#disabled reader fic

You were sharing an apartment when the outbreak happened, a quirk of shitty personal circumstances - she’d just broken up with her long-term boyfriend - that probably helped save your life. Annie was the all-action sister - the kind of person who thinks there’s nothing weird about spending your weekends doing triathlons and “Tough Mudder” challenges, who had a perfect bill of health your entire lives, who bounced out of bed in the mornings while you cracked and creaked and stiffly manoeuvered yourself into being. 

The good days generally outweighed the bad in the years between your diagnosis with rheumatoid disease and the initial outbreak - or maybe you had just gotten used to the aches and pains and the occasional flare-ups of fatigue. You invested in a walking stick to help on those days when mobility was particularly bad: solid, heavy, and carved in a pale yellow wood. It felt like a comfort in your hand, more a sign of strength, to you, than of weakness. 

Annie helped you through the panic attack that consumed you on outbreak day, working with you to regulate your breathing and relax your tense muscles until you could finally say what was on your mind.

“My meds. What am I going to do without my meds?”

Nothing a quick smash and grab at the local pharmacy couldn’t fix. It was the first of many, stockpiling the little yellow tablets you relied on and taking as many packs of over-the-counter painkillers as you could carry. Useful currency in the apocalypse, as it turned out.

All-Action Annie was never going to cope with life in a QZ. She got the two of you out after months of planning, nights of whispered talk about a town out west that was normal - or something close to it, anyway. She hadn’t entertained your protestations about you slowing her down, holding her back.

“You think I’m leaving behind a girl who’s so handy with a weapon?” she’d teased, pointing to your walking stick. “Be real. We’re busting out together.”

The infection took hold in her about three days from Jackson. Fuckin’ barbed wire, tearing a jagged line through Annie’s hand and leaving behind an old-fashioned kind of threat to life, the kind penicillin had mostly dealt with. But that was then. This was now. 

She died in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, you holding her hand until the end, talking to her about your childhoods and trying to keep smiling until she closed her beautiful eyes. 

It took all your strength to dig her grave. And then, somehow, you found more.

You weren’t supposed to make it. But you did. 

Jackson stands before you. 

He sees you for the first time in the community dining hall, talking animatedly to Maria as you hungrily devour the food set in front of you. Eyes wide, face grubby, clothes ragged. Half-wild, he thinks, like most of the new arrivals. Like him and Ellie, once upon a time. He returns to his bowl of soup and his own thoughts - at least, until he’s interrupted by Maria.

“Joel? Want to introduce a new member of the community, just arrived.”

He doesn’t quite know why he’s surprised when he realises you’re leaning on a sturdy hand-carved walking stick in a solid, light yellow wood. Maybe it’s because he knows how physically hard it is to get here. Maybe he just assumed folks who needed a stick wouldn’t have been able to manage the journey. 

For a second he can hear Sarah’s voice in his head, chiding him for focusing on what a disabled person can’t do instead of what they can. 

“Joel?”

He snaps out of his reverie and looks from Maria to you. “Uh, hi. Sorry, just…sorry. Forgot my manners.”

“I was just saying how glad we are to have someone who can offer some art education in the town, isn’t that right, Joel?”

Your eyes are warm and mischievous as you meet his gaze, silently conveying your amusement at Maria’s rather brusque manner. It’s all Joel can do not to laugh.

“Sure is. You’re an artist, then?”

You shake your head. “Not a real one. I was an art teacher, before. Long time since I created anything, though, so I hope I remember how.”

He smiles softly, his gruff exterior receding a little. “Bet it’s just like riding a bike,” he says, before his face falls as he looks at your walking stick. “Oh, shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean… Shit. Hope I didn’t offend.”

“As it happens, I can ride a bike, Joel. The apocalypse just doesn’t give me much cause to.”

You leave him with a smile and a wink as Maria ushers you to meet other townsfolk. He watches you as you walk away, the tap-tap-tapping of your stick beating out a new rhythm in the heart of Jackson.

You think of Annie every morning when you wake up in the little house you’d been assigned. Sometimes, as you potter around the kitchen, still revelling in the novelty of making yourself morning coffee for the first time in two decades, you even talk to her. You tell her about the town, the townsfolk, your work in the community vegetable garden, your art classes. 

“Honestly, An, you wouldn’t believe how popular they are,” you tell the Annie who, in an alternate universe, is sitting at the kitchen table with her own mug of coffee. “I’m setting up extra sessions to cater for demand.”

There’s something uplifting in how hungry the people of Jackson are to make art, no matter their experience or existing skill level. They’ll draw stuff from memory, they’ll dutifully work on a still life, they’ll even traipse outside with you, wooden sketching boards in hand, and make rapid-fire sketches of the goings-on on Main Street. 

Joel doesn’t join a class - but the teenage girl Maria refers to as “Joel’s kid” does, all potty-mouthed and enthusiastic and pretty damned talented, to boot. Ellie tells you how she’s pinned up the drawings she’s proudest of in their home, “like our own fuckin’ art gallery or some shit.” 

You pull up a tall stool and sit beside her, resting your stick over your thighs. “Joel’s got his guitar and those dumbass model figures he paints,” she continues, leaning around her easel and squinting at the woman who’d volunteered to act as a life model for this week’s classes. “But this shit? This is real art.” She adds a little highlight to the woman’s sweater and leans back to assess the work.

“You probably got exempt from patrols, I’m guessing. On account of the stick, an’ all.”

“Maria asked, and I signed up happily. I got all the way here, didn’t I? I’m sure I can manage patrols. And it’s the least I can do - they’ve even found me some of the medications I need.”

Ellie nods, somewhat convinced, and returns to sketching out the contours around the model’s jaw.

The day of your first patrol arrives. You bundle up and set out early for the stables, allowing extra time to get there on account of the flare-up you’d been experiencing the day before. 

You arrive early - just in time, in fact, to overhear a heated conversation between Joel and Maria.

“She’s doing enough, ain’t she? I just don’t think she’ll be able for patrol.”

“You’ve seen her out and about, Joel. She’s mobile. She’s competent. She’s good with the horses. She got all the way here, the last stretch on her own. What more proof do you need?”

“You’re seriously gonna send a woman with a walking stick out on patrol?”

“I seriously am. Sent you and your bad back out, didn’t we?”

“That ain’t the same and you know it.”

“Just saddle the horses, Joel. And, in case you’re wondering - yes, I paired you together deliberately, just until she gets settled.” You hear her footsteps recede as she leaves him.

You had misjudged how much your already-limited grip would be further impeded by the gloves you’re wearing. The stick clatters to the ground.

“Who’s there?”

You emerge from the shadows. “Me. Sorry.”

Joel rolls his eyes and gruffly points out the tack and supplies.

The first patrol passes in silence. You wonder what happened to the softer man you’d caught a glimpse of the first day you arrived.

On the second patrol, you ask him questions about himself. On the third patrol, he asks (fewer) questions about you. By the fourth, you’re having something approximating normal conversation. 

“Sarah loved to make all kinds of stuff,” he ventures, leading the way on his chestnut horse. “Those beaded bracelets, that girly Lego in the pink and purple, all of that. My girl had enough Magic Markers to supply a whole elementary school. Maybe two.”

You can hear him smile, even without seeing his face. His shoulders relax a little as he recalls the memory.

“So she was a creative kid?”

“Creative, sporty… she could do anything. Made the school soccer team, she was so proud. Just a…” He pauses. “A great kid.”

There’s a few beats of silence, punctuated only by the sound of the horses snickering and the steady rhythm of their hooves on the ground. 

“What about your sister, was she arty like you?”

You’d told him about Annie on the last patrol. This was the first time he’d asked about her explicitly.

“She was the sporty one. I think that’s why I survived so long, truth be told. She was so strong and fast and tough as fuck.”

He chuckles, the burr of his voice resonating in the cold air. “Sounds like a good balance, though.”

“It is - it was. Was.” Your voice grows quieter as you repeat the word to yourself, chest starting to tighten. The horse slows, responding to the tension of your body, as Joel continues to trot on, not realising you’ve come to a halt behind him. 

And then the tell-tale snapping of a twig, the sound of footsteps, and the realisation there’s someone else there, emerging out of the woods. Two someones. 

Raiders. 

The panic attack that has been building inside you gives way. An innate fight or flight response kicks in as you roar his name. 

Joel turns and charges back towards you, just in time to see you take out one raider with a crack shot from your pistol. He slows the horse and readies his rifle, staring at the other man who is now trying to haul you off your mount.

“Get the fuck off me, motherfucker!” You flail against him, desperately shifting your weight to the other side of the saddle to try to shake him off. 

Joel takes aim. 

You think you’ve kicked the raider off. And that’s when you hit the ground.

He can’t take the shot now, not with her half-hidden from his view and audibly fighting off the man who’s dragged her to the ground. Joel is still a little distance away, slightly too far to see exactly what’s happening. 

Why didn’t he hear her slowing? Why didn’t he realise she was further behind than she ought to be? Why did she slow in the fuckin’ first place?

Joel quickly dismounts, rifle in hand, moving closer so he can get a clearer shot at the guy who’s now standing over her. The horse’s elegant neck obscures the raider’s hands from Joel’s vision - he has no idea if he’s pointing a gun at her or not. 

He thinks he has a clear sight on the guy’s head, provided he stays in the same position. He readies the rifle. 

Suddenly, the raider disappears, letting out a primal roar before he hits the ground. 

“You fucking cunt!”

Joel can see she’s standing now, the man prone before her. As he rounds the horse he sees her lift her cane, hands securely gripping the pointed end of the stick. 

She brings the solid, weighty handle down on the raider’s leg with a sickening crunch. Even Joel recoils a little at the sight and the sound.

“F-f-fucking…c-c-cunt!”

Thwack. The other leg. 

Fuck. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

”Keep calling me that, and I’ll keep the blows coming.”

Holy fuck. Who is she?

”C-c-c-cripple.”

”Excuse me?”

The raider props himself up on his arms. “I said, cripple. Fucking crippled cunt.”

“You shut your fuckin’ mouth.” Joel cocks his rifle. 

The stranger sneers at Joel. “Awww, he’s actin’ the big man now. Weren’t too quick gettin’ back down here to save your cripple woman, were ya?”

Before Joel can react, she swings her stick over her head and brings it down on the man’s skull with a furious scream that seems to come from the very depths of her being. 

She screams and screams as she hits him, over and over, eyes wild in her blood-spattered face. Joel recognises this: in himself; hell, in Ellie. It’s the moment when the floodgates open and all those years of pain blend together and zone in on this convenient target, an avatar for everyone and everything who had forced loss and trauma upon you. 

He roars at her to stop, but knows she can’t hear him. It’s just her and the raider, now: her rage and fear and grief finding their expression through a walking stick turned cudgel.

A single shot ends it. She turns sharply, as if snapped out of a trance, and sees the smoke leaving Joel’s pistol. 

“Hey. Hey. You alright?” His broad hands grip your biceps as he looks into your eyes.

Yes, you tell him, yes. You’re fine. But Joel keeps asking. 

“Talk to me. Are you okay? I’m worried about you. Please, just talk to me.”

You are moving your mouth, but no sound is coming out. The familiar vice is tightening around your chest. You look down at your blood-stained hands and you struggle to breathe. 

“‘M dying, Joel. Can’t breathe. All the blood. So much. Why can’t I breathe?”

Oh, he realises with a pang. She gets these things too. And I know how to help.

“You’re okay, you hear?” He’s rubbing your arms gently, keeping his gaze on you. “You’re alright. Breathe along with me, okay?”

It’s difficult to find the rhythm, at first. Joel’s hands find yours and squeeze them in time with his breath.

”In through your nose, that’s it. Slow and steady. Now out through your mouth.”

He can see your muscles starting to visibly relax. A wave of relief courses over him.

”Yeah, that’s it - you got this. You got this, good girl, you’re just fine. Gonna be alright.”

When he’s confident your breathing has settled and the panic attack receded somewhat, he gently guides you away from the body of the dead raider, one hand holding your horse’s bridle and the other holding yours. 

“Why don’t you have a seat for a minute, huh?” Joel gestures to a long, low tree trunk lying near the forest’s edge and opens his saddlebags, rummaging until he finds a cloth, a battered hip flask and a bag of dried apple slices.

”Here.” He wipes the blood as best he can from your hands and proffers the flask, settling his substantial frame beside you on the log. “Have a sip or two, just to relax you a little bit more. Got a snack, here, too.”

You flinch at the taste of the liquor, but take a second sip regardless. The apple slices barely taste of anything in the afterburn of the moonshine. Joel nibbles on some jerky and stares into the middle distance. 

You take a break from patrol, agreed with Maria, and a few days off your art classes. It was tempting to keep going, to return to the light and airy studio and to your students. But you feared a relapse.

And your body needed to recover physically, too. You ached from head to toe, fingers and toes puffy and swollen and movement seriously restricted. You ration out the supply of medication you’ve secured since getting here, and use hot water bottles and plenty of rest to try to ride out the flare in your arthritis.

Three days after the incident, there’s a knock on the door. You hobble to answer it, leaning on your trusty stick for support.

”Came by to see how you were doing. Got you some things if you needed ‘em.”

Joel is standing on your front porch, holding a jute grocery bag. He pauses, as if waiting for you to give him permission to say more.

”That’s so very kind of you, Joel. Come in, won’t you? I was able to set a fire so it’s nice and cosy.”

He watches as you lead the way into the living room, noting how much slower you were today. Guilt laps at his conscience. He said she shouldn’t go on patrol. He knew.

”You want me to bring these into the kitchen for you?”

“That would be a great help. Thank you.” He’s glad to see you smile, after the trauma of the patrol. “If you want a drink, I’ve got some tea and coffee in the cupboard just to the left of the sink.”

He pops his head back into the living room. “What would you like?” 

“A tea would be perfect. Mugs are in the cupboard to the right.”

You wrap yourself back up in your blankets on the couch, making room for Joel when he returns with the drinks and a couple of cookies, sent over by Ellie as part of his care package for you. The mug feels like a comfort in your aching hands, its heat assuaging the inflammation ravaging your joints.

He sips his coffee and you sit in silence for a little bit, watching the flames dance over the firewood. 

“Have you, uh - you been okay, doing okay, since…”

Joel stares into his coffee cup and then looks at you, a little awkward. You smile, hoping to reassure him.

”I’ve been okay. Just the physical pain and exhaustion, mostly. And - well, you saw it. The panic. It can leave you drained.”

He nods and takes another swig of his drink. “I know. I - I’ve had times like that, too. Real fuckin’ scary, when you’ve never gone through it before.”

You study his face for a moment or two, noting the little scar on his temple, the lines on his face, the stern expression completely undermined by the warmth of his deep brown eyes. For an instant, he seems so vulnerable, this strong, tough man sitting on your little couch. 

“I haven’t had an attack like that in a while. But then, I hadn’t done anything like that in a while.”

This time Joel turns to look at you properly. “Not your first rodeo, huh?”

You giggle at the turn of phrase. “Not quite. Let’s just say my stick did a lot of work over the last twenty years. He wasn’t the first to feel the brunt of it.”

Joel nods, and you feel strangely relieved that he doesn’t seem surprised. “Doesn’t get easier, though, does it?”

“It does not. Which is why it’s better to avoid having to do it.”

”I agree. Gotta say, though, I - I was worried you wouldn’t be able for patrol, y’know?”

You arch an eyebrow at him. “I know. I overheard you, remember?”

He blushes. “Aw, shit. Yeah. I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t want anything happening to you, what with your - condition, and all.”

You sigh softly, not really noticing the affection in his voice. “Most of the time, I’m fine. Y’know? I’m slower, but I do okay. I get tired more easily, but I manage. I didn’t come here to be a drain on the community.”

”You aren’t.”

”I know, but I want to keep it that way. I want to pull my weight. I’m able, Joel.”

He huffs in agreement. “Not like I’m a perfect specimen these days, either. Knees, fuckin’ back, deaf in one ear…” 

You chuckle. “And you thought I wouldn’t manage patrol? Anyway, you’re not doing so bad, are you?”

He gives you a little smile, but that constant sadness still haunts his eyes. He stares at his coffee for a moment.

“You knew what you were doing, though.”

”I did. But I didn’t feel like I could stop.” You sip your tea, swallowing hard. “And I’m scared that makes me some kinda monster. You know?”

Oh, he knows. He knows it too well.

”You aren’t a monster.” Joel resists the urge to put an arm around you. “You just… something snapped, I guess. All that - well, all that hell you’ve gone through. It… it changes you. But it doesn’t make you a monster.”

He realises you’re crying before you do, spotting the fat tears that roll down your cheeks. He finds a clean handkerchief in his jeans and offers it to you. 

Fuck it. 

“Can I - can I put an arm round you? Just for some support?”

Your eyes light up, tears or no tears, and you nod enthusiastically. Joel is warm and comforting, his broad chest and strong arms a kind of anchor in the emotional storm. You nuzzle against him, and he gives you a little squeeze on the arm.

”You’re a really brave woman, you know that?”

His voice is quieter, more intentional. You look at him quizzically from under your lashes, unused to praise of this kind. For an instant you think about asking him what he means. But the safety you’ve found in the broad arm draped around you is all you need right now. 

You nuzzle a little against his chest, and watch the fire dancing for the rest of the night.