs.
Ellie’s up not long after, shuffling to her seat at the coffee table with a yawn and giving him a small, grateful smile when he sets her tea and the jar of honey in front of her.
“Sleep okay?” Joel asks.
Ellie shrugs, not meeting his eyes. “Yeah.”
He should have expected that answer, honestly. Joel lowers himself to the chair across from her, hands wrapped around his mug. “School goin’ alright?”
Another shrug, another quiet “Yeah.”
God, he’s so damn rusty at this. Then again, he never really had to pry with Sarah - she always told him about her day in excruciating detail, every passing interaction she had, every step she took. And Ellie when he first knew her wouldn’t have taken much prying to get information out of. But after Silver Lake - and Joel still didn’t even really know what had happened to her there - she’d retreated in on herself, giving mumbled one word answers more often than not, and that had only changed a little when they’d come back here and started settling in.
Joel thinks again of the book from the library, the one from the early 80s about listening so kids will talk and talking so kids will listen or whatever the hell it was called.
Share, it had said. Make sure you open up enough so that your children feel safe doing the same and it’s not a one-sided relationship. Make sure they know that they can come to you with their problems and that you’ll be willing to listen.
“I had a nightmare last night,” Joel says, and Ellie’s head snaps up. It’s only a slight bending of the truth - he hadn’t really slept at all last night, but he’d had one the night before. “We were in Kansas City again, when that horde came up outta the ground.” He blows out a breath, eyes drifting out the window. “And my gun kept jamming every time I needed to fire because they were comin’ at you.”
Ellie’s grip on her mug tightens, skin bleaching white at the knuckles. “You still have nightmares?”
He hadn’t thought he’d ever be admitting this to her. Ever since they’d made it back here Joel had tried to be steady, show that he was alright and he liked it here in the hopes that it would be modeling a way to adjust for her.
Apparently, it had had the opposite effect.
“Probably every week or so,” Joel tells her honestly. “Not always the same ones, and when we first got here it was more like every other night. But yeah, I still have them a bit.”
Ellie’s eyes have dropped from him to her mug of tea, staring down at it like the dregs of it will have all the answers. “Me too,” she whispers, so quietly that if Joel hadn’t been as intently focused on her as he was he probably wouldn’t have heard it. He doesn’t say anything, just waits to see if she’ll continue. “A couple times a week lately. I had one last night where –” she sniffles, sitting back in her chair with her arms wrapped over her stomach. “Where we were in Colorado and you died in the basement and I couldn’t get out of the steakhouse and –” Ellie hiccups, tears slowly trickling down her cheeks.
Carefully, Joel reaches his hand across the table to her. An offering, if she wants it. He can see her weighing whether or not to take it, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Ellie still struggles with the idea of relying on anyone, whether she’d admit it or not. They’ve come leaps and bounds since that first mistrustful, angry conversation in his and Tess’s apartment, but a few months in a safe space isn’t enough to undo nearly fifteen years of suspicion and solitude.
Ellie sniffs again, her jaw working back and forth, before she finally reaches forward and clasps his hand. Joel squeezes it gently, waiting for her to look up at him. “I’m alright,” he tells her softly when she does. “And you’re alright. And I know this is a lot to get used to here. But baby, I am asking you –” Joel rotates their hands until hers is facing up, the damage to her nails on display. She tries to pull it back, relenting when Joel squeezes again. “Come talk to me when somethin’ is botherin’ you, alright? You ain’t…you ain’t gotta tell me all the details, don’t need to say more than you’re comfortable with. But I am askin’ you to please come say…” He pauses, searching for the right words. “Just come say you had a nightmare, or say you’re sad, or even just say you need a hug. That’s all. You ain’t doin’ this alone, kiddo.”
Ellie just sort of looks at him for a moment, eyes rimmed in red. She seems…small. Withdrawn, unsure, five seconds from shattering into a thousand pieces, and until she speaks again Joel thinks he’s maybe made a horrendous mistake, and that all she’s gonna do now is retreat even further.
But then she gives him a wobbly nod and says okay and Joel knows that at least now, they’ve made a start.
Chapter 10: getting that tilted feeling out here
Summary:
“Joel, come on!”
“Ellie, I swear to Christ –” Joel muffles another swear as a rock comes up almost out of nowhere and rams into his toe. “Slow down!”
She either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care - and Joel’d bet on the latter - and she keeps tearing through the woods, bent on a path only she seems to be able to see. It’s all he can do to keep her in eyesight, dodging swinging branches and tree roots and rocks.
(joel & ellie meet a leprechaun)
Notes:
from "anon" on tumblr (eyes stillboldlygoing suspiciously): what if you write a ficlet where Joel & Ellie meet a leprechaun 🥹
title from "love from the other side" by fall out boy
Chapter Text
“Joel, come on!”
“Ellie, I swear to Christ –” Joel muffles another swear as a rock comes up almost out of nowhere and rams into his toe. “Slow down!”
She either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care - and Joel’d bet on the latter - and she keeps tearing through the woods, bent on a path only she seems to be able to see. It’s all he can do to keep her in eyesight, dodging swinging branches and tree roots and rocks.
“It’s gotta be right up here!” Ellie calls back to him, pointing ahead through the trees. “We’re so close!”
So close. Joel rolls his eyes. Yeah, so close to getting lost in the goddamn woods in Nebraska of all places, probably a mile from the road they’d been following at this point. But Ellie had spotted the rainbow over the trees, fresh and glimmering bright from the rainstorm they’d just weathered, and she’d been off like a shot. Determined to find the end of it, the same nonsense he’d heard since he was a kid about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Thank God Sarah had never –
Joel’s grateful for the next rock he stubs his toe on - the sharp pain radiating through his foot is enough to distract him from the way it feels like his chest is caving in.
That had been happening more and more these last few weeks - thoughts of what he had lost creeping up on him, her face appearing in his dreams, her name reaching the tip of his tongue only to be swallowed back. And Joel didn’t really wanna think about what might be causing it.
He finally catches up to Ellie, hanging back and watching with a barely-smothered grin as she yanks at a particularly thick clump of bushes, entangled with vines hanging from the trees above. Not exactly your typical Nebraska topiary, Joel thinks as he watches the kid. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she huffs when she notices him. “Fucking help me.”
Joel amuses himself by watching her tug a little harder. “Help you do what?”
There’s strands of hair coming loose from her ponytail, cheeks tinted pink with the exertion. “Help me…get us through…this bush!” She pulls and tugs and digs and yet the bush remains impenetrable. “Look, Joel, the rainbow is right there!” A finger jabs in the air, and to humor her, Joel follows it up to the sky.
Well it…Joel frowns. It is really close, actually. Each line of color crisp and practically vibrating in the air barely twenty or thirty feet over his head. He’s never seen a rainbow so close, not in all his years, and it’s real goddamn weird.
“Joel!” Ellie’s voice is one octave shy of petulant. “Help. Me.”
She’s still got her hands wrapped around some of the branches, pulling for all she’s worth, which ain’t much. She’s a tiny thing, Ellie is, and walking clear across the country hasn’t been helping with that.
“Alright, alright,” Joel mutters when she opens her mouth again. “Move out the way.” He’s got a machete strapped to his backpack - it’s dull as hell but it’ll work a bit better than her small hands pulling will.
A few clean hacks - Ellie helpfully pulling some of the detritus out of the way - and they’re through, and…
Standing in a meadow?
“Holy shit!” Ellie shrieks, and she’s sprinting away again, down the field to where…
Joel rubs his eyes, pinches the skin of his inner arm, and then sets off after her at a much slower pace. She’s come to a stop now, eyes round and amazed as she stands in front of the end of the rainbow where it disappears into the earth.
“I fucking told you!” She crows.
Yeah, yeah she did. And yet Joel still can’t quite believe what’s right before his eyes. A rainbow, so bright it damn near hurts to look at, the end of it vanishing into grass more lush and green than anything in the middle of Nebraska ought to be this late in the year.
“Hang on.” Joel snags Ellie’s arm when she starts towards it. “You don’t know that’s safe.”
Ellie just rolls her eyes at him. “Looks fine to me. Although,” her head tilts, “I thought there’d be a pot of gold.”
“Fresh out,” a new voice says from their left, and Joel hauls Ellie behind him automatically, hand reaching for his revolver. “Oh you won’t need that.” A snap, and his revolver is returned to its holster.
“What the hell –”
“Yeah.” The man standing in the trees shrugs. “I get that a lot. Well,” his brows tug together, “maybe a lot is overstating it. Don’t get to socialize much now with the whole…” a pale hand twirls through the air aimlessly, “fungus apocalypse end-of-the-world situation.”
There’s a faint lilt to his voice that Joel almost wants to place as Irish, but it’s been so long since he’s heard that accent he doesn’t even know if he’s remembering it right. He’s pale, a thick shock of red hair covering his head, and his loose shirt and pants are a dark green that almost blends into the nature behind him.
“Are you…a leprechaun ?” Ellie asks wonderingly, peering out from behind Joel. The man bows ever so slightly, and a “Whoa” escapes her.
It’s on the tip of Joel’s tongue to remind everyone that leprechauns ain’t real, but then again…it’s not like he’s got another explanation for whatever the fuck is going on here. Unless he and Ellie ate something really off that’s put them into some sort of shared hallucinatory coma, and honestly he doesn’t know if that’s more or less believable than a rainbow ten feet from him and a leprechaun.
“So where’s the gold?” Ellie asks, and the man arches a brow. “And why are you like…regular sized?”
“You’re a rude one, aren’t you?” There’s no anger in the question, only a curious delight. “I’m regular sized, as you put it, because the whole short thing was a…marketing campaign, if you will. Help us get by unnoticed. And as for the gold…no use for it in this world anymore. So instead,” he rocks back and forth on his heels for a moment, hands clasping in front of them, “I can grant you one wish, one desire. Each.”
“I wish –” Ellie starts, but the man holds his hand up to halt her.
“It is the same kind of thing you probably heard about wishes from whatever books or movies are still around,” he says smoothly. “No extra wishes, no love spells, no bringing anyone back to life.”
Ellie deflates a little at that, chin tucking to her chest. “Then I need a moment to think.”
The man inclines his head, sweeping his hand through the air before turning to face Joel. “And you, sir?”
Joel eyes him suspiciously. “Ain’t no way you can grant wishes, or whatever it is you’re tryin’ to pull here.”
The smile he gets in answer is knowing, almost patronizing, and the man clasps his hands behind his back. “You are under no obligation to use it, of course. And maybe it’ll make you feel better to know that after you’re done here, I’ll return you to the road you were on and you’ll have no idea this even happened.”
Joel scoffs. “None of that sounds the least bit believable either.”
A dismissive shrug. “Suit yourself.”
“Alright,” Joel says with a challenge in his voice, halting the man as he starts to turn back to face Ellie. “I wanna find my brother. ‘S why we’re out here, walkin’ all this way. Tryin’ to track him down.”
The man nods briskly, clapping his hands together in a shower of golden sparks that have Joel flinching back a step, startled. “And find Tommy you shall.”
Joel opens his mouth, prepared to demand that he explain how he knew his brother’s name, but his back is already turned, his focus on Ellie. “And you?”
Ellie’s eyes flick between Joel and the man, and she shuffles a few steps away, a little closer to the rainbow. “Yeah, I just…can you come over here for me to tell you?”
Another one of those fancy little bows. “But of course.” He turns back to Joel, makes a shooing gesture with his hand until Joel backs away to the edge of the meadow, tree branches arcing over his head in a ripple of bright green and tints of yellow.
Their voices still carry to him, even as he turns to face away - aiming his right ear to them - and they step closer to the rainbow. Ellie’s in particular, lands directly in his ear as though he was standing right next to her.
“I want to…belong somewhere. Have someone I matter to, somewhere I fit in and am supposed to be.”
Joel’s eyes slip shut, head tilting back, and he deeply, deeply hopes that what the man said turns out to be true. That they won’t remember this in a few minutes, because those words had not been meant for him to hear, and now they wouldn’t stop reverberating in his head.
The man chuckles softly. “That would be a waste of a wish, my dear. You already have that.”
Joel doesn’t open his eyes, even as he feels Ellie turn to look at him. Makes himself stand still, like he’s just waiting on them to be done, not paying them the slightest bit of attention, not feeling at all like part of his chest has just been split open.
“Oh,” Ellie says quietly, her voice still crystal clear in his ear, and Joel wonders if it’s something about this meadow. Or the rainbow, or the man, one of those things carrying her words to him when they shouldn’t be. “Well then…I want to find the Fireflies, and have them make the cure.”
The man doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t loudly proclaim that she’ll find them and make the cure like he had for Joel about finding Tommy. Instead, as a breeze rustles through the clearing and curls its fingers in the neck of Joel’s jacket, he tells her, “That’s technically two different wants. I can do one, I can make sure you find them.”
“Okay,” Ellie says decisively. “Yeah, then I want to find them.” Joel knows what she’s thinking - them finding the Fireflies already means they’ll make their cure, so as long as she makes sure they’re found, everything else will work itself out.
A clap of his hands - Joel turns to look and sees the same shower of gold in the air - and the man nods again. “And find the Fireflies you shall.” He rubs his hands together briskly, waving Joel over to rejoin them. “Now, before I send you on your way, I really must thank you for stopping by. It was quite nice to interact with someone other than myself for once, and I wish you a safe journey.”
Then, without warning, he plants a hand on each of their shoulders and shoves them backwards into the rainbow. There’s a brief sensation of falling, dropping, stomach swooping, and then –
Joel blinks in the sunlight, a breeze setting the tall grass around them to swaying. He’s stopped - they’re stopped - off the side of the cracked pavement they’d been following for miles, sun beaming down. It’s shifted now to be nearly in front of them, and Joel turns back to find Ellie. She’s to his left, blinking confusedly up at him. “Why are we stopped?”
“We –” Joel cuts himself off, brow furrowing. He doesn’t know, actually. They were walking, like they do every day, and now they’re not. “Dunno, but let’s keep movin’. Too exposed out here.”
Ellie gives him a mock salute, marching forward with exaggerated steps. Joel swats at her ponytail as she passes, ignoring the small flare of affection that crops up when she turns back and wrinkles her nose at him. That’s been happening too much lately, refusing to be brushed aside every time, but there’s nothing he can do about it right now.
Only option is to keep moving forward.
Chapter 11: it's nice to have a friend
Summary:
Dina’s boyfriend Jesse has joined them now - or at least, he thinks Jesse’s her boyfriend. It’s real damn hard to keep up, as often as Ellie seems to come home and announce that the two of them have split, they’re back together, they’re fighting, they’re madly in love.
Joel looks at him appraisingly, swallowing another bit of whiskey. The kid’s tall, damn near head and shoulders above Ellie. Seems nice enough, always respectful when interacting with Joel or Tommy.
But Joel doesn’t go trusting just anyone with his kid.
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: So, maybe a funny ficlet where ellie got to get the cure for the fireflies without dying, joel and ellie get back to jackson. The ficlet would set two months after they get to jackson and ellie is starting to get better from the fireflies (making a vaccine demanded a lot of her body) and she's starting to go out more. Joel wanted this, you know? He wanted her to get friends, encouraged her to go out here and there and dragged her with him every chance he could... but what if joel wasn't so ready to share ellie as he thought he was? jesse wants to show him that ellie is in good company with him and his friends, and that there will be nothing to Mr. Miller worry about. Joel eventually thinks jesse is a good kid and appreciates his efforts in including ellie in everything.
(that is slightly abridged, full prompt can be found on my tumblr)
chapter title from "it's nice to have a friend" by taylor swift
Chapter Text
He’s not sure what had given him the idea that getting them back to Jackson would mean he could start to relax a little, but at some point that idea had firmly taken root in Joel’s mind.
The trip had been long, arduous, exhausting; the hospital scarcely less so. In all their work towards their damn vaccine, the Fireflies had about bled Ellie dry. Taken blood and spit and bone marrow and spinal fluid and left her crying into her pillow from the discomfort most nights. She’d never let him take her out of there though, even as she’d lost weight and struggled to keep food down and tired when walking further than the bathroom.
“There’s no halfway with this,” Ellie would say, over and over again. “We finish what we started.”
Joel desperately never wanted to hear those words in that order ever again.
But they had. They’d finished it, the Fireflies had found something in her spinal fluid - or maybe it had been her plasma - that had finally allowed them to make their precious vaccine. Months of sitting by and feeling useless, watching Ellie suffer for what had seemed like a goddamn pipe dream, and they’d left with Joel just as protected against cordyceps as Ellie herself.
They’d had to wait three more weeks before they could actually go, long enough for the Fireflies to make doses he could take back to Jackson, long enough for Ellie to begin to recover even the barest amount of strength.
Now they were here, in the house across from Tommy and Maria, Ellie down the hall but within shouting distance. It had taken some adjusting to, her being out of his eyesight for more than ten minutes at a time after nearly a year glued to each other’s sides. Even now, two months after they returned, Joel still sometimes has to fight the urge to get up and walk down the hall to poke his head in her room. Just to lay eyes on her, just to make sure she doesn’t need anything.
She’ll roll her eyes and tell him to stop hovering, Joel knows that. So instead he makes himself go downstairs and get a start on dinner.
—
This was what he wanted, Joel reminds himself three days later. He watches Ellie throw her head back and laugh at something her friend Dina is saying, rocking on her heels. He wanted her to go and make friends, be a little more independent. She’d been fiercely so when they first met, reluctant to take so much as an extra helping of rabbit if she hadn’t caught it herself.
That had faded, after their cross-country hike, after Silver Lake and the Fireflies. They’d become necessarily dependent on each other, to a level that Joel knew couldn’t be healthy. So her regaining some of that independence, that strength and surety of herself after all she’d been through, that was a good thing.
He just hadn’t expected it to ache quite so much.
Tommy steps up next to him, hands him a glass of the Jackson whiskey they break out for these little town gatherings. This time - the corn harvest. The ears had to be shucked, so why not make a party out of it?
“She ain’t gonna break just because you look away for more than a second,” Tommy mutters under his breath, taking a small sip of his own drink.
Joel nudges him with his shoulder, tilts his chin to where Maria is making the rounds with TJ strapped to her chest as Tommy watches like a hawk. “No,” he replies teasingly, “she ain’t.”
Tommy gives him a wry look, and they clink glasses. Immediately, Joel’s gaze drifts back to Ellie. She’s still standing with Dina, cheeks pinked and stray hairs falling from her ponytail. But it’s no longer just the two of them.
Dina’s boyfriend Jesse has joined them now - or at least, he thinks Jesse’s her boyfriend. It’s real damn hard to keep up, as often as Ellie seems to come home and announce that the two of them have split, they’re back together, they’re fighting, they’re madly in love.
Joel looks at him appraisingly, swallowing another bit of whiskey. The kid’s tall, damn near head and shoulders above Ellie. Seems nice enough, always respectful when interacting with Joel or Tommy.
But Joel doesn’t go trusting just anyone with his kid.
“What do you know about Jesse?” He asks his brother quietly, and Tommy’s brows shoot nearly to his hairline.
“‘S a good kid,” Tommy replies slowly. “Hard worker, never late for his shifts. Real eager to get out on patrol, helps his mom out a lot whenever she needs it. Why?”
Joel shrugs, like the words don’t matter to him one way or the other. “Just tryin’ to learn a bit more about people, that’s all. Seems like he’s becomin’ friends with Ellie.”
Tommy hmms, eyes flicking back and forth between Joel and Jesse before they settle on Maria again. “And is that…all you’re worried about with regards to him?”
Joel catches his meaningful look, the way his head tilts towards where Jesse is tugging on Ellie’s ponytail affectionately. “Oh, I don’t think there’s anythin’ else goin’ on,” Joel assures him. He might be old, a little out of touch, but he ain’t as blind as Ellie thinks. He’s caught the way she looks at Dina sometimes, the way her cheeks pink and her hands clasp behind her back.
But she ain’t said anything about it to him directly yet, so Joel doesn’t say anything either. Doesn’t explain it to Tommy, even when his brother shoots him a skeptical look. Not his business to discuss.
Jesse turns back at that moment, catching Joel’s eye. Whatever he sees on the older man’s expression has his shoulders inching up towards his ears, shuffling until he’s a few more inches away from Ellie. She doesn’t notice, too wrapped up in whatever Dina’s telling her.
And for the rest of the evening, Joel catches Jesse looking worriedly towards him every few minutes.
—
The knock on the door the next morning has Joel squinting at the clock on the wall, reading it twice to be sure. It’s a bit early for visitors, especially on a Sunday; Ellie’s still asleep upstairs and he’s just barely poured his first cup of coffee.
Probably Tommy, or maybe Maria. They’re usually up early, especially with TJ teething right now - chances are he’s bawling up a storm across the street and one of them just needs to give their eardrums a break.
Except when he swings the front door open, it’s not his brother or sister-in-law on the porch. It’s Jesse.
Joel blinks at him, brows tugging down in confusion. “Can I…help you?”
The kid straightens, his shoulders pulling back as he looks Joel dead in the eye. “I just wanted to let you know that I saw you watching Ellie all night last night, and I know that you worry about her because of health stuff. But I wanted to reassure you that Ellie’s in good hands with me and Dina, so you don’t need to worry about her with us.”
Joel can’t quite suppress a chuckle, and he sips his coffee slowly for a second, turning Jesse’s words over in his head. “You plan to have kids one day, son?”
Jesse startles, clearly not expecting that response. “I…uh, I think so.”
“Well,” Joel steps fully out onto the porch, tugging the door shut behind him. There’s a bench that he fixed up when they first got back, one he and Ellie like to sit on in the evenings. He waves Jesse toward it, watching as the young man lowers himself apprehensively. “If you ever do have kids, you’ll learn real damn quick that there’s just about nothin’ in the world that’ll make you stop worryin’ about ‘em.”
Jesse doesn’t seem to know what to say in response; his hands brush uncomfortably up and down his thighs for a moment. “I just meant…” he blows out a breath. “I know adjusting here hasn’t been easy for her. She didn’t tell me or Dina anything, but we know she’s been through a lot. And some of the kids haven’t exactly made it easy on her.”
Joel knows they’re both thinking of the same incident - some shit-for-brains named Sam grabbing Ellie from behind a few weeks ago. He’d meant it to be playful, kids roughhousing and whatnot, but Ellie had freaked. Swung around, clocked Sam in the cheek, sent him sprawling in front of half the teenage population of Jackson and left him with a pretty damn impressive shiner.
The other kids had given her a wide berth after that, and Ellie hadn’t had to tell Joel how badly that had weighed on her. But Dina and Jesse hadn’t - if anything they’d been more fascinated by her, more determined to be her friends. Always inviting her to hang out, work on homework together, grouping with her for foraging trips and trainings.
Jesse presses on when Joel doesn’t say anything. “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I swear - we’re looking out for her.”
It’s surprisingly easy, looking at the kid’s earnest expression, to believe him. And he’s seen Jesse with Ellie plenty of times, enough to know that he’s careful with her but not so much that she feels coddled. Fuck, he’s learned how to handle Ellie faster and easier than Joel did.
“I appreciate you comin’ here to talk to me,” Joel says, taking another sip of his rapidly cooling coffee. “And I appreciate you and Dina helpin’ Ellie adjust here, means as much to me as it does to her.”
Relief suffuses Jesse’s face, but any response is cut off by the opening of the front door and the emergence of a rumpled and yawning Ellie. “Dude what the fuck are you –” She comes to an abrupt halt at the sight of Jesse, eyes flicking between them with confusion that rapidly shifts to suspicion. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, uhh –”
“Me and Jesse were just chattin’,” Joel interrupts smoothly. “Didn’t wanna wake you, so we came outside.”
The suspicion doesn’t change. “Chatting about what?”
“Whether you wanna go out to the lake with him later,” Joel says blithely, wishing he could tell Jesse to stop gawping like a fish at him right now. “Said he was gonna go try some fishin’, thought you might wanna come. Told him I wasn’t sure, sometimes you get a little weird about handlin’ ‘em and –”
“I wanna go,” Ellie cuts him off, a stop talking now look in her eyes as she glares at him. “When?”
Joel looks to Jesse, eyebrow arched. “Oh, uh. Around noon? Wasn’t sure when you were free today, so…”
“Noon’s good,” Ellie replies, whacking Joel on the arm when he opens his mouth.
“Cool.” Jesse doesn’t seem to know what to say next, so Joel takes pity on him.
“I’ll go make myself another cup of coffee. Y’all are welcome to hang out here, but just keep in mind,” he aims the words at Ellie, “that if your uncle sees you sittin’ out here he might rope you into babysittin’ for a bit.”
Ellie lights up like a Christmas tree. “You think?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, probably.” He’s not the least bit surprised when Ellie then plops herself in the seat he’s just vacated. “You kids have fun, I’ll be inside if you need me.”
Over the top of Ellie’s head, he meets Jesse’s eyes one more time, lifting his mug to him like a toast. He gets a solemn nod in response from the boy, and then Joel shuts the door behind him and leaves them to it.
Jesse’s a good kid.
Chapter 12: breath of fresh air through smoke rings
Summary:
a sequel to just a dream
Notes:
happy birthday to my beloved marchflower, who has put up with me for somewhere around a year now and deserves the world.
but instead of the world, all i have to offer her is a ficlet and my heart.
this is a follow up to the first ficlet in this collection, just a dream. hope you enjoy!
title from "clara bow" by taylor swift
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. It’s normal, everything’s normal, this is just…normal. He can be normal.
Or, Joel tells himself resignedly, he can just accept the fact that he’s nervous as all get out. Worse than the first time he asked Sarah’s mom out, damn near as bad as the time he let her go to her first sleepover without him. Heart beating a kick drum in his chest with every step he takes across the floor.
Tommy’s watching him pace with an amused glint to his eyes, perched on the arm of the recliner. “Seemin’ a little stressed there, Joel.”
Joel just grunts, coming to a halt at the wall only to pivot and turn back the other way. “Maybe I oughta pick out a different movie.”
“Ellie loves Star Wars.”
“Yeah.” He stops pacing, hands on his hips. “But maybe she’s tired of it, maybe she’s seen it too many times. Maybe she don’t actually like it anymore, I don’t…” Joel hangs his head, not quite wanting to see the pity sure to be on his brother’s face. “She ain’t talked to me in nearly two years, Tommy, I feel like I don’t know her at all, not anymore.”
Firm hands clamp down on his shoulders, shaking gently until Joel gives in and looks up. There’s no pity to be found in Tommy’s eyes, only understanding and encouragement. “You know her just fine, Joel. You know what movies she likes and what snacks she likes and how to make her tea. And the biggest bridge is already crossed - she’s willin’ to come hang out with you.” He releases Joel, stepping back and leaving him wondering when his little brother got to be the wise one. “It’ll be a good evenin’, alright?”
Joel’s pained noise of agreement is muffled by the faint rapping on the back door, and his heart launches itself into his throat.
Ellie’s here.
He gives his living room one last sweep; no dust, no clutter, blankets on the couch, A New Hope sitting by the TV waiting to be loaded in. There’s water in the kettle in case she wants tea, he’s still got honey to add to it because that’s what she likes, and he’d picked up some of Heidi’s roasted pumpkin seeds just an hour ago because they’re her favorite. He’s as prepared as possible, and terrified down to his core that this is his last chance at making in-roads with Ellie.
She knocks again, a little louder, and Joel hears Tommy chuckle behind him.
“Shut the hell up,” he mutters, taking one last deep breath before crossing to the back door and opening it wide. Ellie’s waiting there; hand lowering, all her weight on her left foot, the same nerves sitting in Joel’s chest flickering across her face.
Least it ain’t just him.
“C’mon in,” he tells her, reaching automatically to steady her when she hobbles forward. She’s in slide-on sandals, the thick white of the bandage around her foot peeking through, and she leans easily on his arm as they shuffle towards the couch.
Tommy gives her a small wave. “How’s the foot, darlin’?”
“Hurts,” Ellie tells him flatly, flopping down onto the couch and swinging her foot up onto the coffee table. “Sorry to be messing up the patrol schedule for a couple weeks.”
Tommy just shrugs, easygoing as ever. “‘S alright, we’ll just shuffle some people around, make Joel pick up an extra route or two.” He pushes up from where he’d been braced on the arm of the chair. “I’ll leave y’all to the movie, I’ll be back by tomorrow with the updated schedule.”
They give him a wave as he lets himself out, shutting the door firmly behind him, and then it’s just Joel and Ellie.
The silence is thick, heavy, Ellie staring determinedly at the darkened TV screen. There’s a sort of unease to her face, a discomfort that Joel hates to think is from her regretting her invitation and wishing she was anywhere but in his living room.
But then her head lifts and her eyes lighten and she asks teasingly, “Are you just gonna stand there all night?”
Joel startles. “No, I – no. D’you need anythin’? Water? Tea? I got snacks too if you –”
“Joel,” Ellie interrupts, lips pressed together like she’s trying not to smile, “let’s just put the movie in.”
“Yeah - yeah, alright.”
He crosses to the TV, holds up the case so Ellie can see what’s on the itinerary for the evening. She visibly brightens, and Joel feels a little of his earlier fears slip away. Maybe he does still know her, maybe she did mean it when she said she wanted to try forgiveness.
Maybe it’s all gonna work out.
–-
The movie flies by. It feels like the droids have barely managed to escape Vader, and then suddenly the Death Star is exploding and the credits are rolling. The jar of pumpkin seeds sits empty on the coffee table; Ellie had devoured them as soon as he’d handed them over. Joel had also dug out his small stash of jerky and popcorn to make something of a pitiful dinner - he hadn’t said it, but it had reminded him of their time on the road, even as he kicked himself for not making anything better.
He presses the power button on the remote, the screen fizzling into darkness and leaving them with only the faint light of the lamp in the corner. Ellie makes no move to leave, fingers playing with the corner of a pillow.
“Thanks for joinin’ me,” Joel says quietly, a little unsure of what to do now. He doesn’t want her to leave; he doesn’t want to make her feel like she has to stay if she doesn’t want to. “It was fun.”
Ellie just looks up at him speculatively, something unreadable flickering through her eyes. “It was. I — thanks for having me.”
“Anytime,” he replies, maybe a little too eagerly; Ellie smiles. “You can pick next time, if you want. I just…knew this was one of your favorites.”
“We can just keep going through the Star Wars movies,” she says with a shrug, and Joel tries not to let the elation at her planning ahead show on his face. “And I bet there’s a ton of other space movies out there I haven’t seen yet. Oh!” She snaps her fingers excitedly, leaning forward with a grin. “We can watch the Jurassic Parks!”
“We can,” Joel agrees, chuckling at her exuberance. Wild to him how she’s nineteen, closing in on twenty - he can still see that irrepressible fourteen-year-old clear as day.
He feels like he missed so much of her growing into this woman; he can’t believe it took a nightmare to bring her back.
Ellie’s eyes rove over the living room, much like they had that morning when he’d bandaged up the slice on her foot. He doesn’t know if she’s looking for changes, for things that may be the same, or if she’s just wondering what in the hell she’s still doing there.
“Can I ask you something?” Her gaze is locked on the frame on the mantel, the drawing of him she’d done. There’s a weight to her voice that tells Joel this isn’t something like what movie do we watch next? or do you have any more of those pumpkin seeds?
He nods and waits with his hands clasped between his knees, elbows braced on his thighs.
Ellie picks at invisible fluff on the pillow in her lap. “Why didn’t you - I mean, why, at the hospital -” She cuts herself off, lower lip between her teeth.
“Why did I kill the Fireflies instead of lettin’ make the cure?” Joel guesses, and Ellie nods slowly, her face tight and unreadable. He lets out a slow breath, tapping his right thumb on the back of his left hand. “It’s…there’s a lot of reasons really, reasons I’ll sit and talk to you about if that’s what you want. But what all those reasons add up to is that, to me, nothing was worth your life. Not a cure for cordyceps or cancer or an end to every conflict ever. None of it was worth you.”
“But it wasn’t up to you to decide,” Ellie says, the first bite of anger slipping into her voice.
“I know that,” Joel admits, trying to read the emotions flickering over her face. “I know. And I knew it even then, knew it was somethin’ that you were probably gonna hate me for. But it…I couldn’t let them do it. If hearin’ that again makes you wanna go back to how you had things, kiddo, I don’t blame you. But at this point I owe it to you to be honest, and in my mind there was nothin’ that justified killin’ a little girl. Not even a cure.”
Ellie swipes at her cheeks, chin ducking to her chest. “It’s crossed my mind,” she whispers. “Not coming here, going back to not speaking to you because I’m still so fucking mad. And then that…that fucking nightmare comes back to me.”
“Ellie…” Joel sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I know that dream freaked you out, but I don’t want that bein’ what makes you decide you want me in your life again. You gotta make that decision for yourself, because it’s what you want.”
“I don’t want any regrets.” Another drag of her hand across her cheek, a missed tear tracking down and dripping from her chin. “I can’t - if that dream would have been real, I would have torn myself apart with regret. Being mad at myself for not trying, hating how much time I let go by and everything I didn’t say to you. And I can’t fucking do that.”
“Okay.” Tentatively, he reaches over and pats her knee, retracting his hand when she stiffens. “Okay. I’m just…I’ll follow your lead here. ‘S all up to you.”
Ellie nods, a sharp, jerky motion. The smile she offers him is forced, nothing like the easy one she’d given him when the movie had started, and Joel’s stomach sinks ever so slightly. He’d known it wasn’t gonna be instantaneous, or even quick, repaving this road between the two of them. Knew it was gonna take a lot on his part, and so much grace on Ellie’s.
But that don’t mean he ain’t disappointed.
“I think…I think I’m gonna head out,” Ellie says quietly. “I don’t have patrol tomorrow because of my foot, so I’ll be in the swap helping Oscar sort stuff instead. Early start, you know.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, just uncurls from the couch and begins to hobble towards the back door. Joel stands and follows but doesn’t try to steady her this time; his hands stay tucked in his pockets. This is probably it, he knows that - this was his chance and it’s over now, and he just has to accept that. This is still more than anything he would’ve thought to get again, and he’s damn grateful. Maybe with a little more time…but ain’t no point in getting his expectations too high.
Ellie limps carefully over the threshold and out onto his back porch - Joel lingers behind and holds the door open, unwilling to let her out of his sight until he absolutely has to.
She hesitates at the top of the steps down to the yard, hand gripping the railing, and Joel takes a half-step forward. In case she needs help getting down again, even though she’d done it earlier by herself.
But Ellie surprises him - she turns back to face him, one corner of her lips pulled up ever so slightly. “Empire Strikes Back tomorrow? Or later this week?”
Hope flares in his chest, bright and warm. “Any time you like, Ellie. Any time.”
Maybe…maybe he’s still got a chance.
Notes:
love you all
find me on tumblr @lauronk
Chapter 13: hanging on every touch (baby don't rush)
Summary:
tommy & maria's first date
Notes:
happy birthday to my wonderfully talented friend bumblepony! i could only dream of writing tommy and maria as well as she does but i gave it my best shot here!
title from "don't rush" by kelly clarkson ft. vince gill
Chapter Text
Tommy checks his reflection in the mirror for the hundredth time, brushes back a stray piece of hair. He honestly can’t remember the last time he was so nervous that his palms were sweating like this, and he wipes them on his jeans for the third time.
Then again, he can’t remember the last time he liked a woman this much.
He’s been in Jackson for nearly six months now, doing his best to fit in and help out and prove himself worthy of their acceptance here. The settlement is… he can’t think of another word for it but a fucking miracle . A town full of people helping, pulling their weight, nobody dragging someone down to claw their way up. Tommy’d saw his right arm off if they said he had to in order to stay in the walls.
Especially if Maria asked.
He fiddles with the collar of his shirt, wondering if it’s too nice or not nice enough, or if he needs to change his belt buckle. There’d been so many of them collecting dust at the swap; now they lived in neat rows in the top drawer of his dresser, shiny and ready for use. The round silver one he’s wearing, etched with prickly pear cacti, had seemed like the right choice at first but now…well, now that he’s looking at the whole outfit, he thinks he might change it out for another. He’s got a nice galloping horse one, another featuring the outstretched wings of an eagle.
But his fingers wander over the square golden one featuring a longhorn, his favorite. It feels like a little piece of home, of football and tailgating and simpler times gathered around the television with Joel and Sarah.
Hopefully it brings him a little luck today.
A final once-over in the mirror, and then Tommy sucks in a calming breath and makes himself step away from the mirror and towards the front door. He can do this. He used to do it all the time, asking a woman out, being charming and funny, showing them a good time.
But that was nearly twenty years ago, when there were restaurants and bars and shows.
And none of those women even began to compare to Maria Wesley.
She’s off today, Tommy knows that, no council duties or rotations. He may have done a little asking around, may have planned everything out in advance. Stashed a picnic basket in the stables, made sure Justified and Ruffian were both available, cleared the route himself the day before. He thinks Maria’s the type of woman that’ll appreciate a good plan, having that burden lifted from her shoulders for once.
Or he’s completely misread her and she’ll hate it. Only one way to find out now.
Her house is four streets over from his, a two story that she’d shared with her father until he passed away a year or so ago. Tommy jogs up the steps and - before he can chicken out - raps his knuckles on the door.
The seconds stretch into an eternity before it opens, and then Maria’s standing in front of him in jeans and a t-shirt, feet bare and braids gathered in a knot on top of her head. Tommy’s heart skips, thuds, and leaps right up into his throat. Jesus fuck, she’s so beautiful.
“Miller,” she says easily, lips curving up in a smile. “What brings you by?”
What brings you by? Excellent fucking question, since all words and coherent thought seems to have fled his brain.
Tommy clears his throat, wills himself to not fuck this up. “You busy?” The words come out smooth, even, and internally he cheers a little.
Maria’s head tilts, smile growing. “Not at the moment, no.”
Here goes nothing. “Wanna come out on a ride with me?”
Her entire face brightens; a swarm of butterflies lets loose in his stomach. “I’d love to. Give me a minute to get changed?”
“Yeah,” Tommy exhales with a grin, trying to pretend his hands aren’t once again sweating something fierce. “Yeah, alright. I’ll just…be out here.”
Maria nods, the corners of her eyes crinkling slightly, and then the door closes and again and Tommy’s left to mentally run through his plan. It’s nothing fancy, he didn’t wanna come on too strong or push too hard. He definitely doesn’t wanna seem like he’s into her just because she’s one of the people who gets to determine whether he stays or goes, even if he feels pretty firmly lodged in the staying column by this point. He just…really fucking likes her.
And when she emerges again ten minutes later in boots and a light jacket, braids spilling down her back and a bright grin across her lips, Tommy knows he’s well and truly fucked.
–-
They never run out of things to talk about. It kind of astounds him really, how easy it is to just chat with her as they ride side by side up towards Flat Creek. Everything from her childhood to his time in the Army, the cases she worked on before the outbreak and how Jackson came to be, his time with the Fireflies and why he left.
The ride itself takes maybe an hour or so before they come to the spot Tommy picked out, a flat stretch of grass along the water that looks out on the plains and rolling hills across from them. He’d come through here on a couple patrols and seen the elk that cantered by; immediately, he’d wanted to show Maria. Never mind that she’s probably seen it a dozen times before - it had seemed to lovely to not share with her.
They settle onto the blanket he spreads across the grass, a small assortment of snacks between them. Jerky, granola, fruits from the greenhouse, cucumber slices, a bit of cheese from the town stores. Anything he’d thought Maria would like, Tommy had tried to provide.
“Y’know,” Maria says, teasing lilt to her voice and her eyes on the swaying grass ahead of them, “I was wondering if you were ever gonna get up the nerve to do this.”
Tommy laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “That obvious, huh?”
She shrugs and leans back, her weight on her hands. “A little. I was kind of worried I was only seeing what I wanted to see, you know.”
He tries not to grin, tries to pretend that doesn’t make him as happy as it does. He used to be so much better at playing it cool, damnit. “What you wanted to see, huh?”
She rolls her eyes, still grinning. “You heard me.” And then before Tommy can blink Maria’s up on her knees, swinging a denim-clad leg over his thighs so she’s seated comfortably in his lap, thighs on either side of his. “Here’s the thing, Miller –” and boy does he like it when she last-names him “– in this fucked up world we’re in, I don’t really believe in wasting time or beating around the bush.”
Tommy can’t help but snort, hands coming up to wrap carefully around her hips and pull her a little closer. “I get the feeling, ma’am,” he clocks the way her eyes flutter at that, “that you didn’t believe in wasting time or beating around the bush even before the world went to shit.”
Her lips purse as though thinking his words over, and he can’t help it - he leans forward, just a little, lured in by her like he has been damn near every day since she sat across from him at the clinic and laid out the rules for living in Jackson.
Maria catches the movement, smirking, and she leans in a little too, close enough that it feels like her words are slipping from her mouth to his. “And you’d be right.” She closes the distance between them, soft lips pressing against him as her hands snake up from his shoulders to tangle in his hair, and thank the good Lord above he’d showered and washed it before this.
“You know,” Tommy manages when she’s pulled back just a fraction, chest rising and falling rapidly, “I don’t normally do this on the first date, I try to be more of a gentleman.”
Maria laughs, the vibrations of it rumbling into his own chest, her nose brushing his. “Liar,” she murmurs, before erasing the distance between them once more.
He’s careful with his own hands, even as the feeling of her settled above him with her braids falling forward like a curtain between them and the world threatens to undo his already fraying self-control. Fingertips dig into the meat of her hips before sliding up to wrap around her ribs and hoist her even closer to him, the barest graze along the side of her breast having her gasping against his mouth and he leans forward again, chasing the sound –
A twig snaps behind them and Tommy moves automatically, shifting to put Maria behind him, one hand reaching to the pistol on the blanket by his hip.
But it’s just patrol on the other side of the creek, Fred pointedly looking at the sky and Selina winking at them. Tommy flushes, Maria lifting her hand in an easy wave.
“Wrap it before you tap it!” Selina hollers across, nudging her horse into a canter to catch up with a rapidly fleeing Fred. “You kids have fun!”
“Jesus Christ,” Tommy chuckles, his head falling forward until it rests on Maria’s collarbone. “Damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“You and me both.” Her hand resumes its lazy wandering through the hair at the nape of his neck, and Tommy bites back a quiet moan. “Maybe we oughta be moving this…somewhere else.” The suggestion in her tone is unmistakable, and his hands tighten with the urge to pull her close all over again. Instead he pulls back, tilts his chin up to look her in the eyes.
“If you’re sure…”
She doesn’t hesitate, pushing to her feet and holding her hands out to help pull him up as well. Her arms wrap around his neck, lips finding his one more time. “I’m sure,” Maria says, no hesitation in the words.
And well - how in the hell could he ever tell her no?
Chapter 14: oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Summary:
“Giddyup!” Ellie hollers, wiggling her body in a poor imitation of the motion of a horse. “Giddyup!”
Joel snorts, leaning against the nearest stall with his arms crossed. The girl had more energy than any kid he’d ever known, including Sarah. And she’d been an athlete, active, running cross-country and playing soccer; her stamina still had nothing on Ellie’s most days.
(8 year old ellie)
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: Hi love, can you write more 8 year old Ellie and Joel? Maybe they’re in Jackson and he’s teaching her how to ride a horse or do some work on the house- just like anything thay doesn’t involve either of them dying? Okay? Thanks.
title from "never grow up" by taylor swift
Chapter Text
There were a lot of days that Joel wished cameras were still a thing, wished that he didn’t have to be reliant on his memory to capture moments. What he wouldn’t have given to have a frozen, framed image of the moment Tommy had first laid eyes on him after years of separation. That gobsmacked look, jaw hanging open - it had been real goddamn glorious.
Then again, it probably had less to do with Joel himself and more to do with the girl currently sitting astride a saddle with her legs dangling. Even at their shortest, the stirrups were too long for her. One of many, many reasons Joel wasn’t letting her on a real horse any time soon - for now, she had to settle for a saddle cinched over the dummy wooden horse they used to help people acclimate to the feel of it before riding.
“Giddyup!” Ellie hollers, wiggling her body in a poor imitation of the motion of a horse. “Giddyup!”
Joel snorts, leaning against the nearest stall with his arms crossed. The girl had more energy than any kid he’d ever known, including Sarah. And she’d been an athlete, active, running cross-country and playing soccer; her stamina still had nothing on Ellie’s most days.
Bootsteps on hay announce another arrival, and a quick glance over his shoulder confirms it to be Tommy. Tommy, with a shit-eating grin on his face as he takes in the sight before him, and Joel rolls his eyes. “Thought you were gonna make her quit like ten minutes ago?”
“You try gettin’ her off that, see if you don’t damn near lose a finger,” Joel retorts.
Tommy just chuckles, nudging his brother in the side. “Speakin’ of fingers, she’s got you pretty damn wrapped around hers, huh?”
That’s rich, coming from Tommy of all people. He’d quite clearly adored Ellie from the moment Joel helped her off their horse. She’d promptly looked Tommy up and down, told him his hair looks fucking stupid , and then beamed with pride when Joel had doubled over in laughter. Hell, he’d thought he might have cracked a rib; he hadn’t laughed anywhere near that hard since 2003.
But he can’t help proving a point, so Joel whistles sharply. “Time to head home,” he says when Ellie looks up at him. Her brow wrinkles, a scowl already forming on her face. Joel arches his brows in a silent warning, and she sighs, sliding clumsily off the saddle and to the ground.
“I wasn’t done,” she says petulantly, stomping over to the two of them.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Joel reminds her, silently praying she doesn’t throw a fit. She’d been surprisingly well-behaved on their way across the country, if a little too eager to run off and explore at times, but since they’d gotten to Jackson and started to settle in she’d been acting out more. Joel didn’t know if it was some sort of boundary pushing thing - trying to see how far she could go before he or the town would punish her - or if she was just feeling out of sorts in this new environment. Either way, they’d gone nearly four days now without issue and he didn’t want that streak broken.
“I’ll give you a piggyback ride to y’all’s house,” Tommy chimes in, winking at Ellie. “Since I know your old man here won’t.”
“Talk to me when you’re fifty.” Joel reaches over and flicks his idiot brother on the side of the head. “See how you feel about an eight-year-old climbin’ on you then.”
Tommy just brushes the words off, all his attention on Ellie. “Whaddaya say?”
“Giddyup!” Ellie cheers, disappointment at having to leave the wooden horse forgotten.
Tommy turns and kneels in front of her obligingly, wincing a little when she jumps on and her small arms latch too tightly around his neck. But he shifts her, adjusts, and then the two of them are off, his brother moving just slower than a jog while Ellie whoops from his back.
Joel just grins, following them at a slightly slower pace. The two of them are attracting looks, what with all the hootin’ and hollerin’ they’re doing, but they don’t care. They never care. And the people of Jackson find them amusing more than anything, their attention shifting to him with fond expressions. Their arrival had caused a stir at first - Tommy’d neglected to mention to the townspeople anything about a brother, and then there’d been the matter of Ellie with him - but Jackson loved children, and it was a safe place here. Joel would have done just about anything to make sure they stayed where Ellie would be safe.
Where the Fireflies couldn’t get to her.
One day he’d have to tell her all about it - her immunity, the real reason they’d been going across the country to begin with. The notes left behind in Colorado that had clued him in to exactly what they’d planned to do to her to get their cure, and the complete and utter lie he’d told her to get her to come back to Jackson with him.
But for now Ellie was safe and happy, adjusting and digging her heels into her uncle’s sides to get him to Giddyup! on the way home.
The rest of it could wait.
Chapter 15: nothing heals the past like time
Notes:
from anon: a fic where ellie is actually sarah's daughter (but sarah died giving birth some years ago and ellie's father is deadbeat) so basically is grandpa joel joel raising ellie with some help of her great-uncle ("gruncle!!!") tommy.
title from "be alright" by dean lewis
extra tw for mentions of death in childbirth
Chapter Text
April nineteenth is simultaneously the best and worst day of Joel’s life. At about five in the morning that day, his granddaughter had entered the world. A small, squalling little thing that looked more like her deadbeat dad than the mother that had wanted her more than anything, and the second the doctors had let him hold her, little Ellie had become the second girl to have him completely and utterly wrapped around her finger.
And at about three that afternoon, his daughter had left this world. Gone from sitting upright with one hand on Ellie’s bassinet, laughing and talking about the last touches she still needed to put on the nursery, to slumped over in bed, every alarm in the room blaring. A nurse had ushered Joel out, wheeled a crying Ellie out after him, and there’d been nothing for him to do but do his best to soothe the little girl as the doctors tried - failed - to save their anchor.
Even now, fourteen years on, Joel still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Sarah had been so young, so healthy, the pregnancy completely normal, and yet –
Ellie didn’t particularly enjoy celebrating her birthday despite all of Joel and Tommy’s efforts to make the day special for her. As soon as she’d been old enough to learn what it meant that Mommy went to heaven the same day that she was born, she’d pretty much refused to acknowledge the day at all.
Joel stares at the carved giraffe in front of him, turning it this way and that, wondering if he can convince Ellie it’s not a birthday gift. He just happened to finish it right around this time and wanted her to have it. Coincidence, that’s all.
He sighs, brushing his hands over his thighs and standing up. Ellie won’t buy it, and there’s no use trying. Might as well wait till the end of the month, when he can try to pass it off as an end-of-school gift instead. She always looks at him suspiciously when he gives her one of those, but she has yet to refuse one.
Joel shuts the door to his workshop behind him, crossing the backyard and letting himself into the kitchen. Ellie’s still asleep - of course she is - and Joel pulls down their largest mixing bowl and pancake mix. He makes it often enough for her that she probably won’t get all snappy and weird about them, but then again…there’s no telling with Ellie on this day.
The first stack is done by the time she clomps downstairs, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Pancakes?” Ellie asks around a yawn.
“Pancakes,” Joel confirms. “Grab the butter and syrup for me, will ya?”
Ellie complies, shuffling around in her overlarge pajamas and setting the table with four places. Joel hasn’t heard from Tommy yet today, but he’ll be by without fail. A rare Saturday they both have off, Maria’s between cases, and it’s Ellie’s birthday even if she refuses to acknowledge it?
Of course the whole family will be under one roof.
“How’d your test go?”
Ellie grunts in response, and Joel bites back a smile. That’s one of her it was fine grunts - he’s had to learn the difference over the years. It’s fine or leave me alone or thank you or I don’t wanna talk about it. Joel was a master at them all.
The front door lock turns, the hinges squeaking as it swings inward, and finally Ellie perks up. Small feet patter their way - Ellie uncurls from her seat and stands - and a small whirlwind tears towards them, bowling into her knees.
Ellie lifts her cousin and squeezes till he yelps, face buried in his neck as she makes chomping noises. Tommy and Maria follow their son in at a more sedate pace, grins already on their faces.
“Gettin’ him all riled up right away, I see,” Tommy says to Ellie, leaning over to clap on the shoulder.
“Of course,” Ellie replies tartly, now swinging TJ side to side as he squeals happily. “Gruncle.”
“Griece,” Tommy replies, pronouncing it like grease, and Joel rolls his eyes. Ever since Ellie was old enough to understand what a great-uncle was, she’d called Tommy gruncle; naturally, being the mature man he was, his brother began to reply in kind. “Peepaw,” he aims at Joel for good measure, a shit-eating grin on his lips.
“Cut it out or I’ll let the gremlins eat all your pancakes.” Joel waves his spatula in the kids’ general direction, and Tommy raises his hands in a gesture of peace.
The rest of them fall to conversation that becomes a pleasant white noise in the background as Joel focuses on making the last of the pancakes, stacking them one by one on the plates warming in the oven. He tries not to think about another fourteen-year-old wanting pancakes, another teenage girl laughing over breakfast with her uncle Tommy. The permanent ache in his chest throbs, intensifies and presses until there’s a sharp well of tears in his eyes that Joel hurries to blink away before anyone notices.
Ellie laughs at something behind him, that free and unfettered sound he loves so much, and it cuts through the maudlin feelings draping over him. She’d never much looked like Sarah - or him, for that matter - but her laugh was damn near identical, and it warms Joel inside and out. He lost his little girl, but he has hers, and that is the only thing that keeps him going most days.
“Alright, make some space,” Joel calls over his shoulder, flicking the stove burner off and opening the oven door. “Pancakes incomin’.”
“Bout time,” Tommy teases, scooping his son up from Ellie and situating him on his lap. “Gettin’ slow, Peepaw.”
Just for that, Joel serves his brother last.
It ain’t that the nickname bothers him - hell, Ellie’s called him that before. Peepaw, grandpa, Joel. Once she’d slipped and called him Dad , and his heart had somehow stopped and beat a thousand times in the span of a second. Never mattered to him what she said, long as it wasn’t hey asshole, but Tommy liked to say it just to imply Joel was old.
They dig in, Tommy alternating between eating his own and cutting up small pieces for TJ. Joel, for his part, keeps a watch on Ellie. She’s eating, at least, so that’s something, but more than once he catches her pushing a piece around in her syrup, gaze unfocused on the plate in front of her. And he knows what she’s thinking about, or what she’s trying to keep from thinking about, because it’s the same thing he’s fighting against too, same thing they do every year.
His gaze drifts almost automatically to the set of photos that hang on the wall between the living room and kitchen. Five of them, all taken the day Ellie was born. Sarah holding her; Joel holding her while Sarah smiles; the three of them and Tommy; Ellie’s feet in Sarah’s hands; Joel bending to kiss his daughter’s head as Ellie lays on her chest.
The few brief hours that everything in his world had been utterly, brightly perfect.
Joel looks over to find Ellie staring at him, her eyes flicking uncertainly between his face and the pictures, and reaches over to grab her hand and squeeze. Love you, he mouths; the set of her jaw doesn’t ease, and she slips her hand out from under his, chin ducking to her chest.
TJ chooses that moment to scamper down from Tommy’s lap, making a beeline to where he knows the toys are kept in the living room. His parents share a fondly exasperated look before pushing up from their seats to follow him; Joel catches the sad smile Tommy sends his way as he stands, and knows that it’s not just TJ’s well timed exit that has them stepping away from the table.
Ellie still doesn’t look at him, and Joel doesn’t say anything. He knows this girl, knows she ain’t gonna say anything until she’s good and ready. So he sits next to her, pancakes going cold in congealed syrup on his plate, and he waits.
“Sorry about Tommy calling you Peepaw,” she finally offers, fingers toying with her fork, and Joel gives her a half-hearted smile.
“Don’t matter,” he reassures her. “I learned a long time ago to not pay attention to anythin’ he says.”
That, at least, gets a twitch at the corners of her lips, her eyes lifting momentarily to his. “Probably the smart thing to do.”
They lapse into silence once more, the only audible noise that of TJ vroom-ing a truck around the living room floor. Joel sits, waits, tries not to think about how different this day would be if Sarah were here: the excited way Ellie would have bounded downstairs, the demand for presents, his daughter staying up late into the night to put the finishing touches on balloons and streamers, Ellie blowing out candles.
It hurts fiercely, all of it, the absence of his little girl and the way that, in turn, has siphoned off the joy from her own little girl.
“You’re sad,” Ellie says quietly. Her hands are in her lap now, arms twitching, and Joel just knows she’s wrecking her damn cuticles again.
“I am,” he says; he’s never believed in cushioning things for her or lying about his own feelings. “But I’m also happy. You can –”
“Be both at the same time,” Ellie finishes. “Yeah, I know.” Her lower lip catches between her teeth. “I am too, I guess. Just –” she exhales, her gaze lifting to the pictures. “Y’know.”
Joel does know, entirely too well. Knows how the two of them have struggled the last fourteen years, especially every April. How Ellie learned entirely too young how to read his moods and track his feelings, how she’s buried her own entirely too frequently, how she got it in her head when she was twelve that Joel actually hated her because of Sarah’s death and tried to run away. He didn’t know where in the hell she’d gotten the idea - a lot of days he still worried that he hadn’t been able to fully convince her it wasn’t true.
“An hour at a time?” Her therapist had suggested that for the days that were the worst, when both of them were suffocating in grief and just putting one put in front of the other felt impossible.
Ellie swallows, nods. “An hour at a time,” she repeats. She pushes her plate away and stands, eyes roving over to the rest of their family, now ensconced in A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, one of TJ’s favorite picture books. “I’ll help you clean up.”
They work in quiet tandem, clearing the plates and loading the dishwasher. Ellie packs the leftover pancakes into a Ziploc bag and scribbles the date on it, staring down at the numbers for a long moment before putting them in the fridge.
Joel moves to join the others in the living room; Ellie’s voice behind him draws him to a halt. “Joel?”
“Hmm?”
Ellie shifts her weight from one foot to the other, hands fidgeting in front of her. “No…no cake or presents, right?”
Joel’s breath catches in his chest at the reminder of the promise he’d made her when she was seven and wanted to quit celebrating her birthday. No cake or presents or parties or anything, she’d demanded angrily, tears streaking down her cheeks. He’d hated it - this girl deserved to be celebrated every year in the same way she insisted on doing for him - but she had been adamant, and he’d acquiesced.
Now, he thinks about the carved giraffe sitting in his workshop, the slice of red velvet cake in the back of the fridge that he’ll eat when she’s gone to sleep - and he nods. “No cake or presents,” he promises her.
One day, maybe, he’ll change her mind.
Chapter 16: the time of our lives
Notes:
from my friend renegadeknight (the rooftop queen herself!): i thought it would be fun to see you do a lil fic about Ellie and Joel watching the Olympics together!
okay so i'm obviously WAY late on this one since the olympics were nearly a year ago BUT hopefully it still hits lol
Chapter Text
The thump downstairs wakes him, and Joel wonders what it says about him - and Ellie - that he doesn’t even consider that it might be an intruder. He already knows what he’ll find downstairs at - he cranes his head to glance at the red numbers of his alarm - three fifty-two in the morning.
His kid. Watching the Olympics at their original broadcast time instead of waiting for the later showings like any sane person. At least it was the summer, so it wasn’t like she had to get through a day of school after this, but Joel - well, he had to work still. And he’d appreciate it if Ellie kept that in mind.
Another thump, and Joel sighs, tossing the covers off his legs. Can’t hurt to go down and let her know she’s woken him up - again - so that maybe she’ll be a little quieter when she inevitably does this again tomorrow. Unlikely, but he can dream.
He heads downstairs, deliberately making more noise than usual; sure enough, the volume on the TV drops almost immediately. She tries to be considerate, Joel knows that - she’s a sixteen-year-old who loves the Olympics, and she’s excited. He can’t blame her for that.
Joel rounds the corner into the living room, already preparing to gently chastise her and remind her to keep it down –
Only to be greeted by the sight of Ellie and Tommy, both of them practically frozen in place on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in between them. Ellie’s cheeks are puffed up like she’d just shoved some of it into her mouth, and it’s all Joel can do to keep from bursting into laughter at her resemblance to a startled chipmunk.
Instead, he turns his attention to his brother. “What in the hell are you doin’ here at this hour?”
“I wanted to watch the Olympics with Ellie.” He sounds just like he did when they were younger and Joel busted him sneaking out to go swim in the lake, all guilty and faintly apologetic, and Joel has to bite back a smile. The man’s in his late forties, got a wife and son, and looks guilty as hell sitting on Joel’s couch with his niece.
Joel sighs. “What do you two have against watching the afternoon broadcasts?”
Ellie looks affronted, swallowing the last of her popcorn. “And risk having the results spoiled for me by dipshits on social media before I can see it for myself? It takes all the thrill out of it, Joel.”
“Yeah, Joel,” Tommy echoes, hand already diving back into the popcorn. Joel rolls his eyes.
“Well,” he gestures to the near-silent television, where a horse and well-dressed rider are entering a wide, flat ring, “guess you better pay attention then.”
Immediately, the two of them turn and lean forward, gazes glued to the screen. Ellie shoves another fistful of popcorn in her mouth, and Joel resigns himself to an extremely early morning. He drops into the recliner next to the couch, popping out the footrest and lacing his fingers over his stomach, listening to Ellie and Tommy bicker back and forth about whatever it is that they’re watching right now.
“I’m tellin’ you, the rider from Belgium has the better horse, smoother gait –”
“You have lost your fucking mind if you think Belgium’s ‘smooth gait’ holds a candle to Germany’s flying change –”
“Oh please, you wouldn’t know a half-decent flyin’ change if it bit you in the ass –”
Ellie reaches over and whacks her uncle in the shoulder. “Says the man who doesn’t know the damn difference between a passage and a piaffe.”
“I’m sorry, I must’ve missed the time where you took a bunch of dressage lessons and became a goddamn expert –”
“I still know more than you,” Ellie challenges, and Joel huffs out a laugh, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.
He’d never admit it to either of them - can’t fucking encourage their behavior - but Joel loves listening to Ellie and Tommy sniping at each other like this. It had taken her some time to warm up to his brother when she’d first come to live with him, somewhere around five years ago, but it had taken Tommy no time at all. Being an uncle was his favorite thing, up until TJ’d been born anyways, and he’d almost relished the challenge of winning Ellie over. Joel still sometimes thought she’d held out as long as she had because she hadn’t wanted to stop the flow of bribery gifts.
“Look, I’m just sayin’ that you can’t fuck up a canter pirouette like that and still expect to medal –”
Joel suppresses a smile, feeling himself relax further into the recliner until before he knows it, he’s asleep once more.
Chapter 17: stubborn as the weeds
Notes:
from anon on tumblr: Would you write a fic where Joel has a toothache?
title from "cowboys cry too" by kelsea ballerini feat. noah kahan
Chapter Text
Joel is, Ellie thinks one day, entirely too fucking stubborn. A little rich coming from her maybe, but she isn’t currently the one pretending her mouth doesn’t hurt something awful. It’s like he forgets how stupidly attuned they can be to each other, a lingering side effect from months on the road together. It makes it all too easy to notice dumb things, like when Joel suddenly starts chewing on only one side of his mouth. Or when he stops eating anything remotely crunchy and sticks to stuff like scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes.
She stabs a fork into her own piece of potato, diced and roasted to perfection, eyeing the way Joel is carefully chewing his own and wincing occasionally.
“What?” He asks when he notices her watching him. “Somethin’ on my face?”
“Something wrong with your mouth,” Ellie shoots back, and Joel’s face goes carefully blank.
“Don’t know what you’re on about.” As if to prove his point, he takes a large bite of potato and chews.
And immediately winces and curses under his breath, hand flying up to cradle the side of his jaw.
Ellie puts her own fork down and crosses her arms. “What the fuck is wrong?”
“Just a little toothache,” Joel mutters, fingers still pressed to the side of his face. “It’ll go away in a few days, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s already been ‘a few days’,” she retorts. “And yet it still seems to be bothering the fuck out of you. Let’s go to the clinic.”
Immediately, Joel shakes his head. “Clinic ain’t necessary.”
Maybe it feels like an overreaction, but Ellie can’t help how goddamn mad his casualness about this is. She shoves up out of her chair, earning a startled and reproving Ellie! when it screeches along the kitchen floor and falls over. But she doesn’t understand how he can just be ignoring this, what if there’s something seriously wrong? She knows how bad shit in your mouth can get if left untreated; a girl in her FEDRA training class refused to let them pull a tooth until her jaw was practically rotting off, and then she died anyways.
Ellie didn’t save Joel from a stab wound and fucking sepsis so he could die of some random tooth crap in Jackson.
“Clinic,” she snaps.
Joel catches hold of her wrist as she goes to turn away, worry etched in the lines of his face. “Ellie, what is goin’ on? It ain’t that serious –”
“Yet,” she interrupts. “It ain’t that serious yet . We’re going to the clinic so I can make sure you’re not about to drop dead of a rotted tooth.”
“Baby –”
“We’re going.”
To his credit, Joel doesn’t keep arguing it. He takes his jacket when Ellie practically throws it at him, dutifully puts his boots on, and walks through the front door she’s holding open. Doesn’t even bug her about locking the door, even though he’s probably the only person in town that thinks it’s necessary. He just walks alongside her down their street in the faintly orange light of dusk, offering up a wave and nod to anyone they pass.
Heidi’s at the clinic’s front desk when they walk in, an easy grin in place as she greets them. “What can I help you two with?”
Ellie opens her mouth, but Joel beats her to the punch. “Got a toothache in the back of my jaw,” he tells her, his tone almost apologetic. “Thought I oughta get it looked at to make sure it’s nothin’ serious.”
“Of course!” Heidi smiles brightly, and it only stokes Ellie’s irritation. “I think Laila’s out for the evening, but Marco’s back there right now, he can help you out. Right hallway, second door on the left.”
Joel dips his chin in thanks before heading off down the main hall to where it ends in a T, leaving Ellie to follow along in his wake. “Gonna need to get your teeth checked too, you keep grindin’ ‘em together like that.”
“My teeth are fine,” Ellie snaps, hurrying to catch up. There’s no time to say more though, because Joel’s already turned to the right and is approaching the propped open door, fist raised to knock.
Marco’s nice, and he’s patrolled with Joel a couple times before, so she trusts him as much as she trusts anyone else these days. And he even did a brief stint in dentistry school, six months before the Outbreak, he tells them, so Ellie supposes it’s good he’s there rather than Laila. He keeps up a steady flow of conversation as he angles Joel’s head back and peers inside, a small flashlight in hand; he doesn’t even seem to notice or care that Joel and Ellie themselves are utterly silent. Ellie’s foot taps out an unsteady rhythm on the cracked tile floor.
In the end, he says it looks like a little inflammation in his gums but nothing serious, and he sends them on their way with numbing cream and instructions to come back in two days. Keep eating soft foods, he tacks on at the end, and Joel thanks him profusely while Ellie practically stomps off.
She can hear him walking behind her on the way home, but he doesn’t try to catch up and walk alongside her. At least, not until they make the porch - then Joel nudges her away from the door and towards the bench in the corner. Ellie sits, chewing her lip and not quite looking at him.
“We gonna talk about that?” Joel asks, lowering himself next to her with a small groan that she doesn’t bother commenting on. Ellie shakes her head, and he sighs. “Baby, I’m fine. You heard Marco. Just a little inflammation, it’ll take care of itself.”
“You’re sure?” The words come out small, unsure, and Ellie wishes she could snatch them back immediately.
A warm hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing until she looks over at him. “I’m completely sure,” Joel assures her. “If I wasn’t, I’d tell you.”
Ellie fidgets with the hem of her shirt, bunching it up in her hands and smoothing it out again. “Just - they kept telling us in school that it was really easy to die because of a problem with your mouth and your teeth, because it’s so close to your brain. And a girl actually did die that way.” She rotates a little to face him better, chafing her hands over her thighs. “It just - everything’s finally good for me for once.”
“That ain’t gonna change.” His grip on her shoulder tightens, releases, and he stretches his arm further to curl around her and tug her against him. “I wouldn’t let a toothache get the best of me, kiddo, I can promise you that. Not after everything else. Okay?”
The fact that her chin is wobbling even a little right now is fucking annoying, but Ellie just nods and pretends like there’s not still a thorny lump of anxiety sitting in her stomach. “Good, because I’d fucking kill you myself. Now,” she pushes to her feet, stepping awkwardly over his outstretched legs, “let’s go back inside, I’m eating the last slice of pecan pie because the pecans are too hard for your old man teeth.”
Behind her, Joel sighs, and follows her inside.
Chapter 18: burn so bright
Notes:
from "anon" (eyes stillboldlygoing suspiciously): ficlet where Joel & Ellie encounter a charmander. (this is an abridged version of the request, full length can be found on my tumblr)
you can consider this a loose follow-up to the leprechaun ficlet several chapters back
title from "beautiful trauma" by p!nk
Chapter Text
He’s losing his goddamn mind. It’s the only explanation Joel can come up with for whatever in the hell he’s supposed to be looking at right now. He’s pretty sure he’s seen one of these… things somewhere before, but how in the hell –
Ellie’s hand reaches forward, and Joel snaps, “Don’t touch it.”
“Oh come on,” she says exasperatedly, still not dropping her hand. “Look at it! It’s fucking cute, man.”
The thing in question seems to preen at Ellie’s words, stretching to bump its head against her palm. Ellie giggles, curling her fingers to scratch against its head. “Dude, it’s so warm.”
“I really don’t think –” Joel tries, but it’s no use; she ain’t listening to a word he says. It’s practically in Ellie’s lap at this point, her letting out a delighted laugh as she tumbles gently backwards onto the ground and it crawls onto her with a happy grin on its small orange face.
It butts its head under Ellie’s chin, small little clawed paws latching onto her jacket. And of course - Ellie turns to him with big pleading eyes. “Joel, we gotta keep it.”
“Absolutely not.” He’s firm on that, no matter how sure he is this is some weird fuckin’ hallucination they’re having. It’s just been a weird goddamn day all around anyways - he and Ellie had both lost about an hour of time at some point earlier. They’d been walking through the woods, away from the road, doing something Joel couldn’t seem to remember and neither could she. Then a blink, and they’re standing along the side of the road again with the sun higher in the sky and not the faintest idea of how they’d gotten there.
So sure - why shouldn’t there be a weird orange lizard thing with a tail that’s literally on fire sitting in Ellie’s lap?
“What, are we just supposed to leave it out here?” Ellie hugs the thing to her, rubbing her cheek against its head. For its part, the little lizard - Joel really doesn’t know what else to call it - has relaxed completely against Ellie’s chest, eyes shut and mouth curved in a contented smile. “It’s so small, man, what if something eats it?”
“Jesus fuckin’ – no, Ellie.” His hands land on his hips, the beginnings of a headache thrumming behind his eyes. “Let it go, we need to keep movin’.”
Her eyes shut, cheek still on the lizard’s head, and when they open again there’s an increasingly-familiar stubborn glint to them. “He’s coming with us.”
“Ellie –”
But he cuts himself off, going still at the scratchy noise that emanates from somewhere in the shrubbery to their right. Ellie opens her mouth - Joel makes a quick slashing motion through the air with his hand - and snaps it shut at the low clicking sound that follows.
Shit.
He draws his gun as quietly as he can, motioning for Ellie to stand up. Her own gun is in her bag, a rule Joel is currently cursing himself for implementing. Her pocket knife though - that, she at least keeps on her at all times, and he sees her draw it now, one arm still wrapped around the lizard. Its eyes have opened again, mouth opening, and Ellie puts a finger to her lips. Somehow, it understands, crawling to the ground to stand upright next to her, tail flame flaring brighter.
The clicker stumbles into their clearing on rotted legs, hands outstretched like claws and face split open into blooming fungus plates. Joel holds his breath, raising his gun to take aim –
The little lizard…leaps forward?
Joel blinks, staring with his mouth open, gun utterly forgotten as it hinges its mouth wide and - with a scream that has the clicker careening wildly toward it - exhales a stream of fire so wide and hot that Joel feels it singe a few of the hairs on his beard. It catches the clicker straight in the face, an unending curl of flame that envelops it completely until the little thing finally stops, small chest heaving.
The clicker smolders in front of them, ashy gray and midnight black, until it begins to crumble slowly. Pieces of fungus glow with lingering heat and detach from the body, drifting to the ground, and the clicker staggers a step, and then another, and then falls to the ground with a thud, plumes of ash curling upwards.
Joel steps forward and shoots it in the head anyways, just in case.
“Dude!” He turns, finds Ellie squatting in front of the lizard, free hand already rubbing over its head as it preens. “Good job, buddy! That was so fucking cool!”
It makes some sort of trilling sound in response, mouth split wide in what Joel can only assume is a grin, and it bounces back and forth on its short little legs. He still can’t decide what’s more fucking unbelievable at this point: the actual fungus monsters he’s been fighting for two decades now, or the fire-breathing lizard currently waving its flame-tipped tail standing right in front of him.
“Joel.” Ellie’s looking at him again, arms already hoisting her new friend up against her chest as she stands. “We are absolutely keeping him.”
“Jesus –” He pinches the bridge of his nose. He shouldn’t give in - he shouldn’t - but he also has a feeling that this is one of those things that Ellie ain’t gonna listen to him on. He’ll tell her to leave it - she’ll set it down, walk away maybe - and he’ll turn around half a mile from here to find it trailing along behind them or being toted in her arms. Only other option would be to kill it, but he’s pretty sure Ellie’d never speak to him again if he did.
He doesn’t bother thinking about why that thought makes his chest ache.
“Fine,” he tells her after a long moment, head tilting back to the sky when she whoops excitedly. “But you’re in charge of it. Cleanin’, feedin’, all of it.”
“Deal,” Ellie says immediately, and Joel looks down to see she’s practically vibrating with excitement, the lizard clinging happily to her shoulders. “Now I just gotta pick out a name for him!”
She turns on her heel and starts walking, head bent as she talks to it, no doubt coming up with some sort of silly fire-related pun name for it. Like Sparky or Firestorm or –
Joel shakes his head, makes himself stop right there. He’s been spending too much time with this kid, her shitty puns invading his head constantly. And now she ain’t even paying attention to her surroundings, completely focused on the critter as she walks without bothering to check that Joel’s even following.
God, he’s gonna regret this.
Chapter 19: amazing how the time flies by
Summary:
Getting older wasn't really something Joel had ever put much thought into. There'd always been something more pressing that needed his attention - his little brother, his daughter, his grief. With his grief had come the end of any further desire to live and each year that passed with him alive became something of a surprise until he stopped thinking about it altogether.
(happy birthday joel miller)
Notes:
decided that i actually couldn't let today go by without something for our favorite dad, so here, have a ficlet
title from "from the jump" by james arthur feat. kelly clarkson
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Getting older wasn't really something Joel had ever put much thought into. There'd always been something more pressing that needed his attention - his little brother, his daughter, his grief. With his grief had come the end of any further desire to live and each year that passed with him alive became something of a surprise until he stopped thinking about it altogether.
But here he was - fifty-nine going on sixty, facing down the possibility of something almost like a birthday party, no matter how much he said he didn't want one. It wasn't necessary, he'd argued, and he didn't want to bring attention to himself on a day that was so terrible for everyone else. On a day that was so terrible for him.
Ellie wanted to give him one though - "Sixty is too big of a number to not fucking acknowledge, dude." - so Joel was getting a birthday party whether he liked it or not.
Tommy had let slip the date back on their first September in Jackson, and Ellie, being the smart kid that she was, had put that together with the blackboard over the fireplace and followed his lead in not acknowledging the day. But the next year he'd gotten a card with a sketch of Old Beardy on the front, the year after that a framed drawing of the Tetons, and then after that a pound of coffee beans. She never actually said Happy Birthday and never handed him the cards and gift directly, always leaving them on the dining table the night before like some weird version of Santa Claus.
But it was still an acknowledgement, and though he and Ellie weren't the most emotionally expressive pair ever, Joel knew what she was saying with all of it.
I'm glad you're still here, you old fucker.
Crazy thing was - he was still glad to be here too. There was a hole in his chest - there would always be one - where Sarah and Tess resided, but every year the edges of it got less ragged. Smoothed out by his brother's laugh, his sister-in-law's wry humor, his nephew's wild excitement, his daughter's ridiculous puns.
He could breathe a little easier each day.
So - Ellie wants to give him a birthday party? Joel's not gonna fight her too hard on it, not like he might have before.
And in the end, it's perfect - Tommy and Maria and TJ and Ellie gathered around the dining table with him, eating Maria's pork chops and swapping town gossip. Ellie had crafted him one of those triangle party hats, and Joel wore it for all of ten minutes before happily passing it off to TJ, pretending he didn't see his kid sticking her tongue out at him as he did.
It's calm, it's family, it's - pretty goddamn perfect.
Tommy pulls out a small bottle of Seth's whiskey and pours a measure each into three glasses, passing one to Joel and one to Maria and ignoring Ellie's protests.
"You think the shit's gross," Joel reminds her, and she rolls her eyes.
"Yeah but it'd still be nice to be included."
"Drinking age is twenty-one," Maria says, hiding her smile behind the rim of her own glass.
Ellie slumps back, crossing her arms over her chest. "You guys are no fuuu-" she cuts herself off, glances over at her cousin, happily absorbed in his toy animals, "-dging fun."
Tommy snorts, shaking his head with a smile. "Alright, well, here's to my brother. Happy birthday, hermano." He lifts his glass in Joel's direction before taking a sip.
"Happy birthday," Maria and Ellie echo, and Joel leans forward to gently knock his glass against his sister-in-law's.
"Thanks y'all." Joel swallows the whiskey, relishing the burn of it down his throat and into his chest where it amplifies the warmth already blossoming there from his family. Four years and he still can't believe there's good whiskey in the world again.
Ellie goes to rummage in the fridge, emerging with a small plate covered in a familiar looking chocolate cake. There's nothing written on top - clearly Seth couldn't be bothered this time - but Ellie sticks a small candle in the top of it after setting it on the table, and lights it.
"We won't sing," she says, nudging his foot with hers, "because we know you hate that shit. But you still gotta make your wish."
Joel blinks, staring at the small, flickering flame in front of him. Tries to think of what he could wish for in a world where every day that he and his family stay happy and healthy is a miracle in and of itself. And really there's nothing more that he could ever ask for.
But everyone's watching him expectantly - even TJ, whose attention has been drawn by the appearance of a sugary treat - so Joel closes his eyes and blows out the candle, unable to help the small smile that tugs at his lips when everyone else applauds.
Tommy takes the lead on cutting the cake, and Ellie drops into the chair closest to Joel, eyeing him. "So what'd you wish for?"
He slings an arm over her shoulders, tugging her a little closer so he can press a kiss to her temple. "For my goddamn knees to stop hurtin'."
Ellie snorts. "Don't think a candle wish is gonna help with that dude, it's because you're fucking old."
"Yeah," Joel replies quietly, watching his nephew clamor for a larger slice of cake than the one he's been handed. "I'm fuckin' old, baby."
For the first time in a long time, he's grateful for it.
Notes:
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