#dad joel

It started because you wouldn’t stop biting your nails until they bled, and never listened to Joel when he told you to stop. You weren’t trying to be disobedient on purpose, you just forgot. It was so soothing whenever you got anxious, which was a lot, if you’re being honest. Tommy likes to call you a badass, but the truth is, the apocalypse took a toll on you as it did on everyone.

Sleepless nights, shaking with fear and cold, an empty and aching stomach, and nothing to chew on but your own nails — old habits really do die hard. Now you’ve got a bed, a warm duvet, fresh food, and a bulk of a man next to you.

When Joel figured out you bit your nails when you were anxious, he started giving you alternatives, like edible tree bark or decade old butterscotch candy and sometimes it works, sometimes it gets close. Most of the time it’s distraction more than substitute.

You don’t have reason to be overwhelmed these days, Joel makes sure you don’t. Keeps you mostly inside, doesn’t like when you leave the house without him, rocks or fucks you to sleep with his fingers when the nightmares come. Your life is a cocoon of safety and pleasure, only disrupted by memories, the one thing Joel can’t control.

When he notices the thought spiral starting, he usually kisses your neck, drags his palms up and down your thighs until you get all slippery and hot down there. Then he makes you talk to him, tell him what you’re worrying about, as he pushes two fingers inside of you, his massive thumb on your clit. It’s a practical tactic, one that makes you lose your train of thought, and by the time you’re incoherent with pleasure, Joel is hard as a rock.

“Good girl,” he praises, when he sees a blissful emptiness on your face, “don’t gotta worry about a thing.”

Then he pushes inside, and for the time being, you’re free of everything bad, just full of him.

The first time he slipped two of his fingers into your mouth when he fucked you, it startled you. Your eyes widened, and Joel shushed you gently. Something sweet and southern dripping off his tongue and into your ears, his fingers pressing against your tongue, his cock sliding out of you. You started to suck, and your eyes drooped again, your thoughts slowed. And Joel smiled at you, all pride and desire.

Now it’s like you can’t go without it. When Joel got the old video recorded to work, he made you watch all of the movies he could find. During one of the more graphic horror movies you hid your face in his chest, and without looking at you or even thinking about it, Joel’s fingers found your lips. Your mouth opened pliantly, and you felt yourself relax as you started sucking.

Every time this happens you get wet and Joel gets hard, which you suspect is what makes it his preferred method of calming you down. He’ll let you suck on his fingers for a while, thumb stroking your jaw, and after a while you’ll feel his fat bulge agains you. He doesn’t like to give in quickly, holds you still when you start to grind against him. But you know what it takes to break him every time.

“Da-ad.”

It’s muffled, almost intelligible, but there it is, that familiar pained groan whenever you call him Dad.

Because he’s a coward, Joel lets them slip back into quiet. “You’re not fine, baby, but it’s ok to need help,” he might try saying if he was a better man, “You don’t have to handle everything alone.”

Ellie guarded her independence ferociously from the moment they’d met - desperately tough, hating being babied, willing to be taken down going full out against unbeatable odds if it meant she didn’t look weak. Scared the shit out of him. He could lie to himself and say that’s why he doesn’t say anything as he watches her, but he’s too fucking drained to bother with his bullshit.

He’s just afraid - of saying something wrong and pushing her too far, snapping something. Breaking her in a way she can’t pull back together. So he lets her drift.

He rubs his hand across his face, squeezes his eyes closed tight and presses the pads of his fingers against them until little patches of light and dark pop up in his vision. And then, since he’s never been any good at having his hands sitting idle, he finds himself moving to pull the first aid kit out from under the shelving, sliding it closer until the flashlight beam can fall on it. One of the plastic latches snaps apart as he flips it open, brittle from age, the cold.

It’s not untouched, but more intact than most he’s come across. A grubby looking stick of After-Bite and pack of Benadryl sit on top, and he tosses them to the side to run his fingers through the mess of little white packages underneath. Gauze, bandaids, sterile scissors, tape. A thick stack of antiseptic wipes - long dried out, he guesses, and proves himself right tearing a corner off in his teeth and pulling out a bone dry little white square. A dash of red catches his eye and he picks out a couple of what look to be mini toothpaste tubes, red and white and purple - squints to read the label - “Insta-Glucose”.

“Look, Ellie - sugar.” He watches as she opens one eye to peek at him. That gets her attention.

“Hm?”

When did you last eat, he wants to ask, too scared to know, keeps up his cowardly streak by swallowing the question down.

He slides one of the tubes over to her, puts it just in front of the toes of her boots. “It’s uh - I think they made ‘em for diabetics, mostly - just sugar. Carbs. S’posed to eat it, get your blood sugar up”.

She blinks at him but doesn’t move to take the tube, so he grabs it again, twists the tear away top off, and holds it out to her. “Here, eat some - it’ll - it’ll help,” he says, and counts one - two - three seconds until she reaches up to take it. She pinches the tube between her fingers and nothing comes out, looking back at him. Blank. 

“Sorry, must be frozen - dried out,” he takes it back to crush it a bit between his fingers until little red crumbs are making their way out of the top. He tries to hand it to her but she doesn’t take it back - stares at it for a moment, shakes her head.

“Don’t… dunno if I can.”

He’s trying not to sound frustrated - he’s not, not one bit, not at her - but the fatigue is creeping into his voice and he can hear himself sounding shorter.  “Don’t really have to swallow, it’ll kinda - melt. Put a bit in your mouth and you’ll - it’ll still work."

She touches her fingers against her lips as she replies, “Mouth’s dry.” 

Of course it is - he hasn’t thought to get a drop of fucking water into her. Shelter - get warm - hydrate. The fucking basics.

As he sits in the shame, registering the fact that he keeps finding ways to fail, a memory flashes at him. Cold water, tasting like salt, trickling on his face, his chin, a few droplets slipping past his cracked lips. A sliver of relief as he’s trapped, in and out of his body, sinking in endless dark, made only out of pain. Tiny fingertips brushing little bits of moisture, mercy, across his lips again and again. 

His eyes burn. Trying to think of the steps he has to take next. Put them in the right order. It takes way too long.

Right. Grab her bag again - there was a bit of sloshing in her thermos when he dug past it earlier taking stock of her clothes - just enough for a few mouthfuls. He pushes it into her hands and twists the top off for her. “Drink - slow, though. Bit at a time.” She takes a small sip while he grabs the blanket from where it’s bunched up on the floor behind her, trying to tug it up again, settling on wrapping it around her sides, about halfway up her arms. Then he turns away, dumps the first aid kit contents out onto the floor and stands up.

Ellie would never let him get away with a real old man groan like the one that just came out of him. Wouldn’t live that shit down for weeks.

She just stares up at him in confusion.

He gestures with the now empty plastic kit. “For snow - keep it under the blanket to melt a bit.” No reply as she lifts her thermos back up for another sip.

He cracks open the door and pauses to let his eyes adjust to the dark after getting used to the flashlight brightness. There’s a decent amount of light coming from the moon and being reflected off the bright snow everywhere, so it doesn’t take too long. In the time he spends crouching down to fill the kit with snow and stand again, Ellie gets up and moves behind him. He nearly bumps into her as he starts to turn back. “What’re -” he starts but she’s already telling him, in a miserable sounding voice -

“Have to pee.”

Fuck, he thinks. “Okay,” he says.

He leans around her to toss the container of snow onto the shelf and turns back to her. “I’ll come with you.”

She whines out an exasperated “Jo-el,” sounding every bit a teenager. She’d probably stomp her foot, he thinks, if she wasn’t so - well.

“You’re not going out alone,” he’s saying on autopilot, and she tenses her shoulders up instantly.

Dial it back, dick.

“Sorry -” he starts over - “I’ll give you privacy, Ellie, but - we’re both a bit -  unsteady,” he's fumbling, “Just - in case, ok?”

She gives up too easily.

“D’you want the jacket?” he asks, hesitating with what to do here. Seems stupid, finally getting her warm and then taking her back outside underdressed - but his coat is so big on her, hanging past her knees, her hands - might be more of a hinderance just now.   

She shakes her head, so he moves around her for a moment to grab the pistol he’d unholstered as they warmed up earlier. Goes to pick up the flashlight, and then reconsiders - hell of an easy thing to spot waving and moving around in the dark, even far away. Moonlight will have to be enough.

“Alright, c’mon then. Let’s be quick.”

He twists awkwardly to close the door behind them as they step out, trying not to lose too much of the heat they’d built up inside. Like earlier in the day, she leans heavily into him as they slowly pick their way down the steps. With no sun the temperature has dropped since they were out, and he feels them both tensing up quickly as the cold cuts right through their clothes. He keeps her upright with a hand clasped tightly her shoulder.

It’s hard to say for sure in the dark - not to mention how he’s burning through his last fucking brain cells at this point - but he thinks she’s moving a little worse than before, actually - frowns a bit more as he takes in how much she’s hunching forward, keeping one arm around her middle.

Shit.

He glances around in the dark. Doesn’t hear a sound.

“Just go here,” he decides, moving a few more steps until they’re tucked around the corner, along the side of the little building. She tips away from him to steady herself against the wall.

He hesitates. “Do you - need help with anything?”

But she shakes her head, so he reluctantly takes a few steps back around the corner.

He pauses for a few seconds, not hearing anything. Finally she asks in a small voice, “Can… a little farther?”, and he makes himself give her the privacy he’d promised, even as every step away from her feels wrong to his bones. He glances back briefly, feeling a bit relieved to see that the light cast by his flashlight - left it on inside to drain even faster on them, moron - isn't all that visible from out here. He turns back around and purposefully moves slow, taking smaller steps to shorten the distance he covers.

He hears her start shuffling around, and he clears his throat a few times, tries to be a bit noisier than he needs to as he picks up and sets down his feet, kicking the snow a bit- maybe some background sound will make it easier for her to go quickly.

Respect for her privacy aside, it’s pretty clear when she’s finally able to, and when she’s done. He hears her breathe out a whisper - “Fuck,” - and then the shuffling sounds are back, along with a few new whimpers - struggling to get her pants back up?

“Everything ok?” He asks, not able to help himself. She doesn’t answer, but then he hears her start walking - takes it as his cue to move quickly back in her direction.

She comes into view around the corner a second before he reaches it. Managed to get her pants up on her own, then. But right away he clocks how her whole body is vibrating, hard, and even in the dark he can tell she’s wide eyed. Her breaths are short and shallow. He needs to get her inside, now.

“G-got-” she stutters out as he steadies her from the side and starts moving them back up the steps, “peed on my p-pants.”

“Don’t matter - you’re changing anyway,” he reminds her.

They make it back through the door and he pushes it shut with his foot, both of them huffing a bit to catch their breath. He’s relieved to find that it’s stayed marginally warmer inside.

“No fair,” she slurs - he can hardly make out what she’s said, now, her voice sounding newly thick, even more off than before.

“Mm?” He nudges her after she goes silent for a stretch, keeping his arm around her back, not confident she’d stay up if he let go. He tries to scan what he can see of her face, now lit up again partially in the flashlight glow - she’s looking straight ahead and away from him.

“S’easy - you,” she twitches a hand vaguely in his direction, “piss anywhere.”

He’d laugh at that, if this were any other time. Remembers, uselessly and painfully, how Tess voiced the same complaint - “Don’t know how lucky you are, Texas” - anytime the two of them had to rough it somewhere.

“You’re not wrong,” he responds. Unholsters the pistol from his hip with his free hand and tosses it onto the shelf next to the first aid kit full of snow. He steps around so he’s facing her more directly, moving to grab her by the shoulders to steady her with both hands and almost forgetting about her injury. He hovers the hand on that side for a moment, and then he settles it lower on her arm, by her elbow. Ready, just in case.

She stares right through him, barely there - glassy eyed, frighteningly pale. She’s going to crash soon, it's clear from the look of her - might be about to faint on him. A fresh surge of fear has him feeling suddenly, newly clear headed and alert.

“We’re gonna put on your dry jeans now, and get you layin' down, warmin’ up again,” he says slowly, watching for any sign that she’s hearing him. “I’ll put some more water in your thermos - you can take little sips of it - but other than that I don’t want you movin’ around. You - your body needs some real rest to heal, baby. And - you need to tell me everywhere you’re hurtin’,” - she looks down to the floor and he clenches his grip on her, fighting the urge to shake her - “Please, Ellie - you’re scarin' me.”

There’s nothing in her stomach. But she lurches forward in a violent dry heave, giving it her all anyway. 

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