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Starter Subject Here I guess
[ Winter has quickly become her least favorite season, especially in these conditions... ]
[ They had gotten far, further from where they had been much faster than she had anticipated, but perhaps that was because the adrenaline left over had made time fly by quicker. Ellie has remained quiet through the four miles they've trekked from the abandoned town David and his backers had holed up in. Now it is in flames, and she's got her fingers crossed that all those bastards have burned. ]
[ No matter how far they have gone, she can still feel those hands at her neck, his knees at her sides and his heavy body crushing on her pelvis. She can still smell his breath and sweat, and her heart is still pounding like it happened fifteen seconds ago... ]
[ But Ellie's main focus is on the road, eyes forward as she stands so close to Joel, they might as well be sewn together at the hip. It's an unconscious move, her body craving both the heat and comfort of his large stature. He's still injured, maybe almost partially useless if they get ambushed... ]
[ But he makes her feel safe. ]
Nngh--!
[ A deep pit of snow steals her foot and she sinks forward, her still-alert and scared frame jolting forward. ]
Fuck!
[ It's obvious her nerves haven't left her, but she tries to push forward.
[ They had gotten far, further from where they had been much faster than she had anticipated, but perhaps that was because the adrenaline left over had made time fly by quicker. Ellie has remained quiet through the four miles they've trekked from the abandoned town David and his backers had holed up in. Now it is in flames, and she's got her fingers crossed that all those bastards have burned. ]
[ No matter how far they have gone, she can still feel those hands at her neck, his knees at her sides and his heavy body crushing on her pelvis. She can still smell his breath and sweat, and her heart is still pounding like it happened fifteen seconds ago... ]
[ But Ellie's main focus is on the road, eyes forward as she stands so close to Joel, they might as well be sewn together at the hip. It's an unconscious move, her body craving both the heat and comfort of his large stature. He's still injured, maybe almost partially useless if they get ambushed... ]
[ But he makes her feel safe. ]
Nngh--!
[ A deep pit of snow steals her foot and she sinks forward, her still-alert and scared frame jolting forward. ]
Fuck!
[ It's obvious her nerves haven't left her, but she tries to push forward.
no subject
The moment the pain passed, though, he stubbornly kept pushing forward, trudging through sleet and snow and a cruel, disorientating blizzard with wind so icy and sharp it felt like knives slicing across his frozen skin. He knew he needed to rest but there was no way in hell was he going to stop for the night in this town. Not after the shit he'd gone through to find Ellie, not after the shit he'd seen. Those bodies strung up and bled out like pigs in that stale, freezing meat locker… He could still smell it, the stench of fresh blood mingled with old blood, the faint but foul odour of rotting meat, the coppery taste of dread and terror that had flooded into the back of his throat like bile while he'd clutched Ellie's backpack in his hand.
Yeah. They were gonna quit this place. Leave it behind them. Never fucking speak of it again. He hadn't stopped once to ask Ellie if she was alright or to ask her what the hell that guy had tried to do to her. She's David's newest pet kept ringing like a lurking shadow in the very back of his mind. He knew exactly what that meant. He couldn't bear to think of it, let alone commit any questions about it into words.
The way he kept putting his arm around Ellie, helping her trudge through the snow, keeping her close to his side spoke more than words, anyway. And when she suddenly stumbled forward with her foot sinking into a deep pit of snow, Joel quickly seized a steadying hold of her arm in his hand, a quick but quiet, "Whoa there, kiddo," and then an almost gently murmured, "C'mon, I gotcha," as he helped her back to her feet.
He kept moving forward with her, an arm around her shoulder again while his other arm came up to shield his eyes from the swirling snow. A deep, shuddering shiver gripped at his muscles and deep in his bones and it was only when they'd made it another block or two that he finally said with teeth chattering, "Think we'd better take cover for the night. Gonna get dark soon."
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For once, not discussing what they see and experience worked in her favor. While the lingering feeling of mourning still hung over her head like a solid cloud over Sam and Henry, she knew Joel would never speak of them again. They would be forgotten, just like all the rest.
Maybe it was best she forget about him, about that town. David's name and influence could rot and sink to the soil if she followed Joel's romance with forgetting the past. But the feelings, the smells, the voice... It stuck to her like a thick muck, clinging to her skin and clothes and smelling so much like that disgusting locker. Even as they put miles behind them, Ellie still had to fight the bile threatening to purge itself from her.
But Joel's words steal her, solidify her presence back in the now when he suggests they find a place of refuge for the evening. Through frozen eyelashes, blurred sight catches the outline of a small, empty town in the distance.
Shivering, pressing her lips in a fine line, she nods.
"Right... Y-Yeah, yeah let's call it quits for the night," are the only words she can manage, and the muck that consumed her previously shuts her right back up.
no subject
The wind was picking up; it was coming in fiercer gusts, billowing and angry, sluicing up the abandoned, eerily desolate road like air gushing down a long tunnel. The town happened like a slow headache: at first, it was just the occasional rotted out car caked in a thick layer of snow haphazardly dotted here and there, then a couple more, then a few more, then a caved in house on the left followed by a few more. Snow was caught in his greying hair, frost caught in his beard, his eyelashes, the cold burning down his nose and his throat like ice fire with each breath in. His lungs hurt. His muscles hurt. Everything hurt. His face was pale and sallow, dark bags under his eyes. The coldness that permeated the air bit deep into his clothes, right to the bone.
Soon, they were trudging through the streets of a small town, the wind howling through the streets. Every sound had Joel on edge - he kept expecting a gunshot to cut through the air, kept expecting the sudden ambush of bandits, kept expecting something to come bursting out from the snowy shadows to attack them.
The first house he spotted that had windows intact, doors intact, hadn't collapsed, he steered Ellie towards it, and a sudden twinge of pain shooting through his abdomen as he approached the sagging stairs had him stumbling forward with a deep, aching grunt, almost dragging Ellie down to the ground with him with the way his weight lurched forward. A hand came up, pressed instinctively to the spot where the wound hurt most.
no subject
With quick reflexes, Ellie's glance shifted directly to Joel, catching him before falling forward as he clutched desperately to the wound that had been a long-term source of a problem. It hadn't healed fully, yet he had peeled himself out of bed to find her.
"Shit-- Joel."
She faced him, arms planted on both of his shoulders to steer him back into balance. Her eyes squinted through the thick, white air.
"C'mon, we'll get inside so I can see it."
And immediately, her own obligation to responsibility kicked in. Ellie took the reigns, disregarding whatever say Joel might have as she silently opened the door. With a thick swallow desperate for warmer air, she reached for her gun in one hand and grabbed Joel's arm with the other.
"I'll give the place a look through, you sit down somewhere. I got this."
no subject
He swayed slightly on the spot, hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion that was bordering on dizzying, and the thought of making it up the stairs almost seemed like an impossible feat. But like always, he found some obstinate determination to keep going because he had no choice; he made his left foot plant on the sagging wooden step, which creaked under his weight as he then heavily planted his right on the next step up, and then the next step, and the next, until he was on the porch.
"Ellie," he tried to argue as she took his arm, his voice gruff and clipped with something exhausted. Dropping his hand from his middle, he halfheartedly shrugged his arm out of her grasp and sagged his way through the door as he, too, reached behind him for his pistol tucked into his waistband. His fingers were so numb and cold, they almost wouldn't close around the butt of the gun.
"You check upstairs," he rasped in a pale voice. "I'll check around down here."
But even as he said that, he made it no further than halfway into the living room when his body gave out. Everything was finally catching up with him now the adrenalin of terror had depleted to a waning, empty exhaustion. Cold sweat was beading on his frozen forehead. He lurched off to the left in a stagger, crashing into the broken china cupboard that was scattered with broken china ornaments and dusty china plates, and his legs buckled underneath him.
no subject
"Suuuuure thing." Ellie spoke in a huff and heavy exhale, mostly under her breath as she set a precautionary barricade to the front door.
But she heard a thump barely moments after turning her back, and it was obvious what the source would be. Without another breath, Ellie's small frame whirled around fast.
"Joel!"
She had forgotten what they left at that moment, but the fear of newborn history already repeating itself made her throat dry and her stomach churn. The familiar site of Joel on the ground burnt her vision, but her mind had shut down at that moment to rush at his side.
"Damnit, your stubborn-ass attitude is really not working for me."
She dropped to her knees, arms reached out to pull his own over her shoulder.
"Come... ON, get up, get up."
She would voice that he were to sit down so she could scout the house, but Ellie could only assume Joel gathered that much.
no subject
But even he knew in that moment that it was useless. He was too weak to stay on his feet. Too tired. In too much pain. As Ellie wrenched his arm around her shoulders, he just… gave in. Head sagging listlessly, breath coming out short and shallow, Ellie's urgent voice ringing in his ears to get up, get up had him anchoring his arm around her shoulders that bit tighter and a helpless gasp of weak exertion left his mouth as he forced himself to do as she was begging him to. He leaned heavily on her, probably too heavily for her tiny frame, and when he got to his feet, he swayed and staggered before his feet clomped almost without coordination towards the frayed, mouldy couch.
He fell down heavily onto it, a cloud of dust gushing into the air around him, and his head fell back against the headrest with another agonising twist of pain in the back of his throat. His hand clamped over his wounded belly, fingers digging into his shirt and his stomach. He could barely keep his eyes open. They were sore, dry, tired, his eyelids drooping under the spell of sheer exhaustion.
"Go… go check the house," he mumbled weakly and yet still stubborn as ever, and his other hand waved out with a fumble at Ellie to shoo her away. Making sure they were safe mattered more, goddamn it. He snapped around a panting breath, "Ellie. Don't-don't make me repeat myself."
no subject
It was always difficult with him, more than it should have been, but her patience on the matter had worn thin just arount the time bandits and hunters had tried to kill them in the mall. The feeling was evident in both her tone and the grunt she exhaled as she began to provide support to his weight. There was a brief sense of relief when she felt him give in out of pure exhaustion and pain.
With a raspy, soft "oof" under her breath, Ellie released Joel onto the couch, quick to reload and cock her gun at the order he managed to breathe out.
"Let me see it fir--", he interrupted her, but the desperate and terrified expression on her features hadn't changed.
"Okay. I won't be long, I promise."
At least I don't have to leave the house...
Ellie turned her back quick, full intentions on checking every corner of the house as fast as possible. It was fully welcome to find that most rooms had been empty; a pantry or two housed dusty canned chili and soup, alcohol, matches. Perhaps they were finally getting their break in all this. When Ellie found a box a quarter-full of gauze and bandages, it brought on the first, albeit weak, smile on her face in a long time.
"I got this, Joel. I got this.", she whispered to herself, mindful of anyone who might be there.
Ten minutes, and Ellie had scoped the whole house. It had been easier given her discovery of the second floor being barricaded with busted, old furniture and barbed wire wrapped around the first layer. She broke into a run, rushing back to that living room where she, to her relief, still found Joel (crumpled over in pain and possible illness, but still Joel).
"Boy, did you get a good stroke of luck or what? Look at all this shit I found." It had been hard to set aside the festering fear of being alone again, but discovering he was still breathing kept her calm.
Ellie placed her gun on a nearby coffee table, pouring all the contents she had found from her backpack beside it. There had been a few pain killers, dirty and broken, but hiding underneath the gauze in the box. She set up shop fast, dropped beside Joel on the couch, and immediately reached out to straighten him up.
"Okay, Dr. Ellie is in, let me see it."
no subject
"C'mon, Ellie," he urged in a weak, shivering whisper to himself when one minute had turned into five. Every few moments, memories of what had unfolded back in the town they'd left behind would flash through his mind, stark and ghastly and nightmarish. The fucking smell of that meat locker. The gut-wrenching twist of dread that had swarmed into his chest when he'd woken up on that freezing cellar floor and found Ellie gone. The sickening, despairing rage that had bubbled up within him when that asshole had sobbed, She's David's newest pet as Joel twisted the switchblade deeper into the guy's kneecap. The disorienting howling of the wind trapped his ears, flooding his nose and his mouth with every gasped breath in.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to shut it all out of his mind. The only thing stopping him from lurching himself back to his feet to find Ellie was the sound of her footsteps, the noises of her rummaging around. Reassurances that she was safe, that she hadn't gone far. And it was only when he finally heard her footfalls quickly approaching him over the creaking floorboards that he was able to let go of the panic that something would happen to her.
The only response he offered to Ellie exclaiming about what she'd found was a soft grunt of acknowledgement. The couch shifted, groaned under Ellie dropping onto it next to him, and Joel let out a wheeze of pain as she helped him sit up straight. Christ, he barely had energy to even sit up. Sleep was what he needed. Sleep, a chance to rest his weary bones. And then he would be good to keep going. Or so he hoped.
Without argument, he bunched the hem of his shirt in his hand and eased it up over his wound. It was an angry red colour, swollen, the crude stitches aggravated and on the brink of tearing from how much he'd physically exerted himself. Streaks of dried blood were caked on and around the stitches.
"Prob'ly just need to… rest a bit," he mumbled, voice hitching slightly as his body seized up with a quick, sharp shiver. So cold, so fucking cold.
no subject
Badly as what happened behind them wounded her mentality, it was a very close call and stroke of luck.
It's called luck, and it's gonna run out...
She pressed her lips into a fine line, fought to swallow down that sharp and heavy mass in her throat. Ellie tried to keep face for Joel, to stay brave, and she reassuringly patted Joel's shoulder.
"Easy, easy. I got you if you fall back."
But he'd managed, finally revealing what had been made of the nasty impact in his gut. It took everything in her not to hiss in disgust and shock. He was swollen, red and purple with glistening highlights of pinkish-red blood squeezing through him like a tube of toothpaste. The stitches were puckering his skin, close to the verge of breaking so much so that the immediate idea of cutting them out to redo them crossed her mind.
But the amount of blood still pouring through was her first concern. This wound was no closing. His gut was practically a window, only requiring a simple push to pass right through him. Ellie's tiny fingers balled up around his shirt-sleeve.
"Oh man," She exhaled, tilting her head to get a closer look. The smell was even more concerning-- The smell of exposed and dying flesh, the coppery smell of blood and the hint of infection lingering underneath.
It won't close beyond this. Not on its own.
"No rest yet... I'm sorry, Joel. You're really gonna hate me, but this wound's gotta be cauterized. You'll get septic and die of infection if this bitch won't close up soon."
And she didn't concern herself with his permission. Ellie went straight to her tools, grabbing her matches and rummaging through Joel's nearby backpack to snag a shiv with a long blade. She prepared the alcohol for cleaning, rags for soaking up the residue to avoid burning the man alive. And she was shaking the whole time... Ellie's stitched a few pig cadavers, some steer leather and maybe a knee before all this, but never cauterized a wound. Not at all.
Without a word, Ellie began to work diligently in cleaning the source on both sides.