This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence, including Joel briefly being violent with Sparrow, graphic descriptions of wounds and post-apocalypse wound care, graphic sexual content, and descriptions of childhood trauma
A/N;I should have called this chapter ‘exposition dump’ My endless gratitude and thanks to @the-ginger-hedge-witch,@radiowallet and V for reading through this for me to reassure my garbage brain that it was not garbage.
This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence, including Joel briefly being violent with Sparrow, graphic descriptions of wounds and post-apocalypse wound care, graphic sexual content, and descriptions of childhood trauma
A/N;I should have called this chapter ‘exposition dump’ My endless gratitude and thanks to @the-ginger-hedge-witch,@radiowallet and V for reading through this for me to reassure my garbage brain that it was not garbage.
The question makes you jerk, your body jack-knifing into rigid posture as you rear away from him, his hand clamped on your hip, his eyes searching your face for an answer. You wriggle, trying to remove yourself from his grasp as he presses himself a little harder into you. You’re covered in sweat and cum and a day’s grime.
“Doesn’t matter” you mutter, wrenching his arm from your skin, skittering over the pile of soft dusty clothing. He watches you with a furrowed brow as you grab at the clothing you had found that fit. A pair of dark wash jeans, hiking boots and a few shirts, none of them covered in holes or blood.
Unease settles in his stomach. In the weeks since you left Boston, you’ve offered nothing about yourself he doesn’t already know, bits and pieces picked from the little you’ve offered, the little he’s seen. The pens in your pockets, strapped together with twine and duct tape, more valuable than the clothes on your back, the equipment to make the forged ration cards that almost got you killed.
He’sassumed.Assumed so many things about you, from your age, to the life you lived inside the razor wire safety, that you took it for granted, that you were living on the edge of starvation, that you were going to Denver to get out of Boston, that the rumours of an active community had somehow reached your ears, and you were looking to start over, looking to run away.
The rumours out of Denver talked of Fireflies. That the militia group had scrubbed out the military, painted their symbols and sayings on the grimy brick, as though spray paint was a yellow brick road, their leader a woman behind a curtain.
Tess had run into them a few times. Tiny little splinter factions that talked of revolution, of taking the earth back, of the search for a cure. It made him laugh, the blind optimism of their cause, as if the world didn’t end with an order and a terrified cry that fell suddenly silent.
Joel watches as your fingers shake, you’re still sticky with his cum, your own, your skin still flushed dark and your breath not quite back to normal. Is this part of it? Were you asked? To trade your body for information about him, about Tess? What information could you have gained, those wide-eyed pleas of his name enough to shatter anyone’s resolve.
It turns to a thorned vine in his stomach, biting and savage, the knowledge that he would have told you anything for the heat between your legs, the soft slip of your skin and a whimper.
He’s moving before he realises it, vision going black to grab you, wrench your bird-like body to look at him. You’re fighting immediately, tears in the corner of your eyes as you scratch at his face, the exposed skin of his chest, frantic and scared.
“Who are you?” he’s loud, too loud, voice cracking in your ear like an explosion
“Get the fuck off me, get OFFme” you’re screaming, kicking and clawing until his skin is under your nails, beading blood on your fingertips. His grip only becomes tighter, shaking you towards him as you collide with his chest, his teeth bared, and skin flushed.
“I don’t know!” you scream, the words you don’t speak, the words you neverspeak leaving your throat like a bullet from a chamber.
His hand drops from your arm as you stumble backwards, colliding hard with a table, its contents spilling onto the floor with soft thumps, both of you heaving breaths as dust scatters around you like falling glitter.
“I don’t know” you repeat, rubbing your arm as you turn away.
“What do you mean?” he says, his voice slow, calm and deliberate.
“I don’t know who I am”
You watch his lip curl, the sneer flashing across his vision, the briefest flash of something sorrowful, a mourning not completed. Your eyes flick to the table blocking the entrance, your coat laying heavy on the table blocking the door. Your fingers itch, searching for the familiar softened edge, the anchor.
“What do you know?” he asks, his hands raised, palms up as he steps back from you.
You sink to the floor, hands on your knees as you look at the lines in your palm and begin.
*
Whenever I try to figure it out, I always come back to the things I know for sure. I know I had a mother, a father. I know I had an older brother, and I know his name was James. We lived in a house, and I used to think it was a big house, but I don’t know if I think that because I was so small.
I know they had jobs, but I don’t know what they were. James babysat me most days, picking me up from a room that was bright coloured and had kids in it – I suppose they were my friends. He held my hand as we walked home and played games like counting the number of pink flowers, or collecting dandelions for me to blow on.
My favourite snack was something dusted with crystal sugar. My room had animals on the wallpaper, and I was always kissed goodnight before I went to sleep. Mum and Dad called me sweetie, honey, love. James called me kiddo, or brat if I was in his way. I know he was older.
I can figure he was about 14 then – because I saw the kids grow up into those same too big limbs later on, not quite fitting in their skin, and I remember him seeming that way. King Kong in a backwards baseball cap. He was nicer to me than I think most older brothers are. I don’t remember him making me cry, maybe he did, but I’ve cried about so much maybe I forgot.
That day? The last day? It was just starting to get cold. I remember I asked my mum to tuck me in tighter, wrap me together in sheets and soft blankets before she smothered my face in kisses and I fell asleep. I think I had good dreams, I want to believe that. That little girl deserves it.
The sound woke me up. Loud banging and bright lights and I thought it was the Fourth of July again, the pretty colours in the sky. But when I looked outside the air was choked in smoke and fire. I could hear people screaming.
I don’t know why they didn’t wake me earlier; if Mum and Dad were just hoping I could sleep through it, like it was a nightmare I could wake up to in the morning. If it was better to see charred corpses than burning bodies. I’ve seen both now. There’s not much difference.
James woke me. He came into my room and picked me up. I thought it was strange because he never did that anymore, telling me I was getting too big for it, despite Mum and Dad never seeming to mind. He carried me to the living room and the TV was on, there were images of everything on fire, and that was the last thing I remember seeing on a screen.
Mum kissed me on the head. She told me it was going to be okay, that she had packed us a bag and we needed to go, like a little holiday, just for a while. The noises scared me, but James called it an adventure, so I nodded, chewing on a strand of my hair.
James covered my eyes when we went outside. I could smell it though, the sweet char of a world on fire, the smoke curled into my nostrils and its never left. He buckled me in, sliding in next to me and didn’t let go of my hand. I could smell burnt rubber when dad pulled the car out.
I wonder why they left so late. If they took their time with preparations in the chaos, if the car was full of canned food and warm clothing. If they anticipated a long stay in the middle of nowhere. I don’t remember what was in the back seat.
I remember my Dad’s knuckles were bleached on the wheel, like bone. I remember the windows rolled up and the radio off and flashes of more explosions on all sides of us. I don’t remember the turns we took to take us out of the suburbs. I remember horns, loads of them, loud and screaming.
I don’t know if we hit them, or they hit us. But the car got hit anyway. It flipped, at least onto its side, because my cheek felt cool against the glass. Mum pulled me out, and her neck was sticky with blood when I wrapped my arms around it.
We ran. Dad dragged James by the arm and I tried to keep my face buried in mum’s coat, it was soft and fuzzy warm. I was still in pyjamas, they had little pink pigs with curlicue tails and heart eyes. I had pudgy toes, and I think there was glitter polish on them. It caught the light from the town on fire around us.
The first infected I ever saw was running at me. You know the newly turned, the fresh fresh ones, they foam at the mouth? They’re rabid, they snarl and scream. You can almost see the person fading away as the infection takes over, killing the humanity like a candle.
Dad had a pipe, I don’t know where he got it from, and I just watched him hit them and keep running, dragging my mother by the arm, and James by the shoulder. I was crying then. My tears were cold. The alleyway we hid in was dark, and James cupped my cheeks and kissed my forehead, trying to calm down my screaming.
A gunshot made us run again. That was when I saw the trucks for the first time. You know them, they’re still in all the zones. They’re like supply trucks, but these ones were full of soldiers, and they sprayed bullets like confetti. Looking back, I’m sure they hit some innocent people, some uninfected that were just running, or injured, or scared.
I’m sure it came from a good place. I can know that, I can believe it. That it was a good choice in the chaos, to offer some kind of safety. My parents weren’t the first to hand their kids to soldiers, to be sequestered in a truck. I don’t know if they offered or were forced to take them, the wailing babies and the scared little kids covered in snot.
James screamed. He grabbed at me as my father held him back, around the shoulders, like you would a man. Like he wasn’t a teenager. He grabbed my wrist so hard I was sure it broke. When they yanked me out of his grip, he took a piece of me with him. You can still see the scar, see? Right there.
I could hear my mum. She was yelling, words of comfort. “Sweetie, it’s going to be okay, sweetie, it will be over soon”
I think that’s where it turned sour, those candy sweet nicknames full of hope and love. Because if there was ever a time? To give me something to cling to, something to build on? It was right then, but this is right now and I know better than they did, I know what they failed to give me by offering me comfort instead of my name.
It was too dark in the truck. We crashed into each other as they drove, tiny little kid fingers pushed into each other until when they opened the canvas back, we were just a heap of crying bodies, clinging to each other for warmth. It was some kind of bunker, I think.
All concrete and fluorescent lights. Scratchy blankets that they wrapped around each of us. There was a woman officer there, her uniform was covered in blood, and she shed her clothes down to the white undershirt, bleeding pink. She played games with us, sang songs I cant remember now, wiped our faces with damp towels and tucked us in. Three to a cot.
The lights never went off. The chaos never went away. I think it took them three days to figure out it wasn’t going away. That this group of scared sickly little kids were their responsibility now, that they had to take care of us.
That woman, I wish I could remember her name, she took care of us. We ate canned food that tasted like nothing, and she scratched a hopscotch court into the concrete. A lot of us asked when we were going home. They didn’t answer us.
They asked us every day. What our name was, when was our birthday, could we remember where we lived? Over time, the kids that calmed down could remember. I didn’t have anything to grab on to. All I could remember was my name was Sweetie. But they knew that wasn’t right.
They shipped us all off together anyway, sending us to one of the first quarantined zones. It was a defunct military base outside of Denver. There were wounded there, not infected. It was a little community of broken people. Another woman, a civilian, tried to teach us all.
She called us her little ducklings, because we would follow her and cling to her cardigan. One by one, they matched us up. Birth records and memories, and surnames memorised matched little kids with families, with relatives that survived. I know now that 60% of the population was infected or killed that first night. I think that number got higher in the weeks that followed.
Nobody ever came to claim me. I couldn’t remember my name, I didn’t know where I lived. And there were lots of boys named James who had little sisters. So, they left me, to cling to whatever I could from wherever I was.
I got in every truck they offered, I slept in every bed they gave me, choked down every meal until I couldn’t remember different. But I wanted them to know, my mum and dad and James, that I was alive. That I was surviving, that they made the right choice.
I assume they’re dead. I guess in a way I died with them that day. I want to deliver these. Somehow let them know that I still have breath in my lungs. And then I will find some other reason to keep living.
Because what other choice do I have?
*
Joel thumbs through the bundle of postcards. Its thick, heavy in his grip, wrapped with a rust red twine. You untie it and let them spill into his palms. They’re shards of a life you didn’t get to live. Some of them are angry, jagged spikes that pierce his gut as the force of your devotion to the family you didn’t get to know wave at him in inky black.
“Dear Mum, Dear Dad, Dear James”
Joel glances at his watch, the smashed shards of time winking back at him in the dusty light. You gather the postcards back together, tying a neat bow with twine. He watches as you run your finger across a softened edge, see the tear fall down your cheek as you slip it back into the pocket of your jacket.
“I try not to be too angry with them. They did what they thought was best, given the circumstances. I survived, isn’t that what they wanted? Isn’t it better to be a starving, homeless, nameless person, than a bleeding corpse in the street?”
Joel doesn’t answer. You watch as his eyes flick back and forth between your face and the broken watch on his wrist. Each breath seems to cost him effort as his gaze settles on your face. He’s stripped, the hard edges of his furrowed brow softened into such mournful sorrow. You recognise the expression from the last time you looked in a mirror.
His fingers are soft on your cheek. Dragging tracks through the tears he wraps his hand around the back of your neck, tugging you gently closer to him. He hugs you like a lover. Pressing his forehead against yours, full body against your skin as you feel the weight of whatever he isn’t saying weigh you down too. Your arms wrap around his middle, he presses a kiss to the crown of your head.
Joel hears the glass shatter, the vengeful, hateful scream of the front windows exploding, bodies entering in its midst, cackling and laughing. He shoves you to the ground, instinct as he spreads his body wide and turns.
There are too many of them. You count four, covered in grease like streaks of war paint, carrying rusted machetes and feral grins as they circle inward. His gun is too far away, his bow, all of it discarded as though mottled glass would keep you safe, as though this town was deserted.
They seem to ignore you. Circling towards him with weapons raised as he inhales. He hopes you run. Hopes you grab that jacket and its hidden treasure and get away from here, scramble across the broken glass and run like you have something to lose, because you have something to live for. He has nothing, but the desire to help you do it, heart hammering in an empty chest, an echo chamber of guilt.
The first one drops with a fist to the face. Blood explodes from his nose as he rushes Joel, his weapon raised. Joel takes it from him as he falls. Its glinting a mean red, rust and old blood on the edges as he swipes at another, causing them to jump back.
They’re faster than he is, weaving towards him through racks of forgotten clothing as he leads them away from you, still sprawled and shocked on the ground. They move as a team, attack and retreat as you watch his eyes focus, finding the leader with a hard stare.
The next one jumps for him, landing on his shoulder with a hunting knife raised. You hear the gush of blood as Joel throws them to the floor, the rusted blade cutting a jagged line across their throat. You watch as he stamps on their face for good measure, the gurgling howl of the dying cut short.
“Get out of here” he snarls. You don’t know who he’s talking to. Your hands scrape on broken glass as you crawl backwards, somehow ignored by the group he has whittled down to two. You feel the sting of it on your palms like a shot of adrenaline and move faster, clutching a glass shard that cuts your palm as you scramble to your feet, running towards your supplies still laying on the useless barricade he made for you.
Something grabs you and you react, spinning to plunge the glass into something soft. It’s a woman. She’s not much older than you. You watch her eyes go wide as the shard embeds in the join between her neck and shoulder, the thick ooze of red blood calling her hands forth to clutch and gasp at it. Blood trickles from her mouth as she tries to breathe. You watch her fall, you watch her die.
Joels shout of pain draws you away from the new corpse, his shirt torn by a rusty blade as you watch the man with broader shoulders than the rest run at him, weapon raised. The fight is brutal, all sharp knives and bruises as you watch them trade punches, knees to the gut. Joel loses his blade first, wrenching the other man’s wrist with a resounding crack. You’re frozen watching them, attacking each other like infected, biting and scraping as blood drips from a cut on Joels lip, the man’s eye swelling shut.
He manages to get Joel in a headlock, trapping his arms as he takes the kicks to his shins with grunts of pain. He says nothing, pressing down on Joel’s throat as you watch him struggle, his face turning slowly red.
The gun is in your hands before you realise, the metal cool to the touch. It shakes in your fingers as blood seeps across the floor to your feet, pooling shiny and garish in the light. The click of the safety is loud, booming in your ears. It’s heavy, so heavy as you raise and pull the trigger, easier than flicking a switch.
The flash from the muzzle surprises and blinds you. Through the blinking starbursts in your eyes you hear a roar of pain, the sound of a body hitting the floor, feet stampeding towards you as you wildly aim, try to fire again, fingers slippery with blood as you fumble.
“Get off me!” you scream, feeling a shoulder connect with your stomach, your body lifted off the ground as though you weigh nothing. Your arm catches, tears on a piece of broken glass as you’re carried into the afternoon, your stomach rolling with every step as you scream and scratch and thrash.
There’s a door, a ringing in your ears you can’t shake, your vision blurry. You’re going to vomit, the jostling, the pain of each heavy step as you hear a boot connect with metal, the skittering of hinges kicked free. You scramble the minute your feet touch the ground, running blind away from whoever grabbed you, panting and half sick.
“Sparrow” Joel shouts, loud and frightened as he grabs for you, his hand slicking blood as you twist away from him, still fighting against a now dead enemy.
He looks at his blood-soaked hand, the rivulet of red over his knuckle, heart pounding and ears still ringing from the gunshot in the enclosed space. It’s yourblood. Your blood on his hands, and you’re bleeding, right here in front of him and not again, never again, not now, not now, not again, please.
“Joel” you gasp, salvation in a syllable as his hands rush over your body, pulling you and pressing against your stomach, your chest, covering you in sticky warm blood as the air takes on a copper tang. He’s frantic, grabbing at the sodden dress, pulling it away from your body as he murmurs words you can’t make out, sounds that make no sense.
“Joel” you say again, catching his cheek in a bloody palm. “Joel, I’m okay”
His eyes are wide and sightless, lip quivering beneath his beard as he searches you, looking for the source of it, ripping flimsy fabric between his shaking fingers until he presses his hand to your stomach, ragged deep breaths shaking his frame.
“It’s my arm. It’s just a scratch, Joel, I’m okay” you repeat, scratching blood-soaked fingernails into his beard, still and silent as you wait for his breathing to calm.
He presses his forehead against yours, eyes closed as he pulls you into him, wrapping you in his arms, his body fever hot as you let him lift you, another counter beneath your thighs as you feel the waves of nauseating adrenaline leave your system, each breath expelling it like poison.
Joel nudges his nose to your cheek, spreading his palms wide against your back as he steps closer between your thighs. You were here, a half an hour ago, just before he asked a question and the world cracked wide like a goose egg, splitting the universe into more chaos.
His lips are soft, a deliberate brush against your own as he shifts to cup your cheek, stroking your jaw as your pulse beats against his fingers. Engulfed in the smell of gunpowder, the crackling heat of a fire, the softness of damp earth, he kisses you. Slotting his mouth to yours like a missing piece, you share his breath, feel the barest hint of his teeth against your lip.
He’s warm, like the lazy sun in an afternoon, filtered through the branches of trees to caress your face and lift you, tilt your chin and part your lips, seeking more, drinking in the taste of him on your tongue, heady and full of sorrow.
You had never imagined it slow. In the delirious moments between wake and sleep, his hand splayed wide across your belly, the imagined kisses were frantic, feral and snarling as he snapped his teeth, bit down on soft flesh and consumed you, greedy and unhinged.
His fingers brush your cheek like the first snow, tracing to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, tug lightly at the end like the ringing of a bell, the turning of a page, something fresh and clean beneath. It feels like falling, the drop and swoop as you taste his tongue, feel the flutter of his hand on your jaw.
He swallows your moan with a tightening of a fist, twisting the gore soaked fabric in his hand as he pulls you closer, presses your chest to him, no space for your beating heart to run. Instinct guides you, shoving his shirt off his shoulders, leaving only a grimy tee as you grab at his shoulders, leaving bloody handprints in your wake.
“Joel” you whimper, feeling something hungry sink its fangs into your belly. You need to feel, something, anything,that isn’t pain or fear or sorrow. He’s a tower, a beacon of guiding light as he runs his mouth across your jaw, nipping lightly at your chin.
“I know little bird” he murmurs “I know”
“I need, I need”
“I got you” he says, a hand travelling to your thigh, hitching it over his waist as you grab at him, pressing as much of your skin as possible against him, needing to feel the still living tissue beneath your fingers as he fumbles with his jeans.
It burns like cleansing fire. He breaches you with a soft groan and a kiss, pulling you to sink onto him as though salvation was the join of your bodies. Every nerve ending lighting up with his hips flush against your own, sticky skin on sticky skin.
You’re not inexperienced. Before Joel there were boys with protruding ribs and a kind smile, men with nothing to offer but an escape for an hour, a soft touch, a softer kiss. Joel allows you no escape, trapping you with his body and the weight of emotion alike.
You move like dancers, soft and fluid as he chases your lips, hungry for a taste of the pleasure pouring from you, his fingers tightening around your thigh as you feel the scrape of denim on your skin.
“More, please more” you’re half sobbing, wrung out and squirming as he thrusts harder, spearing your insides with a force that cramps your lungs, chokes the tears before they fall. He’s pressing bruises into your skin, marking it, erasing pain with pleasure as he murmurs into your skin.
“I’ve got you, I got you Sparrow, I’m here”
You come with a cry of his name, a stuttered thrust deep inside you as you feel him follow you, pulsing hot and aching inside you as it spreads new warmth throughout your body, a softened ember glow.
He kisses you, wrapping his arms around your shaking body as you come down, unshed tears soaking into your lashes, vanishing into the air. He presses his lips to your cheeks, your eyelids, gently stamping your grimy face with affection until your heartbeat returns to somewhat normal.
You run your hands across his shoulders, feeling the snag of clotting cuts in the fabric, the expansion of his lungs as he breathes. You feel his shoulders, his spine, the wide expanse of his ribs when he winces, a brief crease of pain across his features.
Pulling back, you look, running your hands across his chest until you see it, the ragged hole in his shirt, the seeping blood that’s stained it to the waist.
“Oh my god”
“It’s alright” he says, batting your hand away from the wound “It’s nothing”
“What did that? Did they get you with a knife? Joel, we need to get you some antibiotics, let me see, let me see”
“It wasn’t them.” He says, twisting away from you, righting his jeans as you feel the slip of him between your thighs, pooling beneath you.
“Then what was it?” you ask, reaching for him again. He grabs your wrists, pinning them together with one hand as he lifts his shirt, an angry ragged wound across his ribcage.
“It glanced me. Just needs to be cleaned, same as your hands”
“What glanced you, when?”
“Bullet, little bird” he says, tightening his grip as he watches the realisation crest over your face.
When you struggle, panic in your limbs, he pulls you close, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as he traps you to his chest.
“You did the right thing. You got him, he’s dead, you saved my life” he says, pressing his lips to your hairline.
“Ishotyou” you cry out.
“Your aim could use some work” he says, and you watch in disbelief as a grin crosses his face. “I’m going to clean you up, then I’m going to ask you to give me a few stitches, ok?”
He pulls Meryl’s moonshine from his backpack, pouring it over your hands as he swipes the blood away. He treats you like your something precious, swiping a clean cloth across the shallow cuts on your arm and hands. He tears bandages from a shirt, wraps your palms in them, sealing them with a kiss. Each time you reach for him, he dodges, shaking his head as he grabs your new clothing, allows you to dress.
They fit you like no other clothes you remember, jeans thick enough to chase away the cold, a shirt that swings below your waistline. Shoes that hug your feet and feel like soft earth beneath your toes. Joel nods appreciatively, wrapping an arm around your waist to kiss you again, staining your new shirt with drops of his blood.
He takes his shirt off, ripping it into long strips as you watch, the broad muscles beneath his chest twitching as he tears threads with his teeth. He sequesters the blood-soaked portion, making it the same size as the others, laying them flat on the counter to dry. He tosses you a small tin, ALTOIDS,raised on the front of it, the edges weary with rust. Inside is a needle and thread, some loops of paracord and a pair of tweezers.
“Just like a pair of jeans” he says, offering you the moonshine as he nods towards his ribs.
You take a swig before you sterilise it, threading the needle with shaking fingers as he watches silently. He sits like a statue, allowing you to press against his skin, hesitating as you poke and prod at him, the wound still bleeding over your fingers.
“My day was a lot like yours” he says quietly.
You look up at him, confused.
“Chaos” he says, nodding back at the wound on his side.
You pinch the edge of it together, seeing fresh red blood ooze from the gaping mouth of it, dripping down his side, his skin stained a deep mottled red.
“I should have woken her up too. But we didn’t know what was going on. And it was just me an’ her, and I didn’t wanna scare her.”
You press the needle into his skin, feeling his breath hitch beneath your fingers as you force it through the flesh.
“I’d put her to bed, she’d fallen asleep on the couch after waitin’ up for me. So, I think she woke up scared. She certainly was soon enough anyway. First infected I ever saw was my neighbour. His name was Jimmy. Decent enough guy, had a beer with him a few times. He came crashing through the glass door and ran at us. I had to shoot him. Sarah was terrified.”
“Who… who is Sarah?”
Joel pauses, glancing at the watch on his wrist.
“My daughter” he says softly.
You try not to react, but your hands shake so much you almost drop the needle, your focus suddenly intense on his skin, unwilling to look him in the eye.
“I got a brother, same as you, ‘cept I’m the older one. Tommy, he showed up with a truck and we did the same, planned on getting the hell out of there. I could hear Sarah in the back, reacting to the houses on fire, the crowds of people.”
He winces to the tightening of the stitches, fresh blood pouring over your fingers.
“Same as you, our truck got hit. Sarah broke her leg, so I carried her. We were doin’ okay. Got out of the main drag of Austin anyway, where they were all gathering. Mighta been the same day as you, same time you were being carried by your momma, I was carrying my baby girl.”
Dread clutches at your stomach, hot and painful.
“There were bodies everywhere. I tried to tuck her head to stop her from seein’ it, but she was a lot bigger than you were, so I’m sure she saw everything. The burning buildings, the people, the dyin’, the turning… but we managed to get out of there, somewhere quiet where I could look at her leg, breathe for just a second, try to figure out what to do. Still don’t know what I woulda done different”
Sorrow steals his breath for a moment.
“Same as you, we ran into a soldier. Some kid with a flashlight and a radio. We weren’t sick, they were chasin’ us, and Sarah was crying out cause she was in pain.”
“D-Did they take her?”
He laughs, bitter and cold.
“They killed her. Is that the same thing?”
You tie off the stitches, pressing your hand hard against his chest, feeling the life in his veins from the pulse of his blood.
“He was aiming at me, but Tommy shot first. And then Sarah… I was right there…”
You thread your fingers between his, staring at the dried blood flaked on his knuckles. You let the silence hold you, cradle you both as everything you’ve lost somehow breathes in the room, an entity just out of sight.
“I miss them too” you say, resting your head on his shoulder as the sun begins its descent, streaking mournful purple across the sky.
Joel kisses you again, bitter and gentle, hauling you into his lap to press his grimy chest against your clean clothes, tangling his fist in your hair. You want to tell him you’re sorry. You can taste the same on his lips, the copper tang of mourning.
He traces his hand across your heart, feeling it beneath his palm as you bury your face in his neck.
“I keep thinking, I’m going to die out here. And when I do, I’ll be all alone, with letters to a family that died trying to save me. I don’t know if I’m more afraid of dying, or of living having let them down.”
Joel strokes your cheek. He wants to lie to you, to take the weight of your secret off your baby-bird frame, hold it in his chest, weigh it down with his own regret and sorrow. Let it sink beneath the waves until neither of you can feel it. The lie tastes like tin on his teeth. He gives you all he can offer, a kiss and a promise, more than he’s ever given anyone.
This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence, including Joel briefly being violent with Sparrow, graphic descriptions of wounds and post-apocalypse wound care, graphic sexual content, and descriptions of childhood trauma
A/N;I should have called this chapter ‘exposition dump’ My endless gratitude and thanks to @the-ginger-hedge-witch,@radiowallet and V for reading through this for me to reassure my garbage brain that it was not garbage.
Notes: That’s the end! Thank you so much for reading this story. Your words have meant so much to me and have inspired me to continue writing. I have another fic planned, but I’d love to hear from you guys! What do you want to see next? If you want to see anything at all lol. I’m open to ideas or requests! Thanks for sticking around to see how this ends. Hope you’re satisfied. <3
March 2, 2038
The weather in Jackson is less than desirable. The air is cool and frosty, and the grounds are covered in a sparkling, white blanket of snow. The scenery is gorgeous. Everything looks magical underneath the early morning lights. But it’s wet and cold, and Bay’s nose is all red from the freezing winds.
