#TPFOSFic

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (15/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 15: Settling In

Summary: The honeymoon is over, and life goes back to what passes for normal in Jackson.

A/N: Here’s the start of Part 2 of this little saga, what I’ve dubbed unofficially “Falling in Love.” I’m so happy that you’re still here with me after the end of Part 1. I am truly, truly so thankful to all of you for the amazing reviews and for letting me rant about my opinions on a cure in the replies. You’re all amazing.

I think I’m one of the few who is not a huge fan of Tess. I never really understood the dynamics of her relationship with Joel, and that’s discussed here a bit. I try to make sense of it respectfully based on all the info I have of their dynamic. Apologies if you ARE a fan of Tess- she’s only brought up 2-3 times in this whole story, and never with malice, so please don’t let that turn you off.

I know little about tools. I know even less about mucking stalls. I do know a little physics and body mechanics, so….

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter.

~*~

Things change once you’re back in the rotation. Mornings are filled with purpose and routine, getting out of bed to the wail of an alarm and dancing around one another to dress for the day before walking to the dining hall and eating quietly. 

You part ways for the day, and your evenings are filled with stories about the mediocrity of patrol and the repetitiveness of cleaning manure and maintaining the compost and whatever Ellie is learning in school. 

Days turn into another week gone by, time marked by the regularity of the meals and the day to day needs to keep Jackson running. You start to feel less self-conscious about coming back at the end of the day smelling like shit, and start to think of the house as home soon enough. It’s a transition that feels so much easier than you ever anticipated once long, hard days of work are involved. There’s more to hide in: more stories about your day and general discussion to be had, less focus on adapting and fitting in and emotions.

You touch less, but there’s still an ease to it when he takes your hand, or sets his palm on your back as your walking. It’s comforting. It’s slowly becoming familiar.

And at night, tucked into his side, you can close your eyes and pretend it’s all real. 

~*~

It’s easier than he thought, falling back into a relationship. 

That’s what this is, after all: a relationship. 

It damn well better be, considering you married him. 

Jackson’s relative safety, relative quiet, makes it easier for him. He isn’t scraping by in a QZ, worried about getting ration cards and wondering if there will be enough rations available for those cards to even matter. He thinks about Tess sometimes, and what it might have been like if she made it to Jackson. 

She always cared more about him than he did her, even if she was his closest friend, even if he felt something close enough to love that he pretended. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but it had been all they’d had there. A little comfort went a long way in a QZ. 

Their relationship had been complicated: part need, part convenience, part genuine affection. He in turn played guard dog and enforcer, lover and follower. She’d known his history and hadn’t cared. She’d watched him kill men and hadn’t batted an eyelash. There was a necessity to their relationship that suited him, a familiarity that calmed him. 

But had he met Tess before, when the world was running just fine and cordyceps was only known to mycologists, Joel wouldn’t have looked at her twice. 

She wouldn’t have been with him, either. She’d told him as much once night, drunk and half high, musing on what she’d be doing if the world hadn’t gone to shit. She kept him around as much as he kept her, they used one another and it suited them both just fine to at least feel trust. She cared for him, even loved him in her own way, but she told him he was never the kind of man she ever saw herself with. He stopped trying to force himself to love her after that, and decided instead to be happy enough with what little comfort he had. 

He wondered if she would have loved him enough in a place like this. He afforded Tess a certain amount of protection in Boston, even if she was more than good enough at taking care of herself. She would have been afforded more independence here. Choices. Then again, that was always something he’d assumed. After seeing what Jackson did to you, maybe Tess would have stuck with him, if only to avoid having to couple up with someone else. 

He feels guilty, sometimes, when he thinks that he’s glad she never made it out here because then he might have missed you. 

You might have been forced to marry Robbie, or tossed outside the gates. 

He wouldn’t see your smile in the mornings, or hear your light snores in the middle of the night. 

Tess touched him, but never like you do. 

With Tess it had always been driven by need or desperation, grief or manic energy. Sex was a tool, and touch always was about something one of them needed.

He wants to touch you just for the sake of touching you. You touch him like it’s a gift with gentle hands and easy intimacy that makes him feel fucking young again. He didn’t realize how much he missed something so simple like holding hands with another human. He would have labeled it juvenile, unnecessary only a few years ago. A few weeks ago, even. 

You didn’t fucking hold hands in a QZ. It showed attachments. It showed weakness. He and Tess had been a couple to others because they told people, because they’d let it be known, not because they were ever affectionate with one another or fucking held hands in public. 

The way your fingers fit in between his, the way he can tell the difference between your gentle squeezes that are reassuring and the tight ones that are anxious makes him feel closer to you, more connected. 

The way you run your fingers through his hair…his heart quickens just at the thought. 

It is addictive, all of it. 

He hadn’t realized how much he missed these things until he had them again. 

He feels like he finally realized he was drowning and you are his air. He feels like he can never get enough of you. 

He hopes you feel the same, he really does, but he isn’t sure, and that’s what worries him. 

You like his touch. He is the only person, aside from Ellie, he ever sees you touch, and that bolsters him. He knows you like losing yourself in his embrace, that you like pillowing your head on his shoulder at night and tucking yourself under his chin when he hugs you. 

Sometimes, when you reach for him, he thinks you are as starved for touch as he is. 

But he still sees your hesitancy, still sees the nervousness in your eyes sometimes. He remembers your fear that night at the Bison, and he never wants to see that directed at him. He never wants you to feel afraid of him or unsafe with him. He will spend the rest of his life making sure you’re not afraid of him if that’s what it takes. He never wants to see the fear that he saw of Robbie directed at him, ever. 

He’s going to build you a home, with his own two hands and one bedside table at a time if he has to, so you can relax in this world just a little, so you can breathe easy and thrive. 

He wants to give you that.

He wants to give you everything. 

He can’t remember ever feeling like this before, even before the pandemic, and he couldn’t have ever predicted he’d have gotten anything more than a casual friend and a housemate out of this situation. 

But now? You?

You’re his wife, and day by day, minute by minute, he’s slowly falling more in love with you. 

~*~

You are exhausted.

Hay is heavy. Wheelbarrows are heavy. Horse shit and pig shit and goat shit are heavy and they stink and every muscle in your body just wants to melt off of you right now.

You don’t make it to the stairs, you can’t even contemplate trying to go up them right now. Instead, you collapse on the couch, stretching your stocking feet out in front of you and laying your head back on the top edge of the cushion. Sleeping mostly through the night now was revolutionary, but it didn’t make the work any easier, didn’t make it any less than sweltering in the barn when the wind didn’t blow from the right direction, didn’t change the fact that you were not built for farm maintenance in any sense of the word and all you wanted right now was an ice cold glass of water and an air conditioner or a fan blowing right on you and you were likely to get neither of those things.

The front door lock clicks as it opens, you only spare opening one eye to watch Joel make his way inside, opening both eyes and making a poor attempt to sit up.

He shakes his head at you and you slump back to where you were. “That is exactly how I feel,” he mutters, toeing off his boots and slowly making his way down next to you.

You breathe in concert with one another for a few long, quiet seconds, taking in the calmness that washes over you from just being next to him. No conversations needed, no placations, just being.

“You alright?” you finally ask, turning your head towards him. “You seem…stiff.” You wince at your word choice, but there’s nothing else to pick for the way her shuffled in, for how he took small steps and toed his boots off without leaning down.

“Sorry to say, darlin’, I’m old. Back’s acting up.” He keeps his own eyes closed, head on the back of the couch as he reaches his hand to his side, gently massaging into the muscles there. “Being on the horse for hours on end don’t help, either. Just a little tight, I should be fine by morning.”

You hum and loll your head back, closing your eyes again. You hear him shift, and think you can feel his eyes on you, but you don’t look.

His voice is warm and calm and actually interested when he speaks again, and you can tell he’s looking right at you for how it sounds. “How was the barn?”

“Same as always,” you reply gently. “Shoulda never stopped working. It’s hard to get back into it.”

He hums back, and you feel him shift next to you, settling deeper into the couch. “Never gets easier.”

You sense the opportunity, in the silence, and ask. “Where would you go, if you could go on a real vacation right now?”

He turns his head and smiles lazily at you. “A vacation?”

You nod, opening one eye to peak at him. “Um hum.”

He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. “Used to always want to come some place like here. Some place as far away from the Texas heat as I could get. Thought it might be fun learning how to ski.” He pauses and looks back over at you, serious. “Turns out, I hate the fuckin’ snow.”

You bark out a laugh, shaking your head and sitting up a little taller. “No skiing, then.”

“No skiing.” He sniffs and crosses his arms, thinking. “Haven’t even contemplated what it might be like to take a vacation in… years at least.” He looks back over, gently nudging your elbow. “Where would you go?”

“I’d want to see the ocean again,” you start, taking a slow, deep breath. “I used to love going to the beach, smelling the salt air, walking along where the water would just meet the sand…” When you turn your head he’s watching you, eyes warm and open and full of wonder. It makes you feel like you’re being almost too open, but you suppose since he’s your husband, he ought to know things about you.

Serious things, like your trauma, and silly things, like where you want to vacation, are things he should know about you.

“There’s a, uh, a lake, not too far from here, on the south route,” he starts, shifting his body with only a little wince. “Not exactly the ocean, but big enough that there’s a little bit of sand.”

You’re not sure if he’s implying he’d take you there, but the idea of leaving Jackson still stirs things in you that you’d rather not think about. “Not the ocean,” you deflect with a shrug and a yawn.

He shakes his head, smiling over at you, like he understands all the things you didn’t say. “Not the ocean.” He reaches out his hand, letting it sit between you, and you make a show of the effort it takes to lift your arm, threading your fingers in his. “You sleep ok last night?”

“Um hum,” you affirm, shimmying closer to him. “Just a long day.”

He reaches over and tucks a stray hair behind your ear before coaxing your head to his shoulder. “We have time before dinner.” His own yawn fills the room, louder than yours even though he tries to hide it behind his hand. “Tell me about the ocean.”

You get two sentences in before his heavy breathing tells you he’s asleep next to you, and it’s only another few breaths before you follow him.

~*~

Joel can’t reconcile dating post apocalypse. It’s not something he’s had to do before. 

That’s what this is, after all: dating. You may be married, you may go to sleep and wake up entwined together every morning, but you’re still barely friends. 

He understood how to ask someone on a date before cordyceps: how to call and drop by and meet up at a bar, how to take someone out to a nice dinner and bring her flowers and how to build something between two people. Not that he’d done it much, not with Sarah around, but he at least understood how to do it. 

Dating post-cordyceps wasn’t dating: it was desperation. It was connection. It was sex. It was feeling something other than numb. 

It was everything this town was making it: transactional. 

Except, that isn’t what he wants with you. He wants to take you out, but there is nowhere to go here except the Tipsy Bison and there is no fucking way he was taking you in there ever again. There are only so many times he can take you for walks in the little garden. 

He feels like a caveman, dropping little gifts at your feet, hoping you’ll find him worthy of bestowing your love, your real love, on him. He doesn’t want you to just be with him because it is convenient, because he is the lesser of two evils. He wants you to be with him because you want to be with him. He’s already given you most of what he can: his protection. 

He wants your love, and he wants you to want his. It’s so hard to imagine a way to romance you in this world that tires you both out day after day with heavy labor. 

That is the one good thing, though. Every afternoon there’s a chance to sit with you on the couch, to let your bodies sink into the cushions and slowly but surely get to know one another with little nuggets of knowledge before one or both of you inevitably falls asleep. He finds he’s disappointed the days he comes home and you’re hanging laundry on the line on the back porch or when you’re scrubbing your boots out in the grass because he feels like he doesn’t want to intrude.

It's so hard to give you space, to know when you need space, when you’ve both been forced together like this. He tries to do it when he thinks you want it, but he’s never really sure.

He’s not sure how to do this at all, how to show you with anything other than little actions, little gifts, with his time, that this isn’t transactional for him. It’s backwards, this romance that’s he’s unsure of how to start, how to fix: how does he make his wife, the woman whose already married him, fall in love with him?

~*~

You’re halfway through a pile of soiled hay when you see him, chin resting on folded hands at the top of the stall door, watching you. You just catch him out of the corner of your eye, so you keep tossing the used hay into your wheelbarrow, trying not to grunt with each shovel full. 

You’re not graceful doing this. You still stumble through it, though it’s getting easier. After more than a week back, the soreness of returning to heavy labor has faded. Your arms are getting stronger despite the time away from it, and your back doesn’t protest as much. You’ve figured out how to pivot from your feet instead of twisting from your back and your body thanks you. 

But you still miss the wheelbarrow sometimes, no matter how you grip the handle, and you can only fill it so full because even though you’re stronger, a full wheelbarrow is too much for you to push across the dirt alone. 

You almost forget here’s there when he marches into the stall and pulls the shovel from your hands, a frown on his face. 

“Joel?”

He doesn’t say anything, just holds it up to you, tip in the ground and measuring up the long handle to your height before shaking his head. Wordlessly he gives it a little toss, catching it easily in his hand before turning back towards the storage shed. 

You follow, every question you could want to ask on your tongue, but you hold them in as you watch from the door of the storage shed as he mumbles to himself, digging through a pile of equipment. “What are you looking for?” You finally breathe out, wiping the sweat away from your forehead on the back of your arm. “We got five shovels and they’re all the same.”

“Not looking for a shovel,” he grunts, making a sound of triumph when he pulls a small pitchfork from under a pile of rakes. “Looking for this.”

“Seems less efficient than a shovel,” you mutter as he hands it to you. 

“You’d be surprised.” He tips his head and uses a hand to guide you out of the shed, back to the stall you were working on. “Give it a try.” 

The handle is smaller, fitting in your palms better, and with its shorter length, the grip feels lighter. Your first scoop doesn't slide through the tines like you think it will, and instead guides right where you want it to, the whole thing slipping easily into the wheelbarrow. 

You look up at him, eyes wide. “Well fuck me.”

He laughs, a hearty chuckle. “Eddie’s a big guy.” He leans back on the stall wall, watching as you move though fork full after fork full, almost giddy with the new ease of it. “It probably wouldn’t have even occurred to him that the shovel was too big.” His eyes catch on the wheelbarrow, and he bends down. “If we get these wheels inflated that should help, too.” His hand rubs over his beard as he stands back up, “Not sure where we can find a pump, but Tommy’ll know.”

You set the pitchfork next to you, wiping your arm over your face again. “You mean you can make that easier, too?”

He nods, and there’s an odd mix of humor and lightness to match yours with something heavy about it floating in his eyes. You’ll be mad about it later. For now, this is the best thing that’s happened in days. “Can you take a break?” He asks almost shyly, “It’s getting hot in here.”

The weather had turned fast. Spring was long gone, and the days were sweltering with cloudless, blazing sun. Even the evenings were starting to feel hot and muggy, giving the town little reprieve from the heat. 

“Getting hot in here, staying hot in here, welcome to the barn.” You smile, trying to keep the lightness alive. You set the pitchfork against the wall and pull your gloves off, leaving them next to it. “Come on,” You slip past him, knowing he’ll follow, “there’s a nice patch of shade that gets a breeze this time of day.”

You sit on the ground once you’re outside and in the shadow of the structure, back to the barn, and he slides down next to you. “This is revolutionary.”

He chuckles, tilting his head down. “Just a little change.”

You lean back, wiping the sweat away from your forehead. “You wanna follow me around the rest of the day and see what else I’m doing wrong?”

“You just needed the right tool,” he mutters, “You weren’t doing it wrong.” He takes a deep breath and you can see anger itch under his skin where he tries to hide it. “Maybe if someone had taught you how to do it, realized that a while ago…”

You lay your hand on his knee, patting gently to stop his train of thought. “You noticed now,” you placate softly.  You settle your hands on your own knees, then, taking slow deep breaths. The air is a dozen degrees cooler out here, maybe more, and the gentle breeze feels good on your skin. “Bet I’m finished early today.”

He laughs, his anger simmering away. “Bet you are.” He shifts, pulling the leather strap from over his shoulder and holding out his canteen towards you. “Water?”

You take it, looking it over before unscrewing it. “Thanks.” It’s a little warm, but it’s better than the metallic tang of the water that comes from the hose. “I used to have one of these,” you muse, passing it back so he can take his own drink before screwing the cap back on. “Lost it in a river somewhere in California.”

He hums in acknowledgement, but just sits quietly next to you after putting his bottle on the ground in the few inches between you. 

You pick at the edge of your shirt. “Things quiet out there?”

You see him nod from the corner of your eye. They are still doubling up patrols, so that means he is out every day. He’s told you he didn’t mind it, but you can see how the constant vigilance is putting dark circles under his eyes. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Not that you know what the ordinary is… he doesn’t say, and you don’t ask. One day you might, but for now, you don’t really want to know what is outside the walls of Jackson. Being safe inside them is enough. 

“I’d ask how it’s going here but…” The corner of his mouth almost turns up, and his elbow nudges your side. 

You chuckle, and stretch your arms overhead. “Being off it for a week made coming back tough, but I think I’m getting back into the swing of things.” You let your arms fall to your knees, shaking your head. “That damn little pitchfork is gonna save me so much trouble…”

He looks at you. You can see it out of the corner of your eye. You’re both thinking the same damn thing, but to say it out loud makes it real, gives it life, and you want to pretend, just a little longer, that none of it is a threat to you. That that part of your time here is over. That Eddie just made an honest mistake. That they weren’t making things harder so you’d fail.

You change the subject as quickly as you can. You’d like to go a little longer without having to worry about your well-being. 

“Isn’t it fucking wild,” you start, trying to turn the conversation, musing with your eyes closed as your body starts to relax into the building behind you, the shade, the breeze, and his presence calming, “that before this, I’d go to the damn gym?” You laugh to yourself. “I would actually go someplace to work out. To make myself feel sore and pick up heavy things on purpose.” You turn to him, cracking open an eye to look at him. “You probably didn’t, picking up and putting down all those heavy construction tools…”

He shakes his head, trying to hide a smirk. “Nah,” he laughs for a second, letting his head lean back. You watch a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his neck and hold back the urge to follow it with your finger. “Still went when I had the time.” He turns his head to you and matches your smile. “Tools weren’t that heavy.” 

You lick your lips, sighing as you rub your hands over your shoulders. “Elliptical. Sometimes the treadmill. Then those weight machines in the corner that I couldn’t mess up and no one could make fun of me for…” you mutter to yourself, remembering the way the cheap gym by your house used to perpetually smell like sweat, the way the weights would clink against each other when people put them on the bar and the growling crashes you heard when people bailed on their lifts. 

“Walk everywhere now,” Joel muses next to you, stretching his legs out in front of him, “and you gotta carry all your own shit.”

“And I’m shoveling everyone else’s,” you laugh lightly. “No reason to go to a gym ever again,” you smile. “Oh, if the old me could see me now…”

His eyebrows raise. “You think she’d like you?”

His question is light, meant to be fun. It still hits something deep inside you, though, that you’d rather not think about. “She’d be surprised, that’s for sure.” You pick a piece of hay from under your thumb nail, then focus on the rest of your hand, pulling dirt from under the edges of each nail. “Told ya- I was an inside girl.” You actually laugh out loud, trying not to think about all the things you’d seen for your future that fell apart the day the world ended. “She’d hate this farmer’s tan so much.”

He laughs next to you, looking over his own arms, pulling up the sleeve on his t-shirt to share his own tan line. “Not much you can do about it.”

You shake your head and hold your hand out. He sets the canteen in it again and you take a slow drink, thinking as the water helps you find your focus again. “How about you?” You screw the cap back on and give it back to him. “What would old-you think?”

You start to backtrack when you see the shadow fall over his eyes, when you see the way his jaw twitches before he turns away, but his hand on your knee stops you from taking your question back, rubbing up and down gently. 

“Don’t really know,” he mutters, looking straight ahead, eyes following the pigs in their pen. “Some days I think he’d hate who I’ve become. But then sometimes…” He pauses, turning to you, and the shadow is gone. There’s a hint of mischief, instead. “Sometimes I think he’d be damn impressed seeing my wife.”

You can’t help it, you roll your eyes at him and lean over, knocking against him with your shoulder. “Trying to sweettalk me?”

“Maybe.”

 You shake your head at him, having a hard time hiding your smile. “I already married you.” You want to lean your head on his shoulder, you would if you were home and sitting on the couch alone, but it’s sweltering out, and you can’t stand the thought of anything else that radiates warmth touching you. 

Old-you would have been in shorts. A tank-top. Flip flops. You would have worn a light sundress or as little as possible. Old you would have set yourself in front of an air conditioner with a cold beer or in the pool with a margarita. 

New-you was in jeans and a shirt and heavy boots, sweating your way through farm maintenance. 

Oh, if the old-you could see you now. 

Joel’s hand stays on your knee, moving up and down gently. No one’s around, but you’ve both become more comfortable with touching in public. Hand holding was easy. It was safe. It provided you comfort and told the town that you were his. 

This?

This is for the two of you. 

Little touches on shoulders and knees and hugs fill you both up. They remind you that you aren't alone in this world. That for better or for worse, for real or for convenience, you have this man who is going to stay by your side. 

You’re sure it is something about chemicals in the brain: serotonin or dopamine or oxytocin that makes you feel closer to him when he touches you. It doesn’t much matter. 

Neither of you are going to stop. 

“Yeah,” he finally drawls out, his tone a little mystified, his hand still moving gently, “I guess you did.” 

You can feel that there’s something else he wants to say, something that’s sitting on the tip of his tongue that he wants to let out, but won’t. 

With a gentle pat to your knee, he pushes himself up, then holds his hands out to you. “So, you think you’ll be done early then?”

You smirk at him as he helps you to your feet. “Got this fancy new pitchfork, I should be done in no time.”

“I’ll bring whatever’s for dinner to the house,” his lips hint at a smile. He still has your hands in his, fingers holding tight. “You can have a nice, early evening.”

“Sounds great.”

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (1/?)

Title: Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :) 

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around. 

Dark fic in a less than idyllic Jackson. Themes concern medical assault, SA, infant and pregnancy loss, and medical experimentation as well as PTSD. The majority of these situations are not portrayed in the story, only recounted by the “reader” character. Chapters will have sufficient warnings. Still lots of fluff and sexiness to be had. Protective!Joel, Soft!Joel. Fem!Reader, little to no description otherwise. No use of Y/N. No/slight age difference. Hurt/Comfort. Romance.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. 

Tags: Joel (The Last of Us)/Reader, Joel (The Last of Us)/You, Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel & Tommy (The Last of Us)

Characters: Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie (The Last of Us), Tommy (The Last of Us), Maria (The Last of Us), Reader

Additional Tags: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Slow Burn, Fake Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Medical Trauma, pregnancy loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Family Dynamics, No age gap, No use of y/n, Eventual Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Past Sexual Abuse, Stalking, Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Touch-Starved, Infant Loss, Joel is Trying His Best (The Last of Us)

Story A/N: Born out of the forced marriage/fake marriage trope and musings on what a post apocalypse world might actually look like. Also, I just really need this Joel in my life.

Though I’ve tried to make the Reader fairly vague, I’ve been told my reader characters border on OC’s. She has QUITE the extensive and dark backstory, but little to no physical description aside that she’s close in age to Joel. PLEASE, please, please check all the tags. 

I’m only familiar with the TV series, and this is fairly AU of that. Despite posting date, 151 k of this (however long it ends up being) was written before season 2 dropped, so don’t expect it to be remotely close to that.

I’ve been working on this for almost two years now, and decided to bite the bullet and post since a goal of mine was to post before TLOU2 started. The end is written (and will not change, no matter the feedback), significant holes in the middle are not. I will endeavor to post every week, and it will live up to the rating for many reasons.

I have no beta, and no one that’s been able to give me feedback on this particular fic due to the nature of it. This is my first second-person POV, my first present tense fic, my first xReader fic, and my first TLOU fic. I welcome constructive criticism, but please be kind about it.

Prologue I/II: At First Glance/Strays

Chapter Warnings: injury

Chapter Summary: Your arrival in Jackson, Joel’s view of your first few months. 

Chapter A/N: This story is technically set after season 1, though the timeline of Maria’s baby makes that a bit shaky, so… Maria’s just going to be pregnant for a loooong time. In the show it looks like Joel and Ellie get back to Jackson bordering on Spring/Summer, reader finds Jackson the following February. 

Prologues are purposefully written in past tense; the rest of the story is in present tense. 

Chapter 1: The Weight of Reality

Chapter Warnings: none

Chapter Summary: Joel meets you, and finds that it might actually be worth it to have a friend. 

Chapter A/N: Rest of the story is in present tense. Current time line is early June. 

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

~*~

Prologue I: At First Glance/Prologue II: Strays

Summary: Your arrival in Jackson, Joel’s view of your first few months. 

A/N: This story is technically set after season 1, though the timeline of Maria’s baby makes that a bit shaky, so… Maria’s just going to be pregnant for a loooong time. In the show it looks like Joel and Ellie get back to Jackson bordering on Spring/Summer, reader finds Jackson the following February. 

Prologues are purposefully written in past tense; the rest of the story is in present tense. 

~*~

Prologue I: At first Glance

At first glance, Jackson was idyllic. 

A safe haven. 

After a few months you came to know the shadows, the darkness that haunted it that everyone tried to hide. 

No one had come to Jackson pure, unscathed. No one who had gone through Outbreak Day or who had been born after that knew lightness, knew happiness the way the world had before that day, and it showed in every pair of eyes you saw. 

It had been a blessing when you ran into the two-man patrol, limping with a sprained ankle and what you were pretty sure was a broken wrist, out of bullets and two days with no food and only mouthfuls of snow for water. You’d fully expected to die there, in the snow, alone. 

From exhaustion or a bullet, it didn’t really matter to you how you died, as long as it wasn’t an infected.

But now you were here, wandering around what reminded you of a fake Wild West tourist trap crossed with a sitcom suburb as the snow is starting to melt in the throes of spring, hand wrapped up tight and a slight limp leftover that the doctor said would fade with time. 

Maria said you needed to find a way to be useful. To contribute. 

She told you that the first day, and every day since, sniffing around to see how fast your wrist was healing, how quickly she could get you on a work roster. She watched you try to sew and shoot and ride a horse. All the while, the same words repeating over and over while her eyes stayed cold. 

Be useful. Contribute. 

You didn’t like the way she said it, didn’t like the intonations she put on it. You were more than happy to pull your weight somehow: washing dishes or in the green house. You knew you didn’t have many useful skills for a place like this, but you’d find something given enough practice.

You absolutely needed practice. None of the skills they needed were things you would ever put on a resume. 

Still, the way she said it seemed more ominous each time. The way she smiled a fake smile at a group of men across the street from you just after the words fell from her lips one day, it made your spine crawl. 

You knew how some women were seen as useful now. 

You’d rather be back out in the snow with no bullets. 

At first glance, Jackson was idyllic. 

But the people were harsh. They were critical. They smiled out of one side of their mouth and gossiped out the other. They waved with one hand while hiding a dagger behind their back in their fist. They all had the same weary, dark edge that permeated the apocalypse and weren’t afraid to let it show if they thought no one was looking. 

Now, everywhere you looked, you saw the lurking shadows, and it made you wonder how much you wanted to stay.

~*~

Prologue II: Strays

Joel Miller would say, if asked, that he did not pick up strays. He didn’t collect people, didn’t take them under his wing, didn’t look out for them. 

The truth was, though, he hated seeing people struggle in this world if he could help. 

It was something he’d learned about himself the hard way from Austin to Boston and then even more so Boston to Jackson, something he would have rather kept a secret as he tried to carve out a little hole for himself and Ellie in the small town that seemed too good to be true. Everyone put themselves first in this world, and he couldn’t afford to do any less for him and Ellie. 

He kept to himself, mostly. Helped where he could. Took extra shifts when someone was needed. He knew how to make himself needed, how to make himself useful. 

Useful was always better than liked post-outbreak. 

Useful people were kept around. Useful people were left alone. Useful people got an extra share of coffee or got to keep the bottle of whisky they found. Useful people gained a little bit of power in being needed by others. 

But he watched you struggle as you tried to find your own way in the town, and it made him anxious more than anyone he'd ever seen before. 

He couldn’t get the image of you, slipping to the ground in the middle of the trees, cradling your hand to your chest and shaking, out of his head. He couldn’t get the little whimpering sound that you made when he picked you up and slipped you on his horse out of his ears. 

He couldn’t forget the way you’d whispered, “Please, no,” when he got on behind you, turning back for Jackson, or how you stayed stiff and shivering the whole way. 

He didn’t need you to say what had happened to you. He’d heard enough stories, seen enough in his lifetime, to be able to imagine what could make you plead like that. 

He remembered the relief in your eyes when he walked you into the small house that held the doctor, when you realized he’d been telling the truth and that maybe, just maybe, things weren’t going to be as bad as you were thinking. 

But he watched you struggle in Jackson, watched you try job after job in the rotation only to get bumped to the next one down the list for months. He watched you try to make friends at meals: the way some people passed you over as you smiled up at them reminded him of the clicks of high school lunchrooms past, leaving his food tasting sour in his mouth. 

He watched you flinch when the young men, the single young men, were the ones that did sit with you, did try to talk with you. You’d smile until they said something that didn’t sit right and then you’d shut down, the light of a new friend, a new connection falling from your eyes. 

He watched you flinch away when they reached for your hand or to touch your face, and it made his blood boil. 

He didn’t think you’d want to talk with him more than you wanted to talk to anyone else. 

But he was tired of watching it. 

He was tired of watching you struggle when you seemed like you were trying so hard to find a space for yourself in this town. 

Maybe he did take people under his wing. 

Maybe he did collect strays. 

He still wouldn’t admit to it. 

~*~

Chapter 1: The Weight of Reality

Summary: Joel meets you, and finds that it might actually be worth it to have a friend. 

A/N: Rest of the story is in present tense. Current time line is early June. 

~*~

“Anyone sittin here?”

You look up from your lunch, surprised at the soft, southern accent drifting over you. You remember it, remember the whispered words of comfort as you sat, trapped by his arms on his horse, cradling your wrist from every jolt on your way into Jackson the first time. You haven’t seen him since that day aside from glances here and there, passing nods and waves as you move through the streets, but you know who he is. You found out fast as soon as you were working and meeting people. 

Joel Miller has a reputation: Tommy’s brother, a hard worker, a good surrogate father… 

A good man. 

He may try to keep to himself, but everyone knows everyone here, and even you’ve heard whispers and gossip. 

You swallow quickly. “No,” you offer, holding your hand out to the two empty chairs around your table. You had started taking the smaller tables, your hope of making new friends dwindling with each passing day, with each failure at a new assigned job. “Help yourself.”

In truth, you expect him to grab a chair and drag it over to the table where his brother sits. You prepare for the sting of that rejection that never comes when he slides it out, setting his bowl down before sitting. 

He must see the surprise in your eyes, because he pauses. “You don’t mind if I join you, right?”

“No,” you shake your head, trying to will the surprise from your face as you look away from him to stir your stew. “Not at all.”

“Just thought,” he clears his throat, settling closer into the table, “thought we hadn’t been properly introduced.”

You laugh, a quick huff of air through your nose. “You mean because I was half alive the last time we were together?”

He almost smiles, setting his spoon into his own bowl. “Yeah, something like that.”

You skip the pleasantries: you know he knows your name, just like you know he knows you know his. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you, being terrified and nearly catatonic with pain and all by the time we got back here.” 

“Made getting you off the horse a little tougher, I’ll tell you that,” he deadpans, slipping a spoonful between his lips. 

You smile as he chews, surprised at how easy it is to talk to him. How relaxed he seems. It calms you, just like those soft whispers of You’re alright, just keep breathing and you’re gonna be okay did in your ear all those months ago. 

He just wants to talk. Share a meal. 

It’s the very thing you’ve been hoping for with someone, anyone in town since you got here. You just want to have someone to talk to. Someone to take up space so you don’t feel so lonely. Someone to share a meal with. 

So, you do. 

He asks you about how you’re settling in, and you sigh when you tell him that it’s not well. You try to keep it light: silly anecdotes as you tell him how you lost two sheep when you were working with the livestock, then burned the bread and managed to break the rice cooker in the kitchen, how you thought the green onions were weeds and managed to pull half the crop before someone told you otherwise when they assigned you to the greenhouse…

He doesn’t laugh, like you expect, or try to give you unsolicited advice like others have, he just nods along as he eats, genuinely interested. 

You’ve been subjected to so many judging eyes, so many raised voices nearly yelling as you failed task after task you didn’t really know how to do and hadn’t been adequately trained for, that this feels like heaven. He doesn't judge, just listens. He isn’t wary, like the women seem to be. He isn’t aggressive, like most of the other men. He doesn’t seem to have anything that he wants from you, at least not yet. 

You scrape at the bottom of your bowl, tearing your bread into little tiny pieces just to have a reason to stick around and listen to him talk about the construction he starts to detail that he and Tommy are planning for the spring to help sure up one of the houses when finally stops talking and you ask him if he only does patrols. 

He shakes his head. “Guard duty and patrols are what I’m best at, but Tommy and I head up construction in the spring when the weather breaks and everything needs to be fixed up.” He tilts his head, eyes boring into you. “Hey, you don’t happen to be an engineer by chance, do ya?”

You laugh for real this time: a big bark of a laugh that gets him smiling all the way up to his eyes. “No! No, I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. Why?”

“We’re talking about trying to build a water wheel in the creek, maybe get a good old-fashioned mill going.” He shrugs, pushing his bowl away so he can fold his arms on the table. “So, what did you do that made that seem so funny?”

“I was a writer,” you look down at your hands, twiddling your fingers and missing the click of a keyboard under them. “An indoors girl, through and through, which may be why I have absolutely no useful skills here.”

He skips over your self-pity, and you’re not sure if you’re thankful for that or if you were actually hoping for him to send you some reassurance you’d have some useful skills. His mouth quicks up in a half smile, “What did you write?”

“Anything,” you shrug, surprised by the fact that he seems genuinely interested. “It wasn’t very lucrative, so I took whatever work I could get. Mostly magazine articles. I ghost wrote some web content. I was shopping around a book, but publishers didn’t seem all that interested.”

His eyebrows lift, soft surprise on his face. “You wrote a book?”

You try not to blush. You haven’t even thought about your book in years, never mind talk about it. “I did.”

He opens his mouth like he wants to say more, but the sounds of scraping chairs get his attention. You both look up the clock at the front of the room, and start cleaning your places at the table. 

Lunch is over. Afternoon jobs are starting for those that have them. 

This little interlude, as nice as it has been, has come to an end. 

“Suppose we should get going,” he offers instead of whatever he had been about to say, standing. “I’m on front gate this afternoon. You?”

You look up at him, his face soft and sweet and the kindest thing in this town you’ve encountered so far, even if people call him gruff and rude and sharp behind his back. “Mucking the stalls,” you reply, trying to fill it with as much enthusiasm as you can as you stand next to him. “Hopefully, I can’t screw up shoveling shit.”

His half smile as you both walk to the dish room window is more than enough to make you feel like you want to seek him out again. “Don’t, uh- don’t count on that. Harder than it looks.” Something about the way he says it isn’t a dig, not a slight or a comment on your abilities, but it’s a tease. Something light. 

Something a…a friend might say. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you reply softly, shoving your hands in your jeans, following him out the front door and splitting your separate ways without a goodbye. 

~*~

Joel sits, fidgeting, next to Ellie as the movie is projected on the wall of the dining hall. He hasn’t seen it in a long time, he’d even been looking forward to tonight, but his attention couldn’t be farther away. 

You’re not the only one missing from the room, but the town is small and he can count the number of people missing. Movie nights are a big deal around here, and he’s never seen a new person miss the chance to see a piece of their past before. 

He tries to talk himself out of it, tries to tell himself maybe you don’t like Tom Hanks. 

Who doesn’t like Tom Hanks?

But then, he hadn’t seen you at dinner, either, and that makes him anxious. 

He’d expected you to be jumpier than you were when he sat with you, expected the conversation to be stilted and difficult, but it flowed soft and natural and it made sense in his mind when he learned you’d spent your life before all this working with words. 

He isn’t good at words, at least not the ones that mean anything, but he could bullshit with the best of them before. Now, he prefers to keep his words to himself. 

But with you, it was easy. Ebbing and flowing of ideas, no pressure, just thoughts and sentences that didn’t need to be great declarations or meaningless pleasantries. 

It was a real and true conversation. 

One that he actually enjoyed.

It makes him all the more curious as to why you are always alone, as to why it seems you struggle so hard with others. 

Across the lunch table, he could see the smile lines that reached your eyes, the folds by your cheeks where your lips turned up as you talked, the little silver highlights in your hair that told him you were older than he originally thought. You had a life, a job, and you remembered the before like he did, through the eyes of an adult who lost the future they’d been banking on, a future you’d all been promised.  

He’d hoped to find you at dinner. To keep talking. To introduce you to Ellie. 

Then he’d hoped to find you here. To enjoy the easy comfort you’d afforded at lunch. 

You hadn’t wanted anything from him. 

That’s rare. 

Most of the women in Jackson are attached to a man, those that aren’t attached desperately want to be. Sadly, there is a measure of protection that is afforded to the women that are attached. Jackson isn’t exactly dangerous for a single woman, there are rules and laws and everyone has agreed to a certain way of life. Those that break those agreements are punished… when the council finds out. If they find out. 

And so the women who talk to him often want things from him. Time. Labels. Commitments. 

People couple up fast in Jackson, and he steadfastly avoids it. 

He isn’t looking for a wife or a girlfriend. He’s perfectly happy the way he is. 

But the conversation… the conversation with you was nice. Something different. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

His meandering thoughts make him even more anxious. Missing dinner he can rationalize: mucking out stalls isn’t exactly the most appetizing job. But now, it is dark out. There are dark corners and little side alleys everywhere that you could get lost in, that you could have gotten stopped in. He knows you’ve been here for months now, but it doesn’t stop the rush of protectiveness he feels. Some of the boys are aggressive, and even though he and Tommy have spoken to Maria about it on more than one occasion, there doesn’t seem to be much anyone wants to do about the pressure the boys put on the ladies to couple up, to commit and be just a little more subservient than seems necessary.

Maria had looked him straight in the eyes, not a single subservient bone in her body, protected by the power afforded to her by the council and her place in this society, and told him on no uncertain terms, “Don’t rock the boat, Joel. We got a good thing going here. You start pushing people out of their comfort zones and they push back hard.” 

The screen blurs, the parallel lines of the pause symbol shining bright as a break is announced, and snacks are put out for the kids. It pulls him out of his thoughts, springing him back in the present. 

Joel stands, unable to wait any longer. “You gonna stay here?”

Ellie looks up at him, head cocked. “Um, yeah.” She snips sarcastically, as if she has anywhere else to go. “Where do you plan on going?”

He isn’t sure what he wants to say. He doesn’t want her thinking things that she shouldn’t be thinking, or getting the wrong idea. 

“Gotta check on a friend.”

Ellie barks out a laugh. “Bullshit. You don’t have friends.”

He presses his lips together, shaking his head. “Just… stay here, ok?”

He doesn’t wait for her answer, just weaves his way through the crowded room and out the doors, pulling his jacket on. The Lodge is just down the street: a hotel that had been renovated right before the outbreak, it serves just as well as an apartment building of sorts for new residents or residents who don’t want or need a whole house. 

He looks in every alley he passes, down every street. 

It isn’t that he doesn’t trust you to be smart, to take care of yourself. 

It’s that he knows what some of those men say to their friends when they don’t think anyone else can hear. 

The alleys are all, thankfully, dark and quiet. 

~*~

The knock on your door makes you jump. You’re not expecting anyone, and the only person who has come to see you in the months since you arrived is Maria, stopping in every so often to change your assignment, to sigh heavily and tell you that you have to find a place where you fit here or else it’s gonna be harder to rationalize keeping you. 

They say it’s socialist, but there’s an edge to it that makes it a little less kumbaya than you’d like. It feels a little more “Lord of the Flies” to you some days. 

Maria should be at the movie tonight, something you’d hoped to see, so it leaves you wary. 

In the peephole is a face you don’t expect. 

You throw the door open, the towel slipping from around your wet hair so you have to fumble to catch it. “Joel?”

He looks uncomfortable, hands in his pockets and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Hey.”

“Hey.” You ball the towel in your hands if only to give you something to do while you wait for him to explain why he’s at your door. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you: wet, tangled hair, mismatched sweats that came from a community pile that are just a little too big through the shoulders and a little too short in the legs, bare feet on the threadbare carpet. You know you must look a sight. 

“What’s up?” You want to ask what’s wrong, what he’s doing here, but you try to keep it light, even though the words feel woefully out of place. The anxiety you felt at having to open the door melts. Something about him still puts you at ease, just like it did at lunch, despite the awkwardness of him showing up at your door. 

“Nothin’,” he lies, shaking his head and looking away. “Nothin’, I just…” He recenters himself, physically and mentally and you realize just how tall and broad he is when he takes up your doorway. “Didn’t see you at dinner, then didn’t see you at the movie and… wanted to know how the stables went?”

You almost laugh. He surprises himself with the end of the sentence, like he didn’t know where it was going before it came out of his mouth. 

There’s nothing to laugh about, though. “Great,” you mutter, suddenly embarrassed. “Fabulous.” You shake your head and lean on the edge of the open door. “Missed dinner ‘cause it took me so long to do, and you can’t leave ‘till you’re done. Then I just… I couldn’t go anywhere until I got that smell off me, ya know?” You shrug. “Just got out of the shower. I missed most of the movie, huh?”

“Yeah.” He scuffs his foot on the ground, and you can feel the palpable nervousness coming from him. He doesn't know what to say. 

Neither do you. 

You want to invite him in, you’ve been looking forward to maybe seeing him again, but you’re tired and sore and you want nothing more than to curl up in your bed and sleep. 

“Thanks,” you settle on, his head lifting to look at you, “thanks for checking on me.”

“Wasn’t—”  he starts to argue, but it drops when he sees your face, head cocked and eyebrows low, disbelieving. “I just… just wanted to make sure you were alright, being… new… and all.”

You’re not new, though. It’s been months of trying to find your place once your wrist healed and your limp faded. You’re starting to feel old; you’re starting to feel the weight of not having found a place that feels like it fits for you here. 

It’s like he knows that somehow, though, the way he says it. 

“I appreciate it,” you nearly whisper back. You want to tell him just how much you appreciate it, just how much it makes you feel real and seen to have someone care enough to check on you as opposed to telling you you’re not doing enough. 

You don’t. 

“I was gonna turn in early.”

“Gotta head back…”

Your words overlap, suddenly feeling like the awkwardness of a first date. But you aren’t waiting on a kiss goodnight. You expect nothing from this man that literally saved your life. He’s already given you far more than you expected today. 

With soft good nights, you close your door. 

The room feels lonely now, but you feel a little less alone. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (12/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 12: For Better or For Worse

Summary: Your sleepless nights continue, worse than they’ve ever been, and the only thing left to do is tell Joel the secrets that have been haunting you.

A/N: This is the big one. Not only is it a long chapter physically, it’s a long chapter emotionally. Most of the things I’ve tagged as trigger warnings get recounted in this chapter. It’s not just Jackson, but this whole world that I view as a little darker, a little more sinister, than they portray on the show…especially for women. Please, PLEASE protect yourself and stop reading if you need to. It is… dark. I try to keep things vague, but there are some explicitly terrible moments, all recounted by the reader as things that have happened to her in the past. For those of you who sought this out because of the darkness, I hope you enjoy and you feel I’ve done the subject matter justice. I promise there ARE reasons for all of it.

Trigger Warnings: PTDS, Suicidal Thoughts, Medical Experimentation, Medical Assault, Near Death Experiences, Pregnancy loss, Infant Loss, Child loss, Sexual Assault, sexual captivity, sexual abuse, and death.

~*~

Your scream wakes him. 

It’s low and guttural and he thinks there must be someone in the room because of how scared, how feral it sounds. 

He’s on his knees in the bed, ready to fight someone, but there’s nothing but darkness. There’s nothing but you, writhing on the bed next to him, face red and pinched in pain as you cry out to forces he can’t see. 

He bends down, reaching over and settling his hands on your shoulders, calling your name, but you shrink away from him. You jerk, violently, limbs pulled tight like they’re in invisible bonds, the sheets between the two of you twisting up and knotting. 

“Joel?” Ellie’s panicked voice calls through the door, but he doesn't hear her. 

He’s focused on you. 

He’s seen you panic; this is beyond that. 

He doesn’t see when Ellie pushes the door open, fearful and coiled and ready to run or strike as the situation needs, but freezing when she sees him leaning over you, begging for you to wake up. 

His hands wrap around your face, trying to get you to still, to open your eyes and look at him. “Please, please. Just wake up! You gotta hear me, I know you can hear me, ok?” He rambles on, pushing sweat-soaked hair from your face and shaking your shoulders, doing anything he can think of to try to get you to snap out of whatever has its hold on you. Finally, he reaches his arms around you and pulls you up to him, not trying to restrain but trying to hold, to reassure. 

It backfires on him, and you fight back harder, pushing with everything you have out of his arms and tumbling yourself to the floor. You land with a thud, still caught up in the blankets, pulling them with you as you try to crawl away. 

Joel scrambles down, following you, his heart pounding.

“You’re hurting her!” You cry, voice high pitched and scratchy and full of hysteria as you pull yourself along the floor. “Stop!”

“Hey, hey!” He puts himself between you and the wall, afraid you’ll hurt yourself if you haven’t already. He starts rambling again, calling your name, trying to deflect your arms and get your attention. 

It’s not until he manages to lace his fingers through yours in both hands, pulling your arms close to his chest, that he starts to get through to you, that your struggling starts to calm. He presses his forehead to yours. “Come on,” he huffs out. “I know you’re in there, come on.”

~*~

One second, you’re there, and the next you’re looking into Joel’s eyes, on your knees in the dark of his bedroom, hands in his. 

You can barely catch your breath, your throat hurts, your eyes hurt, your right knee throbs. 

He lets your hands go and hugs you tight. “Oh, thank god,” he murmurs, holding you close as he pants to catch his breath.

It feels good, but it also feels wrong. You don’t know how you got here. You were staring at the bedside table and now… You can’t remember getting out of bed… even the nightmare that you know so well is jumbling into sheer panic faster than you can think. You push out of his arms, scrambling back and stumbling as you untwist your legs from the blanket. 

You close yourself in his bathroom, trying to escape but not wanting to go far, not wanting to leave the relative safety that he provides you. 

But you’re lost and confused and you just need a minute to get your hands to stop shaking. 

If you could get your body to stop shaking, you think, you’d start to be alright. 

You hear their voices through the door as you slide down onto the cold tile. 

“What the fuck happened?”

“Nightmare,” Joel’s voice drifts to you, low and defeated. 

“That’s a hell of a fucking nightmare.”

“Yeah.”

He sounds broken, exasperated. You can feel his voice in your bones and it starts the tears filling your eyes again. 

“We should see if she’s okay.”

“Leave her alone, Ellie.”

“Joel-”

His voice has a bite to it you don’t expect. “She deserves to deal with it how she wants, okay?” 

Something about his saddened tone, something about the way he snaps it at her, makes it hurt that he’s actually giving you the space you want. The space you probably need. 

You hear a tremor in Ellie’s voice. “But what if-”

He sighs, and when he speaks again his voice is flat and tired and as broken as you feel. “Go to bed.”

“Fine, just… just fucking check on her, ok?”

Your hands have almost stopped shaking, your breathing is almost even, when you hear him call your name through the door. 

“Yeah,” you call back, voice rough and low, still clogged with tears. 

He stutters, hesitating. “You… you okay?”

You both know the answer is no, but there isn’t really much else to ask at this point. 

“Just a nightmare,” you reply, focusing on keeping your breaths calm and slow and making your voice as even as you can. “I’ll be fine.”

The door is solid at your back, and you can feel stickiness on your neck and forehead where the sweat is cooling. You count five slow breaths before he speaks again. “I’ll be just out here, okay? If you need anything.”

You nod, counting as you try to keep your breaths even. Knowing he’s there makes you relax just a little more. Knowing you’ll have to look at him after whatever the hell just happened keeps you just a little panicked. 

You can’t put together what happened between you falling asleep and when you woke up screaming on the floor, wrapped in him and the blankets. You don’t remember getting out of bed or crying or falling, but you remember the images from your nightmare like you lived them all over again. You might as well have been there, in that moment, for how real it seemed.

You told him. 

You told him you had baggage. 

It makes you wonder if the town council will let you move back into your own room if you tell them you wake him up screaming every night. 

The floor creaks as he steps away, and you hear the rustling of him putting the bed back together, smoothing the sheets and blankets back where they belong. 

The light is just starting to crest, the first slips of orange sunrise peeking into the bathroom window. It’s only a little longer. 

You’re always okay during the day. You can almost, almost forget during the day.

You only have to make it a little longer. 

~*~

You’ve been breathing slowly for a while now, and your hands stopped shaking just a little after that. When you hear his footsteps quietly leave the bedroom, you finally decide to move. 

You stand, splashing cold water over your face. You haven’t seen the woman staring back at you from the mirror in a long time. You haven’t been haunted like this in a while, and the deep circles under your eyes are unwelcome. You comb your fingers through your hair and straighten yourself the best you can. 

A little water, some food from the dwindling supply of wedding food in the cupboard in the kitchen, and you’re sure you’ll feel better.

You have to: your body won’t be able to function like this much longer. 

You slip from the bathroom, trying to pretend you’re not holding your breath, trying to pretend you’re not avoiding seeing him. You stop at the top of the steps, hand wrapped tight around the head of the banister. 

Going downstairs means starting the day. 

Going downstairs means you’re ready to either hide it all or confront it all. 

You’re ready for neither. Not after last night. You feel the distinct desire to run back into the bathroom, to hide again. The staircase suddenly seems so long, so far, so treacherous… and that little voice in the back of your head, a voice you haven’t heard in ages, tells you it would be so easy…

…that they wouldn't need to worry about you anymore… 

Joel slips next to you at the top of the steps, slowly moving to your side and wrapping his hand around your arm. “Do I need to be worried about you?”

The depth in his voice snaps you from your thoughts. “No!” You reply quickly, but the rest of the rebuttal dies sharply on your tongue, looking down at the stairs. 

He moves his head down, catching your eyes. He doesn’t believe you, and you’re not sure you even believe yourself. 

“I don’t know,” you finally whisper, taking just a half step back from the edge so your toes don’t curl over the first step. It’s a silent plea to please believe you- that it isn’t intentional. “I don’t- I don’t remember what happened last night, not until you were shaking me on the floor.”

His eyebrows raise to his hairline, tension in his shoulders moving from fear to concern as he shifts his grip on your arm. He was holding you before, ready to pull you back from the precipice. Now, he’s comforting. “Nothing?”

You shake your head. 

He wipes his face with the other hand. “You don’t remember falling out of bed, screaming?” You shake your head again, taking another small step back for his sanity. 

Maybe for yours, too. 

He pauses for a long moment, his hand gentle and soft around your arm now. It’s both comforting and completely terrifying. “You don’t remember your nightmare?” He lets it fall from his lips even though he knows the answer. You don’t have to say anything, you don’t need to tell him that it was so vivid you can still smell the antiseptic and taste blood and feel the scratchy sheets on the bed under you. He starts shaking his head when he feels your arm tremble beneath his fingers, sees the way your jaw clenches and your eyes fill with tears. “No, no. That’s- that’s fine. It’s okay.”

You step back until you’re far enough away from him that you’re not tempted to fall into his arms, backing into the doorway of the bathroom that you share with Ellie. 

“It’s not fine,” you whisper, roughly pushing tears away with the back of your hand. “None of this is fine.” You can’t look at him. He deserves so much more than your brokenness.

He deserves answers. 

He deserves a wife who isn’t afraid to share her darkest secrets with him. 

He deserves a wife who isn’t constantly on the verge of being thrown out of Jackson. 

He deserves a wife who doesn't wake him up screaming in the middle of the night. 

But he has none of those things, and you’re not sure how to fix any of them. 

“I just need a minute,” you whisper, closing the door. You can’t look up, can’t see the hurt in his eyes you know is there as it shuts. “Just a minute, ok?” You whisper through the wood.

You hear him approach the door, old floorboards squeaking under his feet as he stops on the other side. But he doesn’t knock, doesn’t do anything for long breaths. 

He sighs, and then the floorboards give away his leaving, they give away his descent on the stairs until he’s far away enough that you can’t hear him anymore. 

~*~

You spend too much time in the bathroom, and ghost through the house midmorning. 

Your body is tired, your mind is tired, and every cell of your body is filled with loss and dread. 

This can’t go on like this, it absolutely can’t. 

He tries to talk to you: soft compliments and gentle questions throughout the day, but they feel like they’re filtered through water between you, fuzzy and meaningless by the time they hit your ears. 

You let him lead. You let him cook you meals and joke about shells in the eggs and lure you to sit on the porch in the afternoon. All the while, all you can do is try to think, try to come up with a plan, but the circles of logic alternately halt your breath and put tears in your eyes. 

He leaves you alone after dinner, retreating to his woodshop with a heavy sigh. 

You let the light tick of the clock on the mantle lull you to even breaths and focus on the setting sun. You’ve thought all day, but you still have no plan, no great design on how to fix things other than don’t fall asleep. 

It’s not a plan that will work, but it’s all you have.

~*~

“You gonna come up soon?” He asks gently. He’s standing in the doorway, the whole of the living room between you as you sit curled in the chair by the window, looking out into the darkness. 

You can’t see anything, not really, but the absence of things to watch is helping you think. 

He’s been amazing. He’s given you so much space, asked so few questions. He’s trying so hard.

In less than a week you’re a different person than the woman he met. He’s seeing all the things you tried so desperately to hide from everyone in Jackson. 

“I think I shouldn’t,” you whisper, more to yourself even though you know he hears it. “I know they might come, and that it might put everything in jeopardy, but if I sleep down here maybe I won’t wake you.”

He stops himself from taking more than a step into the room. “I don’t mind.”

You huff a laugh through your nose. “Bullshit.” Finally, you turn to look at him. “You haven’t slept through the night in almost a week, and it’s my fault.” You turn back to the window, shaking your head. “I told you that you were getting the short end of the stick.”

“I would have understood-” He pauses, clearing his throat. “I do understand.” He moves closer, and you can see the ghost of him in the window, drifting closer to you. “Anyone who lived through it- we all have-”

“They’re not always this bad,” you whisper, hands scrubbing over your face. “I don’t know if it’s everything that’s happened, or if it’s being so close to someone else again, or if it’s just this time of year…” You shake your head, laughing mirthlessly. “They’re not even the right nightmares, for fuck’s sake.”  You press your fingers into your eyes, like you can will the images out of your mind. “God knows I have enough to have nightmares about I could take my pick.”

He finds your eyes in the reflection of the window, but you drop them. You can’t look at him, not when he’s standing there so open and calm and understanding. 

“Her birthday would be soon. I don’t know the day, exactly, but…” It’s like you can’t help it, putting your hands on your abdomen and rubbing gentle circles. It happens when you think of her.

You hear the breath that falls from his lips, the sharp curse that he can’t hold back. 

You look over your shoulder, feeling like a skittish cat, hoping he doesn’t come any closer to you. “I think… I think that has something to do with it.”

His hands fist by his sides, his jaw tight. You’ve managed to put him on edge, though you’ve been doing that since you’ve been occupying space in his home. It makes you nauseous.

The only thing you can do is try to make him go upstairs, try to force him into a good night’s sleep without you. “Like I said, I think I should-”

“Sarah was…” He has to clear his throat. It’s thick with emotion. “Sarah was twelve.” His hand runs over his broken watch, eyes fixed down on it. “July’s rough for me.”

He doesn’t need to say anymore. 

You feel his pain as surely as he feels yours, the chasm of the death of a child hovering between you. 

There’s so much more he doesn’t know about it, about your past, so many more ghosts that haunt you that you don’t know if you can ever explain living in the back of your mind. But for the first time ever, you want to try. Your fuzzy brain tells you that right now there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and the only way out of all this is though, no matter how difficult it might be. You want to try to tell him. The way he’s looking at you makes you want to try. The way he says her name makes you want to try. 

You don’t know why you do it: it’s a reaction more than anything, holding your hand out to him. Joel only needs to take a few steps to slip his hand in yours, and he doesn’t fight you when you pull him closer, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your head against his stomach. His hands are cautious when they settle on your shoulders, but it doesn’t matter. He’s warm and solid under you and there’s something about him you inherently trust. 

You have trusted him since he hauled you out of the snow and sat you in front of him on his horse. 

“She was less than an hour old,” you whisper, turning your head to the side. “I didn’t even get to hold her.” Your voice doesn’t break, doesn’t waiver, which almost hurts more. “I never got to hold her.”

He holds you tighter, arms wrapping around you best they can in this awkward angle. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, warm and solid against you. 

“Me too,” you mutter, wanting to crawl into him, wanting to hide in him more somehow. Instead, you pull away and scrub your hands over your face. “Sit?” You ask, looking up at him. “I think…” You swallow down the nausea. “You deserve to know, and I think I’m as ready to tell you as I’ll ever be.”

~*~

“I never got to hold her.”

Ellie hears your soft voice from the top of the stairs. It wouldn’t carry except for how quiet it is, how silent the rest of the house is in the middle of the night. 

She just wanted some water; she couldn't sleep and was waiting for the screams to come from down the hall. 

Instead of heading down the stairs, Ellie sits on the top one, listening. 

~*~

You sit next to him on the couch, leaving an empty cushion between the two of you, not sure if you can look at him, not sure if you can be close to him as you try to make everything come out. It’s a confusing jumble of emotions sitting in your chest that makes your heart beat faster and your hands shake, that makes you want to simultaneously push him away and pull him towards you. 

He just waits, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. You must be silent for too long, because he turns to you, lips pressed tight together. “You don’t have to.”

“I do,” you respond, fast. You take a quick look at him from the corner of your eye before shaking your head, focusing on your hands again. “I’ve just… never told anyone.”

“Whatever you want to tell me, I want to hear.” He’s so soft, so gentle, you can’t imagine ever questioning holding back. 

“I got pulled into a makeshift QZ right away,” you start, knowing it has to come from the beginning. “I had a boyfriend. He turned, he died, on Outbreak Day.” 

If you close your eyes, you can still see the dead look in his eyes as he chased you through the kitchen, you can still see the panic that you joined in the street when you burst from the front door, still hear the gunshot of the cop who stepped in front of you and put a bullet between his eyes. 

You can’t say those things, though. You don’t need to: Joel knows. Anyone who lived through Outbreak Day knows what it was like. Even if you wanted to tell him, the details stick in your throat like thorns, unwilling to be exposed just yet. 

“I don’t know about where you were, but they were testing us for everything constantly.” You twist your hands, somehow this part is the part that hurts the most to talk about. “Every goddamn day they were taking blood or spit or making us pee in a cup.” You pause. Take a deep breath. The words come out faster than you want. “That’s how I found out I was pregnant.” 

You see the bob of his head, but he says nothing. 

“They sent me to Groom Lake.”

His head shoots up at that, a blur in your peripheral vision. “In Nevada? I thought that place was a rumor.”

“It was very real,” you mutter, chancing to turn your head. You know people think it is a myth, and it shows on his face that he’s one of them. “Groom Lake was a real military base. I don’t know what they were doing before the outbreak, aliens or flying saucers or just top-secret shit, but after it was for research.”

“Why?” His voice is quiet, still confused. “Why’d they send you there?”

You turn away. It feels like you’re bearing your soul to him, and you’re not sure what you’ll do if he lets this change his view of you. You can’t hold it in anymore, though, and you doubt you’ll have any more courage than you will now. 

“Because he’d been away,” you whisper, sniffing to hold back the emotion that starts to prick at the back of your eyes. “Because they figured he would have already been infected when she was conceived, and it made me a liability... That I might turn… And it made her a… a…” You take a deep breath. “They thought, maybe, they could learn something from her.”

Joel’s hand reaches out across the chasm of the couch. You take it, and hold on tight.

“They kept us in these cells. Tiny little one person plexiglass cells. You could see everyone all the time.” Your eyes flutter shut and it’s like a movie in your mind: the gray halls and the bright, humming lights overhead that never turned off. The cameras and the heavily armed guards. 

The infected growing more grotesque, less human by the minute, snarling and screeching and that heinous clicking sound they made, only separated from you by a thin wall of plastic. 

“The doctors were cautious and kind at first.” You gulp, hard, remembering so much more than you’re saying. “But they made mistakes.”

He’s so calm, so quiet watching you. “Mistakes?”

“They’d go from studying the infected to being one,” you mutter. “They didn’t know exactly how it spread in the beginning. It’s how they lost so many of the best scientists.”

“They got infected studying it.” It’s not a question. He knows. He understands. 

“When I got there, I was so reassured that there would be a cure. These doctors, they were…” You have to laugh, the memory of your first exams, the first tests a far cry from what happened seven months later. “I thought they were brilliant. One by one, they became living nightmares, their cries and clicks keeping me awake from the cells around me.”

“Fuck,” Joel mutters, squeezing your hand harder. 

“By the time I went into labor, they were desperate.” You pull your hand back, tucking yourself into the side of the couch. “They had me strapped down to the bed, afraid that as soon as she was born, I’d turn.”

“You didn’t.”

His words float over you, meant to reassure, but your mind is already far away. “They put her on a stretcher next to me,” your voice cracks, tight and flat, “and I could see them strapping her down. She was so small…”

He reaches out, but doesn’t touch you, hand hovering ineffectually at your side. “You don’t have to-”

“And she was crying. She was crying so loud, Joel.” You know he is trying to tell you that you can stop, but you can’t even if you wanted to. The words fall from your lips like a tidal wave. “And there were needles and they were drawing blood and then there was a scalpel and…” Emotion thickens your voice, eyes filling with tears you don’t want to let fall. 

Even after all this time, it’s so vivid: the bright lights of the operating theater, the tightness of the leather straps around your wrists and across your chest, the guard by the door with his gun, the tray of instruments that glinted in the lights. You can describe everything. You can still see it all. 

“At first, when she stopped crying,” you choke back the lump in your throat, tears slipping down your cheeks, “I was happy. I thought maybe they were done and that they’d… they’d…” You shake your head, trying to shake away the image that’s forever burned to the back of your mind. “But she stopped because… she stopped because…”

You can’t get the words out. The words she was dead won’t form on your lips. 

He doesn't need to hear them. 

You don’t need to say them. 

You don’t know when he moves, when Joel slips across the couch and gathers you in his arms, holding you tight to his chest as the tears hiccup from your lips, but he’s there and he’s warm and he’s solid and you know, you know you made the right decision. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He tucks your head under his chin, his hand rubbing up and down your back. “I thought those stories about that place were fucking lies to scare people.”

You shake your head against him. “They kept me in that cell for fifteen years, Joel.”

He stills against your body, your confession stopping even his breathing. “Fifteen years?”

“My baby girl didn’t give them the result they wanted,” you whisper, venom and fear mingling in your voice, “so they used me to try again.” 

He pulls back from you, cradling your chin in his hands, his dark eyes black with sadness and anger. His jaw starts to move like he wants to ask something, like he wants to comfort you or try to find something to say that will mean anything in this situation. 

There is nothing. 

You keep going, instead, unable to stop the barrage of truth from tumbling from your lips. “Six miscarriages, two stillbirths, and a little boy who didn’t live any longer than his sister.” 

“Fuck,” he mutters, pulling you back against him. “Fucking monsters.”

You hum in agreement, having spent more energy on cursing them in the last twenty years than you want to admit. “I almost died.” You whisper. “The last one, they couldn't stop the bleeding.” 

You can hear the nurse’s voice in your head, screaming over and over. She needs a real doctor, not some fucking PhD student that’ll never finish their degree! Somebody get a real fucking doctor in here before she bleeds out!

You pull away from Joel, just enough to put some space between you. He’s trying to hide his devastation, trying to be strong for you. 

You’ve been strong enough for too long. You’ll happily wallow in whatever he’s willing to give you if he doesn’t run after you’re done tonight. 

Slowly, you rise up on your knees, pulling down the edge of your shorts, rolling your shirt up just enough. His eyes flicker down then back up, confused until they settle on the long, jagged scar across your abdomen. 

His hand reaches for it, but pulls back at the last moment. It’s too intimate for him, for you, and you’re glad he doesn’t touch you there, not with the care he looks like he’s going to show, not with the gentleness and the understanding and the righteous anger on your behalf blazing in his eyes. 

“You almost died,” he parrots, hands fisting in his lap. 

The tenderness isn’t comfortable: you’re not used to it and it starts to stir your anxiety. You want to drown in him, you want to let him take care of you in this moment just like he’s been taking care of you for so many weeks now, but you can’t. 

You can’t.

Most of you is vibrating with the need to run. You want to run and hide and pretend you’ve never shared this part of your broken soul with anyone. 

You turn from him, tucking your clothes back and focusing on the threadbare arm of the couch. “I was barely up and walking when they got too careless. An infected escaped and all hell broke loose. One of the guards opened all the cells. I think he was hoping to just buy himself time, give the infected more to focus on, but…”

“Ten of us got out,” you sniff, trying to distance yourself from it. “Eight of us made it to the Vegas QZ.” He settles next to you, hands knotting together as you talk. “We figured out too late that women there were… commodities.” 

He can’t take his eyes from you, from the way you’ve tamped down the emotion, from the way your shaking starts to still everywhere but your hands. 

“It wasn’t all that much different, except there weren’t cells anymore.” You take a deep breath. “The Fedra soldiers would pick their favorites. Trade us around. Some ended up with slavers. The soldiers were safer than the residents. Soldiers had standards. They wanted us clean. Wanted us fed. But it was…” You shiver, and try to push those memories away. You clear your throat, skipping over the parts you know he can guess, the parts you know a man whose traveled through QZs can understand. “Four of us were able to get out about two years later, once we’d hidden away enough supplies and the winter hit so we could make it to California without dying of heatstroke.” Your hands run over your knees, back and forth, stroking in a slow rhythm. “We ended up in a Scientologist commune for a while, but… Three of us headed North after a year and a half. Connie died of what we think was pneumonia somewhere just past the Oregon border.”

Your hands stop, the horrible clicking and croaking sound invading your brain as the memory plays in your mind. “Amanda… she…” You take one last breath; you know it’s almost all out. “She was too slow. We ran into a rogue infected… and she wasn’t fast enough.”

You look at him now, a smile fighting to bloom on your lips at the only good part of the story. “I think it was about three months before you found me, then.” You shake your head, sighing. “It’s why I’m no good at any of this.”

He swallows, hard. “Because you spent fifteen years in a research camp.”

“Because I spent fifteen years in a research camp.” It slips out like a whisper. “And then I was someone’s property.”

He looks like he’s barely holding himself still- there’s tension in his shoulders and his leg is bouncing and his hands are twisting in each other. 

“What happened to your babies?” Ellie’s voice startles both of you, and you both turn, looking over the back of the couch to see her standing in the doorway, wiping tears from her cheeks. 

“Ellie!” Joel blurts it out like a curse, eyes sharp with a reprimand. 

You lay your hand on his shoulder. She deserves to know as much as he does. “What do you mean?”

“Why- why did they-” She pauses, leaning against the doorframe. “They killed them, didn’t they?”

You nod, not looking over as Joel lays his hand on yours. “They did.”

Her voice is small, like she’s trying to work something out. “Why?”

“Because Cordyceps grows in the brain,” you whisper, focusing on answering her question instead of dredging up the memories. “To biopsy the brain they-” You pause, taking a deep breath. “They were too small to-” You shake your head, and Joel starts to interrupt, but you squeeze his hand to stop him and forge on, as strong as you can make your voice. “They didn’t need them to be alive to get their answers, Ellie, they were more useful to them dead.”

The air thickens, and there’s a look that Joel and Ellie share that tells you that they have their own secrets. It only lasts for a breath before it dissipates. 

She sniffs, nodding, and wipes a hand at her damp face. “I’m sorry about them,” she whispers, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. “Sorry all that… shit happened to you.”

“Thanks,” you whisper. 

She slips away, leaving you and Joel in the quiet of the night. 

“Don’t- she-” Joel stutters, trying to apologize for Ellie. 

“She would have to know something eventually,” you talk over him gently, squeezing his hand. “You both deserve to know why I am the way I am if you’re-” You turn, catching his eyes, the words falling away. You try to lighten the mood just a little, even though it falls flat. “I told you: baggage.”

“Thank you,” he starts, emotion catching in his throat, “for trusting me with that.”

“I’ve never told anyone.” The words are barely loud enough to hear as they slip from you. “Thank you for- for listening and not- not judging me.”

He nods. There isn’t much left to say. All the apologies or curses in the world can’t change what happened, can’t make any of it magically better or take the sting of loss away from you. 

“The Vegas QZ,” he starts, clearing his throat and trying to keep his hands from shaking. He turns his head to the window, avoiding your eyes. “Do I- When you can’t sleep-” He starts and stop again, trying to figure out what he’s asking as he’s asking it. “Have I been reminding you of-”

“No,” you cut him off, adamant. 

He looks over at you, unconvinced. 

“No. Those men were…” You sigh and shake your head, still holding his hand tight. “They were more aggressive. More… more like some of the other men here. More like Robbie.” 

He nods again, looking away from your face. “You’ll tell me?” You wait for him to continue. “If I start to- if I make you feel-”

“You won’t.” You know he won’t. You can feel it with everything you know about him. “But I will tell you if you do.” 

“Maybe you’ll sleep tonight,” he says gently, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles. “Helps to- to let it out sometimes.”

You don’t mean to laugh, but the little bark of a chuckle escapes you before you can stop it. “I don’t think I can sleep now, no matter what.”

He looks you over, eyes drifting from your reddened eyes to your feet and back again before giving a gentle tug on your hand. You shift into him, unable to avoid the pull of him even if you wanted to: you’re spent emotionally, and even though you know your mind will keep you awake staring at the ceiling, your limbs feel limp and heavy. You let him wrap you up against him, you let him tuck your head under his chin and drag the blanket from the back of the couch over both of you. 

“Why don’t we just sit here a while, then.” It’s not a question. You know you can say no, you know you could push away and he wouldn’t be upset or offended, but you acquiesce. You’ve fought for too long, too hard on your own, you’ve held it in for all these years, and there’s nothing left to give, to keep it in. 

It’s all out now, for better or for worse. 

Against Joel’s body, your limbs feel even heavier. Your hand is still in his, his thumb rubbing in time with your breaths as they sync, and slowly, oh so slowly, you feel your eyelids drooping. 

You’re sure you’re going to wake up screaming again tonight, but you also know that Joel will be there when you do, knowing exactly what is making your heart pound in your chest, and it’s the first real comforting thought you’ve had in a long, long time. 

~*~

He gasps awake when he feels you twist against him. It’s not the full-blown thrashing that wakes him in bed, but the beginning twitches of it, the first little whimpers of something that’s not right. He holds you tighter, and leans down, whispering your name. 

Softly. Then louder. 

His arms wrap around you tight to keep you close. 

You don’t wake, but you still. 

Your breath evens out. 

You settle down. 

He doesn't sleep again for a long time. 

But it’s worth it, because you don’t wake up again that night. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (11/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 11: A Good Night’s Sleep

Summary: The week you have away from your jobs is anything but a honeymoon.

A/N: Once again. Thank you to everyone who is reading. Your comments literally make my days better. Yesterday’s chapter was a “bonus” since I was home for the holiday. Today we’re back to your regularly scheduled posting. We’ve also officially surpassed the 170k word mark for this fic, so I hope you’re all in it for the long haul.

I want to reiterate that this fic is DONE. The end is written, I know exactly how the story goes. I just don’t know how many chapters it will be as I’m still filling in some of the middle outline as I go along. But you will have a full story when this is over, and you’re not in danger of it being abandoned. (Mostly because I desperately need to know what people think of it…)

Trigger Warnings: Continued discussion of nightmares, not sleeping, PTSD.

~*~

You brush it off in the morning, and he lets you. You’d managed to slip back into bed, to fall into a few more fitful hours of sleep before the alarm next to him went off, still set for the morning shift he thought he’d have to get to at the gate. 

He didn’t ask any questions beyond if you were feeling better, and you didn’t offer any information. 

He’s walking around you on eggshells. 

You don’t know what to say to make it better for either of you. You know there’s nothing. 

He spends the day in his shop, you pull a tome of Shakespeare from his wall and pretend to make your way through the comedies. The words blur together, but you still turn the pages when your eyes have danced over every line, no words really registering, no plots able to distract you from last night.

From the nightmare that caught you by surprise.

You’d been nearly prepared. You’d been thinking about those days, those men, a lot now. You thought maybe, maybe, when they showed up in your dreams, you could handle it. Maybe you’d startle awake. Maybe you’d lay in bed staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping. Maybe you just wouldn’t sleep all that well.

You never imagined it would be the memories that held you captive last night that would pop up, never thought those would be the ones pulled from your deepest fears. You haven’t had those nightmares in so long, you don’t know how to deal with them anymore, you don’t know what to do with the emotion they pull up in you, with the loss they fill you with.

You try to sit with the emotions, close your eyes and go through the memories as pragmatically as you can, to try to get it over with, to try to purge them from your psyche.

You can’t wake up screaming again tonight, you can’t. Not when Joel is watching you like a hawk, not when you can see the barely concealed worry in his eyes each time you pass one another.

You don’t jump as often when the house creeks, though, or when the branches blow against the siding, and midway through the afternoon he asks if you’re alright if he opens the windows. The heat starting to fill the house means you have to be, even if it makes you more anxious than you want to say. 

You knock on the trim of the door to his workshop, leaning against it. He looks up from where he’s screwing another table leg to the small table he’s making you, waiting quietly. “I think… I think we need to go to dinner.”

He pushes back from the bench, setting his screwdriver down. “Reckon we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

You nod, hand fisting at your side. It had taken you hours to come up with the courage to even think about doing this. “I know, but…” You take a slow breath. “I’m sure everyone’s talkin’ by now.”

He shakes his head and steps over to you, taking the hand you’re fidgeting with in his. “That’s their problem, not ours.” He bends a little making sure he sees your eyes when he says it, “We don’t have to do anything.”

And there it is: all of why you trust him so damn much, right in that look he’s giving you. It’s open and honest and serious and strong and everything you feel like you aren’t anymore. You pull together all the courage you have, and meet him there. “But we should, because the longer we let it even be a question if we’re together, the worse it might get.”

He looks like he’s going to argue with you for a minute, he even opens his mouth and closes it again when he decides to change what he’s going to say. He acquiesces with a nod, squeezing your hand tight. “Alright.”

You keep his hand tight in yours on the walk there, fingers laced together and your other hand on his bicep, pushed as close to him as you can get. You can only imagine what the expression on Joel’s face is, everyone who walks past you averts their eyes, like they’re ashamed for even looking.

It gives you enough courage to walk into the dining hall, to stay close to his back as you fill a meager plate and then follow him to a table in the corner. He watches you and takes only a second to decide he needs to sit next to you instead of across from you. He slides his chair as close as he can and sets his hand palm up on the table as he sits.

You set your hand in his, thinking it was be utilitarian, thinking it will be a show, but by God, the care he shows when he curls your fingers in his, when he rubs his thumb over the back of your hand… He leans over, whispering in your ear, and you think that Joel Miller is potentially the best actor you’ve ever met for how this must be fooling people.

“Breathe, okay? We’re fine. No one’s gonna bother us.”

He pulls away and forces a small smile on his face, and you can only nod. He picks up his fork and starts to eat, eyes darting over to you every once in a while, as you do the same, picking more at your food than eating.

At first you look around cautiously, from under you eye lashes, and then with more abandon. Anyone’s who is watching doesn’t stare for long, and most don’t even bother to look. Either things haven’t made it through the rumor mill yet, or Joel’s a good enough actor that no one cares.

He rubs his thumb over the back of your hand again. “You doing ok?” he asks gently.

You nod, and go back to eating. After a second, he does, too.

You take it, and pretend it will be enough. 

~*~

“I’m not gonna let them hurt you,” he whispers in the relative safety of the dark of the bedroom, lying still across from you as far as he can get. “I’m keeping that promise.”

He’s trying, he really is, but he doesn’t know why you’re falling apart so hard and you can’t tell him. The thought of trying still brings the taste of bile to the back of your throat. 

You roll towards him in the darkness, his outline only vaguely visible in the inky blackness. With the windows closed and curtains drawn, there’s no moonlight to illuminate you, there’s no blue glow from anything electronic to let you peek at his expression. His head tips, just a little at your roll, but otherwise he stays still. 

He’s trying so, so hard. 

You change the subject, though, because you have to know. You’ve held your tongue too long, and the question is itching at the back of your brain. It’s been the only other thought you’ve been thinking all day.

“That night…” you start, voice only wavering a little bit, “You didn’t hear them. Not right away.”

Even in the darkness, you see him wince. “No.”

“Ellie said you rolled onto your good ear.” You try your best to keep your voice even, to not make it sound like an accusation, because you don't want it to be. You just never noticed before if he favors one side. You just want to know. Need to know. “Is… Are you…”

“Mostly deaf in my right,” he tells you without hesitation. “I’ve been that way for a long time now.” 

Your hand reaches out, unbidden, to the little scar near his temple. He lets you touch it, your fingers skimming gently over his skin before he reaches up and takes your hand in his, settling them on the pillow between you.

“I- It-” His fingers fidget in yours as he tries to stutter the words out. 

“You don’t have to say,” you whisper, settling your fingers firmly in his with a soft squeeze of support, “Not now, not ever if you don’t want to. But thanks for telling me.”

He squeezes your hand back and you both fall quiet, settling into the dark of night, both holding your own secrets so close it hurts. 

~*~

He’s asleep this time, when you start thrashing. He’s just pulled to consciousness when you sit straight up, screaming, eyes wide. 

In the dark he sees your hands trembling as the scream finally dies. He wants to reach out, wants to offer something, but you bolt before he can even think to ask. 

Ellie stops short in her door, staring at him, as they can both hear you trying to catch your breath in the kitchen, the dull light shining over the bottom steps. 

In the morning he finds you asleep at the kitchen table, half-full glass of water still held in one hand while your head rests on your other arm. 

He doesn’t ask, and you just nod back to him, shame in your eyes. 

You’d told him you have baggage, things you might not ever want to share. He’s going to respect that, even if he has no idea how to help you. He wants to know, desperately, what it is that wakes you up at night. He won’t ask, but he can guess.

He remembers how frightened you were when he first found you, how all different scenarios of what could have happened to a beautiful woman like yourself on your own out there went through his mind. He thinks about how he sees you shrink around some of the men here, how you trembled when Robbie got possessive and violent.

How you shut down at the thought of being handed over to him.

It isn’t hard for him to imagine the cruelty men were capable of, some of them even liked to brag about it when they thought they were in like-minded company. He was responsible for more than one broken jaw in the Boston QZ for men like that.

But asking you means you’ll feel like you have to tell him, and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want you to feel like you have to share or relive anything. He has his own secrets he’s surely not ready to tell you, that feel like they’ll choke him if he even thinks about how he would explain to you how violent he’s been, what he’s capable of if given the right circumstances.

Of what he’d do again to save the people he loves.

Of what he’d do to keep you safe.

No, if he’s not ready to share, then he won’t even consider putting you in a position where you’d feel like he needs you to tell him things you aren’t ready to let him know.

For now, worrying about you keeps his own anger carefully pinned down. He spends less time thinking about them when he has to think about you. 

~*~

You don’t know what you’d tell him, even if you wanted to share. Even if you could share. You spend the day on the back porch, trying to figure out why the nightmares are back, why they’re so bad.  

You wish you could understand why they wake you up screaming instead of simply paralyzing you like they usually do. 

You think it has something to do with how well you’re sleeping. His bed is firm and even and you drift off softly each night, his barely-there breathing just next to you to let you know you’re not alone. 

You sleep deeper, and the dreams are more like reality. 

You’d rather be alone when you wake up screaming. It’s easier to deal with when you’re alone.

He sits with you for a while in the afternoon, then after another carefully curated dinner performance in the dining hall he pulls out the bedside table he’s finally finished, letting you watch from the porch as he rubs the surface down with what little stain he has in the grass. 

It brings tears to your eyes, but you don’t let them fall. 

You told him. 

You told him you had baggage. 

You just didn’t expect it to rear its ugly head so soon. 

~*~

You wake six or seven times that night, most of them little jolts, just enough to disturb you and Joel, enough for him to sit up and ask if you’re alright, if you need anything, to keep him worried and anxious and watching you.

You’re loud enough when you wake that you hear Ellie’s door creek open more than once while you’re sitting and catching your breath.

In the morning, there are dark circles under everyone’s eyes, and you spend the day immersing yourself in their little laundry room, hand scrubbing your barn clothes in the plastic tote you found and washing the blue bedsheets Joel left crumpled in a pile against the washer that remind you of that night and just generally keeping yourself scarce.

Joel coaxes you out of the small laundry room for lunch, the circles under his eyes a little less than before after you caught him napping on the couch when you went to hang your jeans up on the line outside.

Dinner is quiet in the bustling dining hall, spent huddled into his side while you pick at food you barely eat and Ellie recounts how she got in trouble for falling asleep while she was supposed to be taking a test. She thinks it’s funny, and you just nod and smile.

You’ll end this. One way or another, Joel and Ellie will sleep tonight.

~*~

You can’t look him in the eyes anymore. It’s almost impossible to feel confident when you feel like you’re crumbling to pieces. 

You bring a book to bed, and he’s silent as you set a little flashlight on the headboard over your shoulder so you can read when he asks if you’re ready to go to sleep. His eyes are filled with worry, but he just tells you to enjoy the book and rolls to face the window. 

It’s a while before his breathing evens out, and you sit as still as you can, trying to focus on the words on the page while you wait for him to sleep. That was the goal, after all: getting him to sleep. It’s not the bags under your eyes that worry you, but the bags under his, the tiredness that seeps through his every pore because of you. 

It’s selfish, but if he’s tired and they come, he can’t protect you. He can’t spring from the bed and fight Robbie and Tyler off. He can’t fight them and hurt them and stop them…

You’ve seen violence in your life, it wasn’t surprising. What is surprising is how it made you feel, watching Joel hit Tyler in the face over and over again in the middle of his bedroom floor. No one had ever done anything like that for you, no one had ever stepped between you and danger like that before. 

It felt… good. 

It still scares you a little, how good it feels to know that he can do that, to know that he can be that violent. But what feels better is knowing you are protected. That he chooses you, and he will protect you, and even with everything that’s happened these last few days, he shows no signs of going back on his word. 

That can change, you know it can. But for now, you have to do what you can to mitigate the damage, and that means he needs to sleep, so you need to stay awake so you won’t sit up screaming in the middle of the night, disturbing everyone again. 

Sitting up against the headboard is uncomfortable by design. You nod off, but you’re never asleep for very long, and you slip in and out of sleep silently, with Joel still gently breathing next to you when you check on him, deep in sleep. 

You don’t get anywhere in the book, some fantasy you’d never heard of, but it doesn’t matter, it was more the pretense of it, anyway. 

He rolls over, looking up at you sometime after 2 AM. You know the time because you’d just looked at the clock, trying to gauge how much longer you had to fight sleep. He just blinks up at you, eyes heavy and full of concern. You can see the questions on the tip of his tongue, but he holds them all. 

You whisper in the dark, “Am I keeping you up?” You hope he says no, even if it’s a lie, so you can go on with your farce. 

He shakes his head, rolling back away wordlessly. 

You look down at your book, head heavy. It hurts to lie to him like this, but it’s for everyone’s good. 

You’re dozing, still sitting, your hand sandwiched in the pages on the book when his alarm goes off. He sits, pressing his palms into his eyes like a little boy before sliding his hands down his face. He looks down next to him, only to have to pull his gaze up to where you sit, tired eyes fighting closing as you try to smile at him. 

You see the exact moment he realizes what you’ve done. You see the way his shoulders drop just a little and the sparkle of rest disappears from his gaze. 

“I’ll, uh, get some coffee started,” he mutters, turning stand, arching into his back for a second so it can pop before he pads around the bed and towards the door. 

You hold your breath when he stops, his hand on the doorknob. He looks at you, swallowing hard. “Just…” he sighs, shaking his head. “Are…” He stops again, huffing out a breath before he looks up at you, eyes full of fear and regret. “Is it me? Did I-”

“No,” you cut him off, full of the only surety you have. “I- I promise.” You hold his eyes for a long tense second before you shift to the edge of the bed and hold out your hand, waiting until he reaches his fingers out, tucking them in yours. “I promise, Joel,” you say, soft but sincere, “you’re the only thing that doesn’t scare me right now.”

He squeezes your fingers, appeased, and nods once. “I’ll get breakfast started. You could-” He gestures back to the bed. 

He wants you to try to sleep. You won’t. “I’ll be down soon.”

He smiles. it isn’t big, it isn’t sure, but he smiles, and that might just be enough for today. 

~*~

You move through the day slow and sluggish. You got so little sleep the night before, but it was all for the best. You can see he’s renewed, having slept more and better without you waking him dramatically in the middle of the night. 

You can’t imagine you can do it again tonight, but maybe if you do it once a week, or once every few days, he can get enough sleep. 

Things will change, surely, when you both have to go back to your jobs. He needs to be sharp to be on the gate, to be out on patrols. Maybe you can talk them into letting you work very early in the morning or late in the evening so you can get away with sleeping during the day, so you'll have an excuse to let him get as much sleep as possible. 

Maybe he’ll ask to move to the night shift on the gate, and then he can sleep as much as he wants while you work.

You get up, you move, you pace the house and you walk around the yard and you keep him in earshot and you stay awake most of the day by sheer force of will. 

You manage a nap outside in the afternoon, when it’s hot and uncomfortable and you’ve wedged yourself into one of the deck chairs in the most awkward position possible when your eyes won’t stay open any longer. 

It’s enough to get you through dinner in the dining hall without falling asleep in your food, enough to make sure you can pay attention to Ellie ranting about how she does not want to learn another thing about animal husbandry because she is absolutely not suited to it and if anything, she’ll be doing patrols for Jackson when she’s old enough. 

It’s enough that when Joel looks at you during dinner, the worry takes a back seat in his gaze for the first time in days. 

~*~

You don’t want to fall asleep, but you don’t know how you can manage two nights in a row without it. 

He settles next to you and pulls the book from your hands gently. “Please,” he says softly, soft enough that you know he doesn’t want Ellie hearing, “I want you to get some sleep if you can.” You start to object, but he shakes his head, his voice a little louder and a little more commanding, “Don’t you dare lie to me about reading. I’ve read this book, it isn’t good enough for that.”

You smile despite yourself at the admission that not only has he read it, he didn’t like it. It crosses your mind that he’s probably the one that’s stocked the books in the house, Ellie doesn’t seem to be the reading type unless it’s her comics, so there might be more you both have in common. You consider him picking the tomes of Shakespeare that are propped up next to the cowboy adventures and space odysseys, and it warms you. But that’s for another time. 

“You’re right,” you admit sheepishly, “it’s not.” He taps your knee with the book, a little lift to the corner of his lips, and he reaches over and puts it on your brand-new side table, finally dry and in place and ready to use. 

“It’ll be there in the morning, okay? I’d- I’d really like you to try to sleep.” He takes a slow breath. “I know-” 

You shake your head. “I don’t want to wake you again.” The words tumble out. “It’s not fair to you, being exhausted all day because of my-”

“I want you to sleep,” he says again, this time garnering no arguments. “Whatever’s wakin’ ya, I-” He stops short, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter, okay? I don’t mind.”

“What if I do?” You push back. “What if I mind? In a couple of days, you’ll be back on patrol and you need to be rested and sharp and-”

“We worry about a couple of days in a couple of days.” He reaches over and fluffs your pillow, serious but gentle. “You need sleep, too.” When you don’t move, he just nods slowly, reaching over and turning out the lamp next to him. “Think about it,” he whispers in the dark, laying down and rolling to watch the window like a sentinel. 

You want to fight him.  

Instead, you wrap up in the blanket and lay down next to him, soft cotton wrapping around your legs and the thin pillow separating you at your back, as you stare at the table he’s made for you. You try to count the swirling patterns of the wood, focusing on them and how the stain brings out the rings in the darkness. 

You think he’s sleeping behind you, but you won’t turn, you won’t look. 

He doesn’t deserve this. 

He doesn’t. 

You’ve brought nothing but frustration and anger and problems into his life and he’s been so much more patient than you’ve deserved. It boggles your mind. 

A tear slips from your eye onto the pillow case, but you don’t move. You don’t want him to know you’re not sleeping. You don’t want him to worry about that too. 

But if you don’t sleep tonight, you won’t have a nightmare. If you don’t have a nightmare, he’ll sleep through the night again. 

Then, maybe, you’ll be able to relax just a little bit. Maybe you’ll be able to settle just a little. 

Maybe, you think, as your eyes start to feel heavy, you’ll be able to get past this. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (16/68-ish)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 16: This is Something

Summary: Your time together is marked by the mundane, but that doesn't mean something special isn't taking hold.

A/N: S2E6 Is worth mentioning again as Joel and Ellie’s relationship pops up here a bit. That idea of full-fledged love, family, and care they get to is amazing and beautiful and I love that. I think, in this universe, they will eventually get there. But as a reminder, this is set only about 6 months or so after season 1, so they’re not there yet.

This chapter is also more of a musing- more internal thoughts than action that help move the story because while the reader and Joel go through the day to day mundane tasks of living in Jackson, something special is brewing internally for both of you. THINGS are coming, I promise.

Also, we’re at an estimated 67 chapters plus Epilogue as of right now, and this beast just crossed 180k, just so everyone knows what to expect.

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter.

~*~

Joel stares at the list on the chalkboard in the gatehouse, pairings and routes for the next few days laid out. Things have quieted, and with no further signs of a hoard, they’re dropping back to the regular patrols.

There is a horde out there, they just don’t know where. The little group they encountered was fearsome, but there were too many signs that far, far more infected had been with them once upon a time. They searched the whole area, but only found a few more strays. It was concerning, but not enough to scare the whole town, not enough to constantly have everyone on high alert. 

He isn’t fond of the decision to hide it, but he understands. He especially understands when he sees the fear recede from your eyes every time he tells you things are quiet when you ask him how things are out there when he gets home. Besides, there was evidence they were moving farther away, not closer. People having confidence in the town’s ability to protect them was important. 

He’s back to alternating long and short routes this week, mostly with Rick based on who is listed on the board. Tommy’s on gate duty while he’s on patrol, so that means next week they’ll switch. Robbie and Tyler are on overnights this week, keeping them as far away from him as possible. Things, for now, are in order.

Things have started to settle, started to feel normal, even. Without worries about infected, without a constant fear of being tossed out, it almost, almost feels like a normal relationship. You’ve started to feel one another out in the mornings. Joel likes to get up right away as soon as he hears the alarm, otherwise he knows he’ll sleep in. You prefer to lay in bed, rolling from side to side, slowly waking up while he sets on coffee or tea or even just fills the mugs with cold water. You’re always preened and ready for the day by the time you make your way to the kitchen, while he has to go back and put himself together.

It is a dance you two had started to perfect, started to learn and understand and engage in with one another. If there’s tea or coffee and the water wasn’t boiling by the time you came down, you’d take over watch while he went back up and shaved and dressed. If laundry needed to be put out or taken in you’d do it then, too, and by the time he came down for the day you were handing him his mug of coffee with a smile.

It feels so normal it sets his teeth on edge sometimes, because nothing is normal anymore, and that makes it feel out of place if he thinks too hard about it.

He focuses back on the board in front of him. This past week he’d been on all short routes in the morning, so he’d managed to make it home before dinner where he could cuddle up on the couch with you and just be. This week would be harder, the long routes tended not to get back until after dinner. The evening seemed less intimate with Ellie bouncing around. You were doing your damndest to get to know her, too, which impressed him even more.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want the two of you to spend time together, but more than he didn’t want to have to share. He winces at the thought of how selfish it seems. Ellie needs you as much, if not more, than he does. She needs a female role model in her life, someone that’s not Maria, someone that doesn’t have hard political ties to the town and that doesn’t make her feel like she’s wrong every time she speaks.

And by God, has Ellie taken a liking to you.

He loves watching her try to explain things to you, how her face lights up when she talks about the comic book she’s reading or when she explains something she learned in school.

Joel’s bond with Ellie was formed under life and death pressure, under circumstances that made it as hard as diamond but as brittle as coal. There are still parts of them that crack under pressure together, conversations that are still awkward and stilted and feel out of the realm for two people who are more friends than they are family, though either word feels wrong to him.

“Fake Dad” is what she’s called him, and that feels most like what they are: playing at a family. There’s real love there, real care, real emotion, but it’s all built on this tenuous trust they have in one another.

You’re making that stronger. Your presence has bolstered that trust. Your presence helped her understand why he killed every single person in that hospital. Your quiet strength and curious mind are building a strong relationship with her, brick by brick, from the foundation up.

Maybe it’s not the worst thing if he gives you some time alone with the girl. If you and Ellie form your own relationship outside of him. You’ll be the one she goes to with the questions she has, with the problems with relationships, when her body inevitably does things he doesn’t understand or has trouble stammering to talk about with her. You’ll be there for her, and as much as that makes him a little jealous, it also makes him happy.

He commits the schedule to memory and turns, leaving the gatehouse.

He wonders, the entire way home, if there will be a time when it’s real, if there will be a time that they’re not “playing” anymore. If you won’t be married to him for convenience, but because you want to be, if Ellie won’t see him as a fake Dad, but as an adult who loves her and cares about her and wants to guide her in this world. 

He hopes, but he isn’t sure. 

~*~

You meet him at the door. His first long route since you’ve been married had your heart sitting in your throat all day. Not that you didn’t think he could take care of himself, but when the afternoon came and went without him joining you on the couch, it triggered the fear in you that he was lost, that something happened.

That he decided to not come back.

All unfounded fears as he smiles at you as he slowly mounts the steps to the front door. “Waitin’ up, darlin’?”

You smile at him with a shrug, holding he door open. “Did you eat?”

He nods as he settles his pack in its spot by the door, then leans over and takes his boots off. “Rick and I stopped on the way in.” He stands tall, stretching his back before looking around. “Ellie?”

“Working on a project for the school house. The older kids are helping the younger ones ride bikes.” You shrug and step back, leaning against the door of the living room.

He nods, then tips his head towards the stairs. “I should clean up-”

“Sit first?” You interrupt, hopeful, bottom lip between your teeth. “Just for a few minutes.”

He reaches over, thumb gently prying your bottom lip out of your teeth before he runs the back of his fingers over your cheek. “As long as you don’t mind me smelling like a horse, I ain’t got nowhere better to be.”

His voice is low and heavy and makes you melt just a little, but you’re not ready for that, so you make the worst joke you can as fast as you can to break the tension. “There’s a smell other than “horse”?” 

He chuckles, the tension gone, as he leads you in to the couch, settling next to one another. It only takes a minute before you drop the pretense and slip against his side. “We didn’t do this yesterday,” you whisper.

His arm winds around your shoulders and you snuggle against him as he shakes his head. “No, we didn’t.”

You feel like you should say more, but you can’t bring yourself to ask if he missed it, if he was thinking about how you hadn’t talked yesterday like you did all day today, if it bothered him as much as it bothered you, if it made him feel like something was missing. You keep quiet, and just close your eyes, resting against him, the fait thrum of his heartbeat lulling you to calm though his chest.

After a minute he presses a soft kiss to your hairline. “Favorite movie,” he prompts, leaning his head back against the cushion.

You smile. “Oh, that’s easy…”

~*~

He likes to stay in when he doesn’t have an early patrol, and he’s sitting at the table, sipping a mug of his prized coffee when you pass though. 

It’s almost a lazy morning from before, all he’s missing is a paper to read laid out in front of him. 

“Morning,” his voice rumbles out of him, low and untested. 

“Morning,” you reply. He’d been up before you, but you dressed quickly. They only had you on schedule for the morning today, and the faster you started, the faster you were done. You can already tell it is going to be a hot day by the way the sweat beads at your temples, and you don’t want to be in the stables any longer than you have to. “Still on the long route today, right?”

“Um hum, down the southwest pass,” he replies, his voice warming as he speaks more. “You and Ellie shouldn’t wait up for me for dinner.”

You nod, settling a bandana around your head to catch the sweat. “I’m only morning today, I was going to try to get the wash done this afternoon. Sound good?”

He nods back, standing and following as you move to the front door. “I’ll strip the beds before I go, been too hot not to wash ‘em more often.”  He stops by his bag at the door, rummaging through it. “Hang on a second.”

You wait, one hand on the doorknob, one on your hip. After only a second he turns back to you, holding out his hand. 

“Where in the world did you get that?” You take the blue water bottle from him, turning it over in your hands. It’s big and translucent and has a carrying loop around the wide mouth. The logo’s long worn off, though the company name sits at the tip of your tongue, something that was so popular so long ago it pulls at the part of your brain that still longs for your life lost. 

“Found it while we were looking through one of the houses on our route yesterday.” He shrugs. “Thought you could use it.”

You hug him, quick and tight. His hands are barely around you before you pull away. “Thank you.” You hold it close, smiling and fighting tears as you head towards the front. “See you after dinner.”

His nod is a little happy, a little perplexed. You know you run out of there faster than you should, that your quick hug and perfunctory thanks seem odd, but you have to leave…

You don’t want him to see you cry. 

There aren’t gifts now. For twenty years you didn’t get a single birthday or Christmas present. No “just because” flowers or “I saw it and thought of you” surprises. Gifts don’t exist at the end of the world, not when every day is a battle just to survive.

Except that Joel gives you gifts. He gives you bedside tables and water bottles. Two gifts, in such a short period of time, overwhelm you. 

Not only does it fill you with happiness and gratefulness and security, the gift of things for no other reason than him being thoughtful, but it fills you with sorrow, too. 

You’ll never be in a position to get him anything. You don’t scavenge anywhere, anything you can find in the house or in the town will be something he could have already easily gotten for himself. 

There is, literally, nothing you can do at your job in the stables that would be able to give him back anything. That knowledge hurts a little, not because you feel the obligation to get him anything back, but because you want to get him something. You want him to understand how good this feels, how important and monumental that he’s thought about you enough to make your day infinitely better. 

You’ll find a way. You’re not sure how, you’re not sure what, but you’ll find a way. 

~*~

She loves talking about the past with you. 

You talk about airplanes and concerts and plays and indulge Ellie’s every question and Joel just sits and listens after dinner, happy to let your voices wash over him as he works in his workshop. 

For so long they were things he didn’t want to think about. Things he couldn’t think about. But listening to the way you describe a concert you once went to, the bright lights and the loud music and the euphoric sense of community as you all screamed the same lyrics, he can’t help but smile. He can’t help but feel a little fuller. 

You make him feel a little less broken. 

Because, deep down, he misses these things, too. He misses all of them, but he just soldiered on, trying to accept that they were gone and never would be again. Trying to accept, in the face of the post-apocalyptic landscape, that these things were lost to memory and history. 

It hurt to forget them, to try to shove them to the back of his mind. 

He thought everyone felt the same hurt, the same loss, as they tried to navigate this new world. Twenty years made it feel like a different life, but it didn’t dull the loss. You, though…

…you love to talk about the things you miss. You find a way to relive them as you speak about them. You find a way to hold them safe in your memory. Joel wants to learn how to do that.

Maybe you can teach him. 

~*~

He’s done earlier than he should be, for once, and it’s a nice feeling to walk back home, knowing you had an early shift today and you were off tomorrow, that you could sit in the house and enjoy the rest of the day without having to be up to your knees in filth. 

He can see how little you like the job, and is proud of the way you’ve managed to embrace it, in the way you’ve managed to make it a badge of honor to be doing one of the few jobs no one in town wants, the only one they seem interested in letting you do for some damn reason. Your resilience is inspiring to him, he just doesn’t know how to voice it.

He walks around back, knowing today is the kind of day, with the warm afternoon and the bright sunshine and the gentle breeze, that you’d spend on the porch, a book in your hands. 

Maybe he can persuade you to slip inside, to sit on the couch with the windows open and talk until you both doze. Naps, with you, have become one of his favorite things to do. He’d call it a guilty pleasure, but he doesn’t feel any guilt at all. Something about sharing the couch makes you both braver. You share little tidbits about your past, about who you were before the world ended and who you’ve become now that things are so different. On the couch he learned that you love romance novels and Shakespeare and miss going to the beach. He held you close and told you about how he felt watching Tommy go off to war. 

Like in your bed, the awkwardness that sometimes lives between you both melts away on that couch. It’s easy to hold hands or tuck you into his side as he talks, it feels natural to lie you down and hold you close until your breathing evens out.

So rarely a day goes by where you don’t spend time together, sitting on the couch, and he’s slowly learning more about the woman he’s married to. It’s getting easier to let his own history go, too, to share with you with your open face and your soft hands and your understanding heart. 

Fuck, he loves naps with you. 

Maybe, he thinks, if you can’t be persuaded in, he can tempt you with a blanket in the grass. It won’t be quite the same, and his back will hate him tomorrow, but he’d tolerate it for the chance to lay in the warm sun with you. 

He’d kill for a hammock right about now. 

He’s halfway through figuring out how to make one when he sees you as he rounds the corner of the house quietly, sitting all tucked up in one of the wooden chairs on the deck. He can only see your profile, hair tied back in a knot that’s both messy and graceful, the long line of your neck exposed in a tank top, bare legs tucked under you, shorts riding high on your thigh. 

The clothes from the house you’ve made your own are someone else’s, from decades ago, but he starts to see your own style in them, in how you pick simple and classic pieces, how you match them and wear them and seem more comfortable, calmer in them than the heavy jeans and thick t-shirts or thin long sleeves you wear to muck out the barn. 

He pauses, smiling as he takes in the curve of your cheek, glowing golden in the sunlight. You seem so stately, so serene-

And then you sniff, and wipe at your eyes, and when you turn just enough, he can see the redness around them, the bright sheen of tears on your face. 

It hurts him as much as a physical blow, and he can’t move his feet to you fast enough.

~*~

Your name on his lips startles you, and you hurry to wipe at your face, sniffing back the tears and the emotion as you try to wipe the tears away, try to make yourself presentable and force a smile as he barrels at you across the back yard and takes the steps to the porch two at a time. 

He bends in front of you, and you know you haven’t fooled him for a second. He has your chin in his hands, held gentle like glass, as his other hand slips softly on your shoulder. “What happened? What’s wrong?” He’s full of urgency, of bottled anger and fear as his eyes flit over you. “Ya hurt?”

You pull away from him, shaking your head. “No, no.” Your voice is thick with tears and you sniff again and clear your throat. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothin’, darlin’, if you’re sitting out here crying.” He fights to catch your eyes again as you try to turn away from him. Your evasiveness fuels his concern even more. “Maria?” You shake your head, his care making the tears come again. “Robbie?” He asks, anger bubbling up in his voice.

“No, no, I-” You take his hands in yours, almost desperate as tears run over your lashes again. You didn’t think he’d be home this early, otherwise you’d have never let yourself indulge in this. You thought you just needed a good cry, to get it out and then you’d be fine, but his concern, his care, is churning up all those emotions you were trying so hard to tamp down and put away before he got home. The uselessness. The frustration. The anger. The loneliness. Everything had come bubbling up today and fuck you had just wanted to go through it all in peace by yourself. You didn’t want him to see you like this. You didn’t want to remind him you were weak and broken, not after how things have been going. You didn’t want to remind him that you were just another problem for him to take care of. “Nothing like that,” your voice cracks as you shift, shaking your head. “Just a bad day.”

He’s coiled tight, like a guard dog waiting for someone to come at you, eyes looking over you again and again, intense and unrelenting. “You just tell me who made it that way and I’ll-”

“Me, Joel,” you bark out, shaking your head, desperate for him to stop. “It was just me. Nothing I did today went right. It was just…” You take a slow, long breath, “Just frustrating top to bottom. “Wheelbarrow lost a wheel, one of the horses got out, twisted my ankle in the compost-”

“You said you weren’t hurt,” he interrupts. His hands move down your calves, reaching for the feet tucked under you, pulling them out gently as his eyebrows knit together. “You see the doctor?”

“It’s not that-”

“You should have gone to see the doctor.”

“I will when I need to,” you reply firmly, moving his hand from your ankles. It was the right one, but it looks just like the left: not bruised or swollen, and he’s struggling to tell which one it was, even though you’re sure you’ll give it away when you stand because it’s sore and makes you limp just a little. “It was just a bad day,” you whisper, giving in to the sadness. He’s seen you now. You can’t take it back. “I got tired and frustrated and I couldn’t shake it.”

He doesn’t like it, but he seems to accept it, some of the anger melting as he lets a hand rest on your bare knee. “What can I do?”

You smile sadly. The shift in him is almost jarring, how quickly he goes from a protector with his hackles raised, ready to take down any kind of threat to you, to a protector that’s soft and warm and like a set of armor against the world. “Nothing.” You shrug, sniffing again. “There’s nothing to do.”

He stands slowly, holding out his hand. “Yeah, there is.” He pulls you up gently, and wraps you tight in his arms, holding the back of your head in his palm, tucking you under his chin as his other hand holds you to him. 

Your heart starts to slow as he holds you, the negative chatter in the back of your brain quieting. Maybe you were wrong: maybe you shouldn’t have wanted to be alone to get all of it out. Maybe you needed him all along. 

“Ok,” you whisper, melting into him, tears spring to your eyes at his care, his comfort, instead of at your frustration, “This is something.”

This is something.

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (14/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 14: Safe

Summary: You shared your secret, now Ellie wants to share hers.

A/N: Compared to the last two chapters, this one will feel short. It is, but that’s how it was designed because it needs to be its own self-contained part. I consider this chapter the last in “Part 1” of this fic. There are four pretty distinct sections for me as a writer, but not distinct enough that I wanted to split them into different stories.

While I won’t talk about it in depth here, despite what the creators of the show have said, I will staunchly refute the idea that anyone in the current TLOU timeline could have created a cure under nearly any circumstances, but especially those portrayed in season 1. My characterization of Ellie takes this, her age, and the backstory that I’ve given about the reader character’s experiences into account. I hope you enjoy my take, and I’m happy to talk about my take more with anyone because I know it’s a hot topic.

Once again, thank you to everyone who is reading, reviewing, and just still here with me on this amazing trip. I am overwhelmed with the love you’ve shown this story and enjoy talking about it so much with all of you.

Trigger Warnings: Canon events of TLOU discussed, discussion of events in previous chapters.

~*~

The sun is just starting to filter through the cracks in the drapes when your eyes flutter open. You shut them again, taking a deeper breath and snuggling back down into the bed. 

You feel him at your back: warm and solid with a hand on your hip, his breath puffing gently across your shoulder. It seems insane now, wanting to walk away from this. You still feel the urge inside you, but you can identify it better now. 

You’re afraid. Your body says run. 

You’ve spent so long being afraid of so much with no room to move, no way to fix it or change it, that run feels like the only option. 

For too long, run had been the only option.

But Joel is warm and solid at your back. He hasn’t faltered, hasn’t changed his mind. You can’t remember the last time you slept so well, so soundly. You remember wrapping yourself back up in him in the middle of the night, a nightmare having only half formed, having less power over you than the vivid movies you usually see in your dreams because he was there. 

Run leaves you cold and alone with the prospect of infected and the evil of humans who have lost their humanity outside of those gates. 

You can identify it now, that urge, and it’s easier to push it away, even if you’re still afraid, still terrified, that things will turn on you. You know it’s wrong to lay all of this at his feet, to make him your savior and attribute it to him, but there’s nothing else for it. You’ve been alone so long, his desire to be with you is nothing short of a miracle in your mind, nothing short of overwhelmingly heady and addictive. 

It does carry magic. 

It does carry hope. 

The intimacy that snuck up on you over the last two days surprises you. It’s fragile. Cautious. Held hands and tight hugs, his nose at your hairline and one featherlight kiss on your forehead. It feels natural to fall into him. It feels good to relinquish the tightly held control you’ve been grasping on to for so long to him. It feels good to melt into his body and feel protected and surrounded. 

It doesn’t scare you like you think it should. It doesn’t dredge up old memories that show up in your nightmares unbidden. 

He calms you with large, strong hands and a sure touch. 

His confidence in this world is intoxicating. You want to drink it in for the rest of your days. 

You want to learn from it. 

His hand slides over your hip, dragging across the thin fabric of your pajama shorts until he’s spreading his fingers across your stomach over your shirt, pressing himself closer to your back, his nose buried in your hair. “Morning,” he mumbles out, thick with sleep and half identifiable. 

“Morning.” Your voice slips from you as a whisper as your hand slides over his. You loath to wake up, to start the day. This bed, like the couch the night before, has some kind of magic to it. 

It’s safe. 

You feel safe. 

You haven’t felt safe in so. Fucking. Long. 

Not since before Outbreak Day, if you’re honest with yourself. 

You’ll do anything to keep that going for just a few more minutes. 

He settles again at your back, breath tickling the nape of your neck now, slow and deep as he drifts away from consciousness. 

You let your eyes slip shut again. 

~*~

Ellie’s quiet at breakfast, shooting Joel looks between bites of egg. He ignores her for the most part, staying silent, one hand on your knee under the table as you eat. 

It grounds you and holds you steady. Her manner is unsettling enough that it puts you on edge. It ignites that urge to run before you can be hurt again. You turn away from her eyes, and then it’s all you can do to try to keep your focus on your breakfast. Not only are her eyes on you, others are, as well. Eyes of women you know have coveted Joel for months. Eyes of men who had petitioned to make you theirs in the most uncomfortable of ways. Eyes of the council. It seems like everyone’s watching you at the tiny corner table, it seems like they’re all still judging and questioning. You’ve been so distracted, so exhausted and lost that even when you noticed the eyes on you, they still felt far away. They seem far closer, far more sinister today.

You’ve managed a little cocoon this past week, their home, your home now you remind yourself, and the little walk to the dining hall and back, your hand tucked tightly in his. 

It used to be utilitarian: a signal to everyone else this was supposed to be real while trying to convince yourself not to fully fall into him, not to put yourself in a position where he’d have to catch you. Now, when you hold hands his thumb grazes over your knuckles and you give him gentle squeezes and you know whatever it is, it’s real. 

There’s been no work, no discussions with others except Tommy at your door. That changes in another day. You’ll have to go back to facing them all, to pretending you don’t know about the gossip going on behind your back, and you’re not sure if you’re ready for that. The peace you’ve found is so tenuous, less than a day old, but you’re addicted to it already. 

His thumb rubs over your knee. “Some people can’t help themselves,” he mutters, lifting his mug to his lips. “Can’t mind their own fucking business.” 

You switch your fork to your other hand and reach for his fingers. He takes your hand, holding it tightly. You know you’re not alone anymore. You know he sees the things you do just as sharply. 

It doesn’t make it any better, but it makes it a little easier to bear. 

~*~

Ellie pulls him away from you as soon as you reach the house, whatever’s been bubbling inside of her too much to contain. Their hushed voices, right on the brink of an argument, filter out to you. You can’t hear the words, but the tones are clipped and tight and full of passion. You drift away to the living room, picking up the book you’ve been trying to read for days now and settle into the armchair. 

You only make it two pages before Joel is in the doorway, face dour. You close your book, not caring that you haven’t marked your place, and set it on the table next to you as you stare up at him, heart pounding again. 

It’s like whiplash, these last two days. 

“I, uh,” he scrubs a hand over his beard, looking away to where you assume Ellie is, then turns back to you. “Ellie and I need to talk to you.” 

“Okay.” You stand, following him to the kitchen table, feeling like a prisoner on death row. The comfort, the confidence, is gone from his eyes. He’s close, but not close enough when you settle at the kitchen table, Ellie across from you, chewing on her lip. 

You wait. 

The clock ticks the seconds away, too loud in the tense silence. 

“Go on,” Joel prods Ellie, clasping his hands together on the table. He doesn’t like this anymore than you do. “This is what you want, right?”

“Right,” she bobs her head, spurred out of some kind of frozen state, “yeah.” It takes her a second to meet your eyes, and you see fear in them. 

You can’t imagine what you’ve done, what you’ve said that’s got her like this. Is she still afraid you’ll run? Has she changed her mind about wanting you around? Did she make another careless comment that will get you tossed out of Jackson for real this time?

“Fuck,” she curses under her breath. “Okay. Just… I gotta just…” She looks down and back up, nervous. “You… you told us your secret. You trusted us with it. So, I want to tell you ours. Mine.” Her eyes dart back and forth between you and Joel, but he isn’t looking at either of you. He has his eyes on his clasped hands and if you didn't know any better, you’d think he was praying. “I-”

“You trust us, right?” Joel interrupts, moving his hand to yours, holding tightly. “You trust me?” His eyes are dark pools of fear, and it makes your breaths come faster. 

“I do,” you reassure, taking his hand in yours, “but…” You want to say that he’s scaring you, that this is making you anxious. You want to tell him that you’ve seen the worst men are capable of and your mind is conjuring the vilest possible things you can think of that they might be keeping from you. “Joel?” Only his name comes out, a soft plea to let this happen swiftly, to let whatever darkness they share be something you can come to terms with, let it be something you can keep for them, too.

“Just,” he swallows thickly. “Just trust us, until you know everything, ok?” He shifts closer to you so quickly the chair scrapes loudly on the floor. His eyes hold yours, only inches away now. You can feel his fear trembling through him, running like an undercurrent in his voice. “I would never, never put you in danger. You know that, right?”  

So why do his words feel dangerous, then? You answer, anyway. “I do.”

His gaze never leaves yours as he commands Ellie, “Show her.”

Ellie’s confused, frustrated. “But we should explain…”

“Show. Her.” His voice leaves no room for argument. 

Your eyes flick over his shoulder, watching as Ellie leans back, pulling her sweatshirt off. “It’s… it’s been like this for more than a year now. I’m not dangerous, I promise.”

You try so hard not to react, but you can’t help the way your hands tighten on his, the way your breath catches in your throat when you see the unmistakable mark of an infected bite on her arm. Your free hand grabs for his other arm, trying to anchor yourself, trying to stop the swirling of thoughts in your mind. Your first instinct is to put space between you and the veiny, mangled first-signs of infection. To run. 

Run.

You’ve seen the bites. You’ve watched them progress through plexiglass. You know what they look like. 

And in the space of just one more breath, you realize this one looks wrong. 

It was enough to scare you, to trigger every instinct you had, but it’s wrong. 

It’s dried up. It’s mottled. It’s…old.

You can’t help the way your voice quavers. “Year?”

Joel’s hand squeezes yours, he slips even closer to you, eyes on your reaction, but you can only look at her. At Ellie. You can only see the grotesque swirl of marred flesh on her arm, the fear in her eyes. 

“Yeah,” she confirms gently. “Year.”

“How?”

And she tells you. She tells you about a night out in a mall and having to shoot someone she loved. Joel’s grip slowly loosens as they take turns, telling you the expansive story of how they crossed the country, how she went from being a piece of cargo to being precious without using those exact words. You catch the sideways looks when they gloss over moments: when they make meeting a hoard in Kansas City sound like taking a stroll in the afternoon, when they don’t elaborate on rough days and even harder nights without food or shelter…

…when Joel gives a slight shake to his head as Ellie stumbles over a place called Silver Lake, and she says that’s a longer story for another time. 

Your hand never leaves his, and you don’t want it to. All the while, your eyes flick back to the gnarled skin of her arm, a thought trying to grow in the back of your mind that you can’t quite grasp yet. 

She gets angry when she talks about the Fireflies. The hospital. 

And then, surprising Joel, too, she starts to cry. 

She swipes at the tears harshly with the back of her hand, scrubbing at her nose and sniffing. “I was fucking mad at you, Joel, for a long time, because I thought…” She swallows, looking over at him before dropping her head. 

He radiates guilt. His shoulders dropping, his hand softening in yours, you know he wants to say something, but she moves on before he can. 

“But then you told us about your babies.”

Her words surprise you both, again, and you can feel that idea in the back of your mind growing, almost tenable, almost big enough to understand. 

She folds her hands in her lap, looking away from you both. “I never thought… I never thought they wouldn’t want to keep me alive… or that it couldn’t work.” She sighs, trying to play off the emotion. “I’m such a fucking idiot. Never thought about the fact they might have to cut into my brain.” She laughs, harsh and dark and broken. “Then you told us about what happened to you and how long they tried with you. It’s stupid, really, that I never really thought about how long the smartest people in the world might have tried to make a cure. Never thought about the fact that the Fireflies might not know what they were doing. That it wouldn’t work.” 

Joel swears, soft and broken, and you know this confession is for him, too. 

It snaps in place, quick and harsh and heartbreaking when you finally figure it out, when her words finally let the thought blossom into a real understanding. She may be a little older, but she’s like your babies: she was a hope for a future that can’t ever be, and it wasn’t until you shared your loss, that she realized how Joel had saved her. 

You’re on your feet before you can think about it, rounding the table to pull her into you. 

She’s not an affectionate person. You’ve never seen her hug Joel. You’ve never seen her hug anyone, for that matter. 

In this moment, though, there’s nothing else you can do. There are no words for the kinship she feels with your lost children. There are no reassurances that something like that won’t ever happen again to her. Those placations don’t exist, and you won’t pretend. 

So, you hold her, you pull her against you and hold her head to your chest and run a hand through her hair because you have nothing else to do for her. And she slowly holds you back, hiding her face against you, hiding from the world in you like you hide from the world in Joel. 

Her hands wrap around your back, she locks her fists together and holds tight. You’re not sure how long you’re there, minutes or hours, with her breath hiccupping against you, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes to growing wet patches in your shirt, but it doesn’t matter. 

You hold her, because that’s all you can do. 

You hold her because you know what it’s like to lose someone to the masks and lights of an operating theater. You know what it’s like to feel like an experiment and a number. You know what it’s like to be told that you’re the spark of hope for the world, then see for yourself that you’re nothing more than an experiment that will fail. There’s a disappointment, a devastation that comes with it that can’t be voiced: somehow, you and you alone have let down all of humanity. 

And now it’s a feeling you share with the girl in your arms, and you’d give anything for her to not know that devastation. 

Eventually Joel stands, wrapping himself around you both. You tuck your head against his shoulder, letting your eyes flutter shut and let him wash over you as you hold back your own tears. 

He was afraid you were going to be frightened. He was afraid you were going to leave when confronted with their secret. 

Other people might have. 

Other people would have. 

Now, you’ll do anything in your power to stay, to make sure you can protect this precious baby in a way you couldn’t protect your own children. To make sure she gets the chance to be vibrant and alive and understand that none of it is her fault. 

“Thank you for telling me, Ellie,” you whisper, voice a hoarse croak low in your throat. “Thank you for trusting me.”

She laughs, shaking her head against you, sarcasm dripping from her lips “See? I told you we were all fucking broken.” She takes a breath, settling against you again, voice softer. “You didn’t run away, and you weren’t that scared. That was…” She clears her throat, finally pulling away. “That was pretty cool of you.”

Your brain falters as she stands, watching as she covers her arm again and settles back into the facade you now recognize. It makes you wonder if you did something wrong, if you scared her somehow, with how fast she settles the mask of indifference over her features. She makes an excuse that’s barely a sentence and leaves, slipping out the front door with a heavy look you can’t decipher settling between her and Joel before she goes. It leaves the two of you in the kitchen, the ticking clock the only sound once again, your body still pressed against his, one of his arms still tight against you. 

You’re not sure you have the words yet. 

You’re not sure there are words. 

“We should go after her,” you whisper, not wanting to move. 

“She’ll be alright.” He shakes his head, you can feel his beard rubbing against your hair. “She needs the time alone. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”

His cheek presses against your temple, soft hairs on his beard tickling as they drag until his lips rest on your skin. “What… what do you need?” He asks awkwardly, lips shifting against your skin, voice nothing more than a whisper.

“This,” you reply without thought, letting your other arm wrap around his stomach. “Just… stay right here for a little longer.” He wraps his other arm around you, holding you tight. “I got all day, darlin’.”

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (13/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 13: Promise

Summary: In the light of the next morning, your confession doesn’t feel like enough. The only answer: run.

A/N: Thank you everyone for all your amazing reviews. I was honestly very nervous about that last chapter, so hearing that so many of you felt like it was well done really made me so much more confident about the story. I’m also loving hearing your thoughts and ideas and chatting about my version of Joel (like the fact that I think he can’t cook at all, but given the opportunity the man is a grill master…) so please keep it up.

This is another long one, in both senses. The emotional rollercoaster continues. I hope you enjoy.

Trigger Warnings: Discussion of events from previous chapters, no significant new warnings.

~*~

Your head jolts, a loud banging pulling you from your sleep. The sun’s barely creeping in the front window, and Joel startles awake just as quickly as you do. You’re tangled together, limbs entwined in an awkward pile in the corner of the couch, the blanket twisted around your back and his legs, keeping you from anything even close to graceful as you both try to stand. 

“Joel?” Tommy’s voice calls through the door, accompanied by more loud knocking. “Joel, wake up!”

The two of you fumble, bleary eyed and still half asleep until Joel’s on his feet, eyes apologetic as he moves to the door to stop the raucous banging as you mutter to yourself, untangling the blanket from your legs. 

“Jesus, Tommy,” Joel pulls the door open, leaning on it as Tommy enters. “What the hell? What time is it?”

“Five thirty,” he replies fast, eyes bouncing between you and Joel as you sit on the arm of the couch, suddenly very aware of how rumpled the both of you look, how obvious it was that you were on the couch, as you pull the blanket around your shoulders. 

He’s still in his clothes from yesterday, and you’re in your pajamas, hair mussed and eyes probably red and swollen from all you revealed last night. To anyone else, it wouldn’t be exactly unexpected to see two newlyweds in such a state of debauchery, but Tommy knows, and it seems to make him even more suspicious.

Tommy’s gaze is nearly accusatory, slightly confused. It makes you want to shiver under the weight of it, but Joel punches his shoulder before he can keep staring as you try to smooth out your hair. “So, why the fuck are you banging my door down?”

Tommy shifts his gaze back to Joel, the tension in his shoulders making more sense as he speaks. “Evening patrol didn’t make it back. We’re putting together a search party.”

Joel straightens, looking at you then back at Tommy, shutting the front door. “We’re, uh… we’re off rotation for another day.”

“Honeymoon’s gotta wait,” Tommy drops his voice. “We’ve got… there might be infected out there.”

His words get you to your feet faster than you're proud of, the blanket forgotten in a heap on the floor, and you move the few steps to Joel’s side, stomach dropping. “What?” 

He looks at you, then back at Joel. You see the question in his eyes, how he doesn’t want to have to talk to you about this and wants Joel to send you away. Instead, Joel wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. “What makes you say that?”

Tommy runs his tongue over his teeth, looking away before turning his attention back to Joel, having decided to move forward, ignoring your presence. “Afternoon patrol reported an empty campsite just past the edge of our normal radius. It was busted up. Bloody.”

“That doesn’t mean infected.” Joel shakes his head, his shoulders relaxing just a little.

“They heard ‘em,” he replies quietly. “There was at least one infected to turn ‘em, and patrol said the campsite looked like it was holding three, maybe four people.”

“Jesus, Tommy.” Joel drops his head into his hand, rubbing at his forehead. “And you just sent the evening patrol out?”

“We’re not fucking stupid,” he bites back. “We doubled up and told ‘em to stay close.”

“And they’re not fucking back yet,” Joel finishes for him, looking out the frosted glass to where the sun is barely up. “How many men you taking?”

“We’re doubling up the perimeter and the gate, taking anyone that’s left that can shoot and ride.” Tommy has the decency to look at you for a moment, just a little guilt on his face. “We don’t know how many we’re actually dealing with here, and we gotta stop it now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come.”

Joel scrubs at his beard, hiding a yawn. You can feel the tension seeping back into his shoulders, his arm around you. He looks over at you, eyes heavy with sleep and just a little conflicted. He looks back at his brother, tilting his head to the door. “Give us a minute, would ya?” 

Tommy mutters something you don’t hear but that earns him a hard look from his brother as he slips through the front door, back into the fading night while Joel leads you into the kitchen, putting just enough space between you and the front door that you don’t have to whisper. 

“You should go,” you start, stepping away from his arm and opening the cabinets, looking for his mug and the little bit of coffee he keeps for himself. 

“He shouldn’t have come,” Joel grouses, rubbing at his face and pushing his fingers back through his hair. “We’re off the rotation.”

You set the water boiling and busy your fingers looking for the little reusable mesh filter he has somewhere. You haven’t quite memorized the cabinets yet, and you’re thankful for the action to keep your hands busy. “Exactly. He knows that. And if he’s here it means-”

“Means they need me,” he finishes for you, rounding the counter and taking your hands in his, stopping their search through the cabinet. “What are you doing?”

“You’re exhausted. I kept you up half the night.” You look at him, eyelids half open, shoulders slumped forward, concern written in every line of his face. “You’ll need something if you’re going out there.”

“We should…” He takes a deep breath, moving his hand to yours, holding instead of gripping, “I was hoping we could talk more this morning.”

You swallow, a small smile flitting over your face. “Me, too.” You pull your hands from his and slip around him, shutting the stove off at the sound of the water boiling. “But it seems like that’s not going to happen.”

“I could say no,” he says to your back, the sound of a cabinet opening and closing before the small reusable filter appears at your elbow. 

“You could,” you mutter, setting the filter on the mug and carefully settling the grounds in before pouring the water over it. “But you and I both know you shouldn’t.” You look up at him as you put the pot down, the dripping of the coffee into the mug the only sound for a few seconds as you watch him watching you from the corner of your eye. 

You turn back to him fully. “I want to tell you to stay,” you say quietly like it’s a secret, running your hands over his wrinkled shirt. “You didn’t sleep in your bed last night, and you haven’t gotten half the sleep you should have this past week because of me.” Your hand reaches up, pushing his hair off his temple as your voice falls to a whisper, fear slipping into it. “But if Tommy’s here that means they need you. And I think that’s a lot scarier than anything I said last night.” 

Sleeping in his arms last night makes you bold, as does exhaustion. You want to touch him, so you do. You touch his shirt and his hair and his shoulders, all the places you’ve wanted to touch but have been so afraid to. Your brain isn’t functioning enough to stop you. 

He shakes his head, taking your hand in his. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Hopefully,” you squeeze it tight before turning back and taking the filter from the mug, handing it to him. “But I’d rather fifteen of you go out and take care of nothing than ignore the possibility of something.”

He looks down at the mug in his hands, brow wrinkling tightly. “How’d you know…”

“I’ve been watching,” You shrug, stepping back to lean against the counter as he sips it, then takes a longer drink. You’ve watched him move around the small kitchen, taking note of what he touches and how he makes his coffee, of where the small collection of silverware and pots go, and what other random knick-knacks he stores in the cabinets that would otherwise hold food or kitchen gadgets. You’ve been watching a lot this past week, trying to figure out where you can fit in, where you can settle yourself in Joel and Ellie’s lives that makes sense and makes them want to keep you around. “Gotta try to pull my weight around here.”

“You don’t have to do any such thing,” he says gently, taking a cautious step forward, “but thank you just the same.”

“Not too bad?” You ask, pointing at the coffee mug between you. 

He smiles this time, throwing back the last sips. “Better than I make it.” He sets the mug gently on the counter next to you, leaning his head down and gently rubbing his hands up and down your arms. “We’ll talk when I come back, ok? I want…” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You shared a lot with me last night and I want to… we should…”

You nod, knowing you stiffened under his hands, knowing the idea of more talking twists you in knots but is absolutely necessary. It makes you want to bolt; makes you want to run and hide. 

His hands on your arms make you never want to leave. 

“When you get back,” you whisper, nodding. “We’ll talk.”

He nods back at you, eyes still anxious, still half asleep, but lips tight with determination before stepping back and heading up the stairs to change clothes. 

You busy your hands with cleaning the mug, drying it and setting it away in the cabinet. You look down at the wet coffee grounds in the filter and contemplate trying to brew another cup through them. It’ll be weak and bitter, you’re sure, but it’s better than nothing. It’s still hours until breakfast will be ready, and Ellie’s assuredly still sleeping if she didn’t come down when Tommy was banging on the door. With Joel next to you, with him touching you, it was easier to be rational about all of this. It was easier to tell him to go, to plan to talk again later even if it made you anxious and nauseous. 

With every second he’s farther away, your stomach clenches more. It seems impossible that he’ll come back wanting to actually talk. It seems impossible that he’ll come back wanting you to still be in his home, sharing his bed and his protection. With each tick of the clock in the kitchen, it seems more and more like you’ve made the wrong choice, the darkness in your mind that you work so hard at hiding, at keeping to yourself, swirling to fill you with dread. 

Joel finds you still standing at the sink when he comes back down, gaze unfocused. “You should try to get some more sleep,” he whispers, stepping up close to your side. “You didn’t sleep all that much, either.”

“Maybe,” you mutter, eyes still on the sink. 

His hand slips over the back of your head, fingers playing through your hair. “No ‘maybe’ about it. Please, try to sleep more.” 

His hand gently turns your head until you’re looking at him, sitting at the base of your skull. You see fear in his eyes, eyes that are a little more awake, a little more aware. “Don’t know if I can,” you confess. 

He finally nods, then leans forward, pressing his lips to your forehead gently. It happens so fast you can barely register the feel of his kiss against your skin. He pulls away, steps far more intense and intentional now as he moves towards the door, the weight of the job ahead of him filling him with a different purpose than you’ve seen in him before. 

“Joel!” You can’t stop his name from tumbling out of your lips, and it stops him as sure as if he’d hit a wall. He turns, only his head and shoulders, as you take a few steps to close the space between you. 

No, you hadn’t slept that much last night. But you slept well. And the moment you hadn’t, you heard his voice. One second you were in that lab, tied down to the table, and the next you heard him calling your name, the tightness of the restraints melting to the comfort of his arms, and you were able to slip back into sleep. 

You know you won’t be able to sleep more today because he won’t be next to you. 

It scares you how attached you’ve grown so quickly. How much you need him after only a few days. 

The thought of him going outside the walls now, after you’ve laid your soul bare and he hasn’t run and hasn’t kicked you out, terrifies you. 

You take his hand in yours, squeezing. “Be careful, please.”

He sees your plea for what it is: words you’re not ready to say. 

I need you. I want you. I might even love you.

He simply squeezes your hand tight back, nodding gently. His voice is serious, like a solemn promise. ���I will.” 

Then he’s gone, slipping out the door, his voice fading as he and Tommy move farther and farther from the house, discussing the fearsome task that needs to be done. 

You don’t move until the sun is streaming through the windows and Ellie lumbers down the stairs. 

~*~

“You got that look on your face.”

Ellie’s voice startles you, but you don’t move from the front window, eyes trained on the quiet street. It’s mid-morning now, and as far as you know there’s no word. You’ve been standing here, staring at the street since the two of you got back from breakfast. Jackson has stayed quieter than you ever remember hearing, far too many people on guard duty or outside the walls for anyone’s comfort today. “What look?” Your voice shakes, you can’t help it. 

“Like you wanna run.” 

You want to challenge her, but she’s right. You’ve been thinking about it for days now. You’ve been thinking about it since that first nightmare. All you’ve done is make Joel’s life harder. All you’ve done is brought him stress and frustration. 

You couldn’t decode the look in his eyes when he left with Tommy this morning, and you didn’t have a chance to talk. You don’t know what he’s thinking about everything that spilled out of you last night, and it scares you. 

You try to reassure yourself, try to remind yourself he held you like fine porcelain as you slept and left the feel of his kiss on your head before leaving, but all your brain can scream is that he wants to talk to you about moving out and annulling the marriage. Worst case scenario has been your reality for too long for you to be confident about good things. 

“What if I do?” You whisper, not turning your head. 

She stays behind you, not moving closer. She’s a perceptive kid, a kid who's been through things. You see it in her eyes when you look at her. It’s a darkness that lives in both of you. All three of you. 

They have it controlled. You don’t. 

Yours is just hidden. 

“Wouldn’t that be easier for you both?” You can’t help that it sounds a little broken. It’s the thing that’s been running through your head all day. It’s warm enough now, to slip from the gates and make it a decent distance without having to worry too much. Summer has barely settled in, and it’s been mild so far. You’d be able to take some supplies. You don’t think Joel would be too mad at that, and you know Maria would be happy to see you gone. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I was just gone?”

“No,” Ellie’s reply has bite to it. 

You hum low, acknowledging what she’s said but not really agreeing or disagreeing. There’s an ache inside your heart you don’t know how to fix. You’d hoped that letting your past spill from your lips would be a start. Instead, the wounds are reopened, sitting there, quivering at the idea that someone else knows right where to poke you, knows right where you’re the most broken and vulnerable.

“It’s a horrible fucking idea.” She steps into the room, right up to you. “You know that, right?”

“No,” you whisper, avoiding looking at her. “No, I don’t.” 

“He’d miss you.” Her voice drops, like she’s telling a secret. “He likes you.”

It warms something in you to know that Joel feels for you enough that even Ellie’s noticed. It makes everything feel a little less like pity. “I like him.” You finally look over at her. “And that makes everything more complicated.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She shakes her head at you, eyes full of fire, full of the passion of the young. “You like him, he likes you, you’re already fucking married.” She sighs heavily, throwing her arms out to the side in frustration. “Just- just stay with us, ok?” 

“I’m broken, Ellie.”

“We’re all a little fucking broken,” she cuts you off, stops you from saying more when she comes closer. “And the people here are fucking liars, walking around, pretending this town is perfect when it’s just as broken and twisted as any of us.” She holds your gaze tight, the fire in her eyes turning softer. “You don’t pretend. And Joel doesn’t pretend.”

“Ellie,” you shift, taking both her hands in yours, closing your eyes briefly to try to collect your thoughts. “Can’t you see that I’d leave to help you two? To stop all the crazy shit this town hides from coming down on you?”

“We can do that for you, too, though.” Her voice falls quiet, a plea. “As fucked up as it is, Jackson is the safest place I’ve ever been. And Joel and I, we can protect you.”

“Ellie…”

“Just a little longer, please.” She squeezes your hands tight, pulling you closer to her. “Just try a little longer. Joel and I are both assholes, and we know it, but… but you might like us after a while.”

“I like you both just fine,” you can’t help the smile that starts to form. 

“Then stay.” 

“Ellie, I-”

“Stay.”

~*~

Lunch is a solemn affair. The patrol is still gone, leaving mostly women and children and the elderly to eat quietly, whispers and the clinking of the mismatched dinnerware the only sounds in the hall. 

It’s nothing like the usual raucous meals. 

Everyone in town knows, everyone is on edge. 

Ellie sits across from you, eyes on her bowl. “Can I ask you a question?”

You nod, still chewing. 

She swirls her pasta, picking at it. “Did… did they have names?”

You stop breathing for a second before your body forces you to take a deep breath, shuddering on the way out. It feels like a freight train hit you. You’ve never told anyone, so no one could ask you questions. 

She knows, and just like any other kid, she has questions. 

“No,” you choke out. “There were…options,” you start, looking down at your plate, “but I always thought I’d just know what her name was supposed to be when I…” You have to force the words out, and you try to keep yourself as calm as possible, Ellie’s already looking guilty, like she knows she shouldn’t have asked. “When I held her. But I never did so…”

She nods, looking back at her bowl. She doesn’t ask about your son, but you’d never come up with even options for him, just thought of him as  little one. He was your last pregnancy, he was the child that was torn from you so viciously in an attempt to keep you alive that it almost killed you. 

You knew enough by then to not get your hopes up. You knew enough to not plan. The names you couldn’t help but call them to yourself stayed locked in your mind, never uttered aloud, never even whispered to another person, and you don’t plan on ever sharing that part with anyone. Not Ellie. Not Joel. Not anyone.

“I was just…” Ellie clears her throat, forcing a spoonful in her mouth and swallowing before continuing. “I never got to know my mom. She died right after I was born. The opposite of…” She hardens, the confession too much for her. “And you are kinda my step-mom, now, since Joel is kinda the closest thing I have to a dad.” 

You’re quiet for a minute, filling your mouth to buy time. She doesn’t look up at you as she finishes her lunch, and you’re not sure what you should say to her. There’s nothing that makes the losses any better. There’s nothing that closes the wounds after all this time. 

“You can always ask me anything you want, Ellie,” you settle on. It comes out soft, something just for her ears in the quiet of the dining hall. You wait for her eyes to catch yours, and smile a little when she doesn’t shy away from you. “If I’m gonna stay, you deserve to know me.”

“Are you?” She asks, hope and fear mixed with accusation. 

“Am I what?”

“Gonna stay?” She pushes her bowl forward, crossing her arms. 

You can’t lie to her, not when she’s looking up at you, so open, so vulnerable, while trying so hard to show you just how mature she is. It impresses you. It makes you sad. 

The things she must have seen to be able to stare you down and challenge you make your head spin. 

“I hope so, Ellie.” You shrug, picking up your plate in your hands. “I can’t make any promises I’m not sure I’ll keep.”

She doesn’t like the answer. The emotion crosses her face before she can lock it down, but she returns to neutral so fast you’re impressed. “I guess I can respect that.”

You gather her dish with yours, whispering sincerely. “Thank you.”

~*~

The sun is setting when you spot him. 

You’ve moved through the room, avoiding the bright sunlight while pretending to read the rest of the day, watching the window, waiting to see him walking down the sidewalk and up the front steps for hours now. 

He’s in shadows when you finally see him, hands hanging at his sides, shoulders slumped, walking slow. It springs you from your chair, and Ellie pops up behind you, following you out to where you wait on the steps, holding your breath. 

He starts moving faster when he catches sight of you. It pushes him out of the shadows and you can see his clothes: stained dark red. It’s in his hair and his beard, smeared down the side of his face. 

“Joel…” your hand flies to your mouth, panic setting in. 

It seems unconscionable that you were thinking of leaving this morning when you’re seeing him now. Your heart is flip flopping between being frightened he’s hurt and happy he’s home. 

“I’m alright,” he holds his hands up, stopping at the bottom step. “Not mine.”

“What the fuck happened?” Ellie peaks around you, looking him up and down as he takes the steps slow, waiting for you to step back before he leans down, taking off his shoes just outside the door. They leave a dark brown trail where he was stepping, blood or muck or both, you know you’ll find out later. 

“Tommy was right,” he mutters, stepping inside and keeping his distance. “There was a small hoard just the other side of the river, just past where we usually patrol. Three newly turned. A few older ones.”

“But how…” You gesture to the blood, hand shaking just a little. 

He reaches out then stops when he sees the smears on the back of his hand. “It got… messy.” 

“You got all of ‘em?” Ellie asks, following him as he moves towards the stairs. 

“Yeah,” he huffs out, exhaustion sitting heavy in his frame. “We got all of ‘em. But patrols will double the next few weeks, just in case.”

He pauses at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m gonna get cleaned up quick, then we can get dinner.”

“Take your time,” you step forward, anxious to touch him, anxious to feel him under your hand, but holding back. “I’ll go grab whatever I can to bring back. I’m sure they’ll be making a lot of to-go bags tonight with everyone coming home late and tired.”

He pauses on the step, half turning. “I’ll be just a minute, I’m sure you two would rather-”

“I’ll go,” you push. It’s something you can do to take care of him. It’s the only thing you can do right now. Just like making his coffee this morning, it’s something simple, something you can’t fuck up. 

Something that shows you care. 

“Get a good shower in, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ellie throws it in fast, eyes boring into yours. 

“You can stay.”

She stands tall, shoulders back. “I think I should go.”

The tension between you and Ellie is enough that Joel notices, his eyes suddenly sharp, looking between the two of you. Two steps, and you’re closer to her. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

She deflates a little at the word ‘promise,’ and you don’t give her enough time to argue or Joel enough time to ask questions before you’re out the door. 

~*~

“So,” Joel pushes a potato around on his plate, looking between you and Ellie, “anyone gonna tell me what that was before?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellie mutters with her mouth full. 

He presses his lips together, but then looks at you, stern but open. It isn’t accusatory, it isn’t mean. It’s a question. 

He still looks spent, tired and raw from the day, hair wet and curling at the edges from his shower. 

It’s all just so fucking domestic and a scene that you’d never thought you’d see in your life. Your husband, of all things, looking at you, looking to you for help with the teenage girl who was as good as a daughter to him. 

Your heart aches and you don't know why or for what. You can’t tell if it is a good feeling or a bad one. 

It makes you want to run again. 

It makes you want to hide. 

It makes you want to crawl in his lap and never leave. 

Instead, you set your fork down, half eaten venison and potatoes still on your plate, and look him in the eyes. “I panicked this morning. I was… I was thinking about leaving.”

Ellie’s fork clatters to her plate, her eyes on you and mouth open in surprise. 

Joel’s eyes widen, but his face gives nothing else away. 

You look over at Ellie, a small smile on your face of appreciation for what she did for you today. Without her frankness, you might have convinced yourself to run. “Ellie saw it. She saw the panic in me and called me out on it.”

“I wasn’t gonna tell,” Ellie mouths to you, no sound coming from her lips. Joel can’t see her; his eyes are still on you. 

“Why?” It sounds small when he asks it, and it’s a tone that’s wrong for him. 

“Because I’m not used to this,” you reply quickly, mustering as much courage as you can as you look back to him. “Because last night I let everything out and it seemed easy at the time but after you left it…” You swallow, hard, looking down at your plate. “I’m not used to letting people take care of me. Or caring about me. Or not caring if it’s going to be hard to do either of those things.”

It’s all you can do to keep yourself at the table, your breath shaking as you inhale, readying another confession and letting them fly before you can change your mind. “Because I care about you both and I don’t want anything to hurt you because of me. Because of how people see me. Because of things that have happened in my past. Because…” You close your eyes, letting the last words slip from your lips, “I - I didn’t want you to come back having changed your mind about me.”

“You’re, uh,” he clears his throat, looking to Ellie for guidance but she’s as lost as he is, surprised that you’d opened up to them once again. “You’re still here.”

“Yeah,” You try to smile, but it dies on your lips quickly. 

Joel sets his hand on the table, palm up, and waits until you set your hand in his. He laces your fingers together and holds your gaze until he knows you’re listening. “I haven’t changed my mind. And I won’t.” He turns back to his plate, picking up his fork. “I’m glad you stayed.”

~*~

The armchair in the living room is where you retreat to after dinner. There’s something about the way it wraps around you that comforts you, makes you feel a little less vulnerable. 

You hear him before you see him, his reflection in the window becoming a welcome sight as he slips next to the chair. He spent a while with Ellie in the kitchen after dinner. You pretended to read as the words blurred on the page.

It’s easy to repeat what you did last night: to hold your hand out and when he takes it to wrap yourself around him, to bury yourself against his body and pretend it’s all real.

It’s so easy to pretend he could love you. 

You know you could love him for real. 

His arms relax around you, holding you close. 

You’ve done so much talking. Too much, if you’re honest with yourself. You’ve never bared your soul like that, even before the outbreak. You played things close, kept your emotions tight and used actions instead of words. Opening up makes you feel raw and exposed to being hurt. 

You don’t like it, but you’re not giving up on this. Not yet. 

You can’t promise Ellie there won’t come a day when you will decide that leaving is better than staying. Not with how the council seems determined to get you out, not with how you’d rather take your chances with the infected than let any one of those other men touch you. 

They remind you of the Fedra officers in Vegas, too full of themselves and only out for their own interests. They don’t care about you, don’t ask you questions. They talk about what they can do for you, they try to puff themselves up big and preen. 

They get angry when you aren’t interested. 

You don’t want to know if they have more similarities. If they’ll take it as far as those officers did. As far as the slavers did. If they’ll ignore your pleas to stop, if they’ll use you no matter what you say. If they’ll leave you bleeding and crying in a corner. 

It’s not even something you think about with Joel. 

It’s not even a consideration. 

His arms hold you tight, swaying gently with his slow, deep breaths, and you’ve never felt safer. He holds you long enough that your thoughts start to disappear. He holds you long enough that your breaths even out and you start to feel your eyes flutter closed. 

“We should go to bed,” he whispers, one hand drifting up and smoothing down your hair. “Neither one of us slept last night.”

You nod into him but you’re afraid to move. There hasn’t been time to talk since he got back, there wasn’t enough energy to, either. There’s a tentative truce between the two of you, a peace forced by your confessions and his understanding that makes you just a little calmer. You’re afraid that will disappear if you slip into his bed. You’re afraid the nightmares will come for you again. 

Even after everything, you’re afraid he’ll still change his mind. 

“Did you get any sleep after I left?”

“No,” you reply softly, still unwilling to move. 

He doesn’t make any effort to shift you, though, just keeps talking quietly. “Tommy felt bad about interrupting, but the council gave us the rest of the weekend to make up for it. Back to assignments on Monday instead of tomorrow.”

You didn’t know you were tense, but you feel yourself relax more against him. His fingers slip into your hair, his short nails gently massaging the base of your skull. “Won’t they need you if they’re doubling up patrols?”

“Don’t care,” he mutters, sighing lightly. “Took down more than my fair share today. Those little boys can step up for a couple more days.”

The way he growls the words out strikes something in you, something deep and primal, something that finally lets you wallow, unapologetically, in being taken care of. 

Joel is a force of nature, taking on more than he needs to and always conquering it. 

Joel is important here. Joel is needed here. Joel gets favors here. 

And he chooses you. 

He’s chosen you. 

Again and again. 

He’s here, now, holding you close and tight and he has been there for you every night the last week. He’s listened and hasn’t judged. 

He’s glad you’re still here. 

He doesn’t need to be here. He doesn’t need to be holding you now, doesn’t need to be comforting you or coaxing you to bed, but he is. 

He is. 

And you finally see it for what it is: you can finally admit to yourself that it isn’t pity, it isn’t misguided. 

Kinship. Friendship. Need.

Whatever it is, it’s real. 

And you’re not going to let it go, even if it terrifies you. 

You stand, slow enough that he lets his arms travel with you, that he shifts so you stay close and tight to him. “I don’t know if I’ll sleep,” you admit, his hand coming forward to push the hair away from your face and behind your ears. 

“We can try.” His hand smooths over your cheek, softly making its way down over your shoulder and back again. “But I don’t want you down here alone.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” you whisper, emotion catching in your throat. “I thought it was better, but…”

“It’s not,” he finishes, tucking you closer under his chin until you’re both breathing long and slow together. “Come on,” he whispers into your hair, slipping his arms down to take your hand, pulling you gently behind him through the house and up the stairs, pausing only to check the doors and turn off the lights. 

The dance is new but familiar: you take your turns in the bathroom- his bathroom that he insists you use as he brings over your toothbrush from across the hall, changing away from each other’s gaze and going through the motions for the night. You slip into the bed first, bathroom door still closed with him behind it as you stare at the thin pillow that separates the sides of the bed. 

Before you can think about it too much, you pull it from between the sheets, tossing it on the floor.

He doesn’t react when he slips in next to you, the barrier separating you gone. Instead, he holds out his hand across the chasm where the pillow had been. Instead of winding your fingers through his, you slide over, settling your head on his bicep and pressing your body into his. 

“Okay?” You ask, trying not to let him know you’re immediately second guessing yourself.

He doesn't leave you questioning it for long. He turns into you, wrapping his arm around you and nudging his nose at your temple. “Okay.”

He’s as touch starved as you are, as desperate for touch as you realize you’ve been, and whatever dam broke between you last night, neither of you are talking about it. 

But you’re both taking advantage. 

~*~

You wake in the night, heart pounding. Your nightmare is fuzzy, though. Fear and anger and sorrow through a lens, not as sharp as they have been when they wake you. You’re still breathing heavy, still off kilter and keyed up. 

You feel a hand gently sliding over your back. He whispers your name, voice thick with sleep. 

You’ve migrated in the night, rolling away from him and claiming your own pillow, tangling your legs in the blanket. You roll back towards him, tucking against him as he winds his arm over your hips. The rise and fall of his chest becomes your focus, trying to match his slow, even breathing as he murmurs half-awake words of comfort in your ear. 

“Better?” He asks when you finally slow your breathing, rolling onto his back and tucking you against his chest. 

“Better.”

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (2/?)

Title: Tender Payment for Our Sins By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Spoilers: TLOU season 1. Disclaimer: They're not mine. Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around. Dark fic in a less than idyllic Jackson. Themes concern medical assault, SA, infant and pregnancy loss, and medical experimentation as well as PTSD. The majority of these situations are not portrayed in the story, only recounted by the “reader” character. Chapters will have sufficient warnings. Still lots of fluff and sexiness to be had. Protective!Joel, Soft!Joel. Fem!Reader, little to no description otherwise. No use of Y/N. No/slight age difference. Hurt/Comfort. Romance.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tags: Joel (The Last of Us)/Reader, Joel (The Last of Us)/You, Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel & Tommy (The Last of Us) Characters: Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie (The Last of Us), Tommy (The Last of Us), Maria (The Last of Us), Reader

Additional Tags: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Slow Burn, Fake Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Medical Trauma, pregnancy loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Family Dynamics, No age gap, No use of y/n, Eventual Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Past Sexual Abuse, Stalking, Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Touch-Starved, Infant Loss, Joel is Trying His Best (The Last of Us)

Story A/N: Born out of the forced marriage/fake marriage trope and musings on what a post apocalypse world might actually look like. Also, I just really need this Joel in my life. Though I’ve tried to make the Reader fairly vague, I’ve been told my reader characters border on OC’s. She has QUITE the extensive and dark backstory, but little to no physical description aside that she’s close in age to Joel. PLEASE, please, please check all the tags. I’m only familiar with the TV series, and this is fairly AU of that. Despite posting date, 151 k of this (however long it ends up being) was written before season 2 dropped, so don’t expect it to be remotely close to that. I’ve been working on this for almost two years now, and decided to bite the bullet and post since a goal of mine was to post before TLOU2 started. The end is written (and will not change, no matter the feedback), significant holes in the middle are not. I will endeavor to post every week, and it will live up to the rating for many reasons. I have no beta, and no one that’s been able to give me feedback on this particular fic due to the nature of it. This is my first second-person POV, my first present tense fic, my first xReader fic, and my first TLOU fic. I welcome constructive criticism, but please be kind about it.

Chapter 2: Double Standards

Chapter Summary: Each day is a day closer to when you feel you’re going to be told to leave…

Chapter A/N: A little Joel POV starts popping in here and there. Ellie will eventually show up, too. While the Reader is primary POV, Joel’s views are important to telling the story. 

Also, I’m blown away that anyone is even reading this, based on the tags and the warnings, so welcome, the brave handful of you. I can’t tell you how much I love knowing you’re here.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

~*~

The dining hall is a cacophony of sound in the morning, much to Joel’s dismay. He’s not a morning person, has never been a morning person, and of all the things he doesn’t like about Jackson, the need to be surrounded by people who are chipper and eager to talk first thing in the morning just to get his breakfast is the thing he likes the least. 

Some days he skips the meal, just for the peace and quiet of his own house. 

Sitting at a table with Tommy, Maria, and Ellie, though, means he can at least sit quietly through the meal. They don’t mind if he only grunts and nods, if he sits and eats like they’re not there. 

“Damn,” Maria mutters, watching you walk in. Joel’s eyes are drawn to you, watching as you pick your way through the line, taking only small things you can carry out and leaving before he can even consider going to say good morning. “She needs to get her act together.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, spoon full of oatmeal stopped halfway to his lips, eyes still on the door where you left. 

“It took her eight hours to muck stalls yesterday.”

Joel’s head snaps to Maria. “That can’t be right.”

“Eight.” Maria nodded, shaking her head. “Ain’t never seen anybody take that long.”

“Did someone teach her how to do it?” Joel asks, eyes narrowing, more than a little accusatory. 

“Yes,” Maria shoots back, matching his aggression. 

“Were they clean?” Ellie asks.

Maria doesn’t bother swallowing. “What?”

“Were they clean?” She repeats, stirring her bowl of oatmeal. “I mean, did she do a good job? Anyone can get faster at a job once they learn it.”

Maria’s head cants to the side, a way for her to hide the fact that she’s annoyed at Ellie’s suggestion. “She’s got to find her place here, Ellie. You know that. Things move fast here. She’s failed at every job we’ve given her.”

“She’s a writer,” Joel mutters out. “I’m sure she’s never mucked a stall a day in her life.”

“So?” Maria eyes him, shaking her head. “We were all something before this, and we all had to adapt.” She pops a piece of muffin in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. 

“So? Maybe she can help in the library. Or the school.” Joel pushes his bowl away, his appetite souring. “Play to her strengths just like you played to mine.”

“We need contractors and riders and gunmen more than we do librarians,” Tommy joins, sipping his coffee. “What’s she gonna do, run around town looking for fines on late library books?” He huffs a laugh through his nose, amusing himself. “We got an honor system going and it works just fine.”

“Maybe she could start a newspaper,” Ellie supplies hopefully. 

Maria eyes her, lips pursed tight. “You got a printing press in your back pocket?” She pauses, softening. “You’re gonna be late for school.” 

Ellie scoops the rest of her oatmeal into her mouth in two big bites, talking as she chews. “I’m just saying, maybe she needs some time. We needed time.”

“You’re different,” Tommy mutters, only shooting his eyes at Joel briefly, his gaze focused on his plate. 

Ellie hardens as she stands, swallowing slowly. “Well, we shouldn’t be.”

The adults are quiet as Ellie stalks away, the sound of clanking silverware the only noise at the table. 

“She’s right,” Joel declares, setting his mug down and rolling it between his hands. “Shouldn’t have double standards. For anyone.”

“And we shouldn’t have to worry about everyone being helpful, either.” Maria tosses back. “You pull your weight around here. She’s not doing that right now. She’s been here for months, people aren’t going to let that go for much longer.”

“That’s the problem with this society, isn’t it?” Joel asks, eyes hardening. “As soon as you’re not useful anymore, out the gates you go.”

Tommy looks up between them, gaze bouncing back and forth as he waits for either of them to say something else, for his wife to come up with a rebuttal to what Joel said. Neither moves, just holds the stare of the other for long moments. 

Maria finally speaks first. “And?” She sighs, heavily. “I don’t like it, but we’ve all got to make deals with the devil to survive now. People here aren’t going to like it if they think she’s not pulling her weight.”

“So, what then?” Joel leans on the table, dropping his voice.  “If she doesn’t muck stalls fast enough or shear sheep right, you’re gonna toss her out? No chance to learn how, no time to get better at it, just out?”

Maria leans forward, matching his posture. “She figures it out, fast, or she better get to hoping one of these boys gets to fancying her real quick and her clock ain’t run out.” Maria stands, grabbing her plates and leaning down. “The only other currency women got around here is marrying and being moms. She can’t do that?” Maria turns away from them, her own pregnant belly leading as she moves away from them, shaking her head as she lets the implications hang in the air. 

Joel looks at his mug, spinning it in his hands as she moves away. “You know this is shit, right?”

Tommy shuffles his plates together, leaning across the table “Yeah,” he mutters, “but you better get in line. Town council does what they want, and Maria only has so much pull. People start talking, they start getting that mob mentality.”

Joel looks up, surprised. Tommy has never before spoken about Jackson as something other than an oasis. 

“People are protective of their happiness here. Anything threatens that- even someone not pulling their weight, well…” He sighs. “This ain’t no charity, Joel. Maybe it’s time you figured that out.”

Joel’s left alone at the table, a dark, sinking feeling in his stomach. 

~*~

It’s easy to hide behind the buildings, taking bites of the muffin in your hand. You couldn’t face the dining hall this morning. It was too filled, too loud, and your pride still stung. 

You aren’t even good at mucking out stalls. 

You’d been an overachiever most of your life, and this is humbling. Somehow, the only jobs available to you are the ones you have no talent in, no affinity for. All the skills you have seem useless to this place. They have enough teachers, have no need for writers. Everything you can think of to help contribute is linked to academics or things from before that are obsolete. They need hard labor, they need people who are good with their hands and able to shoot a gun. They need people who have survival skills. You might have survived, but that was more luck than skill. You finish the muffin and head back to the stalls. You are on this duty until Maria tells you that you are off of it, or until you mess it up so bad Eddie, the stablemaster, shoos you away. 

You set yourself up, pulling the wheelbarrow and the shovel over to the sheep pen. At least it is still cool enough today to keep the smell to a minimum. You aren’t a fan of the heavy musk of the farm, had never had pets you had to clean up after growing up. 

You swallow hard, roll back your shoulders, and slide your way into the pen. 

You are pretty sure there isn’t much below “shoveling shit” on the list of jobs around Jackson, so there is little choice. 

You are going to have to get good at this. 

You are going to have to figure it out. 

Your time is running out. 

You can feel it. 

~*~

It’s two days later when he finds you eating your lunch outside, sitting on the cold pavement and huddled against the unseasonable chill in the air against the wall of the dining hall in the alley.

“You might want to stay upwind,” you mutter, wiping at your mouth. 

He sits across from you, upwind, and wraps his arms around his knees. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

You shrug, taking another bite of your sandwich and swallowing before talking. “Been working on my mucking skills. Doesn’t much match with sitting in the dining hall.”

“I, uh, suppose not.” He picks at his jeans, eyes flicking back and forth from where his fingers are working at nothing to watching you eat. 

You feel like you should be anxious, his eyes on you and his lips quiet, but you feel only content. Safe. 

A little less lonely. 

It loosens your lips. 

“I’m still not doing good enough, though.”

His gaze settles on you tightly. “What makes you say that?”

“Too slow,” you reply with a sniff, surprised at how the emotion wells in your throat. “Too precise, apparently.” You stuff the end of your sandwich in your mouth and chew, forcing yourself to stop talking. You think you’d tell this man just about anything if you sat together long enough. 

You still can’t pinpoint why. Why he loosens your lips. Why you feel safe around him. Why he doesn’t want something from you. 

Why you’ve been thinking about him constantly. 

It’s been too long since anyone listened to you, since anyone really talked to you, for you not to want to drown yourself in it. 

You have to force yourself away from it. 

You can feel the tide turning. Eddie’s eyes are on you as you try to go faster, do better. Maria’s eyes are on you every time you walk away from the stables at the end of the day, flicking down to her watch to see just how late you are, just how many hours longer than the average person you took. 

Your time in Jackson has a limit, and with each tick of the clock the end is drawing closer. She’s hinted at it, and you’ve never missed a context clue in your life. You think maybe, if you’re lucky, you have a month left tops. 

You don’t want to have to have anyone to say goodbye to, it’ll be easier that way. You let yourself think about him, but you never seek him out. 

“It’s shoveling manure,” he muses, unaware of the rampage of worries in your head, “and they’re getting mad at you for making sure all the shit is cleaned up?”

You stand, wiping your hands on your jeans. You probably dirtied your hands more than cleaned them, but it doesn't matter, you’re headed back to turn the compost. You feel bad about letting his teasing fall flat, but you can’t get used to this, you can’t.  “Apparently. I’ll see ya around.”

You try to leave, try to move past him, but he follows. “You coming to the Bison tonight?” 

“If I can get the stench of shit out of my hair, I was thinking of it,” you answer sharply, shoving your hands in your pockets as he comes up next to you, matching our stride as you walk. 

He tries to cover his wince with a smile, but you see it, anyway. “Not like the rot-gut they got down there is any better smelling.”

He can only shrug when you look at him over your shoulder, shaking your head. You take another few steps in silence, content to let him walk you to the stables. It tamps down on the looks you get as you walk. The stares you usually get are now quick peeks, little looks and side eyes instead of outright antagonism. 

There are benefits to being around Joel Miller, it seems. 

Maybe, for now, it’s ok to wallow in them just for a bit. 

“So, you’ll be there, I take it?” You don’t look at him, but you need the confirmation. 

“Yeah, uh, Tommy said I should go. Something about enjoying myself.”

You stop, right at the edge of the stables where you left your tools. “I’ll see you there, then.” You turn and step away before you can second guess yourself, you leave him staring at your back before you can pretend it’s a date. 

You spend the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’ve even got to wear to a fucking bar after the end of the world.

[3pirouette]

Good news: I'm editing about 3 weeks ahead of my posting schedule for TPFOS.

Bad News: I keep switching tenses and I'm quickly catching up to the section of the story that needs a LOT of work in combination with a really busy real life work time approaching.

Fingers crossed I can keep the 2x/wk posting schedule up through the summer. We're looking at somewhere between 40-60 chapters for this behemoth, I do not want to be posting for a year.

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (10/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

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Chapter 10: Repercussions

Summary: Expected and unexpected, the repercussions start to make themselves known.

A/N: As always, I have to thank everyone for continuing to read. Every time I go to post a chapter and I see the number of hits and bookmarks go up, I can’t believe how lucky I am that people who have found this fic also seem to like it. Thank you all so, so much for the love comments, kudos, and for continuing to read. We’re at 168k and counting, 425 pages or so in the current doc I have going, so there’s plenty more coming. Thank you all <3

Trigger Warnings: Discussion of the home invasion from the previous chapter, vomiting.

~*~

The day passes in a blur. One minute, you're fine, sitting and reading, the next your heart is racing and your eyes are darting, looking for him, looking to see if he heard the noise that set you on edge, looking to see if he’s worried. 

He doesn’t stray far for most of the day, and you’re not sure if he can sense how on edge you truly are, or if it’s comforting to him, too, to keep you in view, but it doesn't matter. 

You pretend to read, he pretends to work on a plan for the water wheel, and you both wait until Ellie comes back from the school house in silence, too afraid to talk about the thing that hangs over you both, too afraid to acknowledge that there’s still a chance this could all come crashing down. 

~*~

He stands in front of you, holding out an apple. “You gotta eat something.”

Neither of you ate breakfast, and mid-morning you sipped on a peppermint tea that was in the little crate that got dropped off yesterday because you couldn’t tell if your roiling stomach was from anxiety or having not eaten. The tea helped a little, but not much, and even thinking of food made your stomach start cramping. So, you’d simply sat, another cup of warm tea cooling by you all afternoon, and tried to focus on anything but what had happened. 

You look up at him, eyebrows knit together as he gestures the apple a little closer to you. “Come on, now,” he bends down, knee cracking as he flips the apple in his hand. “Can’t not eat.”

You slip the book closed, you weren’t reading it anyway, and set it to the side. You take the apple from him, rolling it in your hands. The storyteller in you wants to find the symbolism here, wants to thread long, dangerous arcs about biblical references, about you taking the apple from him signifying something.

But it’s just an apple.

It’s just something simple that will put some calories in your body and bump up your blood sugar and maybe help you calm down and center and focus.

But you can’t. You can’t stop looking at it, the dull skin, the small size: it’s not like those biblical apples, those bastions of temptation. This was grown on a tiny tree on the edge of town in a place apples aren’t really meant to grow. It isn’t a symbol of sin, isn’t a symbol of health.

It’s a peace offering.

His hands cover yours, stopping your gentle rotation of the fruit. When you look at him, you can see the storm brewing in his eyes. He’s calm on the outside, so much calmer than you feel, but in those depths, you can see fear and anger and frustration. It all disappears in a blink as you hold his gaze, and all that’s left is worry.

Worry for you.

And without preamble, without flowery sentiments of silly placations, he cuts right to the fear in your heart. “I’m not gonna let them touch you, okay?” His voice is quiet, like he’s sharing a secret, a promise, but it’s as strong as steel, too. “Not Robbie, not Tyler, not the council, not anyone else. No one is coming into this house, nobody is taking you out of it, you understand?”

You nod, because there’s nothing else you can do. You believe him, you believe he wants to protect you, you believe he can protect you.

But he shouldn’t have to protect you. All day the thought has been drifting in and out of your mind: it would be easier if you just left. If you just disappeared, things would be so much better for Joel and Ellie. “I’ve brought you so much trouble,” you whisper, afraid to drop his gaze. Just like from those first few times you talked to him, he still holds you captive with those eyes, eyes that could coax everything from you if you sat here with him long enough because you know they would understand.

“The trouble was already here,” he replies gently, shaking his head and holding your hands tighter. It’s like he can see through you, like he can see your fear and your doubts. He smiles, just a little. “I ain’t lettin’ you go without a fight, you hear me?” He lets your hands go, standing and taking the cold tea from next to you. “You try to eat, and I’ll get you more tea.”

You watch him walk out of the room, watch his back as he shuffles through the kitchen, heating the water and waiting for it to boil. His shoulders sink when he thinks you can’t see him, his head hanging low and out of your view.

He’s holding up the weight of the world for you, making space and trying to get you to eat and making you tea… all when his peace is as threatened as yours, if not more so.

You lift the apple to your lips and bite. It’s little and bitter and the skin is tough. It’s not a full bite, more a nibble, but you chew and swallow and close your eyes and after a minute when it stays down you force yourself to take another, this time larger.

The smell of mint wafts through the air when he slips back into the room. The corner of his mouth is lifted in a near smile when he sees the bites taken out of the apple in your hands. He silently sets the mug back down next to you, turning to leave you to it.

You swallow quickly. “Joel?”

He stops, looking down at you. “Yeah?”

It seems silly, but you’ve stopped him, so you need to say it. “Make sure you eat something, too, ok?”

“Why don’t you join me at the table, then?” His smile slips a little bigger. “You can keep an eye on me.”

It isn’t much of a dinner that you share: you and your peppermint tea and apple, Joel’s plate of field greens and cold roasted chicken, while you both silently sit together, but it’s something that feels almost normal for today, and for now, that’s enough.

~*~

You can’t. 

You can’t put it on. 

When it was just you, when there were polite knocks on the door and privacy in this house, the threadbare nightgown, nearly transparent in some places, was more than enough. 

But it won’t be if you have to run. It won’t be if someone comes barreling through the window tonight. 

It won’t be if you’re sleeping in the same bed as Joel. 

It’s just being polite, you tell yourself, just being proper since he’s shown no interest in you like that, and even if he did…

…even if he did…

You wouldn’t want to suggest you were capable of something you might not be able to do. You don’t want to tempt him, tease him… not now. Maybe not ever. 

He was literally all that stood between you and violence last night, literally all that stands between you and being left on your own now. And the way he took care of you today, the way he kept you calm and safe and made sure you ate… He didn’t have to do any of that.

You won’t put any more on his plate. You can’t. 

It takes a few deep breaths before you run to the hall closet, dragging out the plastic tote and digging gracelessly through all the clothes you’d so neatly folded, ones you decided you could save, could go back for if you ever needed them. 

You need them. 

It’s too warm for pants or long sleeves, and with the windows locked up tight you know it will only feel warmer, stuffier when you try to sleep tonight. 

With him in the bed, it’ll be warmer, too. 

You know they’re in here. You remember running your hands over the soft cotton, thinking about trips to the mall and imagining you saw that very pajama set in the window of one of your favorite stores, draped in satin robes on faceless mannequins. 

When you find them, you relax just a little. It’s just enough. 

One little thing. 

One comforting thing.

One thing you can do to try to share the load, to try to take responsibility for how this moves forward.  

You take the matching top and shorts to the bathroom you share with Ellie and change quickly. Joel invited you into his life, his home, and now his bedroom. You want to leave him space where you can. Letting him have his own bathroom, his own space, is the only way you know how right now. 

The bedroom is quiet and dark. You hesitate to flip the light on, hesitate to do anything that disturbs his space. 

The bed sits like a sentinel, screaming in the silence with its well-made lines and evenly spaced pillows calling to you. You skirt around it for now, knowing that at some point he came up here and changed the sheets from the dark color you remember last night to a cool, crisp gray and made the bed with neat folds. 

His care sits in your throat like a heavy lump. If people only knew, only saw the sweetness, the kindness, in him that you see…

You’re so, so glad, you think, as you look over at the window, that so many people see the other side of him, are nearly afraid of him. 

You’ll happily keep the softer side of Joel Miller to yourself. 

It feels just a little sacrilegious to be in his room alone, to be wandering, barefoot on his carpet, and looking at the things he keeps closest to himself. You have to keep telling yourself that you’re invited, that you belong here now. 

That he wants you here. 

A crash from below you makes you jump, makes you hold your breath and close your eyes, just waiting for there to be a face against the window that never comes. Every little sound, little scrape of a tree on the house or creek in the wood has been making you jump today. 

It is just Joel in his workshop, in the room below you, making more noise than you’re used to, taking out his anger and frustration and emotions out on the wood. 

You wish you had something like that, something to do with your hands, something to do with your body to take the anxiety away, something to do with your hands besides pull at the hem of your pajama top. 

It’ll be a while, you think, before you’re going to feel comfortable slipping into the bed. You don’t know which side is his, where he likes to lay, how he moves when he sleeps. You don’t want to be in the way. You don’t want to give him any reason to second guess what he’s given you, what he’s offered you. 

You sit on the foot of the bed, picking at the hem with your fingers, and just breathe. 

It’ll be easier soon. 

He’ll be up for bed soon and pick a side, show you his space, take his place in the bed and in the room and give you clues as to where you fit in... 

Where you fit in in the room, where you fit in in the bed. 

Where you fit in to this life in Jackson he’s been leading.

For now, you just need to breathe.  

~*~

You hear another crash from the workroom, a grunt following it, and think again about going down the stairs as you run your hand over the rail. 

“You could, you know,” Ellie says gently from her door. 

You turn, eyes wide at being caught listening to him. He’s been crashing around his workroom ever since he finished his dinner, and every little noise was making you jump as you waited for him, and you couldn’t decide if you should go or not, but waiting silently in his room was making you far too anxious to stay any longer. “Could what?”

“Go down there.” She shrugs and leans against her door jamb. “Joel gets pissed and he has to just… get it out sometimes, you know? You’re one of his, though. He won’t hurt you.” She laughs, smiling to herself like the next words from her mouth are a comfort. “He might hurt someone else, but he won’t hurt you.”

Ellie looks you over, standing in the striped sleep short set you’d found in the closet, anxious hands fidgeting at your sides, and keeps talking, trying to reassure you. “That’s the best thing about him, really. Once you’re in, you’re in. Even if…” She trails off, looking away, whatever sits between them holding her tongue. “But you’re fine. Really.”

“He probably wants to be alone,” you mutter to yourself, the noise downstairs finally quieting. 

“He might not,” she retorts. “Hard to tell sometimes, but you’ll know once you see him.” She turns away somewhat reluctantly, leaning against the doorway. “You should go.” She lets her words sit heavy between you before shutting the door to her room and letting it be your decision. 

You’re one of his, though. He won’t hurt you.

Her voice echoes through you as you slip down the stairs. He may not be as loud, but with each step closer you start to hear more mumbling, more cursing coming from the half-closed door of his workroom. You can only see light spilling out and splintered wood on the floor. 

You take a deep breath, then knock on the door. “Joel?”

It’s quiet long enough that you start to think he doesn’t want you there. Just when you’re about to turn and head back up the stairs, the door slowly creeks open. 

He’s sitting at his work table, moving the door with a long piece of wood in his hand. “Sorry if I was…” the apology dies on his lips. He stands, tossing the chunk of wood on the table and pacing away. He’s angry, and he’s trying to work it out. 

But Ellie was right: he’s not angry at you, and he’s not doing anything to make you think he wants you to leave, even if he does look like a tiger in a cage. You can tell by how he paces away from you, how he keeps his distance, and how his eyes are warm and sad and sorry when they look at you instead of angry as he makes another tun on his path. 

He paces back, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at the half put together project on his bench. “It just wouldn’t…” He fumes at it, his hand fisting before he walks away again. “Couldn’t get the damn leg to fit in right.”

You nod, not sure what to say to that. You’re not even really sure you have anything you wanted to say to him at all, you just had this need to come see him, to see if there was something you could do instead of sitting in his room, anxious about which was his side of the bed, unable to fall asleep with every little sound from outside as you tried to make yourself as small as you could along the edge of the bed closest to the door so you could get up when he came in. 

He turns, looking at you again and his face falls in realization. “I was keeping you up.”

~*~

He doesn't know what to do with the rage, not really. He’d hoped that if he’d focused it on that damn bedside table he was building that he could make it productive. 

But there was a fucking knot in the wood and he couldn’t get the one damn leg to fit right. And it snowballed. 

It wasn’t just that he couldn’t get the leg made. It was that he wanted you to have one damn thing for yourself. You couldn’t have autonomy in Jackson. Then you couldn’t have your own room because they were watching you for any little mistake they could to take you away. And then you couldn’t have a bedside table because he didn’t have a damn matching table to the one on his side of the bed. 

It just kept repeating over and over in his mind that you needed the damn bedside table. 

You needed something that was yours. 

And he couldn’t fucking do it. 

And so he’d thrown the first table leg across the room. And then the next that didn’t fit met the same fate. It didn’t exactly make him feel better, but it was something that abated the rage just a little bit.

Because if he let himself feel it, if he really let himself sit with the emotions he’d been fighting all day, Robbie and Tyler would be dead at his feet.

But now here you are, looking as small as he’s ever seen you, standing in the doorway to his shop, worried about him. 

Worried about him. 

It seems insane, because he is so fucking worried about you. The way you sought him out all day, the way you trembled next to him all morning, hand tight in his, the way you didn’t seem to want to be alone for more than a few minutes, the way you jumped at every little noise, the way he had to coax you to eat even the littlest bit… it breaks his heart.  He wants you to be happy, to be comfortable. The idea of sleeping in the same damn bed with him nearly sent you into another panic attack this morning, and here you are: checking on him. 

He was actually hoping to skirt around it the first night: to let you be there, have the space alone while he “lost track of time” in his workshop and fell asleep there, or on the couch. It would have been plausible deniability.  

You would be in his bed- what more could they want? What kind of proof could they even try to demand? 

His words from earlier haunt him: his taunts at Tommy hurt you as he insinuated he’d put you on display just to make them all leave you alone. He’d do no such thing, but he doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know how to tell you and take it back. He doesn't know how to say he’s sorry for being just like all the rest of the men in this town that wanted to make you their commodity in that moment. 

He was going to show you with that damn bedside table. He was going to show you that he was going to provide for you, protect you with that damn table.

…the table that’s sitting in pieces on his bench. 

“Go to bed,” he urges you gently, taking a few steps to close the space. “I’m… I’m just going to clean up.” If he can get you into bed, he can take his time down here, he can still feign falling asleep here and give you your space. 

You nod, turning, but stop in the doorway, holding tight to the trim. “Just… just don’t be long, ok?”

His head tilts to the side, wondering just quite how you read his mind, but he doesn’t say anything out loud. 

“It’s just…” you swallow and take a deep breath, laughing at yourself. “It’s silly, really, but I kept thinking…” You laugh again, trying to shake off the seriousness of it, “I’d hear a noise and I kept thinking it was them, trying to get in the house.” Your voice falls to a whisper. “I don’t… I don’t think I’ll sleep if I’m alone.” 

Your words send his heart plummeting. Here he is, planning to try to leave you alone, to give you space, and that’s the one thing you’re afraid of right now. He doesn’t hesitate. He steps over the broken pieces of scrap on the floor and clicks off the lamp above his table. “Then I’ll come with you,” he whispers, stepping next to you and slipping his fingers over the overhead switches, bathing the room in darkness. 

“I already checked the locks,” he continues, following you up the stairs, hoping his gruff words are comforting somehow. “No one’s getting in.”

He stops behind you when you step into his room, staring at the bed. “Whichever side you want,” he says softly, moving around you to flick on the lamp and then to the window to draw the curtains closed. “I’ll stay on my side, I promise.”

“You’re not what makes my hand shake, Joel.” Your voice is barely loud enough to hear, but it stops him from moving all the same. He turns, looking at you in the dim room, sitting precariously on the edge of the bed, eyes on your hands. “It’s them.”

~*~

He isn’t asleep, not really. Not with the threat of half-cocked idiots camping outside of his windows, looking for ways to take you away. Not with the way he could see your hand still shake when you slipped into bed next to him after waiting for him to change in the bathroom, after waiting for him to claim his side and his space before shimmying in as close to the edge of the mattress as you could get. 

He doesn’t understand it. Not a lick of it. Not the angry little assholes who think you belong to them and not the cantankerous council who seem to think people are things that can be tossed back out into the night with the infected or that wives can be possessed like objects and home invasion isn’t a serious crime. 

He keeps his back to you, to the thin pillow you slipped between your bodies with a sorrowful look in your eye and an explanation dying on your lips. He hopes it gives you some sense of control, some sense of privacy and safety to have his back to you, to see his eyes trained on the curtain covered window. 

Neither of you really have control here, and that makes him anxious. 

There were always going to be repercussions. He thought it would be snide looks and comments, maybe a rogue attempt by Robbie to hit on you again, that he’d have to battle. Not this. 

But you saw it. He knows you saw these consequences, even if you didn’t see exactly what they were. You’d tried to warn him, tried to tell him that he and Ellie were in deeper than they thought. 

It doesn’t matter, though. He's in it, and no one’s touching you. 

No one’s coming through that damn window ever again. 

Just the thought of the fear in your eyes, the way you screamed when Robbie walked through his bedroom door, keeps him awake. 

So, he is only half asleep, mind still reeling, when he hears you start to moan, when the bed rocks with the first thrash of your shoulders. He turns his head, only to see that you’re still asleep. He waits, but the movements don’t slow, don’t change. If anything, you grow stronger and more frantic, thrashing against unseen bonds, tears slipping from the corners of your eyes. You’re panting now, and he sits, unsure of what to do. 

He doesn’t want to see you like this, but he’s afraid of making it worse if he reaches across the chasm, if he grabs your hand or reaches for your shoulder to shake you awake. 

He always, always lets you touch him first. 

He doesn’t want to wake you up like that. Not after today. 

He doesn't have to worry long, though. You sit straight up, sweat beading at your forehead, eyes open and wild, a scream dying on your lips. You don’t see him, he knows you don’t see him when he reaches out, his fingers falling ineffectually through this air as you scramble to get out of the bed. You kick at the covers, one hand over your mouth, until you stumble out, dashing for the bathroom across the hall instead of the one in his room. 

The retching is unmistakable, and it's what propels him from the bed. His joints pop as he kneels at your side, focusing on pulling your hair back from your face, gently unsticking sweat-soaked pieces from your forehead as the little that’s in your stomach makes its way back out. “It’s okay, let it out. You’re okay.” The affirmations come easily. 

Heaves keep coming, even when there’s nothing left to come up, and he slides his hand up and down your back. “Try to breathe,” he whispers. He’s been there, he knows this fear, this trauma. He knows what it’s like to wake up reliving the parts of your life that are so bad your body physically tries to reject them. 

He would have been downstairs. He would have been far enough away that he might not have heard you spring from the bed if he’d gotten his way tonight. 

For once, he’s glad he didn’t. 

You’re just catching your breath when he hears Ellie’s voice in the hall. “Joel?”

He shifts on his knees, leaning out into the hallway and holding the door frame for balance. It’s all still dark, neither one of you thinking, or having the time, to turn on a light. All he sees is her shadow in the moonlight. “Go back to bed, Ellie.”

“She okay?” She asks sleepily, rubbing at her nose and sniffing. 

His nod isn’t as definitive as he wants it to be, but he doesn’t know how to voice what’s in his head. As okay as any of us, he thinks. “Go back to sleep.”

~*~

The cool washcloth on the back of your neck helps you center yourself and slow your breaths, even though your stomach is still cramping, still trying to empty itself even if there’s nothing in there. 

It wasn’t the nightmare you expected. Far from it, but enough to send chills down your spine all the same. 

You expected it to be the men who taught you to be afraid of people like Robbie, to be the memories that make you anxious about being alone in a room with men who see you as an object. 

This was so, so much worse. 

He’s next to you, hand on your back, still rubbing gentle, slow circles as you catch your breath. 

“You tell me when you’re ready,” he says gently, softly in the dark bathroom, “and we’ll get you back into bed, alright?”

He doesn’t ask the questions you expect him to ask, doesn’t pry and prod for answers. You almost wish he would, because then maybe you could tell him, maybe you could force it from your lips to make him understand why. But he just sits there with you, a deep sadness in his eyes that he knows this feeling. He might not know your why, but he has a why of his own that’s left him on his knees, shaking with the effort to stand against it. 

You’re not sure what force in the universe brought the two of you together, but at this moment, you’re thankful for it. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (9/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 9: A Proper Marriage

Summary: Your peace is disturbed in the most violent and unexpected of ways. It’ll either force you and Joel closer, or tear you apart.

A/N: Buckle your seat belts. This chapter is where we take a left turn. Jackson ain’t pretty.

I hope you all enjoy.

Trigger Warning: Mild to moderate violence, home invasion

~*~

The loud crash pulls you from sleep, gasping for air. At first you think you’ve made it up, the house is still quiet around you as your heart pumps hard in your chest. You finally convince yourself to lie back down, that it was just your own nightmare, when there’s another loud bang, loud enough to propel you from your bed and into the hall. 

Ellie’s own panicked expression meets you in the dark of the hall. “What the fuck was that?” She asks, pulling her sweatshirt over her arms, breathless and panicked. 

You shake your head, shrugging. Your heart pounds in your chest as you both look at Joel’s closed door. “Nothing,” you whisper, staring at the closed wooden door. “I don’t hear anything else, I… it must…” You both stand there for a few breaths, waiting to hear another crash, waiting to be able to pinpoint the sound. Another crash doesn’t come, though, after long seconds, and Joel’s room is quiet. He must have heard it, and if he wasn’t up… well, it must not be something to worry about. 

Right?

You take a deep breath, half convinced you’ve both hallucinated it when you hear another crash against the gate around the house, followed by the hushed sound of voices floating in through the open windows. 

“That’s not fucking nothing,” Ellie mutters, moving towards Joel’s door. “Asshole probably rolled onto his good ear.”

“His good-”

Your question dies on your lips as Ellie crashes through Joel’s door, his body unmoving in the moonlight until she pounces on the bed and rolls him over. “Fucking wake up Joel, someone’s outside!”

He flails, startled out of deep sleep, muttering and mumbling as she pulls him to sitting. His eyes dart between Ellie next to him on the bed and where you stand in the doorway. 

He opens his mouth to speak when the crash of the sound of something heavy on the siding outside the window stops you all dead. After just a heartbeat he’s stumbling from the bed, pushing you both behind him and toward the door. 

You and Ellie both scream as a dark figure catapults itself through the window, Joel standing between you and who you recognize as a man you’ve seen often. 

Tyler. A friend of Robbie’s. 

Joel’s on him in a second, a primal growl coming from his throat as he rushes the man, knocking them both the ground at the foot of the bed. In the dark you can’t see enough, it’s arms and legs and grunts and curses flying through the air as they tumble across the floor. You push Ellie behind you, edging closer to the bathroom and away from the fight as Joel finally gets the upper hand, lifting the man by his collar and then pounding his head down into the carpet before punching him over and over again. 

You rush towards him, calling his name as you reach a cautious hand out to where he is landing unrelenting punches on the man’s face. He pauses to take a breath and you take advantage, reaching around his arm and clasping his bicep. He looks up at you, frozen, eyes full of anger and rage as you stop him from bringing his bloodied hand down on the man’s broken nose again. 

“Joel, just-” You stutter, pulling him back off the man, a shaking breath slipping through your lips. “Please stop.” It comes out as a broken whisper.

He seems to grasp reality in that second, noticing you and Ellie are still there, that Tyler isn’t moving. “What the fuck?” he mutters to himself, heavy breaths heaving his shoulders. He shakes his head as he guides you back gently, moving you away from the crumpled form of Tyler as he stands, eyes still on the half-conscious man. “Climbed up the fucking drain pipe.”

“It was the only way we could see for ourselves.” Your eyes all snap to the door as you hear Robbie’s voice. He’s standing in Joel’s bedroom door, outlined in only moonlight, shaking his head. “Heard someone was faking being married. Can’t do that around here.”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Joel steps forward, but you hold him back, arm wound tight around his. He’s like a guard dog, hackles up and fucking angry, ready to strike. 

Robbie ignores his order, stepping closer and tipping his head towards your room. “What’s with the empty bed?”

Joel shakes your grip off, pushing you farther behind him as he squares of with Robbie. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

“She not sleeping in your bed, Miller?” Robbie cocks an eyebrow, raking his gaze over the trio of you, huddled together. 

“Where she sleeps isn’t any of your fucking business.” He takes another half step forward, his words harsh and yelled, his eyes darting to the man still on the floor. 

Robbie reaches down and pulls his friend to his feet, shoving him behind him. “It is if she was supposed to be mine.”

Joel is shaking with adrenaline in front of you. “Get the fuck out.”

“You’re gonna be mine.” He leans to look at you around Joel, making you shiver when he finally meets your eyes. “If I have to knock you out and drag you away with me, you’re gonna be mine.”

He lunges for you, and there’s Joel, a wall between the two of you, stopping his advance, keeping you safe, his arm wrapped around Robbie’s neck. 

“Get the fuck out.” His voice is low and venomous and scary and you thank all the forces of the universe that you’re behind him, that you’re being protected by him because you’ve been on the other side of that tone before on other men and you know what those consequences are like. 

Robbie doesn't know or doesn’t care. 

Right now, you wish he’d find out. 

But he seems to listen to Joel when he lets him go after squeezing for just a second more, grabbing his friend and dragging him out of the house, Joel following closely behind. 

You don’t want to be near Robbie, but the idea of letting Joel out of your sight right now, of being alone next to that window is more than overwhelming and you follow him out and down the stairs. 

Joel locks the front door, his shoulders heaving as he stands there, watching them leave through the window. 

You stand at the foot of the stairs, frozen. 

It was impressive how he handled it, just like you knew he could be. Strong and decisive and like a goddamn action hero he stepped between you and danger and fucking won. 

You can still hear the sound of every punch he landed, smell the stench of alcohol wafting off Robbie as he marched him out of the house. 

Ellie’s running around upstairs, locking all the windows as Joel checks every lock down here, window and door. 

They’re being useful. Smart. Intuitive. 

Things need to be done. 

You know this.

But you can’t. Fucking. Move. 

And you want to. God, you want to. You want to stay stuck to his side, assured that you’ll be safe because he’s there with you. But all you can do is stand here and try to breathe and that’s hard enough. 

You hear Ellie’s voice, calling from above you, and Joel’s response is quick and clipped and still full of rage. 

But you can’t make out the words. You don’t know what they’re saying. 

Breathing is hard. Staying upright is hard. You grasp the railing next to you. 

“Hey, hey!” Joel’s in front of you now, bending to catch your gaze, concern overtaking his anger when you don’t respond right away, when it takes you a second and you have to blink to clear your blurry vision. 

“Breathe for me, okay?” He holds out a hand, strong and stable when you grip onto his forearm. You just nod, eyes starting to lose focus again. He coaxes you to sit on the stairs with gentle, guiding pressure on your arm, pulling your hand from the banister as you sink down and he kneels in front of you.  

His eyes flicker at your hands, fingers white as you grip him hard. 

“You’re safe, okay?” He takes both of your hands in his, holding tight and waiting until your eyes start to focus on him again. You have to blink to keep him in focus. 

It’s like everything is underwater. Fuzzy. 

But slowly he’s becoming clearer. 

His voice is soft and warm but serious and solemn as he holds your hands tight. “Remember what I told you, okay? No one’s touching you. That hasn’t changed.” 

You don’t know when Ellie moved, but suddenly she’s next to Joel, a glass of water in her hands that she’s holding out to you, trying to coax you to drink.

“Little sips,” Joel encourages when you take the glass in your hand. 

You see the look he and Ellie share at your shaking hand, at how it makes the water quiver in the glass, but you don’t care as you take slow, measured sips. 

It’s starting to get easier to breathe. 

The world is slowly coming into focus again. 

“Better?” He asks, taking the glass away and setting it on the floor after your hand starts to steady. 

“A little,” you finally manage to whisper out, your voice cracking. 

Ellie sits next to you, wrapping her arm around yours. The contact startles you, but instead of pulling away, you lean into her. Her voice is strong, if not quiet, when she finally speaks. “What the fuck just happened, Joel?”

He shakes his head, standing slowly and looking around the now bright house, every corner illuminated as he checked it over for safety. “Dunno.” He sighs deep, rubbing his hands over his face and through his hair, “I don’t fucking know.”

~*~

Joel offers to go on his own when dawn finally rolls around, but your panicked look has him holding out his hand to you before you can even get words of protest out. 

You follow him across the street to Tommy’s where he pulls his brother out of bed with raucous knocking before recounting the whole experience. 

You stay glued to his side, holding his hand, the whole time. 

His brother looks horrified, but says nothing. 

It’s Maria, half awake and somehow sympathetic to what has happened, who says it can’t stand and it needs to go before the council. It’s Maria who starts listing off the things that need to be done based on the rules of the town charter.

It all happens fast and slow, like a videotape fast forwarded and then slowed down at the same time, messing with your head. 

His hand in yours is the only thing keeping you upright, the only thing keeping you from curling into a ball and trying to hide from everything. 

~*~

By mid-morning you're still shaking as you stand next to Joel in the council chambers. You can feel him vibrating next to you, tight with anger, as the men and women behind the long table stare at you both while he recounts what happened only a few hours ago. 

The head of the council, a man named Black, stares at you over his thick-rimmed glasses. “So, this is a marriage of convenience, then?”

“No,” he bites out, surprised that that’s the thing he focuses on after detailing the home invasion. “Not that it’s anyone’s business.”

“Good,” Black mutters, pulling his glasses off and looking down his nose at you. “Because if it was, we’d have to annul it.”

You can’t help it, you grab his arm, leaning into Joel even as the surprise takes the wind out of him. “Annul?”

The woman on the end, whose name escapes you but you remember seeing trying to flirt with Joel when you first came to town, flips through the pages of the large binder in front of her. “Town Charter section 17. Due to the nature of life in Jackson, and supplies being what they are, new residents are only granted permanent residence upon proper marriage or if they display a skill that is needed.”

“We are a proper marriage,” you retort, proud that your voice is steadier than you feel. “We followed all the rules.”

“Consummated,” Black supplies, raising one eyebrow. “Marriage would be a simple way of just keeping people around if no one needed to actually be married.”

“You can’t be serious,” Joel shifts into his hip, his hand starting to go clammy against yours, even if his voice is still strong and booming. “What are you gonna do? You gonna have someone check?”

Black clears his throat. “It’s well within every citizen’s right to bring a concern that our laws aren’t being followed to the council.”

“But this is-”

“And we will investigate as necessary.” Black plowes over Joel’s objection, challenging him. “Now, someone’s overheard your ward state that the lady here is her, and I quote, ‘fake mom.’ It was brought to us yesterday as a complaint. That is cause for concern.”

You feel like you might pass out. The room is damn near spinning and your stomach is absolutely rolling as Joel curses under his breath. You both can argue until your faces turn blue, but the truth is that you married as a pretense, and that means you’re still in just as much trouble now as you were before. Maria and Tommy both know it, and they’re standing on the side, watching as you’re questioned and exposed with neutral faces. 

You hope Tommy won’t betray his brother, but you have no hope that Maria won’t. The only saving grace is that because Maria is related to Joel, she’s unable to take part officially, and is only allowed to observe. 

“Fucking Ellie,” Joel mutters again, pulling you against his side. You’re grateful for the stability, even if the tension in his body keeps his embrace from being calming. “She was joking with her friends,” Joel retorts, louder and more confident than you could ever be. “She’s called me her ‘fake dad’ before, lotsa times. We’re not related. Calling her her ‘fake mom’-”

Black slides his glasses over his nose, interrupting Joel again. “Is just a turn of phrase.” He only looks like he half believes him, even if you’re sure that’s all Ellie meant by it. She’s been as excited, if not more so, than Joel to have you around. You can’t imagine she would have knowingly put your staying in jeopardy. “Be that as it may, we will have to keep an eye.”

He is nearly vibrating with anger next to you, his shoulders as tight and tense as they were when he was facing off against Robbie. He can’t contain the anger when he replies, “And just what the fuck does that mean?” 

Joel’s outburst is met with the pounding of Black’s fist on the desk. “Watch your language in here.”

“You’re treating us like criminals!” Joel starts to yell, stepping forward and letting go of you. “What about the guys who were climbing up the side of my house this morning? What about their breaking into my house while we were sleeping? Their threats to assault and kidnap my wife?”

His words are met with quiet, indifferent eyes. With more clarity than you knew you wanted, you can see where the council’s loyalty lies. 

They were the ones who wanted you out in the first place, it seems they might still be looking to make that happen. 

“So, my wife could be endangering everyone if we’re not having sex every night and she’s not sleeping in my bed, but the guys running around trying to break into our house aren’t a concern at all?” Joel scoffs. “What a damn double standard.”

“Why wouldn't your wife be sleeping in your bed?” The woman asks haughtily, looking you up and down with an icy gaze that makes you want to hide.

Joel’s head snaps to her so fast you hear the pop of the joints. He reaches back and threads his hand in yours. “Where she sleeps is her business, and nobody else’s.” His voice is low and dangerous and it gives you chills. 

“It is, actually, ours.” Black is cold and even, uncaring in his words. “If we hear any further concerns you’ve broken the law, we’ll have to investigate.”

His words melt into a roar in your ears, warnings about being too distant and not following the rules. Joel snaps at them again when Black suggests he talk to Ellie about her language, and you only remember winding your hand tighter in his, pressing yourself to his side as the woman on the end, with the piercing eyes, keeps her judging gaze on you. 

You finally are let out of the room, towed behind Joel by his sure grasp when the council dismisses you, the actual events a blur as he pulls you down the street, numb, into Tommy’s house. 

At first, you don’t even realize they’re arguing. You just notice that Maria’s not there, and you wonder if she’s stepped away or if she ever even followed you back to their house. 

You hold tight to Joel as your mind wanders, snippets of the proceedings replaying in your mind. You stand still in the middle of the living room when he eventually untangles himself, moving in big long strides as she tries to shake the nervous energy that’s built up in him. You can’t seem to wrap your mind around it, maybe because it’s not logical, maybe because you’re not remembering everything that was said, but every time you try to go over it, you’re left with a growing fear in your belly.

Breaking and entering wasn’t seen as a crime, as a problem, but you sleeping in another room was enough to make the entire council be concerned. 

Women in Jackson, it seemed, really were for only one thing. 

Joel’s voice roars through your ears, your attention finally snapping to him as he paces the length of the living room. “Anyone tries to come in my fucking house, Tommy, I’m gonna fucking kill ‘em!”

“We’re not in Texas, Joel!” Tommy roars back. 

“And what, what?” He paces away then back towards him. “I’m just supposed to let them fucking walk into my bedroom to see a show?” He huffs. “Maybe I should just fuck her right here, right now, huh?”

You wince back, teeth clenching together. 

“No?” Joel keeps going, eyes almost wild. “Not good enough? Might as well just take her in the center of town then, right? Make sure everyone gets to see.”

“Be a little more disgusting, Joel,” Tommy clips out. “No one’s asking for that.”

“No?” He starts to deflate once he turns and sees the look on your face. “Well, it sure as fuck sounds like it.”

“They can’t just be allowed to walk in whenever they want. They can’t.” Your voice is quiet, but it might as well be a shout at how it stills the brothers. 

Joel moves to you, the rage taking a back seat to the protectiveness you’ve seen up close and personal so often now. “They’re not. They’re not, okay?” He turns back to Tommy, and it doesn’t escape you that’s he’s standing fully between the two of you now, literally shielding you with his body just like he was in the early hours of the morning. “Nobody’s fucking coming in our house, Tommy.”

Tommy sighs, long and slow, shaking his head. “I don’t want people in your house, either, Joel. All I know-” He takes another deep breath before marching up to his brother’s side so he can look at both of you. “All I know is they think they have grounds. Because you and I know they do. If they think they can prove it, they’ll go to the council and petition to have your marriage annulled.” He pauses, and the words fall quietly from his lips. “And then you’re out.” He looks Joel in the eye, hard. “Might even toss you out with her.”

You grab Joel’s arm more out of reflex than anything, hands wrapping around his left bicep and holding him close. 

His right hand settles over yours, his eyes never leaving Tommy. “She’s not going anywhere. You hear me?” He turns, pulling you along with him towards the door, looking down at you. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Just, fucking…” Tommy nearly growls in frustration, stopping the two of you in your tracks. “Put all your shit in one place, ok? Sleep in the same damn bed. Hold hands outside and let people see you. Just… just don’t give them anything. It’s your word against theirs as long as they don’t have any actual proof, okay?”

Joel doesn't nod, he doesn’t say anything, he just starts moving again, leading you out of his brother’s house and across the street back to his house. 

Your house. 

You look at the concrete as you walk, still feeling small and broken and off balance as he leads you past people quickly, all the while keeping you close, keeping your hand in his and your other hand tucked tight under his arm and against his body. There will be gossip this morning. Nothing is secret or sacred in Jackson. 

Everyone will know in a matter of hours what happened. It’ll be from Robbie’s perspective, you’re sure: his intended stolen from him and not even in a real marriage, and when they went to confront you, Joel beat up Tyler. You already have no friends, no credibility in town. This was going to drag Joel and Ellie down with you, this was going to pull them into your mess. It had been the only thing you warned him about, the only thing you’d been concerned about. Now, it was going to tear everything apart.

And yet…

He has you. 

If nothing else, he has you. He will protect you. His hand tight in yours as you walk across the street is something because he hasn’t left your side since this all happened. For better or worse, it seems, he’s keeping his promise.

You slowly untangle yourself from him as you step through your front door, not because you don’t need the security of him anymore, but because you can feel the anger wafting off of him and you don’t know what he needs. 

“He’s right,” Joel huffs out, shaking his head and turning to lean against the closed front door. “He’s right.” 

You want to run your hands over his heaving shoulders, you want to calm him like he calmed you, but you don’t know if it’s welcome, or if it would help. 

You think you know him. 

The yelling in Tommy’s house reminds you that you don’t. 

He wouldn’t hurt you, you know he wouldn’t hurt you. 

You think. 

But you haven’t seen that level of rage from him before. You haven’t seen him that mad before. It was violent enough, between last night and today, to give you pause. Not enough to scare you, not enough for you to be afraid of him, but enough to remind you that you don’t really know him as much as you like to think you do.

“Come on.” It’s a request and a demand all in one. You follow him as he stalks up the stairs, body humming with energy. You stop at the doorway to his room, watching as he moves in and goes right to his dresser. 

He starts opening drawers, pulling things out and sliding them nearly mindlessly into other drawers until the three on the left are all empty. “You think,” he pauses, taking a deep breath, the anger making him sound gruff as he looks at the changes he just made, “you think three will be enough for now?”

He turns when you don’t answer, anger deflating when he sees you hovering at his doorway. 

This morning was the first time you’d been in his room. You weren’t invited: you followed Ellie as she barged in. You’ve never seen the big bed or the rumpled sheets or the soft, dark walls before. You want to take in every inch, and you want to never look. It feels too intimate. Too much. 

“Shit, I shoulda-” He takes a low breath and moves back towards you, “I shoulda actually asked first.” He stops just in front of you. “Is this… is this okay? Moving you in here?”

He sees the panic start to rise up in you, your jaw working but no sound coming out, your head bouncing between trying to shake yes and no, hands fisting at your sides. Finally, you shake your head, stuttering out, “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” He runs a hand over his face, turning in place, trying to come up with something else. “We’ll…”

“It- it has to be,” you surprise him, heavy breaths still coming hard. “It has to be.”

He turns back to you, hands hovering around your shoulders gently. “Nothing you don’t want to do, ok? Just… just roommates.” He smiles, waiting until you’re looking at him. “Just call me Jack Tripper, okay?”

He’s looking at you so earnestly, with such a tentative smile, that you can’t help but laugh at his stupid joke. It starts as a chuckle, and before you know it, you’re covering your face, laughter bubbling out of you, releasing all of the emotions you’ve felt today. “I guess…” You have to gasp for breath between laughs, “I guess that makes me Chrissy.”

He shakes his head, his own laugh lighter when he sees you’re at least somewhat alright. “Oh no, you’re way smarter than Ellie. You’re Janet.” 

You manage to pull yourself together, just a bit, only a small chuckle escaping you now as you scrub your hands over your face. “I’ve always liked Janet.” 

His smile is soft, something that makes you feel warm inside. “Me too.” He waits for a second, until your breathing starts to come back to normal, until the tears that you didn’t cry, from laughter or fear neither of you know, dry in your eyes. “So, you’re alright with this?”

You lick your lips, looking over at the king size bed, sheets rumpled from being woken in a panic. “Are you?” 

“I am,” he answers gently, without hesitation. 

You nod, rolling your shoulders back. “Then I’ll get my things.” You pause in the door, turning your head over your shoulder, but he’s already moved away, straightening up the things on the top of the dresser, moving his few items over to be over the three drawers on his side. 

His side. 

He’s cleaning out more space for you. Carving more space into his existence for you. 

It’s too much. It’s overwhelming how willing he is to let you in, how willing he is to help you, to help you through these panics, to help you find your own space. 

You want to give him time, give him his own space, but you still feel a rise of panic if you even think about being away from him for too long. 

You need to get your things, though, and you can give him a few minutes while you do that. 

it’ll give you a few minutes, too. You don’t want him to see you cry, you don’t want him to think you’re afraid of him. 

But it hits you, just as you start to pile your meager pile of clothing on your dresser, you are still scared of more than just men appearing in this house again tonight. 

You’re afraid of what will happen when you fall asleep in the same bed, too.

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for Our Sins (8/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Spoilers: TLOU season 1. Disclaimer: They're not mine. Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3 Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 8: Everything and Nothing

Summary: Your first day as a married couple.

A/N: I’m still not over Sunday’s episode. I am an emotion wreck. I know there’s significant turmoil about that last scene, but let me tell you, as someone who has never played the game, as someone who is here purely for the story- it hit. HARD. And I loved it. I had not planned for this chapter to happen after that, it’s purely coincidence.

Also, very important to me: Joel giving forehead kisses is canon. So… yeah.

Thank you again to everyone who is reading and letting me know you’re enjoying it. According to the current file, we’re about 69 pages into a 402-page document that’s still growing, 159.5k words and still counting. There’s about 4 months that pass between the prologue and chapter 1, and then the body of the story is just over a year, and the epilogue is three years after that, so we’ve got quite a lot to get through together.

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter.

~*~

He walks you back to the house when the sun starts to get hot, your hand still in the crook of his arm. The closer you get, the more the anxiety starts to build: there’s nothing for you to do. 

Without your jobs to go to, there’s nothing to do but sit in the house. With him. 

If this had been a normal marriage this wouldn’t be quite so daunting. You’d be with a man you love, that you know. There would be expectations about wedding nights and kisses and the start of forever. 

The truth is, you barely know Joel. Not really. You can tick the things you actually know about him off on one hand, the rest you’re guessing, you’re building based on the few moments here and there that you’ve stolen with him. 

The house is quiet when he escorts you in, and you see the panic start to rise in him, too. He moves away, shoving his hands in his pockets and shuffling his feet as he looks toward the door. “I thought I’d have a patrol to get to…”

“Thought I’d be headed to the barn,” you reply gently, leaning back against the wall across from him. “It’s a nice surprise.”

The smile he flashes you is more placating than anything, and he goes right back to looking at his boots. “Yeah, yeah it is.” He coughs and crosses his arms, finally looking up. “Ellie will be back with breakfast soon, I’m sure.”

You nod, not knowing what to say to that, not knowing what to say at all right now. There’s only a little piece of you that’s bolstered by the fact that he looks as flustered as you feel, that he seems to be as off balance as you are now that you’re actually married. You pick at the skirt of your dress, slipping your shoes off on the mat by the door. “I’ll just be up in my room then.”

You feel his eyes on you as you walk past him, you can feel the steps he takes to follow you as you move towards the stairs, but you keep moving away from him because it’s the only thing you can think to do. 

“It’s all yours, you know,” he says, just a little louder than his normal, soft voice. It stops you at the bottom of the stairs, your hand on the banister. You have to take a breath before you turn to him, have to prepare yourself for what he’s trying to say. 

“What is?” It slips from your lips like a whisper as you watch him, and you hope he can’t see the trembling in your hands. 

“Everything.” He shrugs, hands falling at his side. “You don’t just… You don’t have to stay in your room, ok?” His eyes flick up over the stairs before they land back on you. “Everything here…” His arm sweeps out ineffectually, dropping back to his side. “Yours.”

He doesn’t know what he’s offering you, and he doesn’t know that it feels like far too much. You’re more than content treating this like a bed and breakfast, more than content to spend your time in your little room and be thankful for another day in Jackson. “Joel…”

His voice is heavy and thick. “I just… I just want-” He clears his throat and scrubs his hands over his face and through his hair. It’s the most awkward moment the two of you have ever shared, but when he looks you in the eyes again, it feels so, so important. “I want this to feel like home for you. I want you to be comfortable.” 

Tears prick at the back of your eyes. He offered you a second chance, and now he’s offering you a home. Not a house, not a bedroom, but a home. You can’t help it; the tears start to fall down your cheeks. 

You’ve never let him see you cry. 

You’ve never let anyone here see you cry except when the doctor set your wrist without any pain medication. 

It’s so simple, but it feels massive. It reminds you of the Beast giving Belle the library in that cartoon you loved as a kid. A grand gesture, as grand as he can make, when there are no gifts to shower that money can buy. 

“I- I…” He steps forward, stuttering in concern as you wipe the tears away. “What did I-”

Ellie’s voice stalls his panic, the front door slamming open. “Guys?”

You swipe your fingers at your face, clearing away the tears. “I appreciate that more than you know, Joel.” You keep the words quiet, smiling as much as you can at him. “Thank you.”

He’s baffled as you move past him, talking brightly with Ellie in the kitchen only a few seconds later.  

~*~

Their home, you discover, is quiet. Joel prefers to spend his time in his wood shop, and retires there after breakfast, promising he’ll have your bedside table done in no time. Ellie spends most of her time on the couch, alternating between reading and listening to a Walkman that’s seen better days. 

You spend the morning settling, looking through cabinets and running your fingers over the spines of the books in their collection. You admire all the CDs and records and cassettes on the shelves, but keep your hands to yourself: they’re relics that are irreplaceable now. You figure out where they keep the laundry and hang their coats and decide that coming in the back door will be the best way to keep your muddy stall boots from making a mess on their nice little front porch. 

You try to find the little spaces you can insinuate yourself in, but there don’t seem to be many. Their home is clean and orderly and warm.

The silence between Joel and Ellie, however, is not. 

There’s an icy bite to it that you’re seeing today for the first time. There’s distance and coldness and anger that you recognize and it keeps you just a little off kilter. You knew there was something between them, but this is more than you realized. 

This is deep and dark and won’t budge easily. 

For now, you decide to steer as clear of it as you can. Even if you see the longing in her eyes for him to stay for a little bit longer of a conversation, for him to ask one more question. Even if you see his awkwardness when she keeps her sentences short and clipped, you see his desire for her to open up. You can get to know them separately, and what’s between them is their business. 

For now, at least. 

~*~

The bed is too soft. 

You toss and turn and roll over, unable to fall asleep. 

Your mind buzzes, the day still spinning freshly in it. There is a part of you that is sad he hadn’t kissed you. It is the part that had grown up with happily ever after and true love’s kiss and the expectation that one day you’d wear a white dress and walk down an aisle. That part of you that read romance novels and grew up on fairytales wanted to rail and throw a tantrum that you hadn’t been kissed on your wedding day, that you were laying here, alone, waiting for sleep to claim you. 

You remind yourself, over and over, there could be worse things, that he’d done more than enough. You could be out in the elements right now, hoping to stumble across shelter and something to carry water in. Instead, you’re safe and snuggled up tight, no worries for how you’re going to find food or shelter for the foreseeable future. 

It doesn’t mean you aren’t mourning the loss of that ritual. 

But the bed is too soft. 

The open window flutters a pleasant breeze in the room and the bed is too soft. 

You roll to your other side, squeezing your eyes closed and trying to count backwards from one hundred. 

The mattress from the hotel was old, spongy and springy in places that poked you. It was just slightly more comfortable than the ground, just slightly more comfortable than cots. It made it easy to fall asleep in little spurts, tiny chunks of time that kept you from dreaming. 

You hope you don’t dream tonight. 

If you do, you hope it is full of gardens of lilies, of bright brown eyes and blue button-down shirts, of soft dresses and silly elopements. If you dream at all tonight, you hope it will be of him. 

Not of them. 

But the bed is too soft, and the quilt on it is just right, and the pillow doesn’t have any lumps, so you know when you drift off you won’t have anything that will wake you, nothing that will pull you to consciousness when the nightmares pull you down with them. 

But you close your eyes anyway. 

Just breathe, you tell yourself. 

He’s right across the hall. You’re not going anywhere. You’re safe. 

Just breathe. 

You wake every few hours anyway because it’s too soft, gasping for air, your heart pounding. It’s a calmer waking than you expect, though, and after a few deep breaths you remember where you are and you roll, switch positions, and fall asleep again quickly. 

You don’t dream, though, and that’s enough for tonight. 

~*~

There’s a crate on the front porch the next morning, filled with food enough to last near the week. You help Joel sort it out on the kitchen counter, eyes looking over the bounty that’s been deemed yours. 

So many things about Jackson surprise you, and this seeming generosity after they were ready to toss you out the gates is just another one. It may be hypocrisy, it may be a facade to cover their true feelings, but you’re not turning it down. 

Not when he thought of going back to the dining hall, of being confronted with the judging stares from those around you for what you’ve done, makes your hand shake. 

Joel holds up a container of salad, shaking it. “There’s enough in for the week for the two of us, less if Ellie starts picking.”

You smile up at him, turning a container of cold, roasted chicken in your hands. “I don’t mind going to the dining hall sometimes,” which is true, you think, but only if he’s right beside you, holding your hand tight, “but this will be a nice change.”

He agrees, taking two handfuls of perishables and carefully settling them in the humming refrigerator, but leaving the eggs out on the counter. “Well, don’t get your hopes up,” he pulls a pan out and spins it in his hand, “I’m not known for my cooking skills, but I think I can manage some eggs.”

You chuckle, settling the rest of the food on empty shelves above the counter. “I’m sure you’re better than me.”

~*~

The porch door swings open with a squeak, only making you jump a little from where you're sitting on the stairs to the small backyard. Joel stands there, leaning against the doorframe. “Mind some company?”

You shake your head, turning back to lean on the edge of the porch. “Isn’t it amazing?” You ask quietly, looking up at the blue sky. The day is warm and calm and you couldn’t sit in the house a minute longer. Summer is settling in now, and it makes you want to be outside. 

“What?” He nearly whispers, settling onto the porch step next to you, wiping sawdust off his jeans. 

“It’s so fucking blue.” 

He leans his head back, looking up, lips quirking into the start of a smile. “Yeah, it is.”

“You know, sometimes I still think I can hear airplanes.” You laugh, short and bright, looking over at him quickly then back up to the sky. “How sick is that? After 20 years, I still imagine that I’ll look up and there will be one flying overhead.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and it’s a quiet you don’t mind. Sitting next to him in the backyard you’re trying to reconceptualize as yours instead of theirs, looking at the sky, it’s nice to have another person sitting next to you, nice to have him next to you. 

“My phone ringing,” he whispers, hanging his head. “Sometimes I think I hear my phone ringing, and every once in a while-”

“You pat your pockets for it?” You finish, smiling over at him. 

He looks at you from under the flop of his unruly hair, head still low. It’s like he’s analyzing you, looking at you differently, trying to figure you out. 

He probably thinks you’re crazy, you can’t imagine he doesn’t. Not talking like this. Most people don’t want to talk about before. 

You always seem to want to. To need to. You never managed to process all of it, all the loss and change. 

“I ain’t never said that to anyone before,” he mutters, almost smiling, “never mind someone that understood.”

“It’s easy to talk about the things you miss,” you whisper, holding his eyes. “Everyone misses the same things. But the things you still feel like are with you?” You shake your head. “The ghosts of the things you think are right next to you and then you turn your head and they’re gone?” You sigh, finally turning away, unable to pretend you’re just talking about cell phones if you look into his eyes anymore. “Those hurt.”

He hums in agreement next to you, and you can still feel his gaze on you. 

You need to change the topic, desperately. Something about those eyes make you feel like you want to bare your soul to him, like you could without too much judgment, like you could tell him you were scared every day and that he’d somehow find a way to make that better. 

That scares you just as much as anything else. 

“It’s pretty ironic,” you start, forcing a lightness to your voice, “that the one good thing that came out of all this is that.”

“What?” He asks, confused at how you’re changing the topic. 

“The blue sky,” you reply, looking back up. “Global warming. Deforestation. Big Oil. Big Coal. Nuclear superpowers.” You shake your head. “In one fell swoop, cordyceps changed all that. Nature had had enough of us.” You sigh. “Nature’s been healing for 20 years, and we’re fighting for our lives out here… but I’ve never seen a bluer sky, or more stars, in my entire life.”

He makes a thoughtful noise, leaning back and looking up again. “Suppose I haven’t thought much about that, but you’re right.” He shares a few quiet minutes with you, letting the sounds of birds and bugs fill the silence before he sits up, a smile almost at the corner of his mouth. “I was gonna make some lunch. Thought I couldn’t mess up a sandwich too badly. Do you…”

His voice fades, boyish nervousness in his eyes that makes you feel like a teenager again. 

“Sure,” you stand, holding your hand out to help him up. “I could eat.”

~*~

Ellie takes her meals in the dining hall, keeping her normal schedule of school and home, meals with friends scattered in the empty spaces. She doesn’t want to be home, not while the two of you are still dancing around one another. 

It reminds her how awkward her own relationship is with Joel, how frustrated she is. She’s grown complacent in the coldness, the silence between them is standard now. Watching you try to understand it embarrasses her. She hates that she feels self-conscious about it, that she feels like she’s done something wrong now that someone else has broken the tension in the house they share. 

If he would just come out and say what he did, then maybe she can start to trust him again. 

Problem is, she still trusts him. She trusts him to keep her safe more than anyone in the world. She just doesn’t trust him to treat her like an adult. 

And feeling like he’s lied to her? It means he doesn’t trust her, and that hurts more than anything. 

Ellie sees the way you two look at one another, sees the little looks he gave you before you were married, and she sees the looks you both have when you think no one is watching now. It won’t be a marriage of convenience for long, she’s sure, but it leaves her on even rockier ground. 

What need for a friend, a pseudo-surrogate daughter, will Joel have if he has a wife? The thought kept Ellie up the first night you were there, thinking that she’d eventually be replaced in his life. But you seem determined to get to know her, to try to understand her. Your questions are always pointed and curious, not perfunctory like the questions of the other adults around her. 

Ellie’s pretty sure that you’re not trying to take her place, not on purpose at least. 

She wants you to like her, she wants to get to know you more. 

Ellie doesn't think she needs to hold her tongue with her friends, not when they’re chatting at the dinner table in the dining hall, so she doesn’t when they ask about you. 

“Yeah, Joel’s kinda like my fake dad, so I guess I have a fake mom now, too.”

~*~

The day was filled with nothing and everything. Short bursts of shared meals and light conversation cushioned with long hours of quiet as he worked in his shop and you tried to memorize where things live in the house. The house feels a little more familiar now, and as you lay in bed, trying to find a position that isn’t all that comfortable but comfortable enough as the moonlight filters in, you start to think that maybe…

Just maybe…

Maybe this could be a place you could be really, actually happy. 

[3pirouette]

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (7/?)

Tender Payment For Our Sins

By TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU Season 1

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first.

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Tender Payment For Our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for a full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 7: A Vow

Summary: The Wedding Day

A/N- This is another short one, but it really needed to be self-contained. I’m going to try to keep on my 2x/week posting until we get closer to the middle of the fic and I have more left I want to write and fill in. But also, as we get into the meat of things, the chapters will get longer. Enjoy the fluffy reprieve: rough water is ahead.

As always- thank you to all the amazing people who are reading this. I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it. I’ve found I LOVE talking about this story in the comments, so please feel free to go ham in the comments with thoughts, questions, etc.

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter.

~*~

Ellie knocks, hovering at your cracked open door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” you call quietly, standing in your nightgown, looking through your drawers. 

“Joel left already,” she starts, holding something behind her back. “He was going to get Tommy, said he’d meet us there.”

You just nod, turning back to the drawer, looking at the jeans sitting next to the leggings and the shorts and the sweatpants. You’re not sure why you’re still looking: it’s all the same things you’ve been staring at for the last twenty minutes, the same clothes you picked and put away yesterday without even thinking you’d might want something a little nicer to wear today.

“I’m glad you picked me,” she continues, stepping closer.

“Well, Joel’s kinda like your…” you stop, swallowing. You don’t really have any right to make the comparison you were going to make. You don’t really know them well enough, yet, to say he’s like her father, not with the icy coldness that you’ve started to see between them.

“Closest thing, I guess.” She shrugs the comment off. It’s not exactly tense, but you’re nervous and she’s anxious and the both of you still don’t know one another all that well. “I noticed you only took basic stuff,” she continues carefully, “from the closet.”

“There was a lot,” you mutter, eyes still on your drawer, trying to avoid another misstep in this budding relationship between the two of you. You need her to like you, jumping into this household like you are. You want her to like you.  “I’m sure I’ll need something else sooner or later.”

“Joel likes blue,” she blurts out, pulling a ball of fabric from behind her back. “You didn’t take any dresses, and I know a wedding is kinda a big deal.” She shrugs, looking down at the floor. “He wore his best shirt. Not that it’s much better than any of the others, but he was wearing his best one when he left.”

You turn, finally, and take in her half nervous smile, the way her feet dance below her. 

It makes you smile for real: big and wide. You’re both tiptoeing around the same thing.

She smiles back, shaking the fabric in her hand. “Anyway, he likes blue. And this was hiding in the closet. I remembered it was behind some of the coats from when we put the winter stuff away.” She pauses while you take it and shake it out, turning it in your hands until you can see it for what it is. “You should wear it.”

“Oh, Ellie…” It’s simple: just a long, royal blue sundress. There isn’t anything extravagant about it, and if it had been 20 years ago you probably would have looked past it on a store rack without a second thought. 

You haven’t thought about putting a dress on in years. 

“It’s not like those wedding dresses I’ve seen pictures of,” she starts, shoving her hands in her pockets, suddenly shy. “Some of the women in the QZ would talk about their weddings before- these big parties where everyone dressed up.” She looks down at her feet. “We don’t have a lot to dress up around here.”

“Not a lot of reasons to,” you supply gently. “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

She beams up at you, shrugging in the boastful way of youth. “Wasn’t nothing,” she brushes off. 

“You think there are shoes to match in that big bag?” You ask, a hint of mischief in your eyes, hoping she takes you up on it, hoping you can find some common ground with her about anything if you’re going to find a way to live with her. 

She stars backing up, smiling. “Only one way to find out!”

~*~

He honestly doesn't remember much of it. 

He remembers Maria’s frosty look when he stopped to get Tommy on his way to the council chambers. He remembers talking to the council representative, a pinched faced old man he’d never formally met before who explained the proceedings. 

He remembers being surprised when they told him you’d both get a week out of work duty rotation, the closest thing Jackson could provide to a honeymoon. 

But as soon as you walked through the door, he couldn’t remember anything. 

He was glad you were listening, signing and initialing where the council member said to, stepping back and letting Ellie and Tommy make their marks where they needed to, because he wasn’t. 

He was dumbstruck. 

It wasn’t that you were all that drastically different, but more that he hadn’t been expecting it. 

Now, standing outside of the council chambers, Ellie and Tommy talking quietly next to you, he isn’t quite sure what to say. But you notice him staring, and the blush that creeps up your neck and cheeks nearly short circuits him. 

“Ellie found it,” you mutter, pulling at the strap on your shoulder. “It was in the back of the closet.”

“You look… nice.” He nearly winces when it comes out of his mouth, but beautiful feels too intimate, even if it is what he wants to say. 

“You do, too.” You smile, small and hesitant, running a hand over your hair. His lips quirk, just a hint of a smile, as he tries to think of how else he can compliment you so he can see your smile again. 

“We can take Ellie,” Tommy interrupts, hand on the girl’s shoulder. It saves Joel from letting anything further tumble out of his mouth: about how calm you look, how you’re glowing, how the dress suits you better than the shirts and flannels and jeans you wear when you’re in the barn. 

Joel just shrugs instead, knowing Ellie being in the house won’t make a difference since there won’t be a traditional wedding night, but then shakes his head when he sees the slightly panicked look in Ellie’s eyes. “I think we’ll be good, thanks for the offer.”

Tommy looks the trio of you over, eyes narrowing, but doesn’t say anything. After a silent moment, he takes a deep breath, nodding, to break the silence. “So, you’re more than welcome to come to the dining hall, but I’ll drop by some stuff, too, so you can stay in if you want. Think of it as a perk.” He cuffs Joel on the arm, nodding and smiling at you. “Welcome to the family.”

It’s a normal sentiment, but it strikes you and Joel at the same moment, and he feels you stiffen beside him. 

It’s real. 

It’s done. 

The four of you know that those signatures are just for show, but this marriage holds as much weight as anything does now: you’re a Miller. Joel never imagined getting married after Outbreak Day, never saw the point when there weren’t taxes or houses or medical directives that needed a legal next of kin.

But this is something else: something he couldn’t have imagined. And for all the warmth he’s felt so far this morning, he can feel the anxiety creeping up, too.  

“Thank you,” you finally whisper out, breaking the awkward heaviness of the moment.

With a wave Tommy’s gone, back turned and headed down to the dining hall. 

~*~

Joel holds his elbow out to you, only a little hesitant. It’s a gesture no one’s made in a long time and it makes your heart flutter, helping the unspoken accusation in Tommy’s words lift from your shoulders. You take it, slipping your hand into the crook of his elbow, trying not to think about how warm it feels, how soft the fabric of his button down is, how solid he is underneath it…

He turns back to Ellie, his voice low. “Ellie, why don’t you get something to eat, then grab whatever you can for us?”

“Not coming?” She raises an eyebrow, but is unconcerned. 

He turns back to you, soft. “Thought it would be nice to take a walk.”

“A walk?” Ellie asks, jaw opening, incredulous. “Like, for fun?” Joel sets his gaze on her and she rolls her eyes, turning. “Fine. I’ll bring back something. You guys take a walk or whatever.”

She’s only a few steps away when he questions himself, turning back to you, serious. “We could… we could go to breakfast? I didn’t really ask ya.”

“No,” you settle your other hand on his elbow, holding on gently. “A walk sounds nice.”

You let him lead you away from the council chambers. You’d been anxious, walking downtown as everyone was waking up, as people came out in their work clothes and heavy boots while you were in a spring dress and a pair of not-too-worn and slightly-too-big flats you and Ellie had dug up. 

You can’t remember the last time you felt so soft, so pretty, so female when you looked at yourself in the mirror before you left the house. Not since before the outbreak, at least, even if the farmer’s tan lines bothered you and you wished you had just a little bit of makeup to hide the dark circles from under your eyes that were born of all the sleepless nights this week. But the looks of those around you had changed that, had made you feel more out of place than you’d felt in a long, long time. 

But then Ellie pushed open the door and he was there and the way he looked at you…

The way he looked at you…

You knew it was trouble. 

It was probably because he hadn’t seen a dress in ages, because you looked so different, that his jaw nearly dropped. The short yes and no answers he gave were perfunctory, but his gaze… 

It made you feel beautiful. 

The way he said, “You look nice,” with his eyes sparkling and his voice so low… well, you hadn’t gotten a compliment as sincere as that for as long as you could remember. His bright blue shirt that wasn’t worn thin like his others, and his hair slicked back and his beard trimmed, let you know he took time this morning, just like you did, and it makes this feel just a little more special, makes your dress feel a little less out of place. 

Now, walking along in the shade, the morning sun warm but not hot, you feel it even more. You let him lead you, quietly, because there are no words and you want to wallow in this moment of calmness and feeling pretty and feeing special.

What do you say to the man who just married you to keep you from being thrown to the wolves?

Thank you is far too inadequate. 

It’s when he turns you into the garden, when he steers you to the bench by the lilies that the tears prick at your eyes and the enormity of what you’ve both done starts to weigh on you again. 

You keep your eyes down, arranging your skirt over your legs as you sit. He doesn’t say anything when you leave your hand on his arm, so you don’t move it. Just like all those times before, it grounds you. He keeps everything from bubbling over, even if you can’t hold the words in. “You didn’t change your mind.”

“No.” It’s short and simple, but carries an enormous amount of meaning. He lets it sit in the air between you for a breath before continuing. “You didn’t, either.”

“No,” you parrot back, unable to find the words to try to explain as you find his eyes, unable to scream out to him that your choice and his choice were two vastly different things. Yet, here he is, next to you, remembering the bench where you told him lilies were your favorite flower and making an effort to make your wedding day special in a world where there are no parties, no dresses, no gifts.

Your fucking wedding day. 

“It’s not enough,” you whisper, fingers tightening around his bicep. “It’ll never be enough, but thank you.”

He turns his body towards yours and he smiles. It’s a different smile from the ones you’ve seen before: this one pulls up the corners of his eyes, shows his teeth. It feels boyish. 

It feels like this is what he might have smiled like before.

It sits on his features, softening as he looks back out over the flowers, his other hand coming to cover yours on his arm. “Nothing to thank me for,” he replies softly. 

“All the same…” The words slip from your lips. You won’t argue with him, and you decide won’t say it so often that his actions feel like pity, or that he starts to regret them. This will be the last time you say it, you tell yourself. 

From now on, you’ll show it. You’ll be useful. You’ll find nooks and holes to fill yourself in in their little home. You’ll show them both what it means that they saved you. 

You want to lay your head on his shoulder. Even in the before this would have been beautiful: a courthouse ceremony and a quiet walk to some time alone. Small. Simple. No big dresses, no big parties, no gifts or games or electric slide dance to roll your eyes at…

It is, somehow, just the kind of wedding you’d wanted one day. 

At the end of the world, facing certain death, you’d been saved by a man who gave you, against all odds, the closest he could to your dream wedding without even knowing it. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (6/?)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

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Chapter 6: I’m Getting Married in the Morning

Summary: The night before your wedding, you and Joel have what could almost be considered a date.

A/N: A shorter chapter, but a significant one. Like I said, I’m going to try to post 2 chapters a week when I can, more if I feel like it- but I'm going to strive to always have at least ONE a week. We’re up to a total of 157k and rising as I continue to fill in the middle of this fic. Slow burn is RIGHT. Officially the longest thing I’ve ever written.

Once again, thank you to the amazing people who are reading. A lot of comments recently have mentioned Ellie- she is absolutely so much fun to write and is a very important part to this story. I hope I do her character justice- there is really a tragic depth to her that I hope to capture.

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter. Just super soft and lovely Joel.

~*~

Joel feels guilty for relying on Ellie to take the lead with you, but it makes it just a little easier on him. He’s not sure how this works. He’s not sure how to just start cohabitating with someone like this. Dating, sex… those were things he could understand. This is… 

This is something he isn’t ready for, even if he needs to be. 

So, he retreats to his wood shop and lets Ellie lead you to the living room after dinner, talking about the books on the shelves and how she usually just reads comics or sometimes sketches until it gets dark and she heads to her room. 

He lets your voices wash over him as he runs the sandpaper over the wood, your volume too soft to tell what questions you’re asking but loud enough that he can tell who is speaking. It soothes him enough that he doesn’t put on a record, that he doesn’t close the door all the way. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like you in his space. 

It’s that he’s starting to think he’ll like it too much. 

~*~

Dusk has settled when he knocks on your door. It isn’t shut all the way and you can see his silhouette in the dim light of the hall. “Come in.”

He slips in, staying by the door, looking over and gesturing to the pile on your bed. “I’m glad you found some things.”

You chuckle and hold up the Old Navy tank top. “It’s quite the bucket of memories.” You’ve been folding and sorting them, the majority of the clothes back in the tub in the closet. It’s a small pile, but it’s enough to get you through the summer and keep you from having to do wash every day. 

He nods but doesn’t laugh like you hope he will, he’s nearly stoic. “Look, when you’re done…” He clears his throat, anxious, “You wanna… join me on the back porch?”

His words have the distinct feeling of asking you on a date, of a stuttering teenager who doesn’t know what to say or do. You nod, suddenly nervous. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

~*~

He throws back the rest of the whisky in his glass when he hears you open the door, standing and running a hand through his hair.

He feels like a kid on a first date, all anxiety and nerves. Maybe it’s because you’ve always just happened to spend time together before, not because it’s been intentional. 

This is intentional. 

You smile, jeans traded for soft leggings you’d pulled from the closet, threadbare flannel exchanged for an oversized t-shirt, and sit in the wooden porch chair next to his. 

You look comfortable. 

You look happier in your own skin. 

He pours you a glass and hands it over without words, not really sure how he wants to open the conversation. You wait until he fills his own again, and then quickly raise your glass to his before taking a drink. 

Your eyes widen as you lick your lips. “This is real?”

“Oh yeah,” he mutters with a smile, passing the familiar shaped bottle over that lost its label years ago. “Not the rot-gut that Earnie makes.”

You hold the bottle for a moment, a small smile on your face before passing it back. “How?”

“Finders keepers,” he mutters quietly, taking the bottle and setting it on the small table between your chairs. “When we’re looking for stuff, anything that can be used by everyone gets shared. We got a short list of things we look for for specific people to keep this place running. Tools, medications, that sort of thing. But there’s an understanding that we get to keep things that might be seen as frivolous.”

“Almost like payment for what you do,” you muse, sipping at the whisky. 

“Sorta.” Joel sniffs. He covers his nerves by taking another drink, letting the alcohol slide down his throat. “You like whiskey?”

You nod, smiling. “I was more of a beer and wine girl,” you start, leaning back into the chair and holding the glass with both hands. “Wasn’t much for mixed drinks unless it was a margarita, but beggars can’t be choosers now.”

He locks that into the back of his mind. Beer is hard to find, but every once in a while, he comes across a bottle of wine. He hasn’t found tequila in years, but that doesn’t mean he won’t one day.  “Earnie keeps talking about expanding his operations. Might have a home brew if he can get the hops growing.”

You hum, turning to face him. “You were a beer guy?”

He just nods. You can feel the anxious energy wafting from him as he stares into his glass. You sip at the burning whisky and wait. 

“I wanted you to know,” he starts a few moments later, voice soft and quiet, “before tomorrow. In case you-” He clears his throat, eyes still looking away from you, “in case you change your mind about all this.”

“I won’t,” you supply quickly.

He looks at you, nodding, brown eyes soft and somehow a little surprised, a little happy. “Right.” He empties the glass and puts it down, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Tommy… he tells me things.”

You nod along. You’d assumed as much. There’s more than a little fear starting to burn in your stomach at how anxious he is and you sip on your drink to try to tamp it down.  

He stills, looking at the ground. “It wasn’t about you, kicking you out.” He scrubs his hand over his beard and shakes his head, the words tumbling out. “Apparently resources are getting tight. They were going to use you… to make an example out of you. So people wouldn’t feel so bad about kicking others out if they weren’t holding their own, or for turning away new people.”

It hits you like a punch. You don’t know what you were expecting him to say, but this isn’t it. Thinking it and hearing it are two separate things. You always knew they were trying to make some kind of example of you, you just never really understood it. The way he lays it out for you makes your stomach turn. “How tight?”

“It’ll start showing soon, apparently.” He shrugs, looking over at you. “After twenty years, there’s only so much left to scavenge, only so many haphazard repairs that will stick, you know?”

You nod, gulping down the last of the whisky in your glass. Something about it itches your brain, something about it sounds wrong. “But getting married…”

“Keep the people happy,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Doesn’t much make sense to me, either, but-.”

“But I won’t fight it,” you finish for him, holding out your glass to let him fill it up. You’re silent as the bottle clinks against the rim of your cup, the amber alcohol sloshing in your glass and then into his before he puts the bottle down again.

“I wanted you to know,” he starts again, rolling the glass between his hands, “wanted you to know that I know.”

You take another long drink, nodding. It was one thing to believe that there had to be something sinister about your situation, it was another to hear that it was true and you hadn’t been overly paranoid. “I appreciate that.”

He looks at you, eyes serious as he holds your gaze until you realize you’re holding your breath. “Didn’t want to start with secrets.” He declares it like a promise, serious and full of meaning behind the words and it nearly steals the breath from your lungs. He holds his hand out, and you don’t hesitate to slip your fingers into his. 

He squeezes, gently, before leaning back in the chair, holding your hand in the space between you like it’s something precious. You can’t relax yet, though. The longer the silent seconds go on, the more you hear his last sentence each in your mind. The more your own secrets start to choke you. 

“Joel-”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says softly, eyes looking up at the sky where the stars are just starting to appear. “And you don’t have to tell it all tonight, or ever.” 

Your secrets are heavy, baggage you’ve been carrying with you for too long. You’d love to tell him, but even the thought stirs panic in you too great to explain, your heart starts pounding and your breaths start coming faster. 

He rubs his thumb over your hand, willing you to relax as he turns his head to you. “The things we did to survive, those aren’t secrets. That’s just the past.” He squeezes your hand gently as he looks back up at the stars before resuming the soothing cadence of his thumb gliding over your knuckles. “If you ever want to tell me, if you’re ever ready, I’ll be ready to listen.” He clears his throat, sneaking a look at you before looking up at the sky. “I meant secrets about here. Secrets about this…us.” 

You close your eyes and focus on his hand in yours, on the way his calloused fingers slide against your skin, on the warmth of his palm against yours. 

It calms you. It relaxes you. 

You hope he’s telling the truth, because you believe him. 

“We’ve got a long time to get to know each other now, don’t we?” you whisper, opening your eyes to take a drink, seeing his head turned, eyes focused on you. 

On anyone else, his gaze, so intent on you, would make you nervous. On him, it feels right. “Rest of our lives, I’d say.” His voice is soft, reassuring, like your marriage is a good thing and not a half-cocked scheme to keep you in Jackson. He says it like he looks forward to it. 

It warms you from the inside out. 

You excuse yourself not long after that, leaving him with the empty whisky glasses, standing awkwardly on the porch as he watches you slip back in the house. It isn’t that you don’t enjoy sitting with him, or that it's uncomfortable. 

It's that you like it too much. 

It felt too much like the end of a nice date, sipping whisky and holding hands on their… your porch. It felt too familiar and warm and calm and that alone was making you anxious because you want to slip into his lap and find out what his lips taste like. 

And for as lovely as that fantasy seems, you know it’s dangerous. 

So you leave him, slipping into the quiet, dark house and into your threadbare nightgown and lay in the soft bed. 

You don’t sleep. You can’t. 

You’re getting married in the morning to a man you’re absolutely falling in love with, and he has no idea. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment For Our Sins (5/?)

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around. Dark fic in a less than idyllic Jackson. Themes concern medical assault, SA, infant and pregnancy loss, and medical experimentation as well as PTSD. The majority of these situations are not portrayed in the story, only recounted by the “reader” character. Chapters will have sufficient warnings. Still lots of fluff and sexiness to be had. Protective!Joel, Soft!Joel. Fem!Reader, little to no description otherwise. No use of Y/N. No/slight age difference. Hurt/Comfort. Romance.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tags: Joel (The Last of Us)/Reader, Joel (The Last of Us)/You, Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel & Tommy (The Last of Us) Characters: Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie (The Last of Us), Tommy (The Last of Us), Maria (The Last of Us), Reader

Additional Tags: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Slow Burn, Fake Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Medical Trauma, pregnancy loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Family Dynamics, No age gap, No use of y/n, Eventual Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Past Sexual Abuse, Stalking, Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Touch-Starved, Infant Loss, Joel is Trying His Best (The Last of Us)

Story A/N: Born out of the forced marriage/fake marriage trope and musings on what a post apocalypse world might actually look like. Also, I just really need this Joel in my life. Though I’ve tried to make the Reader fairly vague, I’ve been told my reader characters border on OC’s. She has QUITE the extensive and dark backstory, but little to no physical description aside that she’s close in age to Joel. PLEASE, please, please check all the tags. I’m only familiar with the TV series, and this is fairly AU of that. Despite posting date, 151 k of this (however long it ends up being) was written before season 2 dropped, so don’t expect it to be remotely close to that. I’ve been working on this for almost two years now, and decided to bite the bullet and post since a goal of mine was to post before TLOU2 started. The end is written (and will not change, no matter the feedback), significant holes in the middle are not. I will endeavor to post every week, and it will live up to the rating for many reasons. I have no beta, and no one that’s been able to give me feedback on this particular fic due to the nature of it. This is my first second-person POV, my first present tense fic, my first xReader fic, and my first TLOU fic. I welcome constructive criticism, but please be kind about it.

Chapter 5: A Flicker of Hope

Chapter Summary: An offer given and taken, a flicker of hope against the darkness

Chapter A/N: In a perfect world, what happens in this chapter would be a surprise, but tags and summaries are a thing, so… Here’s to the fake marriage trope, one of my favorites. 

Once again, thank you to everyone who is reading, who is leaving kudos and comments. I am trying to reply to everyone as quick as I can. You really don’t know what it means to me that you’re here. Hopefully I will be able to start posting two chapters a week occasionally, at least until we get into the middle of the story. There’s still so much I want to tell before we get to the ending.

This is also the first chapter you're going to see a significant piece of cultural reference/nostalgia. I find it HILARIOUS as someone who lived through the early 2000's that most of the show's cultural references so far are not more contemporary to outbreak day. Thinking of 2003 music, fashion, and culture as nostalgia is something I'll be playing with a lot in this fic.

TW/CW: No significant warnings for this chapter

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Chapter 5: A Flicker of Hope ~*~

You shift your feet anxiously on his porch, hovering at his door. You can see him in the kitchen, back turned to you, through the screen. 

You didn’t sleep at all last night. You couldn’t. Not with what he’d said. Not with this offer on the table. As soon as the sun had come up you had to hold yourself back, you had to make yourself wait until a reasonable time to move through the town and knock on his door. 

Now that you’re here, it feels surreal. You start to wonder if you’d imagined it, if you hallucinated it. Had Joel actually come over last night, stood in a room that wasn’t going to be yours in another day, and made that offer?

“You gonna come in?” He asks without even turning around. 

You shift into your hip, thinking this is a mistake, hands twisting into fists. It would be so easy to turn and run. You take a deep breath and push forward, though. He’s your only lifeline now, and reminding yourself of that makes it just a little easier to step through his door and into his kitchen. 

He points towards the kitchen table, bright rays of morning sun illuminating it through the windows. “Sit.”

It isn’t an order, it’s an invitation. It’s as warm as he can make it under the circumstances. You can see he’s anxious, too. His fingers drum on the counter, shoulders tight. 

You sit on the edge of the chair, the warm wood of the table comforting under your hands. It grounds you, just for a little, and makes you brave enough. “So, what do you think?”

He sits, half turned towards you, eyebrows lifting to his hairline and back again before setting his eyes on you. You don’t need to elaborate. You both know what you’re here to talk about. His voice is low and warm. “I think it’s still the only thing that makes sense.”

You look at him, really look at him for a minute, and nod. He’s serious. His eyes, his chin, his shoulders, how his hands are still on the table in front of him… everything about how he looks at you tells you he does, in fact, think this is a good idea. Letting these words slip from your lips makes you nauseous, but at least he hasn’t changed his mind. “I won’t turn you down. I can’t. But I’m getting a much better deal here.”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, ready to argue. “You shouldn’t-”

“No.” You cut him off, reaching out across the table without touching him. “There are reasons I wanted to stay by myself, Joel.” Your voice drops, soft, as you pull your hand back towards you. “Things I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready…or able… to talk about with anyone.” 

He nods, and gives you space to continue when he stays quiet, eyes unjudging on you. You can see the darkness in him, you can see that he hasn’t made it this far at the end of the world without seeing things, without doing things, and he understands. He understands at least some of it. 

Some of it, you think, he’ll never understand, if you ever manage to tell him. 

“I’m not… wife material.” You sigh. “I didn’t come here looking for a guy and a picket fence. I didn’t come looking for Jackson at all.” Your breath stutters out of you, the words hard to say but necessary. “It… you… found me. I want to stay. I do. But-” You choke up and have to pause. 

His hand reaches out, falling short of touching you just at your fingertips. It stops what you could feel was going to be a long string of nonsense tumbling out of your mouth. Every word that you practiced last night falls away from your lips when you look into his eyes. 

“I ain’t looking for a wife.” His voice is soft, wrapping around you like a reassuring hug. “If all I wanted was a wife there are plenty of women around here who have made it known they’re available and willing.” He takes a deep breath, like the next words out of his mouth will be hard to say. “I want to help my friend.” 

“Friends are in short supply these days,” you respond gently, letting your hand inch forward to his. 

You’d threaded your hand in your blanket last night, trying to call back the feeling of his fingers laced in yours, of the comfort he gave you. Your hands are so close now, but you don’t touch them. 

“They are,” he agrees, quicker than you expect. There’s a weight that seems to have fallen from his shoulders now, something about that confession makes it easier for him to keep talking. “No strings. No expectations. You marry me, you move in. You stay.” He almost smiles. “Like a roommate, even.”

You almost laugh at how easy he makes it sound. “What, like this is Three’s Company?” He does smile at the reference, but you can’t celebrate just yet. You shake your head, pushing past the moment of lightness you wish you could linger in. “There are strings, though, Joel.” You can’t look at him, so you focus on the swirling wood grain of the table, the tiny paths it takes over and over as you speak. “They're ready to throw me out. I’ve managed to get a lot of people upset enough about me that they’re literally going to toss me out there with the infected. With raiders and slavers. That’s not going to magically go away because you claim me. There will be consequences for you and Ellie.”

“I ain’t claiming you,” he supplies quickly, harshly, trying to catch your gaze. “That’s- that’s not how I want this to be.”

“But it is,” you whisper, still unable to look him in the eyes. “Just like if I was a horse or a bike or any other piece of property here. You’re claiming me to keep me.”

“Maybe to them,” he bites out, “but not between us, okay? I can’t- I won’t-”

Your nod stops his stuttering. You know his intentions are good, but you see this for what it is, what this world has made it become: you are property. Robbie had made his offer to you as if you were a piece of property, promising you three meals a day and a nice house to live in every day and to warm his bed at night. You might as well have been a dog for the way he made it sound. That wasn’t an offer you’d even consider. Joel’s offer is one you can’t turn down. And when you sign your name in the town register next to Joel’s, all you’ll be to this town is another piece of property, even if he still sees you like a person. 

You look up, not wanting to meet his gaze, but knowing you have to- he needs to see the intensity in your eyes when you say this. “I need you to tell me you’ve thought about what this means for you and Ellie. You’re not just taking me in, you both are taking in all the trouble I’ve managed to build up around myself here. Tell me you understand that?”

He shifts, squaring off to face you. “I promise you, I am not taking this lightly.” His voice is warm and even, serious. You see something in his eyes, like he knows more than he’s saying. Truth is, he probably does. Being Tommy’s brother has perks, and he probably knows more about this than you do. “I don’t understand it, but I know how these kinds of people act when they’re thinking they’re the ones being wronged.”

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you and Ellie because of me,” you whisper softly, holding his gaze. You feel tears prick at your eyes, but you fight to keep them in. In the few minutes of sleep you did get last night, you’d dreamt of all three of you on the wrong side of the gate, Maria closing it in your faces, you standing in a wedding dress, still holding a bright bouquet as a horde of infected surrounded you. 

“You let us worry about that, ok?” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t get far. “She agrees. We talked about it.” He leans forward, looking between your hands before he flips his palm up to you. “It doesn’t make any sense to let you go, and we’re gonna keep you here. With us.”

You nod, unable to talk when he’s being so kind, so tender towards you. It’s hard to believe that you deserve this kind of treatment, never mind the amount of trust and protection he’s offering. You slip your hand into his slowly, and his thumb gently rubs back and forth over your knuckles in a kind of touch you haven’t felt in well over two decades. Your eyes flutter closed. You don’t know how to talk around the lump that’s forming in your throat. 

“What do you say?” He whispers. “Will ya marry me?”

~*~

“You gotta be fuckin kidding me, Miller!”

You flinch next to him when Maria pounds a fist on her desk, pacing away from you. You feel the back of his hand brush the back of yours, but he makes no move to take your hand. 

He doesn’t touch you first, he never touches you first. He always lets it be your choice. 

He doesn’t need to. You trust him. Your body doesn’t scream to pull away from him. 

You want to run from this office, make a break for it and hide, because you’re sure she’s going to tell you both “no” in just a second, you’re sure she’s going to squash the little flame of hope you have. It’s only been an hour since you sat in his kitchen and accepted his offer, but that little flame had grown in a way you didn’t think was possible. 

You know she’s going to end it all, right here, right now. 

She marches right up to Joel, pointing a finger in his face as she rants on. “I told you. I fucking told you, Joel, to stay out of it.”

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash as she yells. “Well, I’m in it.”

“The hell you are,” she nearly spits at him. She turns, looking you up and down in a way that makes you want to shiver, that makes you want to step back as she shakes her head at you. But you don’t. It takes everything you have to stand strong, and all she says is a defeated, “fuck,” as she turns away, standing behind her desk and pounding her fists down on it to lean on her hands. 

“You said it yourself,” Joel starts, low and calm and prepared for this. He’s far more prepared than you are, and you’re thankful for it. “She had one more chance to stay.”

“With Robbie,” she mutters, eyes on her desk. “I said she had one more chance with Robbie.”

You take his hand then, needing the reassurance, the warmth. The way she says his name feels like a sentence, like you’re standing before judge, jury, and executioner and you’re going to be torn away from Joel at any minute only to be handed to him. 

You’d rather be tossed out the gates. 

He doesn’t hesitate, just slips your fingers between his and squeezes. 

Maria sees, and she swears again under her breath. “You’re really forcing my hand here, aren’t you?”

“Following the rules you set,” Joel challenges. “So, are we good?”

They lock eyes, and you see the battle of wills taking place. You wouldn’t want to be Maria, stuck between her brother-in-law and the council, trying to find a way to walk the line to keep everyone happy. She will be your sister-in-law if this all goes the way you want it to, and you’ll need to try to find a truce when this is all done, maybe even common ground, for Joel’s sake. You watch her rub one hand over her pregnant belly and you wince. You wouldn’t want to be Maria today, but you barely want to be yourself, either. 

“Tomorrow morning right after breakfast, council chambers.” She sits, shaking her head. Her voice lowers, defeated and fatigued as she speaks. “Bring two witnesses. It’s all paperwork, but if you’ve got things you want to say, a ceremony, they’ll follow it.” She waves her hand, dismissing you both, looking down at her desk and pretending she’s busy. “I don’t want to see either of you until then, got it?”

He squeezes your hand. You can see there’s something sharp and angry on his tongue, and he’s fighting with himself to not say it. 

“Thank you,” you blurt out quickly, taking the opportunity to talk from him. “Thank you, Maria,” you repeat just a little softer, pulling him out of the room behind you. You don’t miss the way they lock eyes as they leave, you don’t miss the tension between them. 

But you’re not letting anything or anyone have the opportunity to mess this up. You got your yes, you need to keep it. 

You wait until you’re down the street, far enough away that you know your voices won’t carry back to her. “This is the baggage, Joel,” you start, tugging him towards the hotel instead of towards his house. “Now you’re fighting with your sister-in-law-”

“Never fuckin’ liked me anyway,” he mutters, shaking his head. “That’s not your fault.” 

You look at him as you walk, but don’t comment further. That little spark of hope that was in you is still safe, and it is now a little flame flickering against the breeze. You won’t have to leave, and Joel is… 

Joel. 

You have Joel. 

For better or for worse, literally after tomorrow morning, you have Joel. 

His hand is tight in yours as you walk down the street, the sun warm on your face. You can almost, almost, breathe easy. 

You stop just outside your door, turning to him. “You can still change your mind.” The words slip out unbidden, like you’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

His eyebrows raise, a half-smile nearly on his lips. “Little late for that, isn’t it?”

You stay serious, though, and shake your head. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit if-”

“I’m not.” He matches your tone, lifting your clasped hands between you and squeezing gently. “I’m not gonna change my mind.”

You nod, forcing yourself to keep your eyes on his face. “Alright. But I- I wouldn’t be mad if you did.”

He shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything for a long second before he sighs and tips his head to the door. “Why don’t you pack up your things and then come over tonight. We can get you settled.” 

You nod, and try to pretend you’re not disappointed when his fingers slip from your own and he leaves you to pack. 

~*~

It’s funny, the way things work out. Before, when faced with so much to be afraid of, you’d forced yourself to be excited that you had half a backpack free. You thought maybe you’d scavenge a little, find hidden treasures others had picked over, and you’d fill your stores up as you moved south. 

Now, walking down the street to Joel and Ellie’s home, the place that you will be calling home, having only a half a backpack of belongings seems…inadequate. Embarrassing. 

A pair of sneakers that were falling apart. A pair of boots that never quite got the stench of shit off them. One fairly warm jacket. Two sets of work clothes. A pair of ill-fitting sweats. A night gown. A few pairs of threadbare underwear and one very worn bra. A toothbrush. A half bar of soap. A napkin full of snacks you’d saved for the road. 

There was nothing personal in there- you didn’t own anything personal. You had never had the chance to get or build or find anything personal. The only things you’d had were the clothes on your back and an empty gun when they’d found you. There wasn’t any more to bring, there wasn’t any more to contribute. 

There is just you and your half-full backpack to offer to them, coat tied around your waist and sneakers hanging from the strap. 

Ellie spots you before you see her, springing up into your vision to run into the house and back out again. You know who she is, you have seen her bouncing around Jackson with a small group of friends. Joel told you a few things after he’d proposed, but not much. You’d assumed she was his daughter, but it seemed things were just a little more complicated than that. 

We’re… it’s hard to explain, but… I’m taking care of her. She doesn’t really have anyone else.

You suppose you have all the time in the world to learn more, if they ever want to tell you. 

She meets you at the bottom of the stairs, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Hey,” she says breathlessly, almost excited. 

“Hi,” you grab at the straps of your bag, not sure what to do with your hands. 

“You should come inside.” She stops, shaking her head and starts rambling. “I mean, if you want to. You kinda live here now, so you don’t have to but-”

“That would be nice.” You interrupt her rambling with a cautious smile. She’s nearly as nervous as you are. 

The only other time you’ve been in the house was this morning, but it feels different, stepping in, knowing you’re not just a visitor. It feels like a home, now that you look at it. Everywhere there are little things, little trinkets and jackets and left out glasses that show you they really live here. A shelf of cassette tapes and records and CDs. A guitar. Rows and rows of books. 

It makes your little backpack feel that much more woeful, that much more pathetic, as you follow her into the house. 

You’d had things once upon a time. A home and a job and a family that all disappeared with the outbreak. The little collection of personal things you’d amassed since were lost in a panic to save your life. You came to Jackson with literally nothing but an empty gun and the clothes on your back. Those first few weeks when they let you pick clothes from the community piles and handed you an actual toothbrush, you felt like you’d won the lottery. Now, it seems woefully inadequate.

Ellie points out the different rooms, rambling on as she gives you a tour of the downstairs, you following just a step behind, taking it all in. She’s blissfully unaware of all the emotions swirling in your mind. 

It’s so warm. So lived in. 

It’s a far cry from your generic hotel room, from the places you’ve been in so long, that you have to clench your teeth and dig your nails into your palms to keep the tears from forming. 

He doesn’t know what he’s giving you. He doesn’t understand the baggage you come with. If he did, you think, he’d never have agreed and would have never invited you into his home. 

You follow her up the stairs. “To the left is my room. I’m still working on it, but there’s some pretty cool posters I have up. The girl who lived there before, well, we don’t have the same taste. She liked a lot of pink.”

Ellie keeps on going, talking about comics when you see him, just on the other side of the stairs, biting his lip and breathing just a little harder than he should be. 

You smile, just a little, and he smiles back. “Getting the tour?” He interrupts her. 

“Ellie’s a great tour guide.” You like the way she smiles under your praise after frowning at Joel’s interruption. 

“Thanks,” she chirps brightly. “You should go check out that room, anyway.” She leans into, stage whispering loudly. “He’s been working on it all afternoon.”

You pretend not to notice how his cheeks go red when she says that, instead following him in when he gestures to you with his hand. 

“It’s not much,” he starts, hanging back by the door when you step in, “but it should be enough for tonight.”

He’s right: it isn’t much. It’s more than you’ve had before, though, and that means something. The room is small, meant to be a kid’s bedroom. Smaller even than Ellie’s, you think, with the bathroom next to it taking up some of the room on this side of the hall, but that doesn’t matter to you. 

The walls are a faded green. The paint is old but you can see spots in the corner where they’re still drying from being washed today. The curtains on the window aren’t new, either, but they’re clean and they blow softly in the breeze from the open window and the sill is as white as you’re sure he could get the old, chipped paint with a few hours’ notice, not a speck of dust to be seen. 

The dresser is small, undoubtedly for a young child with thin drawers and a cracking finish on the sides. The bed’s a twin, freshly made with a plump pillow sitting in the center. 

He sniffs next to you, and when you turn you can see the spots at his temples where the sweat’s collected. 

He cleaned it for you. 

He worked on it all afternoon just for you. 

There was no reason for them to have an extra room ready for anything, and in the few hours since this morning, he’s made a place for you. 

He’s made a place for you in his home just like he’s made a place for you in his life. 

“I’ll, uh,” he strides over to the dresser, running a hand over it, “I’ll get this sanded down soon, I didn’t realize the finish had cracked so bad. And I’ll have a bedside table made in no time.”

“Made?”

“Joel makes things. With wood.” Ellie smiles at you from the door. “He was a… a… carpenter.”

“Contractor,” he corrects gently. “But close enough.” He coughs, shrugging, almost embarrassed again. “Should be able to get you something usable by the weekend.”

“This is…” You swallow hard. You don’t know if there’s any way to get what you want to say out without crying. “This is so…”

“Make yourself at home.” Joel’s soft words save you. By the look in his eyes, he knows you needed saving in that moment. He holds your gaze just a second before stepping back, rubbing his hands together. “We’ll get the rest of your things-”

“This is it,” you stop him before he can go on, stepping further into the room and setting your backpack on the dresser. “Just this.”

“Right,” Neither of them are surprised, and that makes you feel just a little better. You wonder just how much they marched into Jackson with, and if, eventually, you’ll be able to fill your little room with books and pictures that feel like yours. “Then take your time, get settled.” He steps back, leaning on the doorframe. “Let me…” he pauses, rethinking his sentence and starts again. “Just tell us what you need, alright?”

You nod, and it’s a long moment before he leaves. He looks like he wants to say more, wants to say something, but he doesn’t, just knocks on the doorframe and turns away, his soft steps echoing down the hallway. 

Ellie steps away after him and you can hear her rustling in her room. You take a moment to run your hands over each and every thing in this room that’s now yours. 

Yours. 

It doesn’t feel real to think that this is it. That all the struggling these last few months is magically answered by this. 

By a marriage. 

He’s a man you could have fallen for, back before all this, back before cordyceps and Fedra and QZs. He’s got warm eyes you could fall into and even warmer hands that you’d like to feel touch you. His voice wraps around you like a song, settling your nerves every time you hear it. 

You don’t want to admit you could still fall for him, that you are falling for the soft voice and the kind eyes and the way he puts himself between you and everything that seems to make you shake with fear slowly, a little more each day. 

You don’t want to admit that you think about him more than you should. 

If you were someone that believed in soulmates or past lives, you might believe he was yours, that the two of you were fated to be by the way you felt so immediately and irrevocably calm around him. 

But you’re not. 

You’re not one to believe that this will make everything alright. This world has broken you, and you know it will all crash down one day. 

You’re going to put all you have in him: all your eggs in one basket, all your faith in one man. 

He has no obligation to do the same. 

One day, someone else might come along: someone younger or prettier, someone that doesn’t have gray streaking their hair or crow’s feet around their eyes. 

Someone without your past. Someone that can give him a future.

He’ll change his mind. 

You know he will. 

But you’re going to take every day you can get right now. Right here, right now with this dresser with its cracked finish and the soft bed and the window that lets in a gentle breeze and just enough sunlight, you’re going to take advantage of it. 

All of your things fit in one drawer, but you spread them out: work clothes go in the top, underwear and sweats and your nightgown go in the next one, and you settle your backpack in the bottom one, your sneakers lined up on the floor next to the dresser. It makes you feel a little more like they belong, like you belong, to have them spread out. 

Your toothbrush and bar of soap sit in your hands, heavier than they should be. It’s a weight that comes with what they represent, not what they are, and it holds you back for just a second. But soon enough you move forward, softly slipping into the bathroom next to your room. 

Your room. 

It’s small. A little stall shower and an average toilet and a sink that’s porcelain has seen better days. 

There’s already a toothbrush sitting in a little cup on the edge of the sink, a sliver of soap next to it. 

“We’re gonna share,” Ellie’s voice is soft from the doorway, “if that’s okay with you.” She shrugs, leaning on the edge. “Joel thought you might feel better about sharing with me than sharing with him.”

“As long as you don’t mind,” you reply, not exactly sure what to say to that. It seems thoughtful, but maybe he just doesn’t want you in his space. 

“He didn’t let me finish the tour,” she leans back and points across the hall to the dark doorway. “That’s Joel’s room. He’s got his own bathroom in there.”

You can’t see much past the door, and the shades are drawn to keep it dark and cool, so you just nod. You don’t have any reason to be in there. 

The thought stings more than you expect, but you acknowledge it as the truth. You’ll be his wife, but there’s no space for you in his bed. 

Not that you could be. 

Holding hands is one thing, so are fantasies you’re totally in control of when you have them. You’re not sure if you could even let him touch you like you imagine in real life, and it makes no use in wondering since it won’t be happening. 

Ellie taps her foot nervously, looking over at you. “You… you really don’t have anything else?”

You shake your head. “I had nothing when I came to Jackson.”

“Pretty much same,” she mutters, looking down at her feet. “But Joel’s good at finding stuff.” There’s a melancholy to her voice. There’s distance between them, you can see it, but there’s also admiration, and love. 

Maybe, one day, it can be like that between you and Joel. 

Maybe even you and Ellie. 

“Come on, then,” she steps out and turns to make sure you follow her just past her room. The opposite wall has a double wide closet, and she pulls it open. “We tossed all the stuff from whoever was here before that the town didn’t scavenge and we didn’t need in here and down in the basement. A lot of it was in your room, but Joel moved all that today. There were a bunch of women’s clothes…” She leans forward, opening a plastic bin and coughing when it pops up at her, dust flying into the air. “Not… not my style,” she sputters between coughs. 

The closet reminds you of an overflowing junk drawer. There’s a useless computer in pieces on a shelf. Textbooks about geometry and trigonometry and English are piled on the floor. There’s a bag of shoes, an old peep toe pump sticking out the top, that makes you smile. It feels like a jackpot, even if you’re also a little guilty about rummaging through things that belonged to people who are probably long dead now. 

You pull a tank top off the top of the pile. You almost laugh at the Old Navy flag design: memories of Fourth of July parties and summers running through sprinklers as children and with beers in the pool as an adult overlap in your mind. 

Ellie laughs, too. “Corny, right?”

You nod, and put it to the side. There’s a twinge of sadness for the things she’ll never know, but you move past it quickly. It looks like it would fit you, and you’re not above a little nostalgia. 

“Take your time,” Ellie scuffs her sock on the floor before turning back to her room. “You live here now.”

~*~

“You live here now.”

Ellie’s voice drifts down from the second floor, stopping him from moving up the stairs. 

Joel’s glad Ellie showed you the closet. It was on his mind to do, he wanted to show you as soon as you’d settled, but there had been something about the way you’d stood in the room, your room, something about the look in your eyes that he’d known you needed time. 

Hell, he needs time. 

It’s bizarre how fast this is happening. 

One minute Ellie’s yelling at him in his own living room- Just fucking man up and marry her, Joel, so she can stay- and the next Maria’s telling you to bring two witnesses. 

He wants it, he knows he wants it. The first moment Ellie even suggested that if Robbie could marry you, well he could too, it had been cemented in his mind. He wants you here. He wants to see your soft smile and hear your gentle laugh and banter with your razor-sharp wit. He wants to reminisce about shows like Three’s Company and ask you what your favorite songs are so he can play them for you. 

He wants to build you the best bedside table he can manage and fill it with things that are meaningful. 

Things that won’t fit in a little backpack. 

And fuck, does he think you’re pretty. 

He never said it out loud, not really, but damn does he like the way your eyes sparkle when you talk sometimes. He thinks he could remember the shape of your nose and the curve of your cheek for the rest of his life. He likes the way your eyes crinkle up when you smile and the way the little silver strands in your hair reflect the sun. 

If he’s honest with himself, he’s been watching you for a long time, hoping you would start to fit in, to feel comfortable, feel safe. He was so hesitant, after how scared you were, to talk to you when you first got here. He wishes he’d started talking to you more that first day. 

He wishes he met you years ago so he could take you on a date, get to know you slowly. He wishes he could share stolen kisses at the movies and long voicemails and take the time he knows you deserve to get to know you. 

He likes the way your hand feels in his, and wants to feel it again and again. 

But he won’t touch you. 

He won’t fucking touch you unless you say so. 

Never. 

He thought seeing you tense was bad, thought the please, no in his memory from the day he found you was enough to keep him from reaching out, but seeing the way you spiraled after Robbie, seeing the way you couldn’t catch your breath and your eyes went wild with fear, he didn’t even have to think about it. 

No one was touching you without your consent. 

Ever. 

Especially him. 

He never wants to make you feel like that. He never wants to be the reason you can’t breathe; be the reason you feel like your legs are giving out and the world is spinning. 

No, he wants to be the hand you reach for to ground yourself, like you did that night behind the bar.

That thought alone makes his hands shake just a little. 

He heads back into the little wood shop just off the kitchen and stares at the scraps he has. He’ll start with the table. 

One thing at a time. 

~*~

Robbie’s watching you. 

You feel his eyes on you all the way across the dining hall. Robbie’s staring you down, eyes nearly unblinking as he focuses on you. They never flick over to Joel; they never flick to another table or even look at what he’s eating. It would be almost cartoonish if it wasn’t making you so nervous. You try to focus on the venison in front of you, try to eat your dinner slowly and steadily and without showing how tense you are. 

“I see him,” Joel whispers to you, leaning over just a little. “You remember what I said?”

You nod, taking a slow breath. 

He puts the hand that’s next to you on the table, palm up. “Then just finish eating and don’t worry about him.”

You switch your fork to your left hand and after just the briefest of hesitations you slip your fingers through his, feeling your blood pressure start to fall as he squeezes your hand. 

You hesitate at the display, but in less than a day you’ll be married to him. Everyone might as well know. 

You don’t look up when Robbie makes a scene of pushing away from his table and storming out of the room. 

“He’s a fuckin’ prick anyway,” Ellie comments without looking up. 

You look between her and Joel, not used to hearing her curse, not used to seeing a teen be so blatant in front of an adult. 

Even in the apocalypse, some things seem to be ingrained in you. Joel doesn't bat an eyelash at her language, so you turn back to your dinner.  

Without looking up, Joel just shrugs. “She isn’t wrong.”