He strolls back behind her, carefree, knowing his surprise will please her. He had already scouted the area the day before and it was safe. No runners or Clickers will interrupt this day. When he catches up to her, she is already running on the small place where a gigantic T-rex statue awaits, covered in crawling plants that dangle down his front arms and teeth. The dinosaur’s feet are surrounded by a small pond protected by a tiny fence probably used to prevent any visitors from crossing the line. With all the trees surrounding them, it feels like a secret garden only them have the key.

“Oh my god. It is a dinosaur, Joel!” Ellie exclaims in awe and her face lights up in ecstasy.

“You like it?” He asks, unsure, his hands on his hip while he assesses the situation.

Ellie looks back at him, her teeth bared in the happiest smile Joel has ever seen “Yeah!”

His cheeks twitches from the bliss running in his body and he watches carefully as his purpose runs away and climbs on the dinosaur’s tail, agile and daring like a monkey.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ellie, Ellie,” 

No matter how peaceful the day is, worry is branded in the gravel of his voice. After everything they have been through, he promised himself she would never get hurt.

She keeps climbing up and concern grows in him, slowly, a remnant of the journey they had together.

“Oh my god—

“— Careful Ellie,”

“I’m on a motherfuckin’ dinosaur!” the teenager shouts, her arms held out in victory as she finally reaches the head of the T-rex.

Passed the few seconds of doubt, Joel can’t contain his happiness anymore and he smiles broadly, his lips bared over his upper teeth, inviting the sun on his face as he watches Ellie fulfil one of her lifelong dreams. Joy is carved in the crinkles of his eyes and in the smile folds of his mouth. At last, Joel Miller is finally happy.

Time stands still and he doesn’t blink away his damp eyes. If he were to sacrifice the world to live moments like this and watch the bliss on Ellie’s face, he would do it all over again. Just for this moment, just for her smile.

His heart tightens in his chest as he represses tears of joy.

Yeah, all over again.

She suddenly points somewhere further away “Look! there’s a museum,”

“Yeah, I know. If you don’t fall of the goddamn T-rex, I’ll take you there!”

“Gotta save me man!” she laughs and balance her body on one leg to taunt him, knowing he’s dying to climb and get her down to safety.

“Ellie ! Stop this, you’re gonna fall!”

She jumps on her other foot, dancing like a puppet controlled while Joel tenses a few meters below and laughs at him, but soon her crystal-clear laugh distorts deeply, like a slowed-down broken record and before he can do anything, she loses her balance and falls off the statue.

“Ellie!” He shouts and rushes to her, “no, no, no,” he runs through the water, soaking his legs up to his knees and sees her on the other side of the statue, except it is not Ellie anymore.

Lying on the floor with her beautiful curly hair, Sarah pants and whimpers, her hands on her pink shirt now drenched in blood. He rushes forward and crawls to her, panicked, his blood boiling in his veins.

“No, no,” his voice shatters in his mouth, “You’re okay, you’re okay, move your hand baby,”

She obeys; her eyes widened in distress at him and reveals the wound to her father who contemplates the extent of the damage and the blood soaking up the pink fabric.

Panic overwhelms him.

A hospital. He needs to get her to a hospital.

His heart beats tragically fast, fogs his brain and blurs his vision. He forgets how to breathe and looks around but the agonising silence of the Wyoming forest surrounds them.

He doesn’t have any choice. He can’t let his daughter die.

Not again.

 He lifts her frail body in his arms, but she fights his grip and yelps in high-pitched whimpers, clawing at his shirt in a consuming pain.

“I know, I know, I know baby, I know, it hurts,” he cries, devastated by his pointless help.

He puts her back on the floor, but she yelps even more, her fingers grabbing his shirt aimlessly. The bleeding won’t stop and soon his hands are fully covered.

There is only blood, her blood.

He presses the wound, in vain. Sarah only screams louder and chokes on air, her small hands stiff around his forearms, her nails dug in his flesh so deeply it breaks the skin.

“I know, I know, I know, baby, I know,” he repeats the same words again, praying to a god who doesn’t exist.

Fear is etched all over Sarah’s face. It tears her mouth in a gruesome grimace Joel can’t handle and widens her eyes in which he can see his own failure. Her chest heaves in quick and futile jerks but the light in her eyes ask her dad to keep going.

She wants to live.

She wanted to live.

He can’t let her die.

Not again.

He lifts her over, blind to the screams that shred his heart in pieces.

“I know baby, I’m sorry I know, I know, I know,” He caresses her face and accidentally smears blood on her, “Tommy !”

His brother is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Ellie stares down on them, impassive, barefoot, covered only with hospital scrubs.

“Help us!” Joel howls, his embrace tightening around his daughter’s body.

Ellie does not answer and her head tilts to the side.

“It’s too late Joel,”

He glances back to Sarah, but her head is tilted back over his forearm, “No, no, no,” her mouth and eyes are still open, a blurry veil dulling the light of her pupils.

“Come on Babygirl, come on, we gotta get you out of here,” he pulls up her legs and chokes on his own tears.

  He needs to get her out, to bring her somewhere she could get help but his legs don’t move anymore. Every breath feels like rarest air around him and all the words he wants to scream suffocate him. He pulls her against him and rocks her body back and forth, losing tracks of the tears he cries. Every drop is a waterfall, every breath a break in the riptide.

He can’t tell how long he holds her lifeless frame when Ellie finally interrupts him, her tone cold like the deepest part of an ocean.

“You couldn’t save her Joel,”

He gazes at her in disbelief, pain and grief pouring from every line of his trembling face but he refuses to let go of his daughter’s body.

“You’re a failure,”

He shakes his head, his body suddenly seized by spasms, his mouth partially open.

“No, stop, don’t—

“— Too old,”

“No, no, stop, please,”

“Too weak,”

Sarah vanishes from his embrace like a bad dream, but her blood still coats Joel who stays with his arms hanging loose.

“No, no, no, Sarah!” he shouts and looks around and slam the air around him as if it would bring back his daughter.

“Useless,”

Joel covers his ears and cowers on the floor, his eyes shut close, “Ellie please stop,”

“You couldn’t save her, but can you save me this time?” she runs away, her naked feet striking a hard cement ground with each stride she takes.

Joel opens his eyes to a blood trail etched in the surface of the stairs he remembers too well. The forest is gone along with Sarah, leaving him back in the hospital.

“Joel!” Ellie’s scream cracks far above him, “Joel ! Help me!”

Her cries trigger his most basic instincts.

Kill. Protect.

Save her.

He dashes in the stairs, and despite the ache in his muscles, he climbs to her, determined, his unyielding legs bearing the weight of his sorrow.

He won’t  lose them both.

But the stairs are infinite, the higher he goes the further away the sixth-floor door gets and soon he is stuck in a hellish carousel from which there is no exit.

“Ellie!” he thunders but his feet slow down against his will and each step he takes encounter a force that push him away, making any progress impossible. He struggles and forces his way, grunting and growling like a beast but no matter how hard he tries, the invisible enemy grabs his ankle and pulls him down while Ellie screams louder and louder.

“Joel! Joel!” her voice is harsh, like the metallic crackling of a never-ending fire alarm that drills in his skull.

“ Ellie!”

He does not falter and pushes his leg, one after the other until a silhouette appears. Tommy’s. He holds his hand out without a word and drags his brother out of of the stairs in one strong push. Joel falls on his brother and in the blink of an eye. They are back in Jackson, in Tommy’s house.

His younger brother holds him tight in his arms, but Joel is still covered in blood and dirt. The hug soaks Tommy in his niece’s blood but he smiles and pats Joel’s shoulder with a comforting smile.

“It’s brother , we know, we all know,”

“What ? Tommy, what?”

“You can’t save them all, you're too old, too weak, useless,”

His brother pulls a shotgun from his back and shots him in the chest.

“Ellie!” He sits in his bed, his knuckles white from the grip on the sweaty sheets.

The same nightmare. Again, and again. Over and over, as if grieving during the day wasn’t enough.

He catches his breath and hides his face in his hands, his shoulders seized by spasms.

There in the harrowing silence and loneliness of his room, he cries.

Even in his nightmares he failed them.

3 weeks later.

You and Joel stop at the rocky outcrop you haven’t seen for an eternity and you watch the panorama with the nostalgic taste of the months spent in Jackson. Arrived in the midst of winter with hope, now spending spring in doubt and guilt. Time wasn’t waiting for you. It passed, no matter the trials you got put through.

               Before your eyes, nature awakens in a fragile in-between, not winter anymore, but not fully spring yet. Grey patches still persist on the mountain tops, especially in the ridges the sun can’t reach and below, the green see spreads like an inevitable army.

  The orange dots on the other side of the valley catch your attention. The strange Cordyceps growths are sprinkled  all over  the abandoned buildings  you used to shoot infected on, making the landscape look eerie. You don’t even need your scope to see it.

Carefully, the world reveals itself to your other senses. In the pines resin that soaks the air with their delicate scent. In the songs of birds who stayed silent the whole winter, in the screeches of squirrels jumping from one branch to another. Life is finally back in Wyoming.

“Time to prove you can still shoot ,” Joel interrupts your thoughts and startles you.

    No matter how hard you prepared and told yourself he had no idea about what you were hiding from him, you kept alert, and although his tone was softer than usual, you were still scared.  Joel’s wrath wasn’t cold like his brother, it was a scorching fire that burnt everything in his way. It was raw, brutal. If he ever learned the truth he wouldn’t guide you there to kill you at the last minute, he wouldn’t pretend.

“So you were serious,” you follow his path and grab your rifle as if you weren’t already in distress, but the weapons is much heavier now than usual.

You tense. Your missing finger wasn’t supposed to hinder your mission but it still changed your habits, and you hated it. It was a constant reminder of Salt Lake City and the events that followed.

 The wound has been healing well and Lola had stitched you well to prevent any infection. The gauze only covered your injury, leaving the rest of your hand free for you to act as usual. Except the usual has now completely shifted : every small things you used to make now felt completely anew and the thought of losing the only skill you proud of made you nervous.

“I’m always serious,” Joel continues,

You nod, but you don’t  meet his eyes. Last time you saw him had you feel ridiculous. You vomited, hurt yourself trying to punch him and folded in his arms quickly.

Too quickly.

It couldn’t happen again. If the alcohol had left your body, the guilt was here to stay and every time you thought of Joel’s embrace, it crawled in the back of your neck as a reminder.

Don’t do that.

Stay away.

You stole his life.

You’ll reap what you sown. You knew it.

Yet you still agreed to go out on patrol with him, told yourself you had to play along. Keep it simple. Keep it basic. You didn’t need to have full conversations. Do your job. Wait and come back home but now it might be harder that you thought it would be.

               The outcrop waits for you and you lie on the floor so your weapon doesn’t get too heavy in your hands. Then you, adjust the cross in the depth of your neck and press your eye in the scope where you can see a small flock of Infected roaming by the buildings as usual. Clickers. Only Clickers. And one of them is… breathing spores. Grey, just like… just like the other. He moves normally but the one around him seems to walk slower, their arms twitching in rigid jerks, not as regularly as usual. You aim at a the last one, breathe in gently, your index adjusted against the trigger, waiting for your exhale to release it. Your pinkie isn’t too important but the rifle weights shifts enough in your hand for you to lack the control that made you skilful and when your index relaxes, the bullet lodges itself in the Clicker’s arm.

“ Fuck,”

Joel approaches, “ Take your time,”

“I don’t need your advice,” you adjust your elbow in the dirt, “ never will,”

The second shot does it and the creature crumbles on the floor.

“ Good shot,” he startles you right by your side.

“ it wasn’t,”

“ I mean, with your fing—

Another loud blast cuts him mid-sentence in an echo so loud flocks of bird fly out from trees nearby, as if themselves understood how angry you pulled the trigger. Then another, until the horizon stands still.

               You stand up and walk back to your horse without answering him but before climbing, you face him. Many months have passed since you first patrolled with Tommy, and with him and the seasons aren’t the only ones that changed. The flicker of disgust is gone from Joel’s face. Instead of the familiar disdain, you find his weathered face to be carved with an emotion you can’t fully grasp, like affection turning to hurt the more blunt you get to him. The Joel you knew would already have slammed you against a wall for talking to him that way, but now, he's just… different.

The wind ruffles his already messy hair and his eyes don’t let go of you, as if he knows you're about to snap at him.

Let me help.

Why now ? Why would he break down the wall he erected now ?

Your chest tightens.

No. Please. No.

Please.

You can’t. How could you ? The guilt crawls under your skin at the same moment something insidious slithers on your shoulders, something you can’t allow, something you shouldn’t even think of. The air get thicker around you the more you look at him, and every part of your body suddenly feel the need to get closer to his.

You can’t let it happen.

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say Joel, I don’t care, “ you swallow, “you threatened me the first time we patrolled because you're an asshole. Just because you saved me doesn’t erase any of the shit you did to me, so stop pretending you care because we both know it's bull—

“— You slapped me first,” he stiffens and the crease between his eyebrows intensifies, back to man you’re familiar with, the one who doesn’t like to be called out.

“ What ?”

“ You slapped me first that day,”

“ Oh come on, don’t play with words !” you lash out and spring towards him,” You broke my ribs, almost threw me off the walls, I think the slap was long overdue at this time !”

He doesn’t back down but straightens his back and neck and looks down on you with the flames of danger already boiling in his eyes.

He hisses,“ And you pushed me every single time princess,”

“Stop calling me that ! You don’t get to call me that !”

“ Why ? Is that what my brother called you every fuckin’ night ?”

The jealous words slip out from his mouth before his mind tells him not to and he realizes he screwed up when your face and shoulders drop instantly. The anger vanishes and he watches as you blink away the incoming tears and turn your back on him.

               He catches your right wrist before you get too far from him.

“ I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—

The punch catches him square in the jaw, strong enough to make him stagger backwards and you invade his space, his touch only being the fuel to your fire.

“ Fuck you Joel !” You almost spit on his face, “ Fuck you ! Tommy is right, you can’t help yourself, you truly have to hurt others !” You grab his shirt, blind to the sudden and sharp irradiation in your right hand, “ You only care about yourself because you're just a fucking asshole !”

Joel swallows his pride and  let you release your bottled fury, your fists hammering his chest in heavy blows until he checks your injured hand.

He grabs your wrists before you hurt yourself but you thrash against his powerful grip. “ Enough !”

“ I fucking hate you Joel !” You strain against him, your muscles burning but his hands are locked around yours and don’t bulge.

“ Stop actin’ like a child !”

You try to break free but he’s too strong and with one twist of your wrist, he turns your whole body around and entraps you in a full embrace of his arms, maintaining your body against his in an unbreakable lock.

“ Let me go !”

   He doesn’t and his whole body tightens around yours, a masse of muscles built day after for the sole purpose of surviving that immobilises you without any resistance. His warm chest heaves against your back, his heart beating  in the same rhythm as yours. With his tight embrace, his head is by your side, his mouth murmurs words your brain refuse to understand when it hits you.

     Hidden amongst the leather and gunpowder scent, the faintest hue of vanilla hits your nostrils like a prayer, or a curse,  and you catch your breath in deep exhales that can’t quite reach the bottom of your lungs. After trying a few more times to break free from him, you give up. There is nothing you can do. You linger here, legs dangling without motion in his arms, defeated. Ashamed by how futile your strength is against him.

Joel is stronger than you.

You guilt is weaker than it should be.

And as of this moment, he wins. You don’t want to fight, you just want him to hold you there in the midst of spring, anew. The scent you hated a few months ago is now a melody to your senses.

Joel feels your surrender and slowly releases you from his gilded cage.

“Are you goin’ to punch me again?”  He mumbles, more annoyed by your unpredictable temper than the pain in his jaw.

“No,”

He releases you, “Good,” and you both stand face to face so close you can feel his warm breath on your skin. You refrain another unwelcome comment and keep staring at his dark brown eyes.

Coffee beans. They remind you of coffee beans, the ones you would dip your hand into, the ones that smelled so strong you couldn’t handle it and yet still came back for every time, in your your former life when your dad used to grind his own.

Joel was exactly like that : strong, unpleasant but so damn fascinating and magnetic.

So magnetic you can’t take off your eyes from him, even after the ridiculous fight you provoked, even after all the things you accused him of. He was captivating in a dangerous way, like he would drag you to down to the bottom if you were to fall in his orbit.

You’re already there.

In his orbit.

He thinks the same.

Your defiance is so vibrant it shines in the warmth of your eyes, comforting like a bonfire but Joel is scared to add fuel to his desire.

               He stiffens and steps once more towards you, ready to burn himself, his chest rising  in heavy exhales as you stand still until his head is barely above yours. The vanilla bewitches you and you’re drawn to his lips, his beard, his skin, to the eyes that flicker right and left in yours and then down to your inviting mouth.

You have no idea how much he wants it, how much the subtle quiver in your lower lip wrecks him, how much the burning desire etched on your face shakes him to his core and rekindles his flames.

Words are spoken in the silence.

It’s all wrong. You know it. He knows it.

                But then his rugged hand brushes against yours in an electric touch that strikes you like a deflagration. His fingers caress yours, demanding, bewitching. A delicate and timid graze of your skin on his which clashes with the burden he carries on his face, as if your touch hurts him more than anything.

               Your mouth opens but Ellie flashes in your head and you break whatever contact you have, “We should go,”

You walk back to Betty without looking back where Joel still stands still and realises what didn’t happen.

     For a moment he had forgotten everything else, his sorrow, his pain, his grief, all of it vanished in the blink of an eye, in the palm of your hand.

For a moment, life was worth living.

He watches as you climb on your horse and follows suit, waiting for you to turn back, but you don’t.

He was so stupid thinking you would ever feel something for him after everything he puts you through. You were right. Saving your life wasn’t an excuse.

               The ride to the lookout is as you expected. Both of you ruminate in your thoughts for the next thirty minutes, regretting or being ashamed, longing for the unknown or scared about the future. You don’t really pay attention to the landscape anymore; you feel his touch over and over, his hand usually so rough catching yours in such a delicate and strange way, his dangerous eyes burning at you and his neck pulsing quickly.

When the restaurants comes into view, you don’t know whether to feel relieved or not.

“I’m gonna check the surroundings, fill the logbooks,” he breaks the silence you forced but his tone isn’t soft anymore. For once, you're the one who hurt him.

He dismounts and ties his horse by the entrance, pats him on the neck and disappears behind the restaurant, leaving you by yourself.

               There is not much to do anyway so you obey and check all the information in the logbook. You investigate since your arrival and notices that the number of infected indeed increased when you arrived in winter, but starts decreasing when it shouldn’t.   

               It had to be related to the sample you gave Troy. You couldn’t see another explanation. All those orange Cordyceps and mushrooms growing from dead Clickers couldn’t be a coincidence. The spore breathing Clicker couldn’t be a coincidence. All of it had to be connected.

You fill the book, chasing  Ellie and Troy’s face and drag a chair by the window to finally take in the view. It’s not much different from the outcrop panorama, but the horizon is clear for kilometres and the mountains stretch forever, ruling a kingdom they don’t know is ruined. The sky is a milky blue, a calming ocean in which you drown until Joel returns and brings back the storm with him.

He checks the book to make sure you listened to him and comes next right next to you. It takes him a few minutes for him to find the courage to speak the words he wants to say and opens himself, something he had long forgotten how to.

“ For what it's worth, I do care,”

You scoff but despite your body urging you to move away you stand still.

“ What you said earlier, it was cruel,”

“ I know,” he swallows and stares at the horizon but doesn’t apologize, “ Can I ask you somethin’ ?”

“ Sure,”

“ Why did you leave the Fireflies ?”

The question catches you off guard but is finally a big weight off Joel’s shoulders. If at first he was overcome by the situation, some doubts were still remaining and needed to clear his mind about it. Now felt like the best and worst time all at once.

You don’t know what to answer. Truth is that there are no answers. You never left the Fireflies because you never had to. You were forced to flee a massacre, forced to run away from the centrefold of your life and never look back. If it wasn’t for the horde, you would still be in the cell Marlene put you in.

Then you remember the disillusion Tommy felt when he told you about his time.

“ Guess I was done being a pawn in someone else’s big scheme, I learned to follow orders but it cost me more than I expected,”

You lie with such confidence your guts twist, and you almost believe in your own bullshit but it was true. Marlene’s big plan put more people at risk, and for what ? Nothing. The Fireflies had crushed  hundreds of  kind-hearted people who hoped for a better life or a meaningful way to achieve freedom.

Tommy was one of them.

You weren’t.

 You had the chance to be part of the lucky ones.  If anything, you were part of the system Marlene set up.

“ Sarah died because of a man who was following’ orders,” Joel blurts out suddenly.

His voice is but a whisper, as if the words were dragged out of his throat against his will.  He keeps staring in front of him but you notice the cracks once more. His grief hides in the downturned corner of his mouth that you catch quivering under the bristles of his moustache, in the crease of his eyebrows frowned unevenly upon his stare lost into memories you don’t have access.

You don’t interrupt him. Instead you take a closer look, one that he allows, fully aware of the intensity of your gaze. You never really care about knowing his age, but the grainy and rugged skin below the greyish hair of his beard indicates he is in his late fifties. His nose reminds you of the statues of roman antiquities, it's small and arches, giving him this dangerous intensity you were familiar with. His eyelids fall so heavy on his pupils they  give him a stern look even when you think they’ve softened. But right now, he's far from being grim, he just looks poor and you can’t help him.

His daughter.

His daughters.

“ One soldier listened to a voice on a talkie-walkie and the she was just…gone,” his voice shatter like it's the first time he puts words on his daughter’s death, “ bastard  said he was sorry and then he shot us,”

“ I’m sorry,” your heart breaks for him. For his loss and because you're the worst person to confess to.

               He bites his inner cheeks, the memory hurting even more now that he let it free but he does feels that you are sincere and when you see that he’s stuck  in his mind, you ask him gently.

“ How was she, Sarah ?”

“The sprin’ of my life,” a sad smile tugs his lips, “She was radiant like the sun, a breathtakin’ smile. She was brilliant, funny, she kept me grounded, gave me a reason to go to work ever’ day,” He clears his throat, “I liked my life before, wasn’t much but at least we were happy,” the vein on his temple pulses quicker and he lowers his head and squints, “ I stopped carin’ after she died, and then someone else came alon’ the way and I had faith again…For a while,”’

Ellie, the drag path that led to the two of you, the scar etched in evidence in is past and yours, parallel lines you didn’t know would intertwine.

 The nausea hits you like a ball in your throat, right between your collarbones, in your stomach and you shift a bit away from him.

“ I never got to say goodbye to any of them,” he nods, talking more for himself than you, “ Sarah died in my arms, and Ellie…She was taken away from be by Fireflies, not so long ago,”

You clear your throat when he turns to you and his teary eyes wreck your heart. There, the pain he doesn’t know you caused distorts his face and jerks his chest in a ragged breath he barely keeps under his control.

You did this.

“I know you weren’t one of those twisted psychos from Salt Lake City when Tommy told me you lied but it still hurt… So believe me when I tell you I care about you because I do, it just took me a few months to understand you weren’t the enemy,”

“ I'm sorry,”  he can’t fathom the weight of your words and how deep you mean every single one of them.

You force a smile, too broad, too bright, one that quivers at the edge the longer you hold it but Joel moves away, hiding his grief from you, and you catch him. Without reason, as your body was asking for forgiveness, you grab his forearm and your fingers meet his broken watch. Again.

“ I'm truly sorry Joel,”

He shifts back to you and plants his feet to the ground without pulling away from you.

“ For what ?”

“ For…” you choke on your words, “ For everything,”

He buries his scar down and steps closer, “ It’s okay, those past months were better,”

“ Because you enjoyed making my life a nightmare ?”

He tilts his head in a faint smirk and suddenly he looks younger, warmer. His mouth can’t refrain a smirk, but his eyes twitch in all seriousness. You know he is fighting to keep his emotions sealed.

“ Let's say you got on my nerves so much it distracted me enough,”

He slides his hand along you’re arm and all the hair of your body stand as thrills spread again all over you. Not again. No.

Pull away.

Just leave.

“ Oh, glad to hear that Joel, I’m truly happy I was a distraction,” You steal the air of his lungs, your chest lifting heavily for him to see, your words not aligning with your thoughts.

Guilt. Shame. Pain. More pain.

Desire.

All at once messing with your brain.

“ What else do you want to be ?” he whispers.

“ What ?”

The wrinkles on his forehead deepens and he clears his throat as the air thickens ,“ Well, if you're not an enemy and not a distraction, what else do you want to be ?”

And just like that, he catches a strand of your hair and pulls it behind your ear like he's done it a millions times and grazes your blushing cheeks with the edge of his thumb.

Oh.

Oh.

He still holds you with his other hand and brushes against your elbow, not daring to go further, holding your arm like he doesn’t want to hurt you.

               He doesn’t want to hurt you. Not anymore. Not since you saved him from drowning in his sorrow. He doesn’t know he's staring in the devil’s eye and a current travels your spine. He found you but you're losing yourself again, in his burning gaze, in his soft touch.

Your mouth is dry, your lungs infinite and your heart screams to get closer to him, to feel his chest against yours and feel alive, to drown your guilt in his arms and in his mouth, to save him from your past and give him a future.

“ Joel,”

He murmurs your name back, his voice but a caress on your wounds, his hand on your face the fuel to your fire, at last.

The room is nothing but a whisper in which your heavy exhales feed your flames but when Joel slides his hand behind your neck and pulls you to him in a soft but determined embrace, the guilt wins.

You resist him once more and takes his hand off you. You hold it tight and puts it on his heaving chest, before looking up at his confused face. It hurts like a bitch and you regret it immediately, but you can’t.

You can’t do this. You can’t do this to him and become exactly what Tommy accused you of : a lying traitor.

Despite what your body and heart scream, you stay there. Your hands on his chest, a tear finally rolling down your face as he stares at you, his body trembles from your touch and the ache carved on every line of his face crushes you.