#snippies

Thank you for the tag, @messitydepressity! Let's see... looping in @lauronk, @bumblepony, and @midnight-society-tlou if you're up to sharing anything!

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the one i will still call yours part of my series explain the infinite.

previous snip 1

previous snip 2

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Ellie returns to the living room and flops onto the sofa, tipping to the side until Joel’s leg serves as a pillow. “What’s with the…” She gestures at the half-empty bottle sitting a few feet away, flanked by two squat glasses.  “Were you double-fisting?”

“Nah, Tommy brought it over.”  A hand skims over her hair once, twice, before settling on the crown of her head.  “Wanted to make sure he was startin’ Benji on the good stuff.”

She shoves his leg a little for that, but he doesn’t budge.  “How come the baby can drink, but I can’t?  You’re, like, a super-duper hypocrite today.”

All she gets is a grunt.

“Lame,” she moans, sitting up.  “So? Is it the good stuff?  Can I have some? I’m gonna have some.”

Joel rolls his eyes, but he snags the glasses and hands one to her. “Get yourself a clean one.  And a separate cup of ice.  You won’t like it straight.”

She almost says she’s never liked anything straight, but manages to swallow that back before it becomes a thing.  “You won’t like it straight.”

“If you don’t want—”

“Clean glass and a cup of ice coming right up!” she chirps, making a point to collide with Joel’s legs as she climbs over them.  “Would your majesty like anything else?”

“Some respect would be nice.”

“Just a little bit?”

thank you for the tag @lauronk 💙 I am desperately trying to finish up time loop fic, hopefully in the next few days

You got, love! 😘

From the former Dom Anakin fic:

[Skyguy_Ani] Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, but we talked a few days ago on a post I made about domming for a brat

[BenKen] I do remember! I hope you’re doing alright

[BenKen] That can be a difficult thing to navigate

As soon as Anakin had heard the notification sound on his phone, he whipped out his phone faster than normal. The incident from a few days ago had only compounded and was eating at him. 

[Skyguy_Ani] Yeah I’m fine

[Skyguy_Ani] Thanks for the reminder about safewords. Sometimes I forget that this is for me too

[BenKen] Are you a switch and domming for the first time? 

[Skyguy_Ani] I wouldn’t say I’m really a switch lol

[Skyguy_Ani] I don’t think I’d ever be very good at submitting

[BenKen] New to the scene in general?

[Skyguy_Ani] Uhhhh not new i guess

[Skyguy_Ani] Kinda just feeling like I’m not in the right mood sometimes to be in charge? 

[Skyguy_Ani] idk if that makes sense lol

[BenKen] You don’t have to dom when you don’t feel like it you know 

[BenKen] Take care of yourself 

[BenKen] And your sub needs you to be in the right headspace too. It’s not just creating an experience for them. It’s for both of you

@thebeautyofdisorder​ @dracula-s-bride​ @bloodspatteredprincess​

Wrapping up the next chappy of ellie in a tree, so obviously I'm sharing a snip from the third installment of explain the infinite (entitled the one i will still call yours).

@messitydepressity , thank you for the tag!!

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The quiet is turning awkward for them both; she can feel Joel tensing even though he hasn’t moved. She should say something, but what? I don’t know if we’d have this if Tess hadn’t died?  That sounds like she’s jealous of a dead woman, and she’s not.  She just… there’s no imagining a life where she doesn’t have a Joel.

A heart-stopping shriek from the kitchen cuts her musing short and sends them both about ten feet in the air. Joel shoves her behind him, pressing her into the cushion and scrambling for a pistol that isn’t there, before she’s registered the source.  

“Dinner,” she breathes, wiggling out of her Joel prison.  He’s wearing his danger face now, even though they’re home and there isn’t any danger. “I don’t remember the timer being that loud.  It’s worse than a hungry Benji.”

Joel blinks a few times, overprotective-danger face settling into his usual asshole face, with a side of confusion.  “That’s the point, kid.”

“It’s my first time shitting my pants thanks to a plastic pepper,” she complains, glancing into her glass. Somehow, she didn’t spill a drop.   “Gimme a break.” 

Joel shifts, immediately winces, and reaches for his knee.  Shit, that's right — she could hear it earlier, when he first got home. It's worse than usual today.  

“I got it, marshmallow man,” she teases, patting his shoulder. “Can’t have you breaking a hip.”

“Funny,” Joel grumbles, settling back into the couch. “Careful; it’ll be hot.”

“Wait, what? An oven makes things hot?” She rolls her eyes for good measure and makes a show of stepping over his legs.  When she accidentally catches Joel’s calf, he just sighs. “God, I have so much to learn here in Jackson.  What’s next? The refrigerator makes things cold?”

Her next step is interrupted by Joel’s toe catching the back of her shoe so she steps right out of it.  “Asshole!”

“Little shit,” he retorts, kicking her sneaker across the room and jerking his chin toward the kitchen. He sounds normal again. Good. They’ve shared a lot of emotions or whatever.  The chance to decompress is more than welcome. “Throw that bread in the oven while you’re dishin’ up dinner.”

thank you @barlowstreet, for the tag!

from what i am (is an illusion) -- five times joel was something he's not, + one time he was something he's always been

an excavator

Relief floods through him, replaced by utter confusion when he spots her about thirty yards away. She’s sunk to her waist in what looks like solid ground.  A sinkhole? No, she’d either have fallen to the bottom or climbed out on her own.

“What the fuck?” he mutters to himself, scanning the ground for answers it doesn’t reveal.  “Ellie, what the hell happened?”

“I don’t fucking know!” she yells, panic and relief mingling in her voice.  “I was following a set of rabbit tracks until the ground fucking swallowed me! It sucked in my foot and when I tried to pull it out, my other foot got stuck, and then I kept sinking. And now, I can’t get out, and I’m still sinking, and you didn’t come when I shouted, so I had to use my gun and then I realized I probably just summoned all the infected around here, and I’m still sinking and—”

“Ellie.”  Giving her the chance to spiral into further panic is only going to worsen the situation. “You ain’t gettin’ pulled nowhere but next to the damn fire when we get you out. Take a breath.”

Joel studies the mud surrounding Ellie, trying to come up with an explanation and — more importantly — a solution, when years of Saturday mornings in front of the television flash through his mind.  Shit.  

'cause why not

--

“Can I ask you something?”

“Just did.”

“Dick,” she huffs. “Were you, like…” Shit, how does she phrase this? “I dunno, violent? Before the outbreak, I mean.”

Joel takes a slow sip from his glass, but doesn’t respond. Did she cross some unknown boundary? Usually, he tells her when a question is too much. He’s never denied the things he’s done — and she knows damn well that he’ll do them again in a heartbeat if necessary — she’s not sure he will this time. 

“I threw a punch or two.” Joel looks over, and the raw expression on his face catches her off guard. “But that ain’t what you’re askin’.”

The atmosphere shifts in a heartbeat, suddenly heavy and suffocating. “I guess not,” she agrees quietly. 

Joel says nothing for a long moment.  “No,” he grunts. “I…” He clears his throat and looks away. “No. All the fights I’d been in had a reason. Cleanin’ up one of Tommy’s messes, usually.” He turns the glass in his hands, fingers sliding over the condensation. “The first person I ever killed was on Outbreak Day. Our neighbor was infected, Sarah was in danger, and I had to keep her safe. It was… easy. “But, after—” 

His voice cracks. His eyes are wet. And Ellie can’t take it. “You don’t—”

“I needed to keep Tommy alive.” She stays slient; he looks away. “Then we met Tess, and I had ‘em both…”

It’s hard to imagine a Joel who isn’t the man she knows. Her Joel is a dangerous man. Her Joel is a crack shot with a rifle, can kill another person without a weapon, and defaults to torture for his primary interrogation technique.

Last winter, after... after, she’d asked how many he killed, how many they might still have left, how likely they were to search for Joel and Ellie.

Joel killed a lot of people to find her.  

“Tell me,” she’d begged, pressing closer to his chest. 

He had hummed, running a hand up and down her arm. “Shot most of ‘em,” he murmured. “Knifed a few. Caught two, got one to talk.”

Knowing they were dead wasn’t enough, so she’d whispered, “How?”

She learned a lot about muscles and ligaments that night. 

It helped, knowing just how far he would go to protect her. It helped more to realize that maybe Joel has a violent heart, too, but that doesn’t make him evil. No matter how many people he kills, or how, She refuses to believe he’s evil. David was evil. But Joel?

Well, evil wouldn’t go three days without sleep to help her feel safe. Evil wouldn’t zip two sleeping bags together and let her huddle close while she ripped apart. Evil wouldn’t pull out Will Livingston and read pun after pun until he got a reaction. Evil doesn’t get misty-eyed at the sight of a chalkboard.

Joel might not be a good person, but he’s not an evil person. He can’t be.

Isn't writing the best? I love how well I can express myself and my ideas in beautifully flowing prose.

In other news, Ch. 9 of a redwood among mere sprouts is going swimmingly.