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sixhours · 6 months ago

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happy birthday, baby girl - camping

Ellie has never had a birthday. Joel can fix that.

Series masterlist | Read on AO3 | In progress

Rating: Teen Chapter tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel and Ellie, Ellie Williams, Joel Miller, birthdays, swearing, canon-compliant, angst, implied past alcohol abuse/alcoholism Words: 7.1k

Notes: A bunch of birthday one-shots loosely based on this headcanon. This might be a five-times/one-time fic in disguise, it hasn't decided yet.

They walk out of Jackson at dawn. For four months, they’ve lived behind the protection of a steady rotation of guards and patrols and reinforced walls. Safe and sound, but Jackson is only so big, and Ellie can’t help but feel a little claustrophobic. Even if she doesn’t have to share her room with another FEDRA brat, even if there are no bodies hanging in the public square, even if Jackson smells like fresh-cut grass and woodsmoke and pine trees instead of piss.

No, Jackson is not Boston, not by a long shot. But it’s not the walls that have her feeling smothered. She’s not used to having so many people see her. Joel and Tommy and Maria and teachers and friends and neighbors; so many people who care where she is and what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. There are rules to follow, schedules to keep, a community that expects her to contribute.

It’s fucking suffocating if she thinks about it too hard.

Today, not twenty feet outside the walls with Joel at her side, she takes what feels like her first deep breath in weeks.

“You okay, kid?”

“Yeah…fine. Just…it’s different than I remember.”

He blinks into the sun-drenched landscape, autumn just starting to tease the tops of the trees into a golden glow. It’s all familiar ground to him. He leaves the compound regularly for patrols and tells her about what they find at the end of his shifts–not a whole hell of a lot, usually.

But today it’s just the two of them, on foot, with a few supplies and a surprise destination of Joel’s in mind. She’s tried to harass it out of him without any luck.

“Is it…a lake?”

“Nope.”

“A racetrack?”

“Nope.”

“Is it a spaceship?”

This elicits a wry glance over his shoulder, at least. “Nope.”

“Umm…is it the ocean?”

“Kid, when was the last time you looked at a map?”

“When was the last time the maps were updated? For all you know, there could be a whole sea on the other side of those mountains now.”

“It ain’t the ocean, and I’m not tellin’, so you may as well stop askin’,” he says, but she knows he doesn’t really mind her questions.

His backpack and guitar are slung on his back, leaving her to carry the rifle. He has a small cooler in one hand and a walking stick in the other, something Tommy found and carved and sanded smooth. He’d promised to make Ellie one of her own this winter when construction work slowed down.

“How long does it take to get there?”

“Five hours, give or take.”

“And you’ve been through here before?” she asks, hoping her voice doesn’t betray her nerves. They’re walking through thick forest on a rough path, pock-marked with hoofprints from recent patrols.

“Yep. Meant to take you out here this summer but your cousin had other ideas,” he mutters. “Think you’ll like it.”

She shrugs.

“Figured it’s been a lot, these last few months,” he continues. “What with school…the new baby. New…everythin’, really. Thought we could use some time to, uh…I dunno. Talk. Just you an’ me. Like old times.”

Old times .

It’s a funny phrase under the circumstances, but it fits. It’s only been a year since Riley died, since Marlene found her in the mall, since she met Joel. Ellie felt like she’d lived a million lives in that time, like she’d stepped through a portal like Daniela Starr and wound up in an alternate reality. Even in her wildest dreams, she never could have predicted this. Never thought she’d survive a bite, that she’d live to see a life outside the walls of the QZ, that she’d travel across the country with a strange old man and ultimately find herself with a family, small and broken as it is.

She absently rubs at the scar under her sleeve. She’s fallen behind, feet dragging a little as she contemplates all the things that happened to bring her to this point. The mall, Kansas City, the hospital…

I swear.

She doesn’t like to think about the hospital.

Suddenly Joel’s hand is on her arm and she jerks away, realizes he’s been talking and she’s missed it, lost in her thoughts.

“Sorry,” she says.

“It’s nothin’,” he says. “I was just sayin’, I thought a little trip couldn’t hurt, get some fresh air before the snow flies…call it a birthday present.”

“You’re a little late, dude,” she says, picking up her pace to match his longer strides. “Or really fucking early.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, frowning. “Didn’t have a proper birthday this year. I figured you’re owed a few extra.”

“Does that mean I’m sixteen now? ‘Cause I can start patrol training at sixteen. Tommy said so.”

“Nice try, kid.”

She hefts her pack higher on her back, the hiking boots Joel found for her at the trading post rubbing against the backs of her heels. She’s not used to them yet, but she has to admit, they’re a hell of a lot better than her Converse for this kind of walking.

It’s an easy hike, a steady uphill climb on a narrow but well-maintained path. It’s clear it’s going to take longer than five hours when Ellie keeps finding things to look at; a cool black rock laced with glittery gold flecks to add to her collection, an iridescent beetle, a tiny dead bird carcass crawling with worms. Joel indulges her investigations the way he always does, grumbling good-naturedly, but he doesn’t rush her. They cross a shallow stream, Ellie hop-skipping over the rocks while Joel takes the wood patrol bridge, eyes on her the whole time.

The back of her left heel starts to throb about two hours in, but it’s easy enough to ignore.

It’s mid-afternoon, the sun already beginning to fall from its peak in the sky by the time they make it to their secret destination. They crest a hill and off in the distance, a wood structure sticks out over the trees.

“Is that…a treehouse?”

“Kinda,” Joel grunts, sweat shining on his forehead. It was cool when they left, but they’ve both shed their outer jackets in favor of tee shirts as the day went on. She doesn’t have to worry about hiding her scar out here. Eager to explore, Ellie runs ahead up the path and soon she’s standing at the edge of a clearing with a tower in the middle.

“Used to be a ranger’s station but they converted it to an outpost a few years back, I guess,” Joel says at her back.

“So cool,” she breathes, looking up at the tower, what looks like a cabin on stilts. Seeing it up close reminds her of the treehouse in the Swiss Family Robinson movie they played at the rec center a couple weeks ago. At the base is a fire pit and a lean-to, probably for tying up the patrol horses. Joel sets his guitar just inside the lean-to and puts his hands on his hips, squinting up at the structure.

“Can we go up?” she asks.

“Sure hope so,” he says. Joel goes to one of the thickets of shrubs on the far side of the camp and starts poking around. “Or we’re sleepin’ on the ground.”

“We get to sleep up there?”

“Yep,” he says, hauling a metal ladder out of the brush.

“Sweet!”

“Pull on that end,” he instructs, and she does, grabbing hold of the opposite rung and tugging until the ladder is fully extended. Joel lays it up against the side of the lookout so the top rung hooks onto a second ladder that’s attached to the structure higher up. He frowns and shakes the thing until it’s firmly seated, takes a few cautious steps up, testing its stability.

“Safe enough,” he pronounces, coming back to the ground. “You wanna go–”

He hasn’t finished his sentence before she’s leapt onto the ladder, climbing it like a monkey.

“–first? Jesus, kid, be careful…”

But Ellie is already clambering up, hand over hand until she reaches the top ledge. She pulls herself up to standing, walking along the side of the central cabin and down the wrap-around balcony.

“Whoa,” she breathes, leaning out over the railing. From up here she can see the whole valley and beyond. They’re too far to be able to see Jackson, she guesses, peering into the distance. It’s conveniently shrouded in trees.

Joel joins her, panting slightly. “Christ, few months of real cookin’ and I’m outta shape.”

“Sure you’re not just old?” she grins. “We could find you an oxygen tank and a wheelchair. Maybe one of those little electric scooters.”

“Brat,” he huffs, leaning on the railing, gently tugging her back by the handle of her backpack when she leans over too far. “Can still haul your scrawny ass around.”

“This is so fucking cool,” she breathes, turning around. The ranger’s station has huge plexiglass windows, and she cups her hands to one of the panes and peeks inside.

“C’mon,” Joel says, walking back around the building. He fishes a key out from behind a loose shingle near the door. “Let’s go set up.”

The lookout has obviously been maintained. Freshly stained boards stand out against the aging weathered ones like sore thumbs. The floor underfoot is solid, if creaky in places, and there’s a slight draft coming in around the windows. There are chests full of supplies and gear–enough rations to last a small patrol group for a couple of weeks, Joel says. Ellie wrinkles her nose at the familiar stock of canned goods and MREs.

If there’s one thing she has no complaints about in Jackson, it’s the food. Ellie didn’t know green beans could taste like summer, or that a fresh peach could drip sticky juice down her chin without being soaked in cloying syrup, or that soup could be more than a salty broth with shapeless chunks of mush. Until a couple months ago, she’d never had fresh whipped cream or apple pie or so many of the things they serve regularly at the caf. FEDRA rations couldn’t come close, and she can’t imagine going back to that.

She’s relieved to know they won’t be eating from the stockpile of MREs tonight. There’s not a single can in Joel’s backpack. Instead, he’s carrying pre-sliced potatoes and onions and cheese wrapped in foil, packets of roasted vegetables ready to be warmed over the fire, and several apples and granola mix for snacks. Joel said something about catching the rest of their dinner, but she wasn’t fully listening, knowing he wouldn’t make her eat the venison or rabbit or moose if they went hunting.

They lay down their bedrolls on top of foam mats on the wood floor, not dusty and ravaged by time but swept clean and tidy. Ellie flops down on her bed to test it out, staring up into the rafters. There are no cobwebs or birds’ nests. Instead, the exposed beams are decorated with odds and ends, trinkets left behind by other patrollers, random treasures found during scavenging runs. A broken lantern. A rusty horseshoe. Old farm tools. A doll that’s missing one eye and probably haunted, Ellie decides. She’s half tempted to steal it and bring it back with them to Jackson if she can figure out how to get it past Joel.

When they’re mostly settled in their makeshift camp, Joel asks, “Ready to go check out the water?”

“Water?”

“There’s a stream not far from here. You ever been fishin’?” Joel plucks two long poles off the back wall.

She rolls her eyes. “Dude, the Charles was a fucking sewer. No, I’ve never been fishing.”

That earns her a smirk. “Twilight’s the best time for brook trout. Let’s go catch dinner.”

Ellie gets up from her bedroll and makes the mistake of hissing in pain, unable to hide a slight limp from the chafing against her heel. She’s mostly ignored it until now but a few minutes of rest has brought the pain into sharp relief. Joel is immediately hovering at her side.

“What’s wrong? You twist it?”

“No, it’s just…these stupid boots,” she mutters. “Think I got a blister.”

“Let’s see.”

“It’s fine, man, I’m—“

“Sit,” he says in his you do what I say when I say it voice.

“I’m not a dog, asshole,” she grunts, but she does as she’s told, plopping back down on her sleeping bag.

“Foot,” he instructs, kneeling and putting out a hand. She undoes her laces and takes off her boot, peeling off her sock with a wince. The blister has already popped, oozing bloody fluid through the back of her sock. The top layer of skin has peeled away leaving a gnarly red patch of raw flesh in its place.

“Christ, Ellie,” he grumbles upon seeing the damage.

“It’s not that bad,” she says, even as she hisses. Exposed to the open air, the fresh wound smarts like a sonofabitch, as Joel would say.

“Like hell it ain’t,” he frowns, then goes over to the trunk of supplies. He has a first aid kit, but it’s little more than band-aids and salve. The outpost’s kit has gauze and tape and a flask of alcohol for disinfectant. “You been walkin’ on this the whole time?”

“Just the last hour or so,” she lies. “Wasn’t gonna be a whiny little bitch about it.”

He fixes her with a look that brings hot red patches to her cheeks. “Don’t say that. If you’re hurt, we take care of it.”

“Didn’t wanna slow us down–”

“Not on a schedule,” he mutters. “Leave somethin’ like this too long, it's liable to get infected. This is gonna sting.”

He wipes at the wound with a piece of gauze soaked in the alcohol, wincing along with her when the sensation of the cleaner on her raw flesh brings tears to her eyes.

“What’s the verdict, doc?” she rasps when she can speak without gritting her teeth around the pain.

“Don’t think we’ll have to amputate,” he says drily, then glares at her. “Yet.”

She rests her chin on her other knee and waits while he dabs salve on the wound, covering it with gauze and taping it in place. He pulls a clean pair of socks out of her pack and slides one carefully over the bandage, giving her toes an errant squeeze when it’s all done.

“Still gonna hurt, but at least you won’t be rubbin’ it raw. How’s the other one?”

“It’s fine.”

He scowls. “Swear to god, kid, if you’re hidin’ another blister–”

“Ugh, it’s not as bad. See for yourself,” she says, taking off her other boot and sock, sticking her foot directly in his face and wiggling it in front of his nose for emphasis. He swats at it and grumbles brat under his breath, before taking it gently in hand.

Two smaller blisters, still fresh, decorate the back of her other heel. He gives them the same treatment, padding the wounds with gauze so they won’t get worse.

“Was that so damn hard?” he asks when he’s done. “It ain’t a crime to ask for help, y’know.”

She shrugs. “Didn’t want you to worry–”

“S’my job to worry about you,” he cuts her off, then softens, gripping her chin gently between forefinger and thumb. “One I’m pretty damn lucky to have.”

Sometimes, even now, it’s a surprise that he cares. Her throat goes tight and she nods once.

“Now c’mon,” he says, groaning and stretching as he stands. “Fish ain’t gonna catch themselves.”

She puts on her boots and considers leaving them untied, eager as she is to see the water and the fish, but she can already hear Joel’s voice– gonna go ass over teakettle if y’ain’t careful –so she thinks better of it and re-ties the laces before bounding out the door behind him.

“Careful on the ladder,” he reminds her from halfway down, and she refrains from rolling her eyes, but she does take it slow, telling herself his old-man heart is fragile and she doesn’t want to be the cause of a heart attack.

They take a right from the tower and hike deeper into the forest toward the sound of running water. The stream sparkles in the last of the evening sun as they settle on the embankment with their fishing rods. Joel shows her how to dig into the soft parts of the soil for worms to use as bait (gross, but cool), how to wind them around the hook and stab them to secure them (just gross), and how to cast the line so it doesn’t get tangled in the brush on the side of the bank (nearly impossible).

After a few minutes, Ellie shifts from one foot to the other. “Now what?”

“We wait. If you feel a bite on the line, start to reel it in.”

They do. She holds the pole and she waits. And waits. And–

She slaps at a mosquito on her neck, then another one on her arm. Her nose itches and her hair tickles her ears. She recasts the line when it bobs and drifts too far, reeling it back in, watching as Joel does the same.

“So how long does this usually take?” she says when she’s cast for the fifth time and felt absolutely nothing. She watches the bobber drift along with the current. The sun has dropped behind the trees, taking most of the heat out of the air.

“Long as it takes.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Gonna take even longer if you keep yappin’ and scarin’ the fish away.”

She rolls her eyes, mimicking him. “‘ Yappin’ n’ scarin’ the fish away.’ ”

He side-eyes her, but his cheek twitches the way it does when he’s trying not to laugh at one of her puns.

“Did you used to fish a lot?”

“When I was a kid, mostly. Old man took us out once in a while.”

“So…early Jurassic period?”

“Yep,” he says easily. “Rode my dinosaur to the lake n’ back.”

“Har har,” she says, swatting at a mosquito that’s buzzing around her left ear. “I just thought there’d be, more, y’know…fish.”

“I liked it about as much as you do, at the time. Never caught much,” he grimaces, reeling in his line and casting it again. “Think the old man just liked gettin’ away from our mama so he could get shitfaced in peace.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Wholesome.”

“Not the word I’d use. Anyway, spent more time pushin’ Tommy in the lake than I did catchin’ fish.”

Now that sounds like fun. “Can I push you in if we don’t catch anything?”

“You can try,” he smirks.

More time passes. Ellie shifts on her feet and swats at more mosquitos, trying and failing to imagine Joel as a kid.

“Man…I wanna ride a dinosaur,” she sighs.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel mutters, but he’s smiling.

Then there’s a distinct tug on her line, so forceful and surprising she almost lets the whole contraption go.

“Joel!”

“What?”

“It’s…it’s going! What the fuck do I do?”

“Well don’t panic,” he says, setting his pole down carefully, wedging it between two large rocks. “Hold on, kid, I gotcha.”

“It’s probably a fucking boot or something,” Ellie says, holding the pole back with both hands to keep it steady, unable to reel in whatever is on the other end for fear of losing her grip.

“Dunno about that. It’s movin’. Here,” he says, offering a hand over hers to support the pole while she switches to turning the reel, the tension growing with each turn.

“Good job, not too fast or the line’ll snap,” Joel says. “Sometimes ya just gotta let ‘em run with it a little, wear ‘em out.”

Soon she can see the silvery green-red fish thrashing at the surface of the water.

“Holy shit!”

“Lookit that,” he grins, helping her lift the fish out of the water by the line as it writhes and flails. “Guess you get to eat tonight.”

She can’t help but be a little disappointed when she gets a good look at the result of her efforts. She’d been picturing a monster fish given how strong it had been, but the thing isn’t even a foot long.

“I thought it was gonna be a fuckin’ shark.”

“Sometimes the little ones fight the hardest,” he says softly, and she’s glad the fading light hides her blush. She’s pretty sure he’s not just talking about the stupid fish.

He puts the poor creature out of its misery by smashing its head with a rock, then promises to show her how to gut and filet the slimy, scaly thing once they’re back at camp. She silently vows to try a bite even if the thought turns her stomach.

“You gonna try again?” he asks.

She does, digging up a fresh worm and re-baiting her hook while Joel goes back to his line. By the end of the hour, they’ve caught two more trout and Ellie’s stomach is growling.

“Better than fishing with your old man?” she asks on the trek back to camp.

He huffs a soft laugh. ”Yeah, kiddo. Much better.”

Back at the lookout, there’s a pile of pre-cut firewood under a tarp in the lean-to. Ellie gathers small sticks and scraps for kindling from the surrounding woods and soon Joel has a fire roaring. The routine is familiar; night settling around them while they prepare dinner. Ellie takes pity on Joel’s knees and volunteers to climb back up the tower to fetch the cooler and cooking supplies.

By firelight, Joel shows Ellie how to strip the trout of their scales, gut them, and filet them without leaving tiny bones in the flesh. Then they throw the fish in the pan with a pat of butter and some salt and pepper that Joel brought with them in the little cooler, and set the other foil packets over the fire to heat.

The fish is flaky and tastes nothing like the gamey meat she’s used to, so Ellie eats her fill and tries to ignore how thrilled Joel looks to see her eat something that isn’t bread or fruit. He’s not subtle about it, offering her a second helping before she’s finished the first. It’s only a little smothering so she decides not to give him shit about it.

They’re full and sated by the time Joel pulls out his guitar and hands it to Ellie.

“You been practicin’?”

True to his word, he’d taught her how to play guitar when they got to Jackson. And he knows she’s practiced because he hears her every night up in her room with the smaller guitar he’d traded for, floundering through the chords to her favorite songs in the old, tattered copy of “100 Greatest 80’s Hits” she found at the trading post. She knows how to read music, but making her fingers do what she wants them to do on the strings is tough, and she doesn’t have the benefit of Joel’s calluses.

She stumbles through the first two stanzas and the chorus of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” before she has to stop and restart. Joel listens, eyes softened by the firelight, and suggests a slight adjustment to her posture that seems to help with the larger guitar.

Then it’s his turn. He makes it look easy; the music seems to come directly from his fingers, and his voice is soft but strong. It’s not nearly as bad as he thinks it is. She thinks he could have been a singer in the Before, but she’ll never tell him that. And his taste in music is still questionable, but it’s better than nothing.

The fire flickers and crackles and warms her. She slides off the log they’re using as a makeshift seat and puts her back against it, stretching out her legs. Between the darkness and the heat and the day’s long hike, she’s tempted to curl up at Joel’s feet like a cat and sleep, so drowsy that she doesn’t even notice when he’s put the guitar away.

“Bedtime, kiddo,” he says softly, nudging her with his boot. “Can’t carry you this time.”

“‘Cause you’re too damn old,” she yawns. “Need that scooter.”

“Uh-huh. Scooter ain’t gettin’ us up that ladder. C’mon, you first. I’ll clean up.”

She ascends the tower at a slightly less frantic clip and goes straight to her bedroll, barely having pulled off her boots before crawling into her sleeping bag. She hears Joel come up not long after, then he’s rustling around in the cabin doing Joel things–locking the door and loading the rifle and draping an extra wool blanket over her. By that point, she’s already sound asleep.

Then she’s being shaken gently awake.

“Ellie…hey, kiddo. Wake up.”

“Whassit?” she grumbles. It’s not dark, but it’s not daylight. She can just make out Joel’s features looming over her.

“C’mere,” he says. “Wanna show you somethin’.”

She wriggles out of her sleeping bag, still blinking in confusion. Joel drapes the wool blanket over her shoulders and she pulls it tight around herself. It’s not cold enough for a frost yet, but it’s not warm. Outside, the moon is full and bright, casting lunar shadows on the landscape around them. It’s beautiful, but hardly worth waking up at the ass-crack of…what the hell time is it, anyway?

“What–”

“Shh,” he whispers, leading her around the balcony to the other side of the building. “Look over there. Not too far out.”

A black shape materializes, trundling slowly, cautiously along the western edge of the valley. A snout lifts into the air as if checking for something, and Ellie has the distinct impression it can hear them.

“Is…is that a fucking bear ?”

“Shhh, don’t scare ‘em,” he whispers, taking a seat with his back to the windows, legs dangling off the edge of the balcony. Ellie sits cross-legged next to him, wrapping her blanket around her to guard against the fall chill.

“Whoa.”

The bear is close…like, really fucking close. Even in the dim light, she can see the reflection off its sleek fur, the tip of its nose, its dark eyes. She finds herself reaching out to grip Joel’s wrist, surprised to be, well…a little scared. They never worried about animals during their time on the road. They never stayed in one place long enough, never had enough scraps to leave behind. There was the occasional moose or deer, and those were welcome because they were potential food. Occasionally they’d hear the haunting calls of coyotes, and those were enough to keep Ellie awake at night if her imagination didn’t do the job for her.

The real threat was other people, whether infected or not. But tonight, after months enveloped in the safety of Jackson’s walls, Ellie feels painfully exposed. She scoots closer to Joel. He knows better than to say anything, just puts an arm around her and tucks her against his side.

“Wait,” she says, eyeing the distance between them and the bear, then them and the ground. “Can’t bears, like…climb?”

“Not this far. That’s why I brought the food up. ‘Sides, she’s got other things to worry about. Look.”

It takes a second, but soon Ellie sees the smaller cub lumbering along behind its mother. The pair weave their way across the landscape, pausing occasionally to sniff the air.

“Den’s probably nearby if the cub’s out this late,” Joel says, rubbing at his chin.

“So bears have bedtimes, too?” she smirks.

She can feel his chuckle against her side, a deep rumble in his chest.

“We’ll wanna make a lotta noise on the way back, make sure they know we’re around. Shouldn’t be too hard for you,” he says, poking her lightly on the shoulder.

“You love it and you know it,” she says.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do,” he says, and she feels the warm press of a kiss to the top of her head.

“Hey, Joel…what do you call a bear without any teeth?”

“A gummy bear,” he says, so fucking smug. “You can do better than that.”

“Ugh, asshole. Okay, okay, umm…wait…gimme a sec…oh! Why did the grizzly wear a tank top?”

Joel sighs.

“He had the right to ‘bear arms’!”

“Terrible,” he groans. “‘Sides, bears don’t have arms, they have–”

“Dude, really? Don’t be that guy.”

He reaches up and musses her hair. Funny, when that jerk Michael Sumner did the same, she’d tried to break his nose. When Joel does it, it makes her chest feel warm and tight.

When the bears have wandered into the trees and out of sight, Joel yawns and stretches and gets to his feet. “You ain’t a bear cub, so it’s bedtime for you, twerp.”

“I don’t even have a bedtime.”

“Sure you do. You’ve just never stayed up late enough to see it.”

She’s pretty fucking sure that’s not true and he knows it, because she’s gone whole nights without sleeping and he’s been by her side every time.

“That was pretty cool,” she admits back in the cabin, when she’s wriggling into her sleeping bag and pulling the blanket over herself.

“Yeah,” he yawns into the crook of his arm, then reaches over to shut off the lantern. “Thought so, too.”

There’s another yawn and the briefest touch of his hand to her head before he says, “G'night, kid. Have good dreams.”

“Night.”

She lays awake, staring up at the rafters, too keyed up from seeing the bears to fall asleep right away.

For all of Jackson’s weirdness, their little house and her room and her bed have…grown on her. It helped that Joel had shown up at her bedroom door one rainy July morning and looked around the room with a certain determination.

“This place could use a new coat of paint, huh?”

It needed a lot more than that. They’d spent that weekend stripping the ugly wallpaper from the walls, and the following weekend covering the whole thing with primer and a light eggshell blue paint–leftover from the rec center remodel, Tommy said. Joel had shown her how to soften the wallpaper glue with a spray bottle and an iron set on low, how to cut in the corners and smooth out her brush strokes and use the angled brush around the edges so there weren’t blobs of paint everywhere. He’d repaired the broken shelves and traded for new bedding and curtains and added a wall mount for her guitar until the room was almost unrecognizable from what it had been.

Now the shelves hold her few books, her collection of cool rocks, her comics. The pictures and posters on the walls are all things she drew or found at the trading post. The photo of Joel and Sarah holds a prominent place on her dresser. It smells like fresh paint and the lemongrass wood cleaner Joel uses on the floors, and somewhere along the line, the bad memories faded a bit. Not gone…just not as sharp, not as vivid.

A sinking feeling settles in her stomach, a kind of unfamiliar, aching sadness. She knows the word “homesick”, but she’s never been lucky enough to have a home to miss.

She scoots closer to Joel until her forehead presses lightly against his shoulder. It isn’t because he smells like wood smoke and the lavender soap from the commissary. It’s not because the flannel is soft, or because he naturally shifts toward her in his sleep, ready to put an arm out if she needs him. It’s not because of that. She’s just a little cold.

He’s already snoring, the same rumbling cadence that drifts across the hall every night. It makes her think of the bear and her cub, tucked away in a cave somewhere nearby, curled up together. Safe. Home.

She doesn’t even remember falling asleep. When she wakes, she’s surprised to see daylight; faint, but the sun is almost up. Joel is…where is Joel? She sits up. He’s not in the cabin or outside on the balcony. She pads out the door, still in socked feet, wincing. Her blisters hurt, but not in the sharp, angry way they did yesterday. Just a dull, achy annoyance. She’ll live, as Joel would say.

Wisps of smoke rise into the air from below. She leans over the railing and finds him standing next to the fire. From this vantage point, all she sees is the top of his head, messy brown hair threaded with gray, the shoulders of his green flannel, and the mug of coffee steaming in his hand.

He looks up before she can call out to him, smiles while squinting up at her. “Hey, up there.”

She waves and runs back inside to put on her boots, then she descends the ladder–she’s gotten really fast at it, practically sliding down the rail–and jumps the last five rungs onto the ground.

”Jesus, kid, slow down. You’re gonna break your neck goin’ like that.”

“Morning to you, too, sunshine,” she chirps.

They eat around a small fire, finishing last night’s leftovers and some of the granola mix. Joel chops more firewood to replace what they used while Ellie packs up their camp. She restrains herself from stealing the one-eyed doll from the rafters.

Joel goes quiet after breakfast, focused on “leaving the lookout in better shape than they found it”, he says. But as they set off on the path back to Jackson, something feels off. They’ve barely covered the first mile when he clears his throat and catches her eye, that look that says something’s on his mind.

“So, uh…wanted to talk to you.”

She braces herself. She hears the conversation in her head in Joel’s signature drawl.

I’m sorry, but this ain’t workin’.

Time for us to go our separate ways.

You’re not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain’t your dad.

Part of her rails against it. There’s no way. Joel would never leave her, Joel would never…he would never .

But the other part–the small, mean, shameful part she keeps tucked deep down inside, the one that will always be there no matter how old she gets, no matter how long she stays with Joel–is waiting for him to make good on that threat.

She shrugs, muttering. “Okay, I guess.”

They’re side by side, almost brushing shoulders, and she straightens her spine and lifts her chin.

“Meant to tell you this last night, but…it was late n’…anyway. Outbreak Day’s comin’ up.”

“Uh huh.”

He screws up his face like he’s sucked on something sour, one of the tiny green crabapples that are just starting to grow on the tree in the backyard of the house they share. In the house where she sleeps now, in the room he helped repaint and redecorate. In the town where they live, where she goes to school, where he builds things. Home.

She suddenly remembers their conversation from months ago.

September 26th.

Joel’s birthday.

That homesick feeling wraps itself around her insides again and pulls, a steady downward tug of grief. Suddenly she wants nothing more than to be safe in Jackson’s walls, sitting at the dining table with Joel and Tommy and Maria and baby Isabel, laughing over some dumb joke Tommy told at Joel’s expense until milk squirts out her nose. She does not want to be here, does not want to be having this conversation, even if she doesn’t know what he’s talking about yet.

She picks up her pace, forcing Joel to do the same.

“That’s, uh…that’s kind of a rough…time.”

“For you and, like, everyone,” she says, practically marching away until he catches up, grasping her by the shoulder.

“Hey, would you slow down?” he huffs. “Let’s just…stop for a sec.”

She rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. “If you’re trying to…to…pawn me off on Tommy again–”

“What?” he balks. “No, I–”

“Is this about the stupid Fireflies?”

He goes very still. “What do you mean by that?”

I swear.

“Nothing,” she mutters, kicking at a rock, unable to meet his eyes. “I dunno, I just…you’re being fucking weird, man.”

“No, it’s not about the…no. It’s–it’s…Christ, you know I’m shit at this stuff. Just…gimme a minute.”

He walks to the side of the path, hands on his hips, frowning. Finally he takes a breath and looks at her.

“I’m not sure how I’ll…be for a few days. Might be…different, is all.”

“You gonna turn into a werewolf? Grow fangs and claws or some shit?”

He sighs in frustration. “No.”

“So, what? You gonna beat me or something?” She tries to smile, to make a joke of it, but her voice falls flat.

“No! Jesus, no, nothin’ like that,” he says. “Ellie, I’d never. Not ever . You know that, right?”

She looks at him for a long time, sees the desperation in his eyes, before nodding slowly. She wonders if he knows that a beating is the least of her worries as far as punishment goes. Doesn’t think he could take hearing about all the other shit that happened to kids in FEDRA school. For all his experience, Joel could be incredibly naive. Or maybe he just didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to think about it. She supposes she can’t blame him. If he knew just how broken and bruised she was, he’d probably run away screaming.

“I know, dude,” she huffs, trying to brush it off. “It was a joke.”

“Jokes are s’posed to be funny,” he says flatly. “And I’d never–ever–hurt you like that.”

She throws up her hands. “Then stop making me guess and just tell me what the fuck is wrong!”

“Alright,” he grumbles, running a hand through his hair. “Thing is…I used to drink. A lot. A lot more than…well, just a lot.”

Her brow furrows. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Joel take more than a sip or two from his flask when they were on the road, and only when it got cold. Come to think of it, she doesn’t think she’s seen him drink anything stronger than shitwater since they came back to Jackson.

“After Sarah…after the…everything…well,” he says. “I ain’t proud of it. Could say I come by it honestly–”

“Your dad,” she says softly.

“Uh-huh. An’ it was always worse this time of year. Come end of September…I’d lock myself in the apartment and, uh…lose a week or so. Tess usually left, stayed…somewhere else. Checked in on me, made sure I didn’t…that I didn’t, uh–”

“I get it,” Ellie says, lump in her throat. “The guy who shot and missed.”

“Right. But I’m not gonna do that,” he says quickly. “No drinkin’. Between you and Tommy and everythin’ else…can’t afford to. Don’t want to.”

She nods carefully, fidgeting with her hands, picking at her cuticles. Just when she thinks she’s found her footing, something like this comes along and throws her off again.

“Just don’t know how it’s gonna go,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I haven’t been sober for this in…well, probably since the…the first one. Might be a bit…a bit cross.”

“So…normal, then?”

He sighs and gives her The Look, the one that tells her this is supposed to be a serious conversation and she needs to take it seriously. But she’s fucking lost, as usual. Is this the kind of shit people used to do Before? Stand around and talk about their feelings? It would almost be easier if he used his fists. She knows he’s good with those. He sucks at words even more than she does.

Besides, what does he want her to say? Thanks for not drinking yourself to death? Thanks for not offing yourself?

He continues more softly, struggling his way through. “I just want you to know…if I’m…if…I’m not good…for a little while…it’s not you. Okay? There’s nothin’ you could do to…to make me that way.”

She remembers the first time he told her he was sorry, how lost she’d felt when he’d tried to explain how she shouldn’t have had to shoot that kid. No grown-up had ever been sorry for anything in her life and she’d long stopped expecting them to be. Now Joel was apologizing for something he might not even do…and it wasn’t even that bad.

“Y’know, you can always go to Tommy or Maria if–”

Her eyes snap to his face. “I want to stay with you.”

“I know. But…if you need to. I won’t…be mad.”

She shrugs, not knowing what the fuck to say. “Can we go now?”

He considers her for a moment, then ducks his head in a nod.

“Sure. Yeah…let’s go.”

They walk in muted silence for a while. Ellie thinks about their house in Jackson, thinks about Joel pushing Tommy into a lake, about him squeezing her toes through her sock after bandaging her foot, about his arm around her shoulders reminding her where she stands. She realizes that the things she knows about Joel’s past can probably be counted on one hand.

He had a daughter.

He killed people.

He was a smuggler.

Now she could add “He was a drunk” to that list.

And yet, none of those things, save for the first, made the person she knew as Joel Miller.

He made good pancakes.

He bandaged her blisters.

He taught her how to hold a gun and play guitar and fish and hunt. How to keep watch and protect herself.

The silence lasts until Jackson is a tiny speck in the distance. Finally she breaks it.

“I know you said…you’re lucky to worry about me. But…that goes both ways.”

He shakes his head. “Ellie, you shouldn’t have to–”

“I want to.”

He looks over at her sharply.

“I just…I don’t wanna go away ‘cause you’re having a bad time…or whatever,” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground, on each step ahead. “You’re always there for me when things are shitty. It’s only fair.”

He opens his mouth, probably to tell her it’s not the same because he’s a grown-up and she’s a kid or some shit, but she cuts him off.

“And I know it’s not about…me, okay? I get it. I’m almost sixteen, which is practically seventeen, which is basically an adult. I can handle it.”

His eyebrow goes up to his hairline at that, mouth twitching in a little smirk. His hands are full, so she grabs his wrist, circling it with her fingers, squeezing to get the point across.

Finally he nods, speaking softly in his familiar warm drawl. “Alright.”

She nods back, satisfied, returning his smile.

Together, they walk toward home.

#the tipsy bison #the last of us fanfic #tlou fanfiction #joel and ellie #ellie williams #joel miller

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