Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Four
Chapter Four: Luck
Plot: Joel, Y/n, Tess and Ellie encounter Clickers, and sacrifices are made.
Warnings: tlou ep.2 spoilers, language, violence, gore, blood, guns, death, (16+)
Word Count: 4.4k (what else for chapter 4? lol)
A/N: So the only reason I was able to get this out so fast is because chapter three and this was supposed to be one big chapter. It ended up being too long, so it got split. Please don’t make this your expectation 😂
I love reading all your comments, even if I’m horrible at responding to them. I’ve never had this kind of response to my writing and it’s a lot to keep up with. I, once again, have to reiterate that this is a 16+ series and if your name is not listed on your page, I will not be tagging you. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀 I hope you enjoy this chapter! There’s no flashback, but a lot of hints about things to come later…I’m a terrible tease 😂🤫 Enjoy!!
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The museum doors were covered in fungus.
“This feels like a great plan,” Y/n sarcastically stated.
Joel ignored her disapproval, going ahead and kneeling down at one of the fungal sites. He ran a hand over it before breaking through it with the butt of his rifle.
“It’s bone dry,” he reported, “It could mean they’re all finally dead in there.”
Could was the key word of the sentence. ‘Coulds’ were like ‘probablies,’ hope with barely a breath left in it. The adults all started going through their packs, puling out their flashlights.
“Oh, man…” Ellie muttered.
Joel whipped out his light and looked exepctantly to Ellie, “Marlene pack you one of these, or just sandwiches?”
“Yeah,” Ellie answered, searching through her pack.
Y/n nudged the kid’s arm, drawing her focus. “You stay behind one of us at all times,” she instructed, “Slow and steady. Do not wander. Got it?”
Ellie nodded, “Got it.” When Tess crossed her hands, a gun and a flashlight in each, Ellie took notice. “I have a spare hand.”
“Congratulations,” Joel noted sarcastically.
With her pistol drawn, Y/n watched Joel move forward. It bothered her that he had been leading them the whole way. Their talk on the highway proved he thought he was capable of more than her. He assumed that just because he’d known her when she could afford to be delicate, she couldn’t have possibly grown into a fighter. Setting caution aside, she marched forward to walk parallel to him.
“Get back,” he ordered.
“Get bent,” she grunted.
The four of them moved as silently as they could through the museum’s lobby, posters and signs proving it had once been a landmark. Y/n moved alongside Joel, at one point taking a step ahead of him and finding a corner full of dry Cordyceps.
“We’re good,” she announced.
“Oh, finally,” Tess remarked, “Some fuckin’ luck.”
“I guess we should’ve gone this way in the first place,” Joel acknowledged.
“Oh, shit!” Ellie exclaimed, the three of them ran to join her. She’d broken Y/n’s third instruction like it was nothing.
There lay a body, covered in fresh blood and claw marks through its clothing.
“What the fuck did that?” Ellie inquired.
Y/n, Tess and Joel shared a knowing look.
“Maybe,” Tess’ voice shook as it lowered, “Maybe he was attacked outside and crawled through the doors. The door was open. Could’ve been him. I don’t hear anything.”
“Who would you hear?” Ellie asked.
The adults shushed her, Joel held up a hand.
Ellie lowered her voice, “Who would you hear? Are you saying an Infected did that?”
“Shh,” Tess crooned.
“Because I’ve been attacked by one and it wasn’t like that,” Ellie added.
Joel took a breath, it was all he could allow himself. “Okay, from this point forward, we are silent,” he whispered, “Not quiet…silent.”
“What-“ Ellie began.
“No, no questions,” Joel stopped her, “Just do it.”
Having very little trust in the man who had openly admitted to wanting to kill her, Ellie peered at Y/n, who nodded in solemn agreement. Things had suddenly become very, very real.
The four of them made their way to the museum’s staircase, taking slow steps up the creaking steps. Joel and Y/n made it to the top first, only having to stop when a piece of debris fell in a cloud of dust. They shined their flashlights across the way, a massive piling of death and fungus-covered bodies laying tragically still.
Crunch.
The exes spun around to see Ellie baring her teeth nervously, a skeletal hand below her sneaker. Everyone held their breath. There was creaking coming from above them, every step they took was a step closer to being buried alive.
Joel and Y/n made it into the Independance Hall exhibit, taking stock of their surroundings and coming up clean. Ellie followed with Tess close behind her.
Suddenly, there was a crashing sound; the building was finally giving out. Lightining fast, Y/n surged forward and grabbed Ellie’s arm, pulling her forward as Tess nose dove to the floor. Y/n let go of Ellie to extend a hand to Tess, who braced herself with it and got to her feet. They barely had a second to gather their thoughts before a loud, animal noise echoed through the room.
Then came the clicking.
Y/n and Joel drew their guns together, aiming in the direction the sound had come from. They slowly backed up, Tess and Ellie moving behind them, as the noises drew closer.
Fear can stop a clock, and none of them could tell how long they waited until the snarling, shriveled monster stepped into the room.
Y/n and Joel’s grudge ceased to exist as they moved in sync, silent as the grave they prayed they weren’t about to meet. As their group passed a doorway, more clicking sounded through it. They startled, backing up as the erratic footsteps came closer.
Two. There were two Clickers.
The foursome sought shelter behind a glass display case as the Infected began to roam the room. Each of them were processing the situation spearately, but they needed to move together as one.
Joel saw the fear in Ellie’s eyes, he couldn’t take it from her, but he could prepare her. “They can’t see,” he mouthed, leaning over Y/n, “But they can hear.”
On the other side of the display case, one of the Clickers walked past, shrieking as it jerked around. It had been over a year since Y/n had been this close to one of them, she’d forgotten what it was like. The way experience melted away and fear overtook all your senses.
Joel held up a finger to the three of them. If the Clickers could pass through without noticing them, they could make a straight shot up to the passageway and be gone. Everything rested on how the next thirty seconds went.
Y/n was too afriad to shut her eyes and too scared to face the creature head on. She simply stared ahead, trembling with each sound the monster made.
They listened as it turned the corner of the display case, until it was mere inches from them.
Ellie gasped.
Y/n grimaced.
The creature spun around to them and screamed.
Joel unloaded his rifle on the creature, who reached out and dragged him forward.
“Run,” Joel screamed.
Tess took off with Ellie, shooting at the other Infected before escaping the room. Y/n stayed, firing shots at the creature as it fought Joel. It knocked the rifle out of his hands, leaving him with only his pistol. Y/n was able to wound it enough to momentarily stun it, giving Joel and her time to run away.
They sprinted down the hall, Joel turned around and fired a shot before they dove into the next room. He knocked over a podium, creating an obstacle in the Clicker’s path, buying him and Y/n a few extra seconds. Joel grabbed her wrist and threw them behind a shelving unit.
Now fear, it turns out, is a powerful thing. It can cause people to turn on one another, or it can bring them together. Y/n had spent the last twenty four hours listing all the ways she wanted to kill Joel Miller, but face to face with the reality of losing him, she was doing everything she could to save him. They both were.
Joel’s hands shook as he reloaded his gun, his flashlight tucked between his shoulder and his chin. Y/n stretched her arm out over his chest, her breath trembling in time with his as they waited…
The Clicker was right next to them.
Joel shone his flashlight around the corner, the Infected was a mere ten inches from them. Mercifully, it hadn’t sensed them, and headed around the other side of the shelving unit. Y/n peered through the dusty screens, charted a clear path, and motioned for Joel to come forward. They crouched as they walked, Y/n spotted Ellie hunched against another display case.
Joel and her quickly crossed the space and got down alongside her. Joel looked to his side, signaling for Ellie to follow them around the case. They crawled in the opposite direction, the Clicker only a few feet away from them and but a second from discovering them. It just needed to take a few more steps and then it would be in the other room….
A piece of glass crunched under Joel’s boot.
The three of them stopped.
The Clicker screeched and leapt across the case, tackling them to the floor. Ellie thrashed and yelled as it pinned her down. Joel and Y/n each kept an arm against its chest, pushing it away with their combined strength. Y/n freed her arm from between her and Ellie’s bodies, pressing her gun against the Clicker’s abdomen and shooting it three times. It stunned the monster, giving Joel time to shove it off of them. Y/n shielded Ellie, who was gripping her jacket, and Joel shielded Y/n. Joel aimed his pointed at the Clicker once again, and gunned it down as it ran towards them. He fired a few final shots, just to ensure it was dead.
The second Clicker charged towards them, Joel and Y/n shoved Ellie behind them, no time to draft an attack plan. Saving the day, Tess came from the side and lodged an axe in the Clicker’s head. Thinking quick, Joel left Y/n and Ellie to retake his rifle, firing one shot before a second that did the creature in.
Joel surveyed the Clicker, examining the bloody chunks of fungus laying around its head. Fear was enough to create doubt, even in front of fact.
“You all right?” Joel asked Tess, who was getting to her feet.
“Twisted ankle, but…yeah,” Tess answered.
Y/n turned to Ellie, “Are you okay?”
“Well, I didn’t shit my pants, so…” she responded, glancing around her in case they’d missed one. She stopped and rolled up her sleeve, revealing a bloody mark, “You fucking kidding me?”
Y/n didn’t know whether or not to be scared. Joel knew exactly what to feel.
“I mean, if it was gonna happen to one of us,” Ellie muttered.
Joel didn’t let his anxiety come over him often, but he could feel it building. Tess was tuned into him enough to see it happening.
“Hey,” she coaxed, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
The four of them filed out the top window, Y/n offering Tess her hand to help her onto the roof. Joel went to work immediately, pulling out a first aid kit and a piece of cloth.
“Put this around your arm,” Joel instructed Ellie, handing her the cloth. In the chaos, he hadn’t even thought to ask Y/n if she was injured. “You-“
“I’m fine,” Y/n said coldly, eager to settle back into blind hatred.
Ellie made her way to the makeshift bridge, a few wooden planks, and took the first step. “Over there?”
“Yeah, I know,” Joel spoke as he examined Tess’ ankle, “It looks scary.”
“That was scary,” Ellie replied, “This is wood.”
Y/n followed Ellie, her legs steadying more with each step across the divide. In the world they lived in, fear had to pass as quick as a summer storm.
“Are they always like that?” Ellie asked once they were both on the rooftop.
Y/n sighed, “Not at first. I mean, they’re always scary but at the beginning, they look…” she paused, forcing the memories out like a tide in the ocean, “They look normal.”
Ellie hummed, wandering off to the edge of the building. As Joel crossed the plank, Y/n went to stand beside Ellie. The sun was shining gold down on the remnants of Boston, illuminating the good and the bad.
This. This was what still gave Y/n hope. She needed to believe that maybe, maybe, there was a way to restore the world back to its beauty. That was the key difference between her and Joel; she still wanted to find what little good was left out there.
Joel came to stand on Ellie’s other side, peering over at the girl. “Is it everything you hoped for?”
“Jury’s still out,” Ellie gave a half-shrug, “But man, you can’t deny that view.”
Tess rejoined them, walking with new purpose. “C’mon, let’s get there before it’s dark,” she grunted, climbing over the edge and scaling down some siding.
Joel and Y/n stood at the edge of the roof, each staring out into the horizon lost in their thoughts. Their severed connection lived in the space between them, sparking and straining as it tried to pull them together.
But they’d had twenty years of ignoring one another’s memory. It was going to take more than a fight and a sunset to come to any kind of truce.
Y/n silently climbed down the side of the building, leaving Joel on his own. He glanced down at his watch, taking a valued second to himself, before heading down after the rest of them.
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The rest of the way to the State House was spent in quiet suspicion. Everyone watched Ellie with more interest than before, waiting for something to happen.
When they arrived, Y/n spotted the truck that was supposed to transport Ellie and her. There was supposed to be someone outside waiting to meet them and yet, the place looked as deserted as the rest of the city.
Joel glanced at Y/n, silently asking if this was right. She answered with a distant shake of her head as she looked around them. She drew her gun and got up, stepping strategically through the grass. Joel huffed in exasperation, coming out in the open to follow her.
Y/n approached the truck cautiously, her breath already trembling like she’d already seen what lay inside. She ignored Joel practically breathing down her neck as she swung open the vehicle’s door. Empty.
Joel held up a hand to Tess, who stood with her gun aimed and Ellie protected behind her. “Stay back,” he mouthed. When he turned back to Y/n, he found air.
Y/n rounded the vehicle, examining the other side before her eyes and nose were drawn to the ground. There was a bloodied body laying underneath the truck. She knelt before it, whatever had happened to it hadn’t been more than an hour or two ago. The blood was still new, but the flies had already found the poor soul.
Joel was at the rear of the truck, bracing himself for whatever fight lay inside it. He threw the back door open and took a stance, finding the same nothing they had in the cab.
“Joel?” Tess called, coming to join them, “What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Joel said, looking around the corner of the truck to Y/n, “What was the plan?”
Y/n sighed and ran a hand through her hair, “Driver was supposed to be waiting here, one or two Fireflies just to verify it was us…we were supposed to jump in the truck and go.”
“They went inside,” Ellie announced, staring at the steps leading to the State House. The three adults peered over to see the bloody footprints painted on the staircase.
“Come on,” Tess grunted, grabbing Ellie’s hand and letting the blood tracks show them the way.
“Tess,” Joel called, Y/n wasn’t waiting for him to call the shots. She jogged up the stairs with the same urgency as his partner. “Tess!”
Tess burst through the doors, holding both Ellie and her pistol in front of her. Y/n flanked Ellie, ready to attack whatever could been lurking in the building. Joel followed the women, exhausted by their recklessness.
What they found was worse than they could have imagined.
Every Firefly body was on the floor, their blood spread across the slick marble.
Y/n could feel her chest cave in on itself. Her comrades, the plan to take Ellie west, hope itself, it all dead lay around her.
Tess showed the same panic Y/n was trying so hard to contain. “Okay, I mean there’s gotta be a fuckin’ radio or something, right?”
“Start looking,” Y/n holstered her gun, running to check the crates, the equipment…anything that could offer them a morsel of chance. If she could get in contact with Marlene, they could form a new plan. She’d take Ellie herself, if necessary, doubts be damned. They couldn’t admit defeat so easily.
“Tess,” Joel called, having already deduced that one Firefly had got infected and it had spread to the others, “What’re you doin’?”
Y/n threw open crates, scouring the contents for a radio, with Tess searching beside her. They both ignored Joel.
“Where did Marlene say you two were going?” Tess asked Y/n.
“Tess-“ Joel tried again.
“Just west,” Y/n answered, her breath quickening, “We were supposed to get the exact location here.”
Tess threw her hands out in exasperation, “Just west. Fuck. Okay…well, one of ‘em’s gotta have a map on them, right?”
Y/n was already examining the bodies without touching them, “Check each one.”
“Joel, can you help us?” Tess impatiently asked, kneeling next to Y/n and searching through the victim’s pockets.
“No,” Joel bellowed, refusing to indulge the fantasy any longer, “Tess, it’s over. We are goin’ home.”
Tess spun around, shooting daggers out her eyes, “That’s not my fucking home!”
Her cry was loud enough to silence the rest of them. Tess hung over one of the bodies, fighting back her tears enough to stand up and face Joel.
“I’m stayin’.”
Y/n stayed on the ground, confusedly watching the scene play out.
“I mean…” Tess almost laughed, “Our luck had to run out sooner or later.”
Joel stood perplexed. Perhaps he’d have figured it out if he had looked in between her words. In her eyes. In her quivering lips.
“Fuck,” Ellie exclaimed, her voice lowering to a whisper, “She’s infected.”
Joel felt the very ground they stood on crack down the middle, a divide separating him and the only person he’d allowed himself to care about in twenty years. The unspeakable plague had finally come for one of them, and it had attached itself to the wrong person.
“Show me,” he muttered.
“Joel,” Tess said softly, taking a step forward. Joel flinched, jumping back an inch away from her. He regretted it immediately, it was pure instinct.
Tess pulled back her jacket and shirt to display the reddening bite mark.
Y/n got to her feet upon seeing the wound, unafraid to close the distance Joel was putting between them. Joel threw out a hand to pull her back, but Y/n smacked it away and placed her fingers around Tess’ wound. In another life, it could have been extremely well done Halloween makeup. She wanted it to be.
“Oops,” Tess tried to smile, “Right?”
Y/n rubbed her fingers against Tess’ shoulder, if these were her last minutes, she wanted her to feel human touch one more time.
“Take your bandage off,” Tess ordered Ellie.
The girl unwrapped the cloth from her arm, showing the adults her newest bite mark. It was already healing.
Tess surged forward and took Ellie’s arm, holding it up to Joel. “Look. Joel? This is real,” she pulled Ellie forward, “Joel, she’s fucking real.”
Joel and Y/n spotted it at the same time: Tess’ hands were beginning to shake.
Tess retracted her arm into her person, her breaths quickening with passion. Passion for a future she would never see.
“I need you to get her to Bill and Frank’s,” Tess stated.
“No,” Joel started to argue, a flurry of emotions hitting him at once. It was real. This was real.
“They’ll take her off your hands,” Tess continued, unstoppable in her pleas, “They’ll handle it from here.”
“No, no, no,” he shook his head, sounding like a child in denial, “I can’t. They won’t take her. They’re not gonna take her.”
“They will,” Tess insisted, “Cause you’re gonna convince them.”
“I’ll take her,” Y/n said from behind Joel, “Tell me where they are and I’ll get her there.”
Tess squeezed her eyes shut, “No, it has to be him,” she looked to Joel, “I never ask you for anything. Not to feel the way I felt, not to-“
“No,” Joel said, a kneejerk reaction. He had spent so long caring for her as much as his grief would allow him.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tess snapped, “Cause I don’t have much time. This is your chance. You get her there, you keep her alive…” she bit back her tears, “And you set everything right. All the shit we did…please say yes, Joel, please.”
Joel could feel what was left of his heart beginning to break. He couldn’t lose anyone else.
A strained gasp from one of the Infected Fireflies echoed behind Ellie, “Oh, fuck!”
With all the tranquility of a piano melody, Joel stepped forward, cocked his pistol and blew a chunk of the one-time human’s brains out.
The strands of fungus began to stretch out around the Infected’s hand. The signal had been sent. Within minutes, hordes of Infected would descend upon the State House.
Joel exhaled, realizing what he’d done and ran to the building’s door. He could hear the distant snarling and choking of the Infected. Whatever pitiful amount of time they’d possessed had just gotten slashed in half.
“How many?” Tess asked calmly.
“All of them,” he reported, “Maybe a minute.”
Y/n took a shaky breath and raised her gun to Tess’ head. Joel was quick to aim his rifle at her head.
“Don’t you fuckin-“
“Do you want me to do it?” Y/n ignored Joel, locking eyes with Tess. It wasn’t an act of anger, it was an act of mercy. She was trying to save what was left of Tess’ life.
Tess shook her head, taking stock of her surroundings and rushing around the room. She tipped over barrels of gasoline and crates of grenades, letting them spill across the floor. Twenty years of sin and her last act was to save. This was Tess Servoupolis. Not her reputation, not who she’d been forced to become to survive…her.
Joel watched, heartbreak etched in each line of his face. He wanted to scream, to cry, to punch, but time had numbed his emotions enough to be able to keep it all inside.
Tess finally came to face Joel, keeping a foot of space between them. She couldn’t handle watching the man she loved move away from her like she was…what she was.
Y/n backed up to stand with Ellie, feeling like they were intruding on an intimate moment.
“Joel…” Tess said his name one last time, knowing just how much weight the words she was about to say carried, “Save who you can save.”
He was holding so much back, so many things he wanted to say, even just to touch her one last time. His grief overwhelmed him, for both women he wasn’t able to save. But if he couldn’t heed Tess’ final wish, he’d never be able to look himself in the mirror again.
Joel took one last look at her, the two of them committing each other’s gaze to memory, and Joel turned on his heel, grabbing Ellie and dragging her away.
“No!” Ellie yelled, hitting Joel’s arm to try and break his grip, “We’re not leaving her! Get off me, you fucker!”
Y/n, let them pass, standing firmly planted in front of Tess. She wanted to say something, but nothing rivaled the weight of the moment. She wanted to thank her for her sacrifice, tell her how sorry she was that she was about to what was to come…something to let her feel some sort of compassion before she lost herself entirely.
“I-“
“Protect her,” Tess urged, staring straight past the Joel and Y/n’s resentment and into her soul, “Protect him.”
Y/n’s breath shook as she considered what Tess was asking of her. She wanted to know the man she loved would live to see the days she wouldn’t. Y/n couldn’t fault her that, it was so easy to care about Joel. If Tess was a better woman than Y/n and had earned that devotion he showered upon a select number of people, she would feel the same devotion to him till death.
Y/n wanted to run in the opposite direction, but she wasn’t so heartless that she wouldn’t obey Tess’ last request. She nodded, pouring out her condolences through her pained stare, and took off the same way that Joel and Ellie had.
Leaving Tess to die.
She found them outside, Ellie still fighting Joel tooth and nail. Y/n pressed her hands to Ellie’s back and urged her forward, running alongside them in a desparate effort to escape the tidal wave of Infected encroaching.
They’d put a safe amount of distance between them and the State House when the building exploded.
Joel wrenched Ellie forward to shield her, letting him and Y/n take the heat of the blast. They drew their guns, waiting for a stray Infected to pass through the violent flames, but none came. Tess had succeeded.
The three of them stayed perfectly still, except for their heaving chests, watching the fire consume the State House. Twenty years ago, Joel would have allowed himself to break down. He would have let his knees hit the dirt, his fists ball and his grief would have spilled out of him as if he was made of it.
Twenty years ago, he could feel whatever he wanted. But to survive, you had to bury your desires with the dead. Joel knew that better than anyone.
And so, skipping the eulogy and going straight for repression, Joel lowered his rifle and walked away.
Y/n, who wasn’t as hardened as her ex-love, could no longer keep her tears at bay. She crouched down in the dirt, pressing her hands to her lips in a praying position, and allowed a silent rain stream down her cheeks. Losing anyone was awful, but losing someone who wanted redemption, who wanted to atone for their sins and leave the world better than they’d found it…that was tragic. Tess had sacrificed herself to save them, to save Ellie, to save a future she could only hope came to pass. Perhaps Joel couldn’t mourn her, Y/n knew his grief was the match that lit his whole being ablaze, but she could. She would.
Ellie stood beside her, tears filling her once-innocent eyes. Her naivety had always been on life support, but it was fading with every minute she spent outside the Wall.
Deciding her momentary memorial would have to serve as enough for Tess, Y/n got to her feet and wiped her eyes. “Come on,” she whispered, her voice strained as she put a hand to Ellie’s back. She led them down the dirt, following Joel’s ghostly silhouette…
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