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wileys-russo · 11 months

Note

A halloween fic where Leah and her gf go to a Williamson family halloween party. Gf secretly dresses up as the always serious Lioness captain and everyone finds its hilarious except Leah (maybe she finds it kinda hot lol)…

narcissist II l.williamson

"oh she is going to hate this." laura laughed as you emerged from your room, the younger girl waiting patiently in the living room while you'd put the finishing touches to your halloween costume.

"thats the goal!" you grinned with a wink, giving yourself a once over in the hallway mirror, adjusting your hair a little. "you look so good lau!" you beamed at laura who was dressed up as cowgirl barbie, having somehow convinced kim to go as her counterpart western ken, who agreed to meet you there.

you'd all been invited to a halloween party thrown by leah's cousin holly, which was an annual tradition among the williamson family and their close friends. leah had been out all day having gone over there this morning, promising to help holly set everything up.

you'd gotten out of it given you had picked up a last minute shift this morning and promised a very nervous laura that she could come over and get ready with you.

with most of the girls away on international break the austrian had spent nearly everyday at yours and leahs shared home seeking out the company she missed when her house mates were away.

not that you or leah minded at all, both looking at laura like a younger sister. you'd always fit in well with leahs friends and team mates since the two of you started seeing one another a few years ago, though you'd become exceptionally close to the fellow members of her coveted infamous acl club.

you glanced down as your phone buzzed, alex texting that she was outside in an uber. "scottys here." you informed, grabbing your house keys and lauras hand, the two of you running to the car with a laugh after you'd locked up.

"jesus christ alex!" you jumped in shock as you opened the door and came face to face with the older woman, who grinned at you devilishly, dressed head to toe like a sexy pennywise the clown. "that is a nightmare." laura laughed, climbing into the car alongside you.

"you look gorgeous!" alex pointed toward laura as the driver pulled out from the curb. "you...well, you look bang on mate." alex nodded her approval as you grinned happily. "down to the very last detail." you pulled a very stern face, causing both women to laugh loudly.

you'd opted that out of all the options you had, the best and most top tier costume you could pull off was to dress up as your lovingly strict girlfriend in her natural element.

so you were clad out in her favourite england kit from the euros with williamson splashed across your back, having to roll the top of her shorts twice so they didn't hang down to your knees. you'd even pulled your socks up and stole an old pair of her boots which you had no doubt you'd hear about from the girl in question soon enough.

then there was the thin black headband which sat on your head pulling your fringe out of your face, leahs now having grown out beyond the need to use it but you'd still given her endless amounts of shit while she'd needed it so it seemed a perfect accessory.

the final cherry on top was the one love captains armband wrapped tightly around your bicep, loaned to you by katie before she'd flown off to ireland for national camp. having laughed till her stomach hurt when you'd explained what you needed it for she made you promise to send her lots of photos.

pulling up to hollys house the party was clearly in full swing as there was cars everywhere and people lounging around smoking on her front lawn, every single sort of weird and wonderful costume in sight.

thanking the driver the three of you slipped out and made your way inside, holly spotting you right away as she grinned and hurried over. she hugged alex who dipped with a wink, spotting some of her friends across the room.

laura was next to go, kim waving her over where she sat with amber, jen and a few others in the living room, the sight of the arsenal captain with a cow print tracksuit on making you let out a loud laugh as she winked and playfully rolled her eyes, dipping her hat at you as she stood to embrace laura.

"and you...babe you are a spitting image!" holly grinned after she'd hugged you tightly, holding you away from her at arms length and looking you up and down.

"god the world can barely handle one leah williamson, but two? good luck to us all!" her brother ben appeared beside her, hugging you tightly and spinning you around before darting away to mingle.

"where is she?" you asked, holly taking your hand and dragging you away to make you a drink. "outside with her mum i think, and i need to see her live reaction." holly handed you a drink and again pulled you away with her.

you spotted your girlfriend stood by the fire pit in the middle of the yard, surrounded by a few of her family members you'd met several times before, following holly over as amanda spotted you and the girl gestured for her not to alert leah.

"well hello sexy, is it hot today or is it just you?" you smacked your girlfriend on the bum as she so often greeted you, the older girl spinning around as you did, having been messaging all day how much she missed you.

though once she actually took you in you were unable to read the look on her face, her family members all exploding into a round of applause and whistles as you took a bow.

"leah williamson; england captain, european champion." you held your hand out toward her mum with a blank stare, and a near perfect impression of your girlfriends thick milton keynes accent, sending the older woman into a deeper bout of hysterics as you were showered with compliments.

"you are unbelievable." finally finishing making the rounds hugging her various family members leah was next as you returned in front of her, sending her a beaming smile and a wink.

"like it? think its pretty accurate." you again made fun of your girlfriends tendency to replace her th's with f's as even leah was unable to hold back her smile.

"you might be fucking annoying but i have to say i do love it baby girl, imitation is the best form of flattery." leah smirked, pecking your lips a few times as the two of you hugged tightly.

"you're looking proper fit babe." you grinned, your girlfriend dressed up like a sexy jack sparrow, the bandana and corset combination doing wonders for you. "are you going to speak like that all night?" leah grimanced at the thickly dramatised impression of her accent.

"sure am, welcome to my every day reality my love."

"leah where are we going!" you laughed as she dragged you through the house by your hand, both of you a little tipsy you stumbled on your feet as she pushed you into hollys room.

"you look so fucking good tonight babe its driving me crazy." leah breathed out, shutting the door and pressing you up against it, hands gripping your hips.

"are you seriously telling me you're finding me dressed as you a turn on right now?" you laughed quietly, arms wrapping around her shoulders and fiddling with the baby hairs on the nape of her neck as she gave you a toothy grin.

"what can i say baby? you're hot, i'm hot. put them together? i very much like what i see." leah whistled with a smirk making your eyes roll playfully. "such a narcissist." you teased, standing on your tippy toes to connect your lips to hers.

your head spun as her lips ravaged yours, the kiss desperate and messy and passionate, the older girl doing her very best to show you just how much she'd missed you today, and just how much she was enjoying your little get up tonight.

"leah." you released a breathy moan as she took your bottom lip between her teeth, tugging on it as her eyes locked with yours and winked, sucking your lip into her mouth and pressing you even harder into the door as her tongue slipped into your mouth now taking full control of the kiss.

but tonight, tonight you were determined to stay in character.

you pushed back against her taller form, walking her back until her legs hit the bed and she fell, the kiss breaking for a moment before her hands grabbed at you possessively, tagging you to straddle her lap.

"i think you should keep this on when i have you a whining mess underneath me later my girl. you know i love when you wear my name." leahs hands slipped under her jersey which adorned your top half, short nails scratching your abs before she tugged teasingly at the material.

"maybe i'll even let you wear my euros medal if you beg me nicely enough." leah smiled wickedly, hands gently sliding up higher on your torso until you hastily grabbed them and pinned them to her sides.

"mm tempting but not tonight lee baby, tonight i'm the captain." you breathed out against her lips, ducking your head back with a smug smile as she tried to dive back in to kiss you.

though before anything else could happen a fist was pounding at the door. "i swear to god the two of you better be out out of my room and fully clothed in 0.5 seconds or i'll kick this fucking door and your heads in!" holly yelled menacingly, hitting the door again as you and leah shared a grin.

"don't worry love, this isn't over yet-" you paused, leaning back to proudly tap the lionesses badge on your chest.

"the english are never done."

#leah williamson x reader #woso blurbs #engwnt #woso x reader #leah williamson #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso

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miller-lookforthe-lite · 9 months

Text

steps: part one

joel miller x f!reader

rating: M

words: 6.6k

summary: Westward bound, and your steps are uncertain. Your hands shake, and it's hard to keep the food down. Joel thinks he might know why. (or, how accidents sometimes lead us to our fates.)

tags/warnings: unplanned/(unwanted?) pregnancy, thoughts and discussion of abortion, vomit, canon-typical violence, nightmares, hurt/comfort (u already know what it issss) - please heed the warnings, as these may be triggering to some! MDNI

read on ao3

a/n: here she is boys here she is world. My first TLOU and my first x reader, all in one. this one means something to me, hope it does to you too. part two coming soon

The road is twisting around a bend when you make Joel pull over. He eases as gently as he can off the asphalt, the dense, looming forest closing in around you in the twilight. You swing open the door and barely stick your boot in the grass before you’re emptying the contents of your stomach into the ditch. The skin of your throat burns and your nose reeks, the scent of it is everywhere. Hands on your knees, you heave until nothing is left. You wipe off your mouth with the back of your hand and catch a glimpse of an eagle high above in glowing sunset, what’s left of it to see anyway. You put your hands on your hips, give yourself a second to breathe. In and out, in and out before you have to look at the crease between Joel’s eyebrows, the question hidden under his tongue.

You turn back around and pull yourself up into the beat-up black pickup. Ellie’s faint snores from the backseat almost impress you, her ability to sleep through a loud bodily function steadfastly enduring throughout your journey. A light breeze trickles its way over your spine before you can shut the door and your hair stands on end. You reach for the seatbelt and chance a glance at Joel. He’s making no move to shift back into drive. He frowns at you with that question in his gaze, his wondering brown eyes flicking between your own like he might be about to crack open his dry lips and ask, but he’s snapped out of his reverie by a gunshot off in the woods. He wastes no time, throwing the truck back into gear and pushing onward down the road, resting his hand on your denim-clad, gooseflesh thigh.

Your destination is Wyoming, some Western mountain-filled land that you’d never seen, but had come to know well through old faded maps and silent wishes in your companions’ eyes. Weeks ago, before everything had happened, before Ellie, before losing Tess, Joel had confided in you in a rare moment of quiet that he had always wanted to visit. “The Grand Tetons,” he had muttered darkly. “Thought they might be nice. Guess Tommy did too.” You hope it’s nice. You try hard to tell yourself this, that the beauty of the natural world will make up for its horrors, that there’s something beyond shuffling Infected and the Raider country you currently roam through. You picture a haven in your most secret dreams; maybe a bunker, secluded, serene. Stocked with nonperishables. Perfect for weathering a wretched existence.

Sometimes you convince yourself the truck was a bad idea. It’s loud and gasoline isn’t always so easy to come by, but you’re still too far away. Several weeks skirting broken and ancient infrastructure, and you’ve made it west but not to the West, not the mountains, not the cold like you know must be coming. It’s still too warm, the trees are too deciduous. You have the ridiculous impulse to fan yourself.

You lean your head back against the seat to let your fantasies play out behind your eyelids. There you see Ellie, chattering away with some long-forgotten board game under her arm and plenty of food in her belly. Joel, shaking his head but with eyes glistening joyfully. You, not having to pretend that you aren’t terrified, not running, not pleading, not shaking. Not sick.

A gunshot strikes through the air not far away, pulling you from your daydream. You glance over at Joel, but his eyes stay firmly on the road and his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

“Are they close?” Ellie whispers from the backseat, and you start, not even realizing she had stirred. You shoot her your most half-hearted smile and reach your hand back. She threads her fingers through yours absentmindedly.

“We’re okay. We got plenty of gas left. We’ll be out of here before they can even shoot again.”

Ellie’s eyes are wide, she wants so desperately to believe you, and you want so desperately for her to believe. To give her this, one breath of relief.

“Okay,” she murmurs, not releasing your fingers until the night has shifted once again to day.

“Come on!” laughs your brother, egging you on from his perch across the rooftops. He and your younger sister are soaked through, having already braved the icy downpour, the leap across buildings. You laugh along with him until you shift your gaze to where he’s looking. The other crumbling rooftop is empty. Your sister’s not there.

“Brandon, what…?” When you turn your head to look at him, he is gone.

You blink, and you’re in his fancy new office in the FEDRA headquarters. He’s older, just been promoted to some kind of private. He’s ruffling your hair and you’re mad, you know you were trying to say something important, something that would help him, and he’s brushing you off again. “Fuck off, asshole!” You can see the force of your words hammer through the air as you say them. The blast blows Brandon off his feet and he hits the wall, his head snapping to the side. He hits the floor with a thump and lays there without moving.

You open your mouth to shout but your sister’s face is in front of you. You’re in a back alley in Boston, it’s cold, so cold, and you’re so worried. “What did I tell you?” You know to say, grabbing her shoulders and shaking a bit.

“This is the right thing. This is right,” she insists, and your heart sinks.

“This is stupid,” you hiss. “They’ll kill you, Katie. FEDRA will kill you. Whatever war Marlene thinks she’s fighting - it’s not yours to fight - it’s not yours to die for —”

A harsh laugh splits from her throat, and you’re shocked to hear such bitterness pour from the mouth of the little girl you helped to raise. “What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’ll die anyways, it should be for something, it should be —”

She was too loud. She raised her voice too much. She gave away your position. A shot rings out and the heavy weight of your sister collapsing knocks you to the ground.

You’re lying on the ground with Brandon. Dust chokes the air. Something heavy lies across your legs. You push as hard as you can, but it doesn’t budge. You grunt with the effort, but the thick air fills your lungs and you gag. You blink soot out of your eyes and turn your head to Brandon. He’s so still. Whatever’s lying on your legs is almost completely covering him. A trickle of red spills from down the corner of his mouth. Your lungs are filled with ash, dust, panic, terror. You try to say his name, but your lips can’t move. Brandon, your baby brother. Brandon. Just as you hear the big metal object creak, shifting for the first time, the air clears.

You’re standing in a dark hallway, dilapidated wallpaper peeling into its yellow crest all around you. Sobs and groans echo throughout the dim, and your feet carry you to the doorway. A make-shift hospital bed, a woman lying in it. You creep forward to see her face, to see your mother without her breath and her blood standing still. You reach for her, at the same time scurrying away, as far away as you can get.

You jolt awake with a scream, deep and entrenching. There’s a hard, calloused hand over your mouth in an instant, and you vaguely register that Joel is hissing at you to stay quiet, but you can’t control the wracking of your body, the panic coursing through your veins. You come back to yourself slowly, realizing there’s no blood on your hands, just Joel’s arms around you, just a thrashing heartbeat that threatens to beat you to a pulp. You’re pressed up against his chest in the bed of the truck, Ellie on your other side whispering frantically at you to calm down. It’s still dark out, but you can hear machine gun fire in the distance. You twist your head to look at him, reach out your hand to touch him, need to make sure he won’t disappear too. He’s real and solid, and his eyes glitter with apology in the moonlight. Ellie presses into your other side, arms coming around you in her sweet child’s embrace, and you’re ashamed that she’s had to witness your despair, that she is the one who shoulders your burden. Joel takes his hand off your mouth when he’s sure you won’t make any more sound, but holds you closer still, like he knows what you dreamed and is afraid of the same thing.

You met Joel for the first time when he was asking for directions. A weathered, haunted look in his eye, like he’d rather be doing anything other than asking the girl distributing rations which way around the construction detour to the South End, but a Boston native like yourself couldn’t resist the urge to demonstrate your own knowledge. That’s how you unknowingly wound up leading him straight to Robert’s new basecamp setup, an itch creeping up your spine once you realized what his intentions were. Stupid, you had thought, stupid to think nothing bad could happen in broad daylight, that he was beautiful so he was safe. So stupid.

It was there, when one of Robert’s fucking goons tried to rob the two of you at gunpoint, that Joel realized you had extra rations in your bag, rations that you had stolen from the distribution center — “They’re for my sister,” you protested —and that you had something more to offer him than just the best way to Richmond Street.

You set up a deal of sorts, after he had wiped his hands of your assailant’s blood. You stashed two extra cans per shift in your pack, and brought them to him. In exchange, he kept the gnashing teeth of the city’s smugglers’ off of Brandon’s back, offering your little brother a protection that his FEDRA school never could.

It was through this deal that you met Tess, that you had loved her, too — She took care of things in a way you had always wished you could, but without fucking up, like you did. She was calm, and powerful, and knew she was right, always. Joel looked up to her, too, even if he was too hurt to ever show it.

When she had asked you to come on a special run outside the walls, you were hesitant — several years into your partnership with the smugglers, and you’d only ever been outside of Boston once, to make a drop in Lincoln and get to meet that charming Frank that you’d heard grinning over the radio so many times. It was important, she insisted, a cargo like nothing they’d ever transported. A kid. You said yes, mostly because by this time you didn’t have anyone left to take care of, not the way you longed for, the way you knew how to.

You loved Ellie from the start, loved her spirit, her bite, so much like Katie in her fierce determination, and the ache of remembering didn’t hurt so much as Ellie’s grin helped. You guided her down the road like you knew you were meant to do - to give, to lead, to provide. Tess was more hesitant, but would always answer to Ellie’s curiosity, and always with kindness underneath her brusk.

Joel, of course, didn’t say much. Even after years of handing him can after can of crushed tomatoes, of deliberately brushing up against his fingers just to feel that shock of cool air when he pulled back, he didn’t even say much to you. You knew some things; you knew that he was from Texas, that he had had a brother who used to work with him and Tess, but who left. Who called once but didn’t any more.

You wound up knowing more about Ellie than Joel, strange given the amount of time you had passed with each of them, so much more with Joel, but so much fuller with Ellie. Her secret, her golden Immunity hung its mantle like an axe above each of your throats. It made Joel angry - it made Tess hope. It just made you wonder.

When Tess died, lighting her own pyre to ensure your safety, and Ellie’s and Joel’s, you felt even stronger the pull to shield your traveling companions. Tess was another mark against you, and you wouldn’t let her, or whoever was watching you fuck all these things up, see you fail again. So you tucked Ellie delicately under your wing, and she came willingly, so desperate to be talked to and known. You tried with Joel, too, but your urges competed. He wanted to protect, you wanted to control — you exchanged heated words at the hardest of times, but the journey didn’t stop for your obstinance, so they faded away as the Eastern coastal plains rolled behind you.

—

The End of the World chases you so all you have left to chase is euphoria. It’s some desperation to feel wanted, you know, and you’re sure that he’s just desperate to feel anything at all. That’s how this thing between you started, sparked from argument tinder and nurtured by lonely swollen nightfall.

After all this time, you know he cares about you. You know. He loves you. It’s clear in the way he’ll step in front of you when he perceives a threat, how he always makes sure you and Ellie have taken your first bite before he takes his. He loves the way a leader loves, by leading.

But he doesn’t love you like you loved him, not like when you led him down a Boston street like you knew the world, like when he pushed a bullet from its path to you on that first day, and every second and shattered heartbeat in between.

So you chase this parallel sensation as hard as you can. You chase his fingers, his tongue, his quiet exhales behind trees and in the dark, across a clearing, behind the truck. You try to pretend, however long it takes to find release, that somewhere beneath his rough and his scorn he could feel something for you.

—

Joel pops open a bag of stale, questionable chips and the smell explodes throughout the cab of the truck. He fishes out a few with fingers long and thick and the holds the rest of the bag over to you, but you can’t bring yourself to look at it. You turn your face away and put your hand over your mouth. You think you might vomit again, but Joel’s furrowed brow, his telltale sign of anxiety, appears unbidden in your mind. Nothing’s wrong, really, nothing is, so you hold it in.

You hear him give the bag a little shake. “Hello? Are you gonna take some?”

You manage to look back over at him, but can’t open your mouth lest the scent hits your taste buds. You shake your head mutely.

He frowns. “You have to eat something.”

“Not now,” You wave away, like your insides aren’t churning.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Ellie declares, swooping in to snatch the bag and chomping loudly on her prize.

—

“What is that? Over there?” Ellie sticks her head between the two of you in the front to point over the front dash. There’s a strange movement in the trees, a foreign shape marring the landscape. As you get closer, it comes into view. Two figures sway back and forth amongst the trees.

“Drive,” you breathe. “Keep going.”

“What is it?” Ellie demands, a current of panic running thick through her voice. “What’s—”

“Stop,” Joel says harshly. “Ellie, don’t look.” He presses his foot firmly to the peddle, but he can’t drive anywhere but past them. Bile rises in your throat. You hear him swear softly when the girl clearly refuses, but you can’t make yourself look away, either.

The image burns into your mind long after you’ve passed them, and you’ve crossed state lines, and the sun has set. Two bodies, suspended from rope tied round their necks. One is a young girl, small body, youthful cheeks, hanging dead from a tree. The body next to her is her older carbon copy, it must be her mother. They dangle in the wind.

Ellie finds her voice, however hoarse, sometime later. “We should have stopped.”

Joel grunts. “No time.”

Your mouth is dry. You say nothing.

Ellie sniffs in the backseat, and you can’t help but feel that it’s another mark against you.

You’re so fucking tired of this shit. Every day’s the same, you wake up and think you’re gonna hurl. You smell anything other than clean air and feel the same. You almost can’t remember what it feels like to be not-nauseous, to be free in your body and have it do the things you want it to do.

You just want to feel something good, anything ever again, so you push Joel down in the backseat early one morning while Ellie still sleeps outside and cover his mouth with yours. He don't complain, seemingly content to lie back against the ripped plastic seats and massage the skin at your hips with his thumbs. You sigh into him, convince yourself that this is what it felt like before your body betrayed you, before you couldn’t move without the urge to empty your stomach. His tongue moves with yours, against yours, for yours - you don't know. You push your hips down against him, more for yourself, the rough denim of your jeans pressing wickedly between your legs. He drags a rough hand up under your shirt and tugs aside your flimsy bra, squeezing your breast in his hand.

A sore, tugging pain radiates from where his hand squeezes, and you moan into his mouth. He brings his other hand up and squeezes both of your breasts, harder, rolling the tips between his fingers, and you think you might burst. They feel heavier hanging off of you than they ought to, more burdensome than you recall. The pain builds and builds with your panic as he continues to knead - if you tells him it hurts, he’ll stop. You need him not to stop.

You grab his shoulders to pull him up into a sitting position and untangle yourself from him to turn around. You shuck off your jeans as best as you can in the cramped cabin.

You brace yourself against the window, the dawn light just beginning to filter through the trees. His hand slips down to hold you, wet and wanting, and his teeth scrape the top of your spine. “Good?” He asks, like he somehow always does. You want to say no, not good, so bad, but you’re all that’ll make it better, you’re it, I don’t know what’s wrong, but you’re right, please don’t stop —

You don't trust yourself to look back at him. “Yes,” you breathe.

He lines up with you, sweetly mouthing at the strip of skin your neckline exposes. You try to pretend the pain in your chest is gone when he slides into you from behind. This is how he likes to do it — no faces, as many clothes as possible, as few words. He’ll check that you’re okay, and then silently rush to his finish, blessedly pushing you over the end with him. For once, today, you’re grateful for his preference. This way he can’t see the tears you furiously swipe away.

—

You come across a small market store not far from the Missouri border. It doesn’t take long to scope the area out. There aren’t any people, just like there isn’t much food. Some gum and pre-packaged cakes that make Ellie scrunch her nose in distaste are on a bottom shelf in the back, so you throw them in the bag. It’s not much, but you’ve only got crackers and a few cans left in the truck. You’re not so much able to refuse anything. The thought of eating the cakes sends your stomach for a spiral, and you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment. Not here. Not now.

Ellie notices, of course. “Woah… are you okay?”

You force your eyes open and give her a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah. Just dizzy. Let’s get going.”

Right as you’re about to leave, another truck screeches out of the trees and into the parking lot. The headlights shine through the glass door straight into your eyes. Joel sucks in a breath. The truck pulls to a stop not far from yours and four men get out, all covering their faces, one with a machine gun pointed towards the sky.

“Fuck,” you whisper, Joel grabbing your arm and whisking you to the back before you finish speaking. Ellie’s already crouched down behind an empty shelf, her lips set in grim determination but her grip on her pack shaking.

Joel taps you to get your attention, jerking his head towards a back door. He moves slowly, gesturing for you and Ellie to follow. The shift of his jeans and the crack of his knees make your heart beat even faster. The bell above the door rings and heavy footsteps follow into the space. The three of you freeze, and through the gaps in the metal shelving, you see them.

Tall, brutish. All four armed, and deadly. Their neanderthal brays pierce your eardrums.

“Who’s here?” Calls one while the others cackle and titter. Right, the truck. They would have seen it.

“Come out, come out…” One of them jokes, knocking over a display by the door with unnecessary grandiose.

Ellie clutches onto your sleeve, her wide eyes begging you for an answer. Joel’s the one that gives it to her. He points at you and Ellie, then down at the ground. You stay. He points to himself as he pulls his rifle around his front, then over to where the mean are kicking around the front counter. I go. He locks eyes with you and nods his head to Ellie, then the back door. Get her out of here.

You nod, a calm determination washing over you, dampening your racing heart. You grasp Ellie’s hand in your own and count silently in your head as he sneaks towards the Raiders on bended knee, though you’re not sure what for. He starts to lift his gun, your signal to pounce on the back door, when suddenly a tidal wave of nausea pours over you, dousing you from head to toe, swirling your insides and turning the room upside down. You don’t stand when you’re supposed to, not when there’s shouting and gunshots and Ellie yelling and tugging you towards the exit. It’s hard to see, it’s hard to breathe. All you can feel is the acid rising to your lips.

The three of you barely make it out alive.

He slams his foot on the gas petal and the tires screech as you careen out of the parking lot. You stay turned around watching the world disappear behind you, ignoring Ellie’s eyes that bounce between your face and the trail of dust you leave behind. You fly down the road, faster than he’s dared to go before. After several miles, you let yourself collapse back into your seat, facing the front. You let out a breath, trying to focus on a single point on the dashboard in front of you, trying to quell the dizziness, this sensation that the world is spinning off of its axis.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” Ellie supplies. She’s quiet for a minute, then adds, “they won’t, right?”

Joel don't reply. You chance a glance over at him to find him fuming, his jaw locked in place and his eyes glued to the road. His arms bulge like they do when he’s tensed up and not even realized it. His grip on the steering wheel threatens to snap the plastic.

His ire fans the flames of your own. Something wild in you pushes you forward, nudges you to ruffle the lion’s mane, some alien urge that you’ve no name for. “Think we’ve got bigger fish to fry in the car with us,” you mutter.

You can hear his jaw pop. “Oh, like a delinquent that can’t stand on her own two feet?” You flinch like you’ve been stung. You want to sting him, too. “What, you’re just gonna pass out every time we’re in a life-or-death situation?”

“I didn’t pass out,” you snap. “I just got dizzy. It wasn’t a big deal, you asshole.”

“Until it was,” he seethes, still careening down the road. “Until you had to run, with her, and you couldn’t fuckin’ see straight. You didn’t think to say something beforehand?”

“What would you have done differently, then?” You hiss, suddenly overwhelmed, not ready to be on guard again so soon. He’s saying things that make sense. You’re losing. Again. “Asked them nicely to leave us alone?”

“Might’a left you in the truck, might’a had a different plan if I knew the person I was relying on was gonna choke, fucking Christ —”

Your heart clenches at the word rely so you scoff to hide it. “Fuck off.” What if he hadn’t been able to take them down, to get you all out of there? What if you had cost Ellie her life? You’re raising your voice and you know that won’t help anything, but your vision is still swimming and adrenaline is still coursing through you and you don't know what else to do with that combination.

“I will not!” Joel’s shouting, and you start. He’s never shouted at you, not once, not even on that first trip to Lincoln when you almost got caught sneaking back into the QZ, not even when you survived and Tess didn’t, not even when you made him give himself to you over and over. His foot is letting up off the gas petal and the truck slows down, like he knows if he puts his foot down the way he wants he won’t be able to stop and he’ll drive you all off the edge of the world. “You got sick a few weeks back, too. What, you got bit or somethin’ too? Think I’m worth tellin’ about an aneurysm, a heart attack—”

“It’s only sometimes,” You snap, shaking with rage or sickness, you don't know. “I’ll be fine in thirty fucking minutes. It keeps happening.”

His foot is on the brake, a sudden screech against the road as the truck skids to a stop. You jerk back in your seat. “What the fuck, Joel?” Ellie exclaims.

“What are you doing?” You hiss. “We need to get further away—"

He stares straight ahead at the road, chest heaving, face impassible. “How long?” He breathes.

You glares. “How long what?”

“How long has it been goin’ on?”

“I don’t fucking know, Joel, a couple weeks? I—”

He doesn’t listen to the rest of your sentence. He’s out of the truck, slamming the door behind him before you can blink.

You glance back at Ellie, who looks deeply uncomfortable, and sigh. “Gimme a second.”

You unbuckle and follow him outside, a few yards into the treeline, urging your shaky legs onward. “Joel, get back in the fucking truck, this is insane —”

“You won’t eat.” His interruption is pained as he stops in his tracks, face pointedly looking out at the trees, not at you, not at you. “You’re not eatin’. And there’s the nausea, then soreness, dizziness -"

“What’s your fucking point?”

He takes a moment to respond, jaw working itself to bits. When he finally turns to look at you, you realize his expression isn’t as stoic as you thought. “When did you have your last period?”

Your heart stops beating in your chest. You sneer to hide it.

“Girls who don’t eat don’t get their period, dumbass-”

“When?” He demands.

Your veins are full of icy frost, not blood, blood would move and cycle and make you feel alive, this just makes you feel still, frozen, gone. You close your eyes. “I - I don’t - I don’t know. I don’t know. But it hasn’t come, for a while. It hasn’t come.”

After a moment of silence you hear the sound of Joel moving back to the truck, closing his door more gently behind him this time. You don’t remember your ghost feet floating back to your side, not wanting to find out what would happen if you kept him waiting too long. Your fingers shake as you buckle back in. Ellie, for maybe the first time since you’ve met her, doesn’t say a word. The world begins to move forward again. You grip the door next to you so tightly you think your fingers might fall off. You don’t remember falling asleep like that, but when you do it’s a sweet, welcome relief.

—

When you wake up, it’s dark out, but the road outside is wider than you expected it to be, having stayed mostly on backroads and service paths. The only light comes from the truck’s headlights and the moon shining up above.

“Where are we?” You murmur, stretching out the aching muscles of your back. Ellie seems to have joined you in slumber, slumped awkwardly against the door behind you.

Joel’s hand slides over the top of the steering wheel. “Nearby Kansas City,” he offers.

You become more clearly awake at this. “The QZ? Why do you wanna head so close to it?”

He rubs the steering wheel again, drawing from it some kind of power to speak. “Figure we stash the truck somewhere, enroll at the gate as refugees. Get what we need, get out.”

“What we need?” You’re still confused.

“A doctor,” he says. “It’s nearby and you need a doctor. So.”

You’re at a loss. You can’t keep up with the implications, with the unspoken, terrifying truth of the question he’s asking you, he’s been asking you. You open your mouth, but the sounds are weak to your own ears. “But — it’ll take too — Wyoming, we have to — and Ellie — and Tommy —”

“We’ll get to Wyoming,” he promises. “First we check on you.”

Something bubbles up in your chest and you shift in your seat, too afraid to ask but too afraid to not know. “Are you angry?” You venture, keeping your eyes on what little of the road you can see in front of you.

You can see him puff air through his lips from the corner of your vision. “I do generally like to know about things before they became an immediate issue, so next time —”

“No,” You say too quickly, and he stops, looking over at you. “I mean, were you mad about - you know, if I am” — you choke on your own spit, can’t bring yourself to say the word — “If I am, are you angry with me?”

Your voice sounds too small to your own ears, this isn’t the You you know, but you don't remember how to be that girl anyways, don't remember how to survive without him. If he’s not with you, and if what he thinks is happening is happening, this could be it for you, this could be his final straw, too much baggage, not giving enough, not —

“You, what? Listen, no, I don’t —” He takes his foot off the gas. The truck slowly but surely rolls to a stop, so starkly contrasting the abruptness of its earlier halt. He shifts the car to park, not even bothering to pull off the road like he usually does when you stop for the night. You can feel him looking at you but you can’t bring yourself to look back.

You sit like that in the quiet for a minute before he speaks. “I’m afraid,” he confesses to you like he worries the night sky will hear his secret. “I’m afraid and I’m sorry that I made you think I was angry. I’m not angry. You ain’t done nothin’ wrong. You understand? Nothin’."

You don't realize you’ve begun to cry until his arms are reaching over the center console to pull you into his lap. A mess of limbs and you find yourself between his solid frame and the steering wheel, his arms holding you like they do when you sleep, but this feels different, this feels tighter, this feels dangerously close to touching the reason you shake, the reason you burrow yourself into him at night.

“We’ll be alright,” he promises so fiercely it startles your eyes dry. “You’ll be alright. I promise.”

It’s late at night in the QZ a few years earlier, dim street light beaming through the dusty window. You sit with your back against the rotting drywall, Joel with his against the couch. You’re waiting for Tess to get back with a drop from a new partner, something she said felt “promising,” but that she wanted to handle with caution. The two of you would always listen to her, so you’ve stayed behind, but you’ll also always worry for her, so you stay awake into the early hours of the morning just to see the promise of her wellbeing slip through the doorway.

You’re picking at your fingernails, something Katie would always turn her nose up at you for, “makes ‘em look ugly,’ she’d say, but everything’s ugly here so you might as well match. Katie’s on your mind just as much as Tess - she’s been gone from your shared residence more often since Brandon died, you think she can’t stand to see the hallways you once all ran through together as children. You worry for her, too. Her great love for a woman named Marlene and ceaseless ardor for Marlene’s cause put her in more danger everyday. She’d do anything for the Fireflies, plant any bomb. Maybe even the one the killed Brandon. Neither of you are sure, and you definitely never talk about it.

“Will you quit?” Joel’s gruff voice startles you out of your spiraling reverie, and you realize blood has started to seep from around some of your cuticles. “Fuckin’ — fidgeting’s makin’ me nervous.”

“Sorry,” you say, not really meaning it but feeling sheepish nonetheless. Joel intimidates you; he’s quiet, and strong, and definitely beautiful, and maybe knows something about life, maybe too much about life, maybe that’s why he’s so dour all the time. However, sitting here on the floor, waiting for your shared comrade’s return, you feel emboldened or delirious from the witching hour. You open your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“Didn’t know you got nervous.”

He scoffs abruptly, a sound you might almost have called a laugh in another life, and runs his fingers over his mouth absentmindedly. The streetlamp glow slants across his cheekbones just so, and in this dilapidated, peeling living room, he looks almost otherworldly. “‘M always nervous.”

He doesn’t say anything more, settling back into his friend The Silence, and you don’t believe him. He doesn’t look nervous, doesn’t pluck at his own feathers like you or move to fill the time.

“About Tess?” You venture, high off of his conversation, elated at his breath expelled in your direction. It feels like something, it feels like anything, and you’ve been dying - Katie’s never around anymore, the other girls at the food bank are even more dried up and sullen than you, and Tess, beautiful Tess with her clever wit and grounding roots isn’t here - you need more.

Joel casts you a sidelong glance. You suddenly wonder if you remembered to run your fingers through your hair this morning. It surely looks a mess. You go back to picking at your nails. The blood feels warm and soothing. “Yeah,” he acquiesces, eyebrows raising slightly. “But she can handle herself.”

Your heart races. “I know! I didn’t mean to say she couldn’t. I just —”

He holds up a hand to quell your ramble, and you crumble to his command. “I know. We still worry.”

You exhale long, arduous. “Yeah,” you agree softly.

He taps his finger on his knees, joins you in your fidgeting realm, his feathers pluck, his callous peels. “Don’t you got someone waitin’ for you?” He says suddenly, and you know he knows these things about you, but it’s a shock to hear him acknowledge it.

“My sister. And no. She doesn’t come home much these days. ‘Sides, I’d rather be here anyways.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “What’s she doin’ away at this hour? Isn’t she younger?”

The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and for a moment, your hackles raise. “She’s a grown woman. That’s her business, not mine.” As if it’s your fault that she’s joined up with a vigilante guerilla. As if it’s your fault that you don’t know where she sleeps these days, or if she gets enough to eat besides the times she comes to pick up the extra cans you still steal her. She is younger than you, he’s right, and you tried to provide, tried to take care of her the way your mother had tried to before she passed, before the outbreak, even. You were only 8 when the world ended, and your mother had died just a few years later. The only thing that had kept you and Katie out of military school was the older woman across the way who lied and said she was watchin’ over you. It hadn’t worked for Brandon, though. He was too young for anyone to care for, and was rocked right into the deadly cradle of FEDRA.

Joel pauses for a second, quietly contemplative, before nodding. “Suppose you’re right.”

Your breath drops back down into your stomach. If there’s anything you and Joel Miller would ever shake on, it would be leaving others to mind their own.

You wonder what his life must have been like before. What sorrow left him this way, bewildered and cold and fortified as the QZ itself.

“When did Tess say she was getting back again?” You say to fill the space, to fan the coals of a conversation long dwindled.

“Said she wasn’t sure.” He’s annoyed, you can tell. “Said it could take the whole night, or longer. Were you even listenin’?”

You purse your lips, and the apology slips from you without your own permission. A longing to stand your ground far outrun by the desperation for his voice, for his grave countenance continued. “Sorry. I don’t remember things like I’m supposed to.”

Your voice catches in your throat at the last few words, and you have to look away from him, have to blink a little faster than perhaps is natural. You’re not just talking about Tess’s debrief, you know.

You don’t expect it when he replies. “I remember it all.” A quiet confession to the night draft through the pane, shaking the dust on the counter. You look back to him, eyes wide, and his tongue peeks out to wet his cracked lips. It’s like he knows, he knows what you meant, and he can see right through you and this flimsy excuse for skin you wear, this flimsy excuse of a girl you are. He sees you, and you feel like the recipient of a crown jewel, a treasure held close to your heart for this little bit of him that he’s allowed through, this morsel of self that’s scrapped so haggardly to his surface.

His eyes lock with yours, his face set suddenly with a grim determination. “Listen, she’ll be alright. We all will. I mean it.”

You nod, his earnestness permeating your jellyfish shroud, spineless, maybe he could prop you up. Maybe he’s doing it now. You turn back to your nail beds to shred until the early morning sun brings Tess home with it.

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