The continuing story of Saric

Joel: the fuck you’re not

Or

Ellie: what? No way you live alone being old as fuck, that’s not safe

Your additions to this au are splendid. I thank you.

Ellie: Uh, drivers ed costs money. Who the fuck was going to pay for it, the tooth fairy?

Joel, sighing as he changes course and heads for an empty parking lot: I’m going to regret this.

Joel, in the passenger seat holding on to the oh shit bar for dear life: I was right. I regret this.

Also sometimes he goes full dad on her by accident.

Joel: You can’t just let a toilet run like that. *sighs* jump in the truck, we’ll go to Home Depot and I’ll show you how to replace an O ring.

Ellie: *smirks at the phrase O ring*

Ellie having to go to the hospital when she’s not at work for something, appendicitis, a car accident, whatever, and they ask her if she has anybody to come be with her, and she’s hurting and already stressed out about how much this is gonna cost and she just says fuck it and gives them joel’s number. Cuz who cares, everythings fucked anyways, might as well call her boss and ask him to come see her in the fucking hospital like shes some little kid so he can see what a pathetic needy little asshole she is and finally get tired of her. And when he doesnt show up bc why would he, maybe she will finally learn her lesson

hiiiiii you certainly may! i'm gonna put it under the cut though bc it's a bit gory. appendicitis is gonna be an interesting one to write, the prompt that was given to me has a touch of magic to it so incorporating that is gonna be a good challenge.

(i haven't gotten to the actual appendicitis bit yet so this is at the very beginning of the fic)

When they survive the long, excruciating journey, Ellie isn’t sure what to expect of her new life. Sure, she’s safe and clean, and she isn’t starving anymore. The nights are silent except for the occasional song of crickets, and during the day, she gets busy around the settlement running errands, confined in the settlement until one day she’s allowed to go on patrols. Which she so fucking badly wants. But still, she isn’t exactly certain of what she can expect of her day to day.

Read more on AO3

GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE

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Fury's and Bronte's hooves strike against the ground, furiously chasing after the mockery of a cowboy that's bobbing and weaving his way back east. 

Toward the ranch he'd come from, Joel knows in his bones. 

The greasy fuck fires twice blindly back at him and Tommy, throwing his gun in frustration when it comes up empty. 

He's out of bullets and they're closing in, it makes him erratic and desperate, him and his horse unpredictable. Tommy shoots at the muscle of the horse's legs, trying to hobble it and make it throw its rider. 

None of his shots hit, but it does make the horse skittish. It's frantically carving an irregular path making the man atop it cling to its mane to stay astride. 

He fails when the horse starts to kick its hind legs, bucking him over the horse's head and throwing him down with a stomach-twisting crunch. 

They don't bother with the horse once he's down, letting it continue its way to freedom. 

He hits the ground running, flipping over their first real tie to Ellie since they had found Jesse, only to find the bastards eyes open and fixed. 

The entire left side of his skull is fractured mush. 

"God fucking damnit!" He can't keep coming up short, it's been two days, two fucking days. 

He knows he has gone manic, he don't need a mirror to see his blown pupils and the crazed flit of his eyes to show him the proof. 

He hasn't slept in forty-eight hours and hasn't eaten in longer, it feeds his mania and his anger. 

The only cure for it is his kid, alive and breathing, in his arms. He doesn't mind losing himself to the hysteria, not as long as it keeps him upright long enough to find her and bring her home.

"We gotta keep going Joel, he's useless dead. If he's out here, she's out here. We just gotta keep lookin' big brother." Even his little brother has slipped into some sort of fucked up head space.

There's a simmering rage in Tommy's eyes he don't recognize, a turbulent storm that only seems to reinvigorate him and keep his head focused. 

This is the Tommy who had served two tours in the Middle East for the United States Army. 

Both of their humanities are slipping. 

He brings his booted foot down onto the dead man's head in three vicious stomps, the fragile bones of his nose concaving and crunching with the first. 

The reinforced structure of his cheeks collapses inward with the two others, leaving his jaw unhinged and attached only by a thin frayed piece of muscle. 

Wiping the heel of his shoe on the front of the unrecognizable fuckers shirt, he gathers a pool of mucus in his mouth and spits into the ruined cavern of his face. 

May Joel find him in hell one day to give him everything he deserves. 

"I want to personally deliver that gift to Anderson, he goes into the cooler until I get the opportunity." They've already had Bill collect the body they'd left in the river and keep him on ice for the time being, what's one more? 

Stoic and terrifyingly quiet, they gallop away from the mangled remains. 

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Big thanks to @two-birds-alone-together for bringing Giftcember to my awareness 🥰. I don't think I'll complete every single one (no way am I getting a fic out in time to gift to someone on Christmas Day 😭), but I thought I'd do a few. So here is December 6th's:

Share a fic on Tumblr that you think deserves more love.

With that said, I would like to heartily recommend "As for the lost (we grapple)" by No_Illusions. I've tried looking around to see if I could find them on Tumblr so I could tag them, but no joy. But this is a really great fic and it deserves more love.

The story runs with the premise of what might have happened in Silver Lake if David and his goons had come across an injured Joel before Ellie could get back to him, and heavy angst ensues. It's pretty dark (please heed the tags and warnings before diving in) and not remotely a festive fic for the time of year, but it is beautifully written and devastating and Ellie and Joel are heartbreakingly, perfectly rendered and, if you guys have been following Peripeteia, you all know how much I love a "roles reversed" fic. It's quite short, only four chapters, and I'd also recommend its companion piece "Tho' all the rest are here". I hope you give it a shot and find it as gut-wrenching and moving as I did.

Trigger warnings for violence and non-con.

confiscatin'

wrong-way drivin'

stackin'

double datin'

processin' burn

takin' off gloves

crawlin'

preparin' for combat

catchin' his breath

bein' little spoon

surprise attackin'

spectatin'

climbin' hill

shushin'

listenin' to excuses

liftin' lady

knockin'

de-escalatin'

lookin' all over

vandalizin'

strugglin'

puttin' on watch

active listenin'

takin' one last look (fake out)

makin' friends