#because SOME people wouldn’t shut up 👎🏻

[skoulsons]

Her feet carry her faster than she can think. The world around her is blurred, only the feel of her feet pressing hard into the asphalt and the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears are what keep her vision dead set on Joel. He’s running too, the street lights illuminating his movements as he rushes towards her.

Joel’s arms barely open before she’s already there, both of hers going over his shoulders and crossing behind his neck. Joel holds her against him immediately, one arm along her back and the other behind her head, cupping it gently next to his own.

Joel lifts Ellie off the ground, stumbling backwards and spinning in an attempt to balance them. Though, after a minute, the spinning isn’t just for balance anymore.

It brings him back to a time long forgotten. Christmas and her birthdays with a particularly good present. Days at the fair when she’d win a huge stuffed animal and couldn’t wait to tell him all about it. Days when Joel would get home after working a double and she couldn’t sleep until she heard his footsteps. Picking her up after school and he’d be waiting outside for her; Sarah running for him and exclaiming how she got an ‘A’ on the project she spent all night on.

Sarah’s smile and the bounce of her hair as she raced for her dad were always met with such an embrace. One arm cradling her head as his other held her against him by her back. How Joel would stumble back, sometimes as an exaggeration, just so he could spin them around. Just so he could take a few steps to hold his little girl against him. Just so he could take a few precious, hallowed moments to rock her back and forth in his arms, like how he would to rock her to sleep as a baby.

Joel continues to turn and step haphazardly along the streets of Jackson, taking Ellie in every single stride. And with every old memory that passes between their bodies in the streets of Jackson, it reminds him. It reminds him of the emptiness he’s felt without her. The hole that her loss created. That Sarah-sized-hug section of his heart that was brutally cut out of him that early morning in September.

And those reminders only make Joel hug Ellie a little tighter, spin a little more, and walk a little farther.

Ellie’s legs lightly wrap around his middle, trying to get as close as she possibly can. Joel just squeezes the arm that’s across her back tighter as he threads his fingers gently through her hair.

Her breathing is against his neck. Her chest rises and falls against his and her heart beats right alongside his own. Each others bodies fall in sync with each other, like they always do. Their breathing synchronizing, finding the stability in each others proof of life.

For a split second, he’s reminded again. He’s reminded of her held against his chest. He’s reminded of her small hands around his neck as he ruan through the streets. He’s reminded of her high-pitched fears and his attempted reassurances to calm her down.

He’s reminded of an attempted hug. An attempted hug full of pain and a fleeting heartbeat. Small hands clawing at his arms and neck, crying out. Crying and groaning over the pain in her abdomen. Crying over the pain he was causing.

He cries. He cries, but he can barely bring himself to care at this point.

She’s alive. He’s holding his daughter now and that means she’s alive. She’s no longer a cold and ruined body maimed by the violence of the world. No longer another victim to a sickness that Cordyceps could never match. No longer a shadow of a broken world. No longer just a memory.

He cries because he loves her. He cries because he knows this isn’t the last time he’ll ever hug her. He cries because he’s not hurting her this time. He cries because she’s clinging on to him as hard he is to her.

He cries because she loves him.

He turns his face more into hers, his nose burying into her hair. She smells like fresh soap, the same soap, clean clothes, and their little blue house. Like old books and the leather of their couch. Like pine cones and fire.

And that only makes it harder for him to hold back. He sniffles into her hair and she hears it, feels it. She hugs around his neck tighter, bringing one of her arms down to rub a few strokes up and down his back to comfort him. He does it back to her, continuing to relish in the feeling of her wrapped in his arms.

Joel slows their spinning to a gentle back-and-forth swing before he lowers her down, Ellie’s tip toes planting onto the asphalt first. She stays that way, still reaching up over Joel’s neck as he bends down slightly, arms around her middle.

Joel is the first to pull away, much to Ellie’s apprehension due to her still clinging to his shirt as he pulls her away from him.

But he doesn’t let her go. His arms linger on her sides as he pulls her away, immediately bringing them up to her cheeks when he can finally see her face completely.

Joel is nearly out of breath, and not because of his old muscles and achy bones. “Are you okay?” He checks her up and down. Injuries, blood, anything. A habit he picked up on the road, always checking her first for injuries to make sure she was okay. It stayed even when they moved into Jackson. Whether she was at the stables the majority of the day or at home drawing and reading, he had to check.

He had to make sure she was okay, even if there was no reason to. He had to be sure. He couldn’t let himself fail again for not checking.

He holds her cheeks gently, his fingers stretching behind her ears as his thumbs rub back and forth along her cheekbones.

Ellie laughs wetly at his question, tears falling from the corners of her eyes. Joel wipes them away as he smiles, cherishing the familiar sound of her laugh at every opportunity.

She looks up at him, nearly as breathless as he is. “Are you?” There’s a hint of sarcasm, but more genuine care.

There’s two wet streaks down the sides of his face from where his tears poured out of the corners of his eyes. He’s still smiling at her as she brings her hands up to his face, copying his movements, and wiping her thumbs over the corners of his eyes and following the streaks until they hit his beard, disappearing.

His eyes close briefly until she brings them back to his wrists, holding tightly to them again. He smiles at the affection. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does, it means the world to him to have something like that reciprocated to him.

He smiles wider, bringing her head gently to his to let their foreheads touch. Their hands stay right where they are, their breathing slowing and falling in tune with each others again as they inhale and exhale together. Their breaths in the small space between saying every word they can’t.

Words have never been their strong suit. They’ve always defaulted to touch or gifts to express what’s going on. Not only is such a thing more comforting, but it’s always said more than their words could ever express. They have had talks before, and getting through them is like pulling teeth every time, so they always result to physical touch. It’s easier, safer for both of them.

Instead of answering each others questions, which were pleas more than anything, they hug. Joel’s right hand goes behind her neck and guides her face to his chest, Ellie settling comfortably against him as her arms wrap around his middle. His left hand sits over her shoulderblade as his right cards through her hair from her scalp to her ends, each strand untangling and falling through his fingertips before he repeats the motion.

Their shoulders drop, the both of them able to finally relax with the other in their grasp. In the safety only the other can provide.

Joel turns his head to the side, his cheek resting atop her head as he continues threading his hand through her hair. Against his chest, she breathes in. The same soap and hints of the shampoo they share. He smells like little whittled woodland creatures and coffee.

They smell like home to each other. Some brought about from their time on the road, and some brought about from their time in Jackson that are only associated with the other.

They don’t smell like blood, grass, or kicked up dirt. Not like overgrown buildings and gunpowder. Not like screaming infected or houses riddled with bullet holes. Not like the cold and hollow corpses of once beloved family, friends, and lovers.

They don’t hear the gasping breaths and dying heartbeats. They don’t see the cloudy eyes or feel the pasty skin. They don’t smell the bloody limbs or smell the faint, musky scent of the fleeting life in front of them.

There’s full, rich breathes between them. Pounding, healthy heartbeats against each others chest. Eyes full of light and love that intently watch the other. Their skin, washed clean and healing from injuries. Their scents showing a full life, as full as they can have, and it’s because of the other.

Joel starts to pull away slowly before Ellie nuzzles back against him, pressing her face into his flannel in protest. Joel laughs and Ellie smiles at the rumble in his chest that pounds against her cheek. She lets out a deep sigh as she lets Joel pull her away, not letting her go any further from him than his bent arm.

He keeps his right hand resting on her shoulder as he leans closer to her again, kissing her hairline. He rests his cheek briefly over the spot before kissing again and leaning back, his hand finding that all-too-familiar spot on her cheek.

“Let’s go home, yeah?” She nuzzles into his palm, the warmth and steady hold of it so easy to lean into. She closes her eyes, a small “mhm” escaping her lips as she smiles.

She pulls his hand off her cheek and into her hand, interlocking their fingers together as their arms fall in the space between them.

Their walk from the front gate to their home is a quiet one, filled with small giggles, hummed tunes, and kicked pebbles along the streets. Ellie brings her right hand to his forearm, clinging tight to his side, like the asphalt would swallow him whole if she even dared to loosen her grip on him. And if the hold he has on her hand is any indication, he feels the same way.

And later that night when they’re in bed and Ellie is asleep, curled up small and comfortable against his side, his memories really sink in.

Memories of Sarah. Memories of Sarah that are… fading. Parts of her that aren’t clear anymore. The way she smelled. What was her shampoo? The soap they used? The scent he breathed in every night? The way the world froze with every sprinting hug when he’d hold her and breathe in her hair and he can’t remember it. That perfume he bought her for prom. The prom she never got to go to. How she tried it on in the store.

Dad! What about this one?

Think you got yourself a winner there, kiddo.

Her life was ripped from him. Her scent and what made her… her were gone from him, now. No recollection of what made Sarah herself. The gel she’d use in her hair. The same detergent they’d use when they washed their clothes. A detergent long gone that he can’t even smell his own clothes to remember her that way. The sweet, lavender scent of her shampoo that always filled their bathroom.

He pulls his arm around Ellie a little tighter, Ellie snuggling closer to him and resting her head atop his chest and as he pulls her close, bringing his lips to the crown of her head. He kisses her head there once, resting his lips there as he feels her chest rise and fall against his own. As he breathes in her hair and the scent of their shampoo. As his right hand finds her left arm draped over his abdomen, holding it gently. As he hears her steady breathing against his chest, the sure sign that she’s there. She’s with him. She’s okay.

Please.

Don’t let me forget her, too.

#this is ROUGH #just now posting at 1:30am #I started it at like #4pm. #because SOME people wouldn’t shut up 👎🏻 #anyway it’s not that good but #we ball 🏀 #I completely copied all of Alex’s thoughts and texts #I love you so much Alex please don’t be angry I copied like everything you said #but it wouldn’t leave me alone!!!! #you write so much better than me anyway so if or when you cover this #I know it’ll be ten times better #How Can I is coming you guys I promise!!! #I MEAN THAT!!!! #the last of us hbo #joel miller #ellie williams #L fics