masterlist | taglist | ko-fi
warnings: blood, violence, strong language, angst, hurt/comfort in the best way joel knows how, they/them reader.
synopsis: in which the reader is forced to take a life for the first time in order to save the man they love. not requested just more brain rot from me.
tags: @sweetbabygirlsworld
When the first gunshot sounds, you bite down on your tongue to trap a scream, tasting blood. Joel ushers you and Ellie down behind the truck, and you wrap an arm around her to keep her close. Joel hunches over you, protecting you both. You hate that he has to; hate that he sees it as his job.
But he’s the only one who can keep you safe.
Your wide-eyed gaze snags on a small opening in the wall. “Ellie. Go hide in there. When Joel says go, you go.”
“Fuck, no. I’m not leaving you guys.”
“Do as you're told,” Joel bites out. He peeks over the top of the truck before returning his focus to you. As he does, a bullet pings off the metal and you all cower. “Shit. There’s two of ‘em.”
Your trembling hand reaches into your waistband for your pistol. You’ve never used it, not once, Joel always making sure you don’t have to. But there’s three of you now, and you’re not sure there’ll be an easy way out this time.
He looks over the truck again. “Now. Go now. Stay low.”
You urge Ellie away, and she crawls to the hole at the same time Joel returns his attention to the shooters. You breathe a sigh of relief when she vanishes in the shadows.
“You, too,” he orders, surprising you.
“No,” you reply. “Two against one? I don’t fucking think so. I’m staying.”
He sighs, jaw ticking in frustration, but there isn’t time. Footsteps grow closer. He rises into a crouch, balances his shotgun…
You flinch as you hear the body hit the floor, and then another round of bullets whistles through the air from the remaining gunman. “Stay there,” Joel says. “Don’t move.”
You wouldn’t know how even if you wanted to, frozen in place. Silence blankets you for a moment, and then Joel’s finger flexes over the trigger.
His second shot rings through the dilapidated building.
“Gone,” he whispers. “They’re gone.”
But you both know those shots were too loud, and anybody could be coming. Slowly, you rise onto your feet, peering over the truck. You try not to look at the bodies, the blood, as you ready your gun with both hands, just like he taught you.
And then a figure comes at Joel in a blur from a side door, and the two of them collapse in a writhing heap.
The attacker is armed, and he has Joel pinned down by the shotgun. Joel is grunting, suffocating. You point your gun without thinking, aiming straight for the back of the stranger’s head. Fear spikes through you all at once, and your fingers curl around the trigger in a deathly squeeze.
The gunfire rents through the air, causing your ears to ring. The attacker slumps on top of Joel, and only as you see the blood blossoming just above his neck do you realise what you’ve done. The gun wavers in your hand like a ship in a tempest. You drop it, imagining that crimson staining your palms as the stench of gunpowder chokes you.
You’ve killed. Taken a life.
Before you can worry about the bullet going through, Joel pushes the body away, struggling to rise to his feet. His face is splattered in blood. You barely notice him, too busy looking at the attacker’s now visible features. He barely looks eighteen, maybe twenty at most, maybe far younger.
You shot a kid. Somebody’s son, brother, nephew.
Joel is saying your name, but you feel like you’re underwater.
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” he commands, cupping your jaw and tearing your gaze from the lifeless boy on the floor. “It’s okay. You had to. You had to do it. I’m here, okay? I’m here.”
Slowly, you begin to shake your head as tears roll down your cheeks. “What did I do?” A sob falls from you. “What have I done?”
“Shit.” Joel tugs you into his warm, hard chest, and your tears soak into his jacket.
“He’s dead,” you’re saying, over and over. “I killed him. He’s dead.” And there is so much blood. You peek over his shoulder again and wonder if that speck there is brain matter on the floor or just your own brain torturing you.
“I’m sorry.” Joel rocks you, his palm hard as stone as his fingers tangle in your hair. “I’m so sorry, darlin'. But we have to go now. We have to hide. People will be coming.”
“There’s a way out through here!” Ellie calls.
It’s a blur as Joel lets you go, picking up your discarded gun and slipping it into his waistband. You can do nothing but stare at the life you’ve taken. It doesn’t feel right to leave the body, to leave him. Your victim.
But you’re being pulled away, through a door, a window, into the street and another ruined building, running, hiding, Joel clearing each step along the way as he keeps you tucked beside him. You stagger on numb feet, looking back every now and again to the building where everything changed. The building where you first took a life.
You have to stop after what feels like years of moving through the city, bile rising up your throat. You vomit all over the sidewalk. Joel’s hand strokes soothing circles across your shoulders — “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s okay.” — and then you’re being pulled away again, again, again. Finally, you find a place to stop. Joel checks every door, every window. You wipe your mouth, your tears, your snotty nose, finding that you’re still shaking uncontrollably. You imagine your freckles are blood stains and have to hide your hands.
“Look at me.” He’s cupping your jaw again, his face unfocused. You think about wiping away the blood crusting his weathered skin, but you can’t bear to touch it. “It wasn’t your fault, okay? You did what you had to. You saved me. It was my fault, baby. I should’ve seen ‘em coming. I should have known better. I should have been the one protecting you.”
There’s no answer that you can give. No answer that will undo what you’ve just done. You didn’t think it would feel like this, killing someone, especially when you know the attacker would’ve killed Joel if you hadn’t pulled that trigger, but it feels like the life has seeped out of you as well as him. It feels like there is a darkness weighing you down now, and you know for certain you will see that gaunt face every day, every night.
“We’re going to have to settle here for a bit,” he’s saying to Ellie. “Give them time.”
You sink down without taking off your backpack and are unable to keep from looking at your hands again. They won’t stop shaking. You’re certain they’ll never stop again.
Another hand covers yours. Joel’s. He’s knelt in front of you, wearing an expression full of sorrow — of loss. Because he’s lost you. The person he knows, the person who has never taken a life, who has done everything they can not to leave the world worse off or bloodier than it already is.
He squeezes your fingers tightly. “Listen to me. Are you listenin’?”
Your bottom lip wobbles, but you nod.
“I know,” he says. “I know what this means. I know that something has changed today. I know how it feels to carry ghosts around. But I need you to stay with me, right here. I need you to focus, just for a little while longer. You hear?”
You swallow. With the rough pad of his thumb, he wipes away your tears. “We can’t stay here. We’re in the open. We need to keep moving, but we can’t do that if you don’t come back to me.”
“I thought… I thought you were going to die,” you whisper. “I thought…”
“I know, baby, and you did so good. You did so fuckin’ good.” He shifts beside you to press his forehead against yours. Both clammy. “You saved me. You kept me alive.”
You took one life for the sake of another. And the worst part is that, even now, when you are breaking on this old carpet, you know you would do it again if it meant keeping Joel safe. Joel and Ellie. It’s the reason you didn’t think twice.
You can’t lose him. You can’t do this without him. He’s all you have to cling onto, and so you do, knotting your fingers in his shirt as though reminding yourself he’s here, he’s real, he’s worth the guilt and the pain and the fear.
“I’m a killer,” you breathe.
“Sometimes, there is no line between killin’ and survivin’. Not in this world. I’m so goddamn sorry I couldn’t stop him. I’m so…” His face crumples, eyes turning glossy. But he sniffs, shakes himself out of it quickly as he places a kiss to your forehead. “It shouldn’t have happened. But it has. And now there’s nothing we can do to change it.”
You close your eyes, and he’s there to catch more tears, more pain. Nausea rolls through you, but you swallow it down, catching a glimpse of Ellie. Though she’s trying to hide it, she’s terrified, and it’s written all over her face.
Better you than her, you think. Better this world makes you a killer than a fourteen-year-old.
“Okay. Okay, I’m ready to keep going.”
“You sure?” Joel whispers.
He kisses you again, this one lingering enough that Ellie fakes a gag, which earns her a dirty look from Joel.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” he vows. "Everything."
You brush your fingertips across his cheek sadly, knowing it shouldn’t have to be him all the time. He shouldn’t be the only one fighting his demons.
Now, he doesn’t have to be.
“We have to protect each other,” you say. “Give me my gun.”
He gives you a reluctant grimace. “Darlin’...”
“It’s too late to go back,” you say, and you’re not just talking about the kill, the blood on your hands. You’re talking about the way you love him, the way you can’t stop loving him. The way your love has somehow made you into a fierce, broken, desperate killer. And a survivor, like he said. It’s too late to go back, and even if you could, you wouldn’t.
He must see it all over your face, because he softens as he tucks a sweat-slick strand of hair behind your ear. So gentle. He’s so rarely this gentle.
“Give me the gun, Joel,” you ask again.
He does, dropping it into your outstretched hand. You want to flinch against the cool metal, but you fight that feeling, slipping the gun away quickly.
You try to compose yourself, moulding your features into something you hope seems reassuring. Joel dips his head before standing, holding his hand out for you. You take it and let him pull you up, and somehow, the world doesn’t crumble beneath your feet. Somehow, the earth keeps turning.
Somehow, he doesn’t look at you like you’re a monster. So you keep going, keep dragging this new ghost around the city with you in the hopes that one day it will be worth it.