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brighttears · 2 years ago

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What is Thicker Than Water

Joel Miller x f!reader

No physical description, no use of y/n

Summary: In the aftermath of an attack on you, Joel, and Ellie, Joel cleans someone else's blood off of you. You reflect on your maternal violence, you and Joel connect without needing words.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Vivid descriptions of violence, injury, and blood, mentions motherhood (reader is not a mother), pet name (baby)

A/n: this is purely self indulgent kind of based around inner monologue ? and perhaps a little weird . I have a request that I am going to do! just haven’t had the fluff in me past couple days 😪

—

You feel your screams more than you hear them, all of your attention focused on your fist colliding with his face. Drowning in a vengeful ferocity, you’re barely aware of where you are until something heavy pushes you off of the body. You thrash under the new grip on your arms until Joel’s voice, “It’s me, it’s me.” reorients you, “It’s okay. Ellie’s okay.”

His eyes are wide looking at you and then down to your reddened fist. Carefully, he takes it in his hands to evaluate. “We need to go.” looking past you, he adds, “Now, Ellie, we gotta move.” and then he’s pulling you by your wrist and you fall from one foot onto the next. Everything is blurred and blaring; your hand and face are throbbing hot, pain stabs through the soles of your feet as they land harshly on the concrete and you heave fire. Shouts and gunshots chase you.

“Ellie,” you swing your head around, looking.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” you find her at your side and then you’re back and remember to sprint.

When you get to the truck, you fling the back door open and shove Ellie in before you. Joel’s door slams shut as he jerks onto the road.

In the backseat, you take Ellie’s face in your hands, frantically examining her, “Are you ok?” you ask, gasping raggedly. The truck rattles and bumps.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you see doe eyes looking back at you and a harsh red contrasts in the corner of your eye. Removing your hands from her face, you find the source and stare down at your shaking hand.

“Shit.” Your knuckles are maroon, seeping bright red down into your sleeve.

“Are you ok?” Ellie’s young voice sounds over the pounding in your ears as you continue to stare, unable to understand what you are seeing.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, are you ok?” you shoot your eyes back up to her, panic’s adrenaline having your teeth almost chattering.

Ellie blinks her doe eyes, a mystery flashing over her brow before she responds, “Yeah, I’m ok. Okay?” she raises her eyebrows, trying to find your focus with her eyes until you nod in acknowledgment.

“Joel?” you look to the front seat.

His shoulders are strung up, knuckles white and twisting on the wheel. In front of him is a wash of muted blue and a strip of speckled gray, the yellow divider lines rushing centered under the car. “I’m alright.” he reassures you. Staring straight ahead, all you can see of him is his tense shoulders, taut curled hands, and silver streaked hair. “Ellie, check the rest of her.”

You look down and wet red is spattered over your brown plaid flannel. Ellie takes your shoulders to turn you, leaning around to look over your back, then smooths her hands over your covered arms. She leans down, tugging at your jeans to check over your legs, and then calls to the front, “She’s fine except for her face.”

“My face?” you raise a hand up to touch it and immediately regret it when a sharp pain from your nose electrifies your entire face. You pull away red fingers. “Did I break my nose?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Joel tells you, “Everythin’s fine. I’m gonna find somewhere to stop as soon as I can.”

“Shit,” you sway as you recollect the events prior to being here in the rickety, rumbling truck—

The raider had Ellie on the ground, one hand holding her hands clasped above her head and the other pressing the barrel of a gun against her forehead. Her wailing resounded in your skull and your body went numb. Then you were straddling him, screaming and hammering your fist into his face. You look back down at your bloody knuckles. “Shit. Did you get the stuff?”

Joel sighs through his nose, “No.”

“Shit.” you rub your palms over your eyes and then drag them down your cheeks.

“We’ll find it another way. Don’t worry about it. You’re my main concern right now.” he glances at you from the rearview mirror.

You can feel the adrenaline flowing out of you as your body weighs into the cool leather seat. Knowing that the three of you are all safe, together in the small cabin of the truck, you let your head lean back as your brain smothers you with sleep.

—

“Baby, hey,” a voice ripples from somewhere above you. Barely on the cusp of consciousness, you can’t identify whose it is, but something makes you want to go to it, so you kick your legs and swim back up to opening eyes. “Hey, we’re stoppin’ here for the night.”

“Stop where.” you push yourself awake, blinking your eyes wide. “Oh fuck. Ow.” You reach a hand up to your face but Joel blocks your wrist.

“Come on, we’ll take care a that inside.”

You follow another painful ache to your hand, bloody and swollen. “Jesus.”

“It’s alright, just let me get you inside.” Joel touches your arm, urging you out of your seat, and your feet drop onto gravel.

“Where’s Ellie?”

She appears in front of you, “I’m here.” Her voice is clear and refreshing.

“Okay.” you stare at her, she gives you a soft smile, and then you bring her into your arms, resting your chin over her shoulder. You pet her hair once, shaggy and loosely held in her hairband. Ellie takes a deep breath and it flows over your neck and shoulder. You let her go and the three of you start walking to the run-down motel.

Inside, Joel unloads your gear onto the stiff, tan armchair and fake-wood side table in the corner while you and Ellie sit down on the creaky metal queen bed. He digs out his water canteen and a scrap of cloth, nearing threadbare, and turns to you sitting behind Ellie, combing your fingers through her hair before retying her ponytail, murmuring consolations. She giggles, light but warm hearted, her finger tracing over the flowers on the bedspread. Joel touches your shoulder for you to stand, and then gently guides you into the bathroom just across from the bed with a hand on your lower back.

You lift yourself up to sit on the counter, facing Joel, and he pulls the door in until it’s open only a crack. He takes your chin to turn with his thumb and index finger and you watch his eyes run over your face. “Looks much worse than it is. Just bloody.” Then he takes the cloth and presses it folded around the lip of the canteen, flipping it briefly to wet it. When he starts wiping the cool wetness over your forehead and cheek you look at him quizzically, under the impression that the only wound on your face is your nose. He avoids your eyes so you turn to look at yourself in the mirror. Your reflection startles you.

The thick red running from your nose, over your lips and down your neck, dark and clotted, isn’t unexpected, but the smears and splatter covering the rest of your face are. A slit on the bridge of your nose has coated it almost entirely in red, but the rest of you is heavily freckled with blood that is not your own. It’s gotten into your mouth, it sticks in your eyebrows and passes your hairline. Looking at your reflection, you see a mutilator, a knife, a butcher, a murderer. In your eyes you recognize something that you can’t immediately place, but realize it is a look you’ve only seen in a mother’s eyes. You’re emblazoned with bloodshed, decorated by the inherent aptitude of love. You go to wipe two fingers over a large blotch near the corner of your mouth and there you are met with your bleeding instrument. With a shuddering sigh, eyelids fluttering, you continue to rub.

“Hey,” with a hand on you trap, Joel pulls you back to face him, “it’s okay, it looks much worse than it is—”

“Did I kill him?”

Joel sighs, “I don’t know. Didn’t stop to check, just ran.” he goes back to swiping broad strokes over your face with the cool cloth.

You remember the face under your fist again and Ellie, the way she looked with that gun on her forehead, and then the way she looked at you in the car.

“Ellie.” you whisper, looking into Joel’s eyes and grabbing his biceps, anxiety puckering your brow, “She saw all that. What if she’s scared of me now? What if she thinks I’m gonna hurt her?”

Joel shakes his head. “Kid’s seen way worse. You don’t need to worry about that. This is gonna hurt now, I’m sorry.” he looks back to your face instead of your eyes, moving the cloth to your nose. The pain is stifled by the burn of his words, the reminder of the tragedy of young Ellie. You can’t save her from what’s happened to her before you met her, you can’t protect her from all of it, you can protect her from very little. Death is only one of many enemies. You could kill half the country, beat anyone who even has a thought of hurting her, and you still couldn’t save her. You stay still as he mops up the blood.

When he refolds the cloth you see the bright red starting to permeate it and swallow hard as he starts brushing it over your lips. Joel tips your chin up with a finger and then takes the back of your neck to hold it in place as he slowly drags the damp cloth over your chin and down your neck. “Okay, lemme see your face again.” He whispers, then using his thumb and fingers to rub at the faded spots, his other hand still on the back of your neck. “Does your nose hurt?”

“A little. How fucked up is it?”

“It’s a little bent… kinda cute, though.” He smirks and it slices through your film of gloom and you smile. He stills his hand and watches his thumb resting in the flesh of your cheek.

“You should see the other guy.” you whisper.

Joel chuckles, “I did.” Then he sighs softly, taking his hand away from your face to scan it with half lidded eyes. “Alright, lemme see your hand.” He lets go of your neck and fully refolds the cloth, flipping it over the bottle again to wetten it, then changes his mind and chooses to first run the water over your hand.

“Fuck.” you whisper, flinching as it burns the open skin at the peak of your knuckles.

“I know baby, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about it. Just reflex.” you take a deep breath and he starts wiping at the caking red with the near already saturated cloth.

“I know. I’m still sorry.”

“Is it broken?”

“A little. It’ll heal on its own. We’ll just keep it wrapped.”

‘We’ll’ sounds good coming out of Joel's mouth, meaning us, as in I'm with you.

He runs the last of the water from his canteen over your hand, does some final brushes and blots with the cloth, and then says, “Stay here.” He dips out of the room and comes back with a brown stained tan rolled bandage. He folds the wet cloth to lay over your knuckles, securing it with his hand under yours, palm up, able to hold each side down with his thumb and index finger. He starts wrapping your hand, taking his time, stopping to redo a roll if he’s not happy with it. You smirk unconsciously, watching his knitted brow and lips pouting in focus. When he’s done, he holds it from below again, turning it slightly to make sure it’s to his liking. Joel looks up to meet your eyes and takes his other hand to rest under your jaw and over your cheek. He takes another deep breath as his eyes flicker down to your lips and back at your eyes. He sighs.

There is still residue from the thick pour of blood from your nose over your chapped lips. He can't help himself and brings them to his, transferring copper onto his tongue, tasting the bloodshed as justified. He keeps gentle hold of your wrapped hand until you bring it to rest over his shoulder, then moving to hold your waist instead, fingers, dirty and scarred, digging soft nails into your charred and stained skin. He steps closer to you and you take your other hand to grasp his hair, raising your chest, inadvertently seeking more contact. For the sake of your nose, he’s trying to be gentle, but you thirst for each other, hooked on the stranger’s wine on your lips and tongue. Joel moves closer until he’s against the counter himself, taking the hand from your waist down to splay over where your shirt and pants meet to pull you closer; your bodies are pressed middle to middle, organs to organs. Your back is arched to adhere to him and you roll your hips into the heated contact. When a soft moan slips out of you, you and Joel pull apart, temperature falling remembering Ellie in the next room. Still connected, you’re Narcissus in the pool of each other’s eyes; revealed, wet and tragic; decoded, devastating captives of love.

Copper rolls around on your tongues bittersweet. You thumb away your red mark on Joel’s cupid’s bow and another on his cheek. It’s ironic how easily blood can be washed off of skin.

In the faint vestige spots of violence on your face, Joel reads ‘Ellie’. Again he treasures your eyes and the look he saw in them from the rearview mirror—hysteria, soul gripped so hard it was turning blue, instinctually boring into Ellie, short circuiting in it and asking her twice. He is Narcissus in your eyes. He slides his hand over your neck, finding your pulse with his thumb. “You’re okay.” he whispers.

“I’m okay.” you whisper back.

“She’s okay.”

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starjxsung · 7 months ago

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dear darling star <3 how are you?

i hope im not bothering you with this message

it’s been a while now and tumblr just doesn’t feel the same without you </3

i hope you’re doing good (both physically and emotionally)

i’ve been out of order lately because my life has been super hectic, so here’s the rundown till now:

i passed the semester with equal parts a’s and b’s (ngl the b’a hurt a bit bc it’s the first time in like 6 years i’ve gotten a b in a class😪 but im just glad that i made it)

my uni friends and i went out drinking to celebrate the semester being over( there were a lot of college students and we felt old af). we got so drunk that it was so weird for me but it was so fun to let loose for the first time in a loooooong time.

we just finished booking everything we needed for lolla and im a bit more excited now.

i’ve also been watching kdramas now (?!?) and im kinda addicted

bittersweet news:

i’ve also been a lot more proactive in donating to help palestine (i still donated monthly b4 but i’ve tried chip in a bit more lately, considering what’s been happening in rafah)

for the not so good news:

two stray cats that we haven’t been able to spay yet gave birth so there’s that. i love kittens, they’re the cutest but i always get so stressed at socializing them and/or finding homes for them because people are irresponsible af with their pets here but i can’t keep taking cats in without my cats and my other financial responsibilities being affected </3 i’ve been kinda guilty for the trip too bc of the money we’ve spent

my dad found a premature newborn kitten and it sadly passed away too </3

and, finally, i’m taking my masters’ comprehensive tests in two weeks and im terrified of failing them (i’ll update when i get the results so 🤞🏻).

i hope you’re doing well, what have you been up to? i hope you’re taking good care of yourself💜

(adding some life pictures too, look at the babies, look at my mom’s big ass piece of pizza and of course, i hope you still drink your iced coffee consistently <3)

i wish you the absolute best, always <3

sending you love wherever your are, whenever you are✨

sincerely,

🐈‍⬛

My love!!!!!! The love of my actual life. I was just thinking of you because skz posted they would be doing that little kitten interview thing (they did it for us and us only ‼️‼️) I’m so excited we get to see Jisung with kittens 😌

you’re NEVERRRR a bother with your messages. They’re absolutely the best part of all my days and I’ve been thinking of you so often while on my little break from the internet. First I am SO glad to hear you finished with a’s and b’s????? You should be so proud of yourself my love!!!!!! And you went out to celebrate, I hope you had the most fun everrrrrr 🥹🫶

my sister and I just got our lolla wristbands in the mail and it’s all starting to feel so real. I’m excited but also nervous??? As fuck??????? And I still have 2 Ateez shows before then I’ve done absolutely nothing to prepare for 🥲 it’s crunch time when I get back home frfr

also pls send all the kdrama recs as soon as physically possible !!!!!!

I’m so glad to hear you’re able to donate and be of help 🫶 I’ve been continuing to donate to save the children and participating in active boycotts. Tuning into the news every day is just so fucking heartbreaking. I’m so proud of everyone on here doing what they can and donating ❤️🍉 I love you so much

Also FEEL YOU on the kitten thing…. kittens are so so so much work and they stress me out so bad. One of my neighbors at my parents’ house once left behind their cat who gave birth in our shed and we has to care for the last kitten who survived (super tiny little premature baby) and even though we rushed her to the vet and watched after her for a few days, she passed 💔 that was the moment that I remember being like….. kittens are just so much more fragile than people think and difficult to care for. You did the best that you could :( thank you for being there for them regardless.

Also how did the comprehensive test go? (If you already took it) I hope you did so so amazing my love!!!!!!!!

I love you endlessly and I’m thinking of you always. Momo and I are rooting for you (even though she’s with my dad rn) and we hope you’re taking good care of yourself. All my love to you, always always always 💓💞💫🫶 I’ll be back properly very soon and in the meanwhile I’m sending you all my love from the middle of nowhere ! I hope it reaches you

#🐈‍⬛ anon #ask

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