"Singularity" Chapter 1: "Too Good To Be True" [1/?]
Title: "Singularity" - Chapter 1: "Too Good To Be True"
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Joel, Ellie, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Word Count for this chapter: 6,607
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
Warnings: Underage. Anything else is kind of spoilery, but I will give chapter-specific warnings where I feel they are needed. I'm happy to answer questions individually, though!
Summary: When their "vacation" comes to an abrupt end, Joel and Ellie must get back to reality. How will they handle what life throws at them next? [This is Part 3, following Part 1: "Accretion" and Part 2: "Uncertainty", although you don't necessarily have to read those first.]
"Singularity" is the 14th comic in the SS series... and while I'd like to tie in the physics definition (which includes neat stuff like infinity and black holes), I'm not poetic enough. The primary definition will do: the state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular (denoting or referring to just one person or thing).
A/N: Yep, I'm back, after once again claiming to be done with this story! Apologies for the long-ass A/N, but please read -- you will barely hear a peep from me after this, I swear.
As with the previous installments, this is a complete story on its own (er, it will be when I'm done), and you don't necessarily have to read the others first... however, at this point, Joel and Ellie may feel a bit out of character if you're going in blind. If you've read the first two but it's been a while, no worries -- I will explain references throughout the story, I don't expect you to just remember everything :) In fact, this first chapter serves mainly as recap.
Regarding TLOU2: I have not played the game nor watched any trailers except the first teaser, and have stayed out of the fandom almost entirely for years now, other than posting fic, so I'm... relatively unspoiled? (I do expect that to change now, but I'm still hoping it doesn't) Although people have dropped enough hints that I have some idea of what's happened in canon. I won't be playing the game until I'm done writing, if I even play it at all. I'm afraid that even if I love it, it will ruin my little fantasy story here, and I'm just not ready to give it up! If you could please pretend the game doesn't exist when you're reading, it would be appreciated (I think you kind of have to if you're going to enjoy this story anyway). Obviously it's no longer canon-compliant and there will be many things I "got wrong." Even if I knew which things are wrong, I don't believe in retconning... even when I very much wish I could because I don't like something that I wrote in the first two parts... lol.
Regarding update frequency: I would like to post a new chapter approximately every two weeks, but may lag a bit in the beginning because I haven't quite finished the rough draft yet (I had intended to, because going back and forth between both ends of the timeline is not ideal, but I also really wanted to start posting in January). I know I've updated more frequently than that previously, but most of these chapters are going to be pretty darn long, so I hope that makes up for it. I have about 270,000 words of content already -- I promise you, I AM committed to finishing this work.
Regarding smut: Yes there is some, but as usual, smuttiness is not the primary focus of the sex scenes... which are probably not as graphic as they're "supposed" to be, either. And as the draft stands now, I have some "fade to black" parts where it feels like adding smut would be gratuitous, so if it stays like that in editing... consider yourselves warned ;)
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy the story!
~
Paradise. If Joel had to describe Golden Sands in one word, that's the one he would probably settle on. While his brother was shivering through the winter back in Jackson County, presumably trapped in his own home from time to time by mountains of snow, Joel was lounging on a beach at a secure resort in Monterey, California, the steady roar of the waves lulling his brain into its most relaxed state in... God knows how long. Joel might shiver from time to time, as the breeze could be chilly this time of year, especially in the shade -- and he was in the shade a lot, in the little cabana they'd pretty much claimed as their own, because he didn't want Ellie to spend too much time in the sun. Still, he reckoned Tommy would trade places with him right now in a heartbeat.
However, spring was right around the corner. As was Ellie's birthday. It was pretty damn fitting, really, for that girl to have been born right around the spring equinox. Hope springs eternal... rebirth and renewal and all that. Technically, it would be the second birthday of hers that he would be spending with her, but her fifteenth birthday had come and gone with neither of them knowing what day it was, as they'd been out of touch with civilization at the time. This would be the first one they could actually celebrate.
Joel watched her now, playing down by the water's edge with the only two little kids in the community. From the looks of it, they were playing some silly game that involved burying someone in the sand and dumping buckets of water on them while chanting something ridiculous -- one of those games that only makes sense if you have the mind of a child. Or, in Ellie's case, a good imagination and a child-like inclination towards silliness. He always enjoyed watching her play with the kids, albeit from a safe distance: far enough away that she couldn't drag his ass into it.
Eventually, she trotted back up to the cabana (quite a feat in the thick white sand, but Ellie managed), slowing as she approached him. Practically tip-toeing there at the end. Not making a sound... and looking at him kind of funny.
"What," he finally had to ask.
"Oh! I was trying to see if you were asleep!" she laughed, bouncing over to him and giving him a quick kiss before plopping into her lounge chair. "Those are creepy."
"They're s'posed to be cool," he replied. She was referring to his reflective sunglasses, a recent addition to his accessories wardrobe. (It also happened to be the entirety of said accessories wardrobe.)
"Pffff. You have to try a little harder than that if you wanna be cool," she teased.
He could hear the "old man" at the end of that sentence, although she never referred to him that way -- not out loud. He had to be ancient in her eyes, but Tommy was the only one who ever teased him about his age. Joel got the feeling that Ellie was afraid to say anything that might cause him to reconsider the appropriateness of their relationship... or something along those lines. Like he might suddenly wake up and realize that a thirty-plus-year age difference was unsustainable. But she was like that before, too... he thought it might also have something to do with her fear of him dying. Because to a fifteen-year-old, fifty was the equivalent of one foot in the grave. "Almost sixteen" -- he could hear her correct him in his mind. She'd been doing that ever since they rang in the new year.
She reached over to pluck the glasses off his face and apply them to her own... and they practically engulfed half her face. "Ugh -- they'll slide right off unless I lean my head back like this..." She turned her face skyward. Or... bedsheet-ward, actually (Joel assumed that back in the day, the canopies had been nice and fancy -- as had the resort itself -- but the sheets still got the job done). "I am now a snob," she declared in that cute affected voice she donned occasionally. "Looking down my nose at the likes of you!"
"They are a little big for you," he chuckled, although he didn't think they would actually slide off that adorable little nose of hers. "But not for me. Gimme those."
She ducked out of his (half-assed) reach. "You just like spying on people," she accused him playfully.
"It ain't spyin' if it's in plain sight. And keepin' an eye on folks ain't the same as spyin'."
Apparently tired of playing with the things already, she tossed them back to him and reclined her chair back a little. "You know who we should keep an eye on some night? Sylvia."
"Sylvia?" Joel echoed. He slid the creepy spyglasses back onto his own much-less-adorable nose.
"The kids' mom," she groaned, misunderstanding him.
"I know who she is," he replied; remembering names wasn't his strong suit, but even he could manage twenty-two of them after living in the same colony for nearly four months -- and it was actually only twenty names if he subtracted Sophie and Alex, the two he already knew from Jackson. "I just don't see why she would be interestin' to watch."
"Well, Gabby just told me she woke up again after campfire and Sylvia wasn't around. For a long time. Actually, it was Chad who started telling me cuz he was complaining about how she kicks in her sleep -- and I know they have their own beds. So I asked him why he let his sister sleep in his bed in the first place, like... did she have a nightmare or something so he was being nice? Cuz I could maybe see that... if I had a big brother or sister nearby and I was scared, I might wanna be close to them, like it would be a comforting--"
"Ellie." Sometimes just interrupting with her name was enough to get her back on track.
"Yeah, so... then Gabby told me she didn't have a nightmare, she just woke up for some reason. Maybe she heard Sylvia leave and didn't realize that's what woke her? But she wanted her mom anyways so she looked in her bedroom... in the bathroom... and a little bit outside... she could see that the fire was done, and it was all dark down on the beach, no one around... so she called for Sylvia and got no answer -- she was just... gone." She paused for dramatic effect, clearly awaiting a reaction...
...but Joel didn't give enough of a shit to give her anything satisfying. "She came back at some point, obviously. Did the kids ask her about it then? Or the next mornin'?"
"They don't ask because she gets mad at them if they do. Like she practically bit their heads off the first time. Shouldn't she feel, like... bad? I mean... obviously I don't really know anything about parenting, but I do know you're not supposed to leave your kids alone -- little kids, at least."
Or fifteen-year-old kids, as the case may be... Joel supposed he should feel grateful that this was what the drama in their lives had been reduced to: 'slow news day' shit of no consequence. "That's right. Back in my day, that--"
"--would be considered neglect," Ellie finished for him, rolling her eyes because she'd heard it so often (and yet he still felt compelled to point it out when the subject arose).
"But things are different now." The generic, clichéd explanation for everything under the sun, it seemed. "Where do you think she goes? I know you're thinkin' somethin'. You've got that look in your eye..."
She smirked. "I think she has a boyfriend she doesn't want anyone to know about. Which probably means he's married. Or, you know... like, with someone. Right? Otherwise, why be sneaky about it? But... who? I mean... there's not that many options around here."
Joel sighed. "You're right -- it's me. Shit, you weren't s'posed to work that out so fast."
She shot right up in her chair and slugged his arm. "Not funny!"
He winced -- mostly for show, as the angle of her delivery had significantly lessened the impact; the girl could hit pretty damn hard. "Who said I was jokin'?"
She just rolled her eyes. "Seriously -- who do you think it is?" she pressed.
Joel knew that some of the people here were... what's the word... polyamorous? He suspected the abundance of marijuana might be partly to blame. He wasn't in the habit of discussing people's sex lives with them, but he'd picked up on a few things here and there, just by observation. And for some reason, Sophie had felt the need to share some shit with him... shit that she'd learned about folks. He was pretty sure Ellie didn't know about any of it, and he had asked Sophie to please keep it that way (he'd stolen so much of her innocence, yet he still wanted to protect what was left of it wherever he could). Sophie had smirked at the request... said something annoying as hell -- something about him not wanting to put ideas in Ellie's head about swinging, which might open her mind to the possibilities... but that ain't it at all. She just don't need to know about all that. "Could be a perfectly innocent explanation," he reminded Ellie.
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Like... she sleepwalks?"
Ellie snorted.
Yeah, surely he could think of something less far-fetched... "She wanted to smoke a joint but not around the kids? She got hungry?" People didn't tend to keep much food in their rooms. "She suddenly remembered somethin' she forgot to do in the cafeteria that couldn't wait? Who knows. Even when she ain't workin', those kids run around unsupervised all the--"
"Yeah, but that's in the daytime, when everyone's around to keep an eye on them."
Not 'everyone,' but usually at least a handful. The community seemed to be raising those kids as much as -- maybe even more than -- their own mother was. Even with all those eyes on them, they sometimes managed to slip away to parts unknown (though as of yet, they hadn't found a way Outside, at least). Joel watched them sometimes himself -- whenever he was 'keeping an eye' on Ellie and the kids were hanging around her, as they were wont to do. "What are you sayin'?" he asked her now. "That we should do a stake-out of her place? Follow her on her... nighttime excursions?"
Ellie lit up at the suggestion. "Yeah, maybe!"
"Psh. I think we're usually a little busy doin'... other things." Granted, not every night...
She grinned. "Well... we can still do that before. Or after? Fuck, I wish Gabs could tell me what time this was..."
"I've got an idea -- why don't you just ask her?"
"Who -- Sylvia?"
"Ask her where she goes at night after the kids fall asleep."
"I just told you -- Gabby asked and she won't say!"
"Well, don't you think there are some things a person might tell an adult that they wouldn't tell a six-year-old?"
Ellie just smiled.
"What?"
"You called me an adult," she said triumphantly.
"You know what I mean."
"But I am an adult. Basically."
"Basically, yes." And yet you're also NOT... you're still my baby girl. Sex can't change that.
Beaming, she abandoned her chair in favor of his -- or his lap, rather. And since he was half-reclining, she was pretty much laying on top of him. "Take these stupid things off your face," she said, but then she proceeded to do it for him, flinging the offending sunglasses into the sand.
"Those were expensive, you know," he mock chastised her. "An' they look good as new."
"Who gives a fuck how expensive they were? It's not like you paid for them."
"Sure I did. All the blood, sweat, an' tears that I--"
She shut him up with a kiss. Even after all these months together, the method was still quite effective... until she started giggling. "Good thing I swallowed the sand already..."
He didn't need to ask why she’d had sand in her mouth; the goddamn shit got everywhere. Joel was not a fan. Maybe Tommy wouldn't envy me THAT... And now he could see she was waiting for him to tell her she should have spit it out instead, to which she’d undoubtedly make some sort of dirty spit-or-swallow reference… but he wasn’t going to set that up for her this time. "Come on." He swatted her bottom. "We're gonna break the chair."
"It's supposed to hold like three hundred pounds," she recited -- like she did every time he gave her that warning now.
Christ, how dull and predictable are we now, with all these autoreplies stored up? And yet they hadn't gotten bored with each other (not that he was aware of, anyway; Ellie still seemed pretty content with him). "Not three hundred pounds wrigglin' around like you are."
"Hey, I'm not making up most of the pounds here." But she took the hint and slid down just a smidge to nuzzle his neck. "Not like anyone's watching us..."
He started smoothing her tangly, windblown, sun-streaked hair by gently threading his fingers through it. Unsurprisingly, he encountered more sand there. "See, that's the thing about them glasses. People only watch you when you ain't payin' 'em any mind. If they can't see where your gaze is at, you'll catch 'em lookin' more than you think."
"Pffff. You can tell when people are looking at us without even looking at them. I've seen you do it. And if you don't want someone looking at us -- or at me, like on the beach down there? How can you shoot them a deathglare if they can't see it?"
"I don' need to deathglare at anyone." Not today, anyway.
"I guess you could take them off for a sec, huh. If you did have to glare. Okay, so -- Sylvia. You know who I'll ask? Sophie. I bet she'll know. Bitch knows everything."
Joel knew that 'bitch' was an affectionate term, in this case, although it wasn't so long ago that Ellie had meant it literally -- among plenty of other names she had unfairly dubbed the woman before they'd 'escorted' her to Monterey and gotten to know her better along the way. "I still don't see why you can't ask Sylvia herself."
"Because!" Joel heard the 'duh' in there. "She's not going to just tell me; she thinks of me as a kid. I'd get the bullshit version. And unlike you, I wouldn't be able to figure out the truth by reading between the lines of the bullshit. -Oh hey -- why don't you ask her?" Ellie lifted her head to grin at him hopefully.
"Oh sure, that'll come out real natural. I think I've talked to her... twice? Three times? Total. In all the time we've been here."
"Well, you said it yourself -- it's neglect. You could be like a... ..."
"Concerned citizen?" he supplied.
"Yeah! Something like that."
Joel knew all about those; when enough of them had brought their concerns to Tommy, Tommy had had to confront Joel about the nature of his relationship with Ellie. Joel had lied his ass off, of course, and by the end of the conversation, Tommy was apologizing for even thinking for one second that Joel might take advantage of sweet little Ellie. If he could see us now... He kissed her nose. "You know what 'concerned citizen' stands for? Nosy neighbor."
Ellie sighed and settled into his neck again. "And we do hate those. But if you--"
"It's none of our business. Do I think certain things oughta be done differently around here? Sure. Do I shoot my mouth off about it?"
"Uh... yeah, you didn't like the way they did the firewood, and you just had to--"
"Aside from that. ...An' the other times," he added before she brought up other suggestions he'd made regarding the perimeter... provisions protocol...
Ellie giggled. "So you don't butt in, except when you do. All the time."
"It ain't all the time. But things are... different here, that's for sure. It works to our advantage, don't it? Hmm?" He gave up on the lost cause of untangling her hair and gave her a big squeeze.
"Yeah... I guess..."
Of course it did. Not a single person had confronted him about his... inappropriate relations with Ellie. No one here gave two shits. ...Well, that wasn't completely true... he knew some disapproved (he'd indirectly taken everyone's temperature on the matter early enough), but they didn't disapprove to the point of interference. And even those folks had mellowed over time, after he and Ellie had proven themselves useful.
Mellow. That was another good word to describe the place. It helped that Monterey seemed to have an abundance (hell -- more like a never-ending supply) of marijuana. And unlike Jackson, it was not reserved for medicinal purposes only.
It wasn't just the weed and the usefulness... it was Ellie. She'd been a little reserved at first, due to them being strangers in a strange land, and given everything she'd been through, physically and emotionally, on the way here. She had the tendency to withdraw when things were troubling her (not unlike himself). But the girl was resilient as hell, and her bubbly personality would not remain suppressed for long. She won everyone over easily -- with no effort on her part. It was just her being herself. He was pretty sure that people had asked her about their relationship... but she never passed on what they said. Outwardly, Ellie seemed to be confident enough... to trust him enough... but then, there were those quirky little things -- like how she bit her tongue before calling him 'old' -- that suggested she might still have her doubts. Sex had not been the magical cure-all for those, she had learned. ...They both had learned. His reasons for deciding to shred what tiny bit of morality he'd clung to on that front were... well, not the right ones, he supposed. But he didn't regret it. And neither did she. That was all that mattered, in the end.
He trailed his hand down the back of her semi-coiled leg and sighed. "You've really gotta start doin' a better job up here. Can you see it? Look."
She twisted around and grimaced as she regarded her red thigh. "I'll live. Just don't scratch me there and it'll be fine."
"I don't scratch. I... graze."
She laid her head back down. "Whatever -- if you would just do it for me out here the way you do in the room--"
"Oh hell no," Joel cut her off. Unless they actually did end up going back to their room, the only reapplication he would do for her was on her face and neck.
"Okay so not exactly the way you do it there," she conceded with a giggle. "But the business part. I don't see what the big deal is. You're only touching parts of me not covered up. And we're not in Jackson -- everyone already knows. You could slip a finger in there and no one--"
"Ellie."
She giggled again. "That shit is like magic, though. Do you think they'll let us take some home? Maybe this bottle of it, at least?"
"This bottle, sure. I don't think they've got cases an' cases of it layin' around, though."
Jackson never picked up sunscreen in trade... or sunglasses... Joel could perhaps chalk those up to the difference in climate between California and Wyoming. The feminine hygiene products were a mystery, though; he'd never been out to the base here, but they'd been told it was all men. And if much of the supplies were being funneled into the resort on the down-low, as had been alluded to, there would be no reason for the government to send those here. Someone postulated that they don't discriminate back east when they pack up those supply crates... everyone gets the same shit to divide how they see fit. If that was true, it contradicted his customize-by-location theory... unless you consider the fact that Jackson wasn't run by the military, and those assholes they traded with could very well keep the good stuff for themselves. "Don't call them assholes," he could hear Ellie chastising him in his mind. "They sent Millie WAY more fabric than she asked for, and brand new markers for the kids without even a request!" Joel had tried to reason with her by pointing out that the soldiers probably had little use for fluorescent markers -- and even less for lace and the like -- but Ellie believed he simply hated all soldiers on principal... that reason didn't factor into it at all.
She wasn't wrong -- but he did have his reasons. And they were sound.
"What about the plugs?" he continued; it was the term Ellie liked to use for tampons -- a substitution that Joel didn't mind one bit (actually, the original term she'd coined was 'cunt plugs,' but he'd persuaded her to adopt the less obscene version). "You gonna swipe a box or two before we go?"
"Fuck yeah I am. At least one. Two seems kind of selfish. It's not like they have cases and cases of those, either. And I'm gonna talk to Maria about getting more for Jackson cuz they're like the best thing ever invented."
"I'm sure she knows," Joel chuckled. "You've used... the other kind, before. At least the one month, you did."
"Yeah -- one month. Out of... what, five, I think? Jackson never gets enough of any kind of female stuff, and what we do get isn't distributed fairly. Anyways, you should've told me plugs were so much better." She was probably only half joking there.
"It's a little easier to supply ten women than... over a hundred. And you're right. I'm deeply sorry for my... oversight." The obvious argument here was that, as a dude, Joel should be excused from such oversights. It might have worked better had he not been quite so "this ain't my first rodeo" in the early days -- prior to the start of the romance, even -- when Ellie had been shy about, maybe even ashamed of, the monthly phenomenon. Of course, the rodeo today was a whole different animal from the one he had known. "Thank God for Sophie. You might've gone the rest of your life without knowin'." Those two had a way of bonding in restrooms... going all the way back to when Ellie didn't even like her.
Ellie snorted. "Except now I know what I'll be missing." She lifted her head again, fixing those beautiful green eyes on him. "Welcome to the club, right? Isn't that what you like to say?"
"Right." Oh, how he would love for her to never experience that feeling... and all the worse feelings out there. He wished like hell that he could just kiss them all away. But wishes of that sort were useless things, best not dwelled on. He trailed a finger lightly down her cheek. "You've been talkin' about Jackson a lot lately. Does that mean..."
"I don't know," she groaned, burying her head in his chest and sighing dramatically. "I don't knoooowwwww!"
He rubbed her head affectionately. "It's all right. Still ain't no hurry."
"But winter is pretty much over now."
"Not really. It can still snow in March an' April. Even into May, sometimes. But that wasn't even the whole deal. I jus' said we have to stay at least through winter. 'Til your birthday." Because it would be pretty goddamn stupid to trade the sunshine for the snow on a long journey -- one that would be hard enough without weather hazards factored in -- when there was no pressing reason to return just yet.
"But... the baby..."
Yes, that was Ellie's pressing reason, not his. Which was funny, considering the kid would be his niece or nephew, and no blood relation to Ellie. "The baby won't even be any fun 'til it's at least six months old anyhow." His standard answer to that one.
"And we'll definitely be home by then, right?"
"If you want."
"I will want. By then. ...I think."
Joel chuckled; she was as wishy-washy as ever on the subject of when to leave. "We won't go until your 'I think' is more like a... 'I'm pretty sure.' If not stronger. All right? Sound like a plan?"
"Whatever you say, Joel," she said lightly.
As the months ticked by here in ~paradise,~ Joel found himself caring less and less about returning to Jackson. He reckoned Ellie was romanticizing it a bit in her memory... their last night there had felt a bit magical, even he had to admit. He remembered how Ellie had absolutely glowed that night, the center of attention at her going away party (their party, but Joel never was one for the spotlight), and how that had almost made him reluctant to leave.
Almost. Sophie had been desperate to reconnect with her brother, so Joel had agreed to escort her here -- without knowing exactly where here was -- and he wasn't one to go back on his word, but more than that, he had really needed to escape the scrutiny and tension before he did something he would regret. He'd never figured out who it was that had driven them from their own home, into Tommy and Maria's. Who had carved up that rock and decided to chuck it through their window, missing Ellie by mere inches. It had been dark at the time, inside and out, and Joel believed the asshole had had no idea Ellie was standing where she was... but that was beside the point. The point was that some idiot who believed the nasty rumors going around about him and Ellie could just decide to torch the place if they wanted, perhaps while he and Ellie were sleeping. Secluded from the rest of the town, it had seemed like such a perfect spot for them... but remoteness worked against you if your enemies knew you were there, isolated and vulnerable. It was clearly unsafe to stay there.
Joel hadn't thought about that crap much in these last few months. No doubt the town had lost interest in their affairs shortly after they left; would their return stir things up again? At the moment, it was a bit hard to imagine why anyone would give a shit. The level of acceptance they'd found here had felt like a luxury, at first... a dream, a fantasy. Now it simply felt normal. He didn't want to grope Ellie's thighs in public because it was crass and tacky (especially with two young kids nearby), not because he needed to be cognizant of what it might reveal about their relationship. Her upper half was always covered by a long-sleeved T-shirt, on account of her bite scar, and though he knew she was occasionally annoyed by that, he certainly didn't mind her cleavage being covered at all times as a result. Especially when that boy Parker was around... the only other teenager at the resort. He hadn't made any moves on Ellie or anything like that, but Joel reckoned he must feel some level of desire for her. The only girl there even remotely close to the boy's age, who also happened to be the most beautiful girl in the world? It was a no-brainer. Ellie had told him she was pretty sure he was gay, but her hunch wasn't enough to put Joel's mind completely at ease.
Overall, though, he was definitely at ease here, compared to Jackson. The location was secure, the people were friendly and open-minded, and it was much easier to keep an eye on Ellie here. They weren't necessarily together 24/7, but she was pretty much always in eyesight. The few times that she wasn't...
Well, he still needed to work on that. It wasn't natural to react the way that he did. He knew this, and he tried to conceal it from Ellie, but he didn't always succeed. She didn't seem to mind. In fact, she'd even told him that she liked the way he always had to know where she was. It made her feel special. This, of course, wasn't natural either. She should rage at him about how smothered she feels, how he doesn't need to treat her like a child, that she's perfectly capable of looking after herself. He wished she would do those things, because maybe that would knock some sense into the part of his brain that liked to freak out over Ellie's absence.
And it would mean that she was... healthy, he supposed would be the word for it -- although he didn't much care for the word, as it reminded him of his sanctimonious brother. Unafraid, then. Independent. Not--
Shit.
Yes, baby brother, you were right about THAT word choice: codependent. Joel was irrevocably so, but Ellie might be able to recover from it. She was young, so there might still be hope for her. They hadn't talked about it in a while, but he knew she was scared to death of him getting himself killed and leaving her alone... and it wasn't right. She was too young to be burdened with that. It also wasn't right that a fifteen-year-old girl was spending so much time with a man more than three times her age. In Jackson, she'd had a life that didn't necessarily revolve around him. Two jobs that had nothing to do with him, friends her own age to hang out with... she would watch movies, listen to music, play video games, read books... all without him. And what did she do here? Hunting-and-gathering was their main occupation, and they also did miscellaneous chores, like chopping firewood... digging up worms to use for bait... exercising the horses... (yeah, that last one wasn't exactly a chore, most days). And they played on the beach or in the water, went for walks, enjoyed campfire time... There was nothing wrong with any of that, it's just... they were always together.
No, not ALWAYS... he supposed the times she hung out with Sophie counted as not-with-him time, even though he was nearby. Or when both of them spent time with Sophie, or other people -- including campfire time -- surely that counted for something. It just ain't the same, though... it ain't like Jackson. And he noticed that Ellie still always referred to Jackson as home, even though they'd been away from it now for almost as many months as they had actually lived there, and had found themselves a cozy new home in the meantime. She got along with everyone here, but hadn't really bonded with anyone to the same degree as she had at home... aside from Sophie. ...Well, Sophie COUNTS, don't she? She's staying here...
It still didn't make up for what Ellie was missing in Jackson. She got bored here sometimes, and he couldn't remember her ever saying she was bored at home, where there was so much to do. Not just in terms of entertainment and people to interact with (though both were considerable)... he figured it had something to do with the lack of purpose that radiated from this... well... hippie commune, was basically what it was. Joel felt it, too. When he was fixing things or building things back home, he felt much more satisfied at the end of the day than when he sat on a pier with a fishing rod or lazed on the beach for hours on end. All play and no work, was what it felt like here, even when he was working. And though he might butt heads with his brother, he respected the way he and Maria were always looking to grow the town and expand to other areas of the state. Joel was curious as to how that new farm was faring... does it have a name yet, other than sister farm?
And he had to laugh at the memory of working at that remote farm for days and days -- more than a week, that one time -- without seeing Ellie at all. How did he stand it? He'd missed the hell out of her, he remembered, but he must not have been too distracted by thoughts of all the harm that could possibly befall her in his absence, because he'd done good work there, helping construct a perimeter wall. But ever since those three days of hell in Sacramento, she may as well have become the air he breathed, because he felt a physical ache in his chest -- like a fist of panic squeezing his lungs, his heart... whenever he lost track of her for more than a moment or two. Unlike Ellie, he didn't suffer from actual panic attacks, but this shit felt like... like it was in the same family. Good thing it was easier for him to keep an eye on her here. She respected his wishes and didn't go Outside without him -- but unlike back home, she could let herself out if she wanted to. (He still wondered if she'd be pissed if she knew that despite her agreeableness on the matter, Joel had talked to every single guard on staff in Jackson and made sure they understood that Ellie was not to be let out without him under any circumstances; if the outcome of her little excursion with Max hadn't been so amazing -- the start of our romance -- he may have killed the hapless guards who had let them pass, so he'd thought it best to clear up any future misunderstandings.)
That fell more along the lines of reasonable concern, though. Curbing the sometimes-reckless whims of a teenager. It wasn't feasible, however, for her to never leave his sight. Trying to reason with himself didn't work. Of course Ellie wasn't lying dead in a ditch somewhere just because she was taking longer than expected to return from the bathroom back at their suite, or from taking the kids in for a snack or something. Logic dictated that she was probably just taking a shit, or had run into someone along the way and gotten chatty. One time, the little girl had tripped on the sidewalk and skinned her knee, so Ellie had comforted the child and brought her to her mother. There was always a reasonable explanation. Panic was such a goddamn extreme overreaction, and it angered him. What the hell was the matter with him? He was tougher than this. He knew he was.
Ellie's bouts with panic were similarly impossible to reason through... but the difference was the severity, and the fact that more often than not, there was a trigger -- a legit trigger, not something as benign as him leaving her sight. They'd identified one back home, a gift from her time spent with that piece of shit David... and those had seemed to subside, after that. Or maybe it was just the passing of time. Now there was a much harder one to avoid: the dark. There was no electricity here, so the night was illuminated by the moon and stars, solar lights (which didn't stay on indefinitely), a big-ass fire, and flashlights. And maybe candles, on occasion. The moonlight that streamed through their window wasn't always bright enough to stave off an attack. Joel would have liked to get her a night light. The flashlight was so damn bright... he thought he'd turned it into a decent night light once by confining it to the bathroom, with the door ajar, but Ellie had scoffed at that and declared it a horrible waste of batteries when all she really needed was him.
It did seem to be true, to some extent; she was fine when they made love in the dark, or when he just held her. The physical proof of his presence must have penetrated her psyche or something, assuring her subconscious that she wasn't actually trapped alone in the dark for days. And he found that he still had a knack for soothing away her nightmares before they really got a firm grip on her. Neither one of them had as many nightmares these days; Joel wondered if the trip home would change that.
No, Joel certainly wasn't in any hurry to leave paradise. He had even entertained fantasies of staying until Ellie turned eighteen. That sure would resolve some shit back home. People could -- and would -- judge him still... he knew that. There might still be some foot-stomping, rock-throwing idiots to deal with. But legally (by Jackson law, at least), they would be two consenting adults, free to do as they pleased. The threat of Ellie being placed in a different home would be null (as would the consequences of whatever Joel might do to anyone who tried to separate them). But he suspected Ellie wouldn't want to wait that long. Tommy and Maria and that unborn baby were her family, and she'd waited her whole life to have a family; she didn't take it for granted. Joel was family, too, of course, but it was understood that wherever they went, they went together, and she would never have to choose between him and anyone else -- she could take him for granted.
And somewhere inside him -- some cavernous, murky place Joel didn't choose to visit if he could help it -- he knew that if something seemed too good to be true, it was usually because it was exactly that. Applying that logic to his relationship with Ellie was just... no, he couldn't go there. But this resort in Monterey? That was easier to contemplate. Just like any other place, things weren't always what they appeared to be on the surface. Some of it was harmless enough... like how they'd been living here for almost two months before learning that the horsekeeper/hunter duo of Mark and Parker were not actually father and son, even though Parker called him 'Pops.' Ellie had innocently asked one day if Mark had chosen the name Parker because it sounded similar to his own, spurring the confession (Joel had wondered, initially, because there was no physical resemblance between the two that he could see... but then, people always assumed he and Ellie were father and daughter despite them looking nothing like one another, so maybe he put too much stock in that).
However, Joel suspected that the place held more sinister secrets than mislabeled relationships. At times, he felt a dark undercurrent here... something in a furtive look or a snippet of cryptic conversation that would stir his gut a little, in a way he couldn't put his finger on. As long as he and Ellie were unaffected by it, though, people's business was their own, of no concern to him. Besides, it could possibly be chalked up to paranoia, couldn't it? Because his overactive gut hadn't registered bad vibes off of anyone here. These were decent folks. Not saints, but nowhere near the dregs of humanity.
Most of the time, Joel was content to abide by what he advised Ellie whenever she fretted too much over the decision: when it was time to leave, they would just know.
~Continue to Chapter 2~
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Joel, Ellie, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Word Count for this chapter: 6,607
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
Warnings: Underage. Anything else is kind of spoilery, but I will give chapter-specific warnings where I feel they are needed. I'm happy to answer questions individually, though!
Summary: When their "vacation" comes to an abrupt end, Joel and Ellie must get back to reality. How will they handle what life throws at them next? [This is Part 3, following Part 1: "Accretion" and Part 2: "Uncertainty", although you don't necessarily have to read those first.]
"Singularity" is the 14th comic in the SS series... and while I'd like to tie in the physics definition (which includes neat stuff like infinity and black holes), I'm not poetic enough. The primary definition will do: the state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular (denoting or referring to just one person or thing).
A/N: Yep, I'm back, after once again claiming to be done with this story! Apologies for the long-ass A/N, but please read -- you will barely hear a peep from me after this, I swear.
As with the previous installments, this is a complete story on its own (er, it will be when I'm done), and you don't necessarily have to read the others first... however, at this point, Joel and Ellie may feel a bit out of character if you're going in blind. If you've read the first two but it's been a while, no worries -- I will explain references throughout the story, I don't expect you to just remember everything :) In fact, this first chapter serves mainly as recap.
Regarding TLOU2: I have not played the game nor watched any trailers except the first teaser, and have stayed out of the fandom almost entirely for years now, other than posting fic, so I'm... relatively unspoiled? (I do expect that to change now, but I'm still hoping it doesn't) Although people have dropped enough hints that I have some idea of what's happened in canon. I won't be playing the game until I'm done writing, if I even play it at all. I'm afraid that even if I love it, it will ruin my little fantasy story here, and I'm just not ready to give it up! If you could please pretend the game doesn't exist when you're reading, it would be appreciated (I think you kind of have to if you're going to enjoy this story anyway). Obviously it's no longer canon-compliant and there will be many things I "got wrong." Even if I knew which things are wrong, I don't believe in retconning... even when I very much wish I could because I don't like something that I wrote in the first two parts... lol.
Regarding update frequency: I would like to post a new chapter approximately every two weeks, but may lag a bit in the beginning because I haven't quite finished the rough draft yet (I had intended to, because going back and forth between both ends of the timeline is not ideal, but I also really wanted to start posting in January). I know I've updated more frequently than that previously, but most of these chapters are going to be pretty darn long, so I hope that makes up for it. I have about 270,000 words of content already -- I promise you, I AM committed to finishing this work.
Regarding smut: Yes there is some, but as usual, smuttiness is not the primary focus of the sex scenes... which are probably not as graphic as they're "supposed" to be, either. And as the draft stands now, I have some "fade to black" parts where it feels like adding smut would be gratuitous, so if it stays like that in editing... consider yourselves warned ;)
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy the story!
~
Paradise. If Joel had to describe Golden Sands in one word, that's the one he would probably settle on. While his brother was shivering through the winter back in Jackson County, presumably trapped in his own home from time to time by mountains of snow, Joel was lounging on a beach at a secure resort in Monterey, California, the steady roar of the waves lulling his brain into its most relaxed state in... God knows how long. Joel might shiver from time to time, as the breeze could be chilly this time of year, especially in the shade -- and he was in the shade a lot, in the little cabana they'd pretty much claimed as their own, because he didn't want Ellie to spend too much time in the sun. Still, he reckoned Tommy would trade places with him right now in a heartbeat.
However, spring was right around the corner. As was Ellie's birthday. It was pretty damn fitting, really, for that girl to have been born right around the spring equinox. Hope springs eternal... rebirth and renewal and all that. Technically, it would be the second birthday of hers that he would be spending with her, but her fifteenth birthday had come and gone with neither of them knowing what day it was, as they'd been out of touch with civilization at the time. This would be the first one they could actually celebrate.
Joel watched her now, playing down by the water's edge with the only two little kids in the community. From the looks of it, they were playing some silly game that involved burying someone in the sand and dumping buckets of water on them while chanting something ridiculous -- one of those games that only makes sense if you have the mind of a child. Or, in Ellie's case, a good imagination and a child-like inclination towards silliness. He always enjoyed watching her play with the kids, albeit from a safe distance: far enough away that she couldn't drag his ass into it.
Eventually, she trotted back up to the cabana (quite a feat in the thick white sand, but Ellie managed), slowing as she approached him. Practically tip-toeing there at the end. Not making a sound... and looking at him kind of funny.
"What," he finally had to ask.
"Oh! I was trying to see if you were asleep!" she laughed, bouncing over to him and giving him a quick kiss before plopping into her lounge chair. "Those are creepy."
"They're s'posed to be cool," he replied. She was referring to his reflective sunglasses, a recent addition to his accessories wardrobe. (It also happened to be the entirety of said accessories wardrobe.)
"Pffff. You have to try a little harder than that if you wanna be cool," she teased.
He could hear the "old man" at the end of that sentence, although she never referred to him that way -- not out loud. He had to be ancient in her eyes, but Tommy was the only one who ever teased him about his age. Joel got the feeling that Ellie was afraid to say anything that might cause him to reconsider the appropriateness of their relationship... or something along those lines. Like he might suddenly wake up and realize that a thirty-plus-year age difference was unsustainable. But she was like that before, too... he thought it might also have something to do with her fear of him dying. Because to a fifteen-year-old, fifty was the equivalent of one foot in the grave. "Almost sixteen" -- he could hear her correct him in his mind. She'd been doing that ever since they rang in the new year.
She reached over to pluck the glasses off his face and apply them to her own... and they practically engulfed half her face. "Ugh -- they'll slide right off unless I lean my head back like this..." She turned her face skyward. Or... bedsheet-ward, actually (Joel assumed that back in the day, the canopies had been nice and fancy -- as had the resort itself -- but the sheets still got the job done). "I am now a snob," she declared in that cute affected voice she donned occasionally. "Looking down my nose at the likes of you!"
"They are a little big for you," he chuckled, although he didn't think they would actually slide off that adorable little nose of hers. "But not for me. Gimme those."
She ducked out of his (half-assed) reach. "You just like spying on people," she accused him playfully.
"It ain't spyin' if it's in plain sight. And keepin' an eye on folks ain't the same as spyin'."
Apparently tired of playing with the things already, she tossed them back to him and reclined her chair back a little. "You know who we should keep an eye on some night? Sylvia."
"Sylvia?" Joel echoed. He slid the creepy spyglasses back onto his own much-less-adorable nose.
"The kids' mom," she groaned, misunderstanding him.
"I know who she is," he replied; remembering names wasn't his strong suit, but even he could manage twenty-two of them after living in the same colony for nearly four months -- and it was actually only twenty names if he subtracted Sophie and Alex, the two he already knew from Jackson. "I just don't see why she would be interestin' to watch."
"Well, Gabby just told me she woke up again after campfire and Sylvia wasn't around. For a long time. Actually, it was Chad who started telling me cuz he was complaining about how she kicks in her sleep -- and I know they have their own beds. So I asked him why he let his sister sleep in his bed in the first place, like... did she have a nightmare or something so he was being nice? Cuz I could maybe see that... if I had a big brother or sister nearby and I was scared, I might wanna be close to them, like it would be a comforting--"
"Ellie." Sometimes just interrupting with her name was enough to get her back on track.
"Yeah, so... then Gabby told me she didn't have a nightmare, she just woke up for some reason. Maybe she heard Sylvia leave and didn't realize that's what woke her? But she wanted her mom anyways so she looked in her bedroom... in the bathroom... and a little bit outside... she could see that the fire was done, and it was all dark down on the beach, no one around... so she called for Sylvia and got no answer -- she was just... gone." She paused for dramatic effect, clearly awaiting a reaction...
...but Joel didn't give enough of a shit to give her anything satisfying. "She came back at some point, obviously. Did the kids ask her about it then? Or the next mornin'?"
"They don't ask because she gets mad at them if they do. Like she practically bit their heads off the first time. Shouldn't she feel, like... bad? I mean... obviously I don't really know anything about parenting, but I do know you're not supposed to leave your kids alone -- little kids, at least."
Or fifteen-year-old kids, as the case may be... Joel supposed he should feel grateful that this was what the drama in their lives had been reduced to: 'slow news day' shit of no consequence. "That's right. Back in my day, that--"
"--would be considered neglect," Ellie finished for him, rolling her eyes because she'd heard it so often (and yet he still felt compelled to point it out when the subject arose).
"But things are different now." The generic, clichéd explanation for everything under the sun, it seemed. "Where do you think she goes? I know you're thinkin' somethin'. You've got that look in your eye..."
She smirked. "I think she has a boyfriend she doesn't want anyone to know about. Which probably means he's married. Or, you know... like, with someone. Right? Otherwise, why be sneaky about it? But... who? I mean... there's not that many options around here."
Joel sighed. "You're right -- it's me. Shit, you weren't s'posed to work that out so fast."
She shot right up in her chair and slugged his arm. "Not funny!"
He winced -- mostly for show, as the angle of her delivery had significantly lessened the impact; the girl could hit pretty damn hard. "Who said I was jokin'?"
She just rolled her eyes. "Seriously -- who do you think it is?" she pressed.
Joel knew that some of the people here were... what's the word... polyamorous? He suspected the abundance of marijuana might be partly to blame. He wasn't in the habit of discussing people's sex lives with them, but he'd picked up on a few things here and there, just by observation. And for some reason, Sophie had felt the need to share some shit with him... shit that she'd learned about folks. He was pretty sure Ellie didn't know about any of it, and he had asked Sophie to please keep it that way (he'd stolen so much of her innocence, yet he still wanted to protect what was left of it wherever he could). Sophie had smirked at the request... said something annoying as hell -- something about him not wanting to put ideas in Ellie's head about swinging, which might open her mind to the possibilities... but that ain't it at all. She just don't need to know about all that. "Could be a perfectly innocent explanation," he reminded Ellie.
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Like... she sleepwalks?"
Ellie snorted.
Yeah, surely he could think of something less far-fetched... "She wanted to smoke a joint but not around the kids? She got hungry?" People didn't tend to keep much food in their rooms. "She suddenly remembered somethin' she forgot to do in the cafeteria that couldn't wait? Who knows. Even when she ain't workin', those kids run around unsupervised all the--"
"Yeah, but that's in the daytime, when everyone's around to keep an eye on them."
Not 'everyone,' but usually at least a handful. The community seemed to be raising those kids as much as -- maybe even more than -- their own mother was. Even with all those eyes on them, they sometimes managed to slip away to parts unknown (though as of yet, they hadn't found a way Outside, at least). Joel watched them sometimes himself -- whenever he was 'keeping an eye' on Ellie and the kids were hanging around her, as they were wont to do. "What are you sayin'?" he asked her now. "That we should do a stake-out of her place? Follow her on her... nighttime excursions?"
Ellie lit up at the suggestion. "Yeah, maybe!"
"Psh. I think we're usually a little busy doin'... other things." Granted, not every night...
She grinned. "Well... we can still do that before. Or after? Fuck, I wish Gabs could tell me what time this was..."
"I've got an idea -- why don't you just ask her?"
"Who -- Sylvia?"
"Ask her where she goes at night after the kids fall asleep."
"I just told you -- Gabby asked and she won't say!"
"Well, don't you think there are some things a person might tell an adult that they wouldn't tell a six-year-old?"
Ellie just smiled.
"What?"
"You called me an adult," she said triumphantly.
"You know what I mean."
"But I am an adult. Basically."
"Basically, yes." And yet you're also NOT... you're still my baby girl. Sex can't change that.
Beaming, she abandoned her chair in favor of his -- or his lap, rather. And since he was half-reclining, she was pretty much laying on top of him. "Take these stupid things off your face," she said, but then she proceeded to do it for him, flinging the offending sunglasses into the sand.
"Those were expensive, you know," he mock chastised her. "An' they look good as new."
"Who gives a fuck how expensive they were? It's not like you paid for them."
"Sure I did. All the blood, sweat, an' tears that I--"
She shut him up with a kiss. Even after all these months together, the method was still quite effective... until she started giggling. "Good thing I swallowed the sand already..."
He didn't need to ask why she’d had sand in her mouth; the goddamn shit got everywhere. Joel was not a fan. Maybe Tommy wouldn't envy me THAT... And now he could see she was waiting for him to tell her she should have spit it out instead, to which she’d undoubtedly make some sort of dirty spit-or-swallow reference… but he wasn’t going to set that up for her this time. "Come on." He swatted her bottom. "We're gonna break the chair."
"It's supposed to hold like three hundred pounds," she recited -- like she did every time he gave her that warning now.
Christ, how dull and predictable are we now, with all these autoreplies stored up? And yet they hadn't gotten bored with each other (not that he was aware of, anyway; Ellie still seemed pretty content with him). "Not three hundred pounds wrigglin' around like you are."
"Hey, I'm not making up most of the pounds here." But she took the hint and slid down just a smidge to nuzzle his neck. "Not like anyone's watching us..."
He started smoothing her tangly, windblown, sun-streaked hair by gently threading his fingers through it. Unsurprisingly, he encountered more sand there. "See, that's the thing about them glasses. People only watch you when you ain't payin' 'em any mind. If they can't see where your gaze is at, you'll catch 'em lookin' more than you think."
"Pffff. You can tell when people are looking at us without even looking at them. I've seen you do it. And if you don't want someone looking at us -- or at me, like on the beach down there? How can you shoot them a deathglare if they can't see it?"
"I don' need to deathglare at anyone." Not today, anyway.
"I guess you could take them off for a sec, huh. If you did have to glare. Okay, so -- Sylvia. You know who I'll ask? Sophie. I bet she'll know. Bitch knows everything."
Joel knew that 'bitch' was an affectionate term, in this case, although it wasn't so long ago that Ellie had meant it literally -- among plenty of other names she had unfairly dubbed the woman before they'd 'escorted' her to Monterey and gotten to know her better along the way. "I still don't see why you can't ask Sylvia herself."
"Because!" Joel heard the 'duh' in there. "She's not going to just tell me; she thinks of me as a kid. I'd get the bullshit version. And unlike you, I wouldn't be able to figure out the truth by reading between the lines of the bullshit. -Oh hey -- why don't you ask her?" Ellie lifted her head to grin at him hopefully.
"Oh sure, that'll come out real natural. I think I've talked to her... twice? Three times? Total. In all the time we've been here."
"Well, you said it yourself -- it's neglect. You could be like a... ..."
"Concerned citizen?" he supplied.
"Yeah! Something like that."
Joel knew all about those; when enough of them had brought their concerns to Tommy, Tommy had had to confront Joel about the nature of his relationship with Ellie. Joel had lied his ass off, of course, and by the end of the conversation, Tommy was apologizing for even thinking for one second that Joel might take advantage of sweet little Ellie. If he could see us now... He kissed her nose. "You know what 'concerned citizen' stands for? Nosy neighbor."
Ellie sighed and settled into his neck again. "And we do hate those. But if you--"
"It's none of our business. Do I think certain things oughta be done differently around here? Sure. Do I shoot my mouth off about it?"
"Uh... yeah, you didn't like the way they did the firewood, and you just had to--"
"Aside from that. ...An' the other times," he added before she brought up other suggestions he'd made regarding the perimeter... provisions protocol...
Ellie giggled. "So you don't butt in, except when you do. All the time."
"It ain't all the time. But things are... different here, that's for sure. It works to our advantage, don't it? Hmm?" He gave up on the lost cause of untangling her hair and gave her a big squeeze.
"Yeah... I guess..."
Of course it did. Not a single person had confronted him about his... inappropriate relations with Ellie. No one here gave two shits. ...Well, that wasn't completely true... he knew some disapproved (he'd indirectly taken everyone's temperature on the matter early enough), but they didn't disapprove to the point of interference. And even those folks had mellowed over time, after he and Ellie had proven themselves useful.
Mellow. That was another good word to describe the place. It helped that Monterey seemed to have an abundance (hell -- more like a never-ending supply) of marijuana. And unlike Jackson, it was not reserved for medicinal purposes only.
It wasn't just the weed and the usefulness... it was Ellie. She'd been a little reserved at first, due to them being strangers in a strange land, and given everything she'd been through, physically and emotionally, on the way here. She had the tendency to withdraw when things were troubling her (not unlike himself). But the girl was resilient as hell, and her bubbly personality would not remain suppressed for long. She won everyone over easily -- with no effort on her part. It was just her being herself. He was pretty sure that people had asked her about their relationship... but she never passed on what they said. Outwardly, Ellie seemed to be confident enough... to trust him enough... but then, there were those quirky little things -- like how she bit her tongue before calling him 'old' -- that suggested she might still have her doubts. Sex had not been the magical cure-all for those, she had learned. ...They both had learned. His reasons for deciding to shred what tiny bit of morality he'd clung to on that front were... well, not the right ones, he supposed. But he didn't regret it. And neither did she. That was all that mattered, in the end.
He trailed his hand down the back of her semi-coiled leg and sighed. "You've really gotta start doin' a better job up here. Can you see it? Look."
She twisted around and grimaced as she regarded her red thigh. "I'll live. Just don't scratch me there and it'll be fine."
"I don't scratch. I... graze."
She laid her head back down. "Whatever -- if you would just do it for me out here the way you do in the room--"
"Oh hell no," Joel cut her off. Unless they actually did end up going back to their room, the only reapplication he would do for her was on her face and neck.
"Okay so not exactly the way you do it there," she conceded with a giggle. "But the business part. I don't see what the big deal is. You're only touching parts of me not covered up. And we're not in Jackson -- everyone already knows. You could slip a finger in there and no one--"
"Ellie."
She giggled again. "That shit is like magic, though. Do you think they'll let us take some home? Maybe this bottle of it, at least?"
"This bottle, sure. I don't think they've got cases an' cases of it layin' around, though."
Jackson never picked up sunscreen in trade... or sunglasses... Joel could perhaps chalk those up to the difference in climate between California and Wyoming. The feminine hygiene products were a mystery, though; he'd never been out to the base here, but they'd been told it was all men. And if much of the supplies were being funneled into the resort on the down-low, as had been alluded to, there would be no reason for the government to send those here. Someone postulated that they don't discriminate back east when they pack up those supply crates... everyone gets the same shit to divide how they see fit. If that was true, it contradicted his customize-by-location theory... unless you consider the fact that Jackson wasn't run by the military, and those assholes they traded with could very well keep the good stuff for themselves. "Don't call them assholes," he could hear Ellie chastising him in his mind. "They sent Millie WAY more fabric than she asked for, and brand new markers for the kids without even a request!" Joel had tried to reason with her by pointing out that the soldiers probably had little use for fluorescent markers -- and even less for lace and the like -- but Ellie believed he simply hated all soldiers on principal... that reason didn't factor into it at all.
She wasn't wrong -- but he did have his reasons. And they were sound.
"What about the plugs?" he continued; it was the term Ellie liked to use for tampons -- a substitution that Joel didn't mind one bit (actually, the original term she'd coined was 'cunt plugs,' but he'd persuaded her to adopt the less obscene version). "You gonna swipe a box or two before we go?"
"Fuck yeah I am. At least one. Two seems kind of selfish. It's not like they have cases and cases of those, either. And I'm gonna talk to Maria about getting more for Jackson cuz they're like the best thing ever invented."
"I'm sure she knows," Joel chuckled. "You've used... the other kind, before. At least the one month, you did."
"Yeah -- one month. Out of... what, five, I think? Jackson never gets enough of any kind of female stuff, and what we do get isn't distributed fairly. Anyways, you should've told me plugs were so much better." She was probably only half joking there.
"It's a little easier to supply ten women than... over a hundred. And you're right. I'm deeply sorry for my... oversight." The obvious argument here was that, as a dude, Joel should be excused from such oversights. It might have worked better had he not been quite so "this ain't my first rodeo" in the early days -- prior to the start of the romance, even -- when Ellie had been shy about, maybe even ashamed of, the monthly phenomenon. Of course, the rodeo today was a whole different animal from the one he had known. "Thank God for Sophie. You might've gone the rest of your life without knowin'." Those two had a way of bonding in restrooms... going all the way back to when Ellie didn't even like her.
Ellie snorted. "Except now I know what I'll be missing." She lifted her head again, fixing those beautiful green eyes on him. "Welcome to the club, right? Isn't that what you like to say?"
"Right." Oh, how he would love for her to never experience that feeling... and all the worse feelings out there. He wished like hell that he could just kiss them all away. But wishes of that sort were useless things, best not dwelled on. He trailed a finger lightly down her cheek. "You've been talkin' about Jackson a lot lately. Does that mean..."
"I don't know," she groaned, burying her head in his chest and sighing dramatically. "I don't knoooowwwww!"
He rubbed her head affectionately. "It's all right. Still ain't no hurry."
"But winter is pretty much over now."
"Not really. It can still snow in March an' April. Even into May, sometimes. But that wasn't even the whole deal. I jus' said we have to stay at least through winter. 'Til your birthday." Because it would be pretty goddamn stupid to trade the sunshine for the snow on a long journey -- one that would be hard enough without weather hazards factored in -- when there was no pressing reason to return just yet.
"But... the baby..."
Yes, that was Ellie's pressing reason, not his. Which was funny, considering the kid would be his niece or nephew, and no blood relation to Ellie. "The baby won't even be any fun 'til it's at least six months old anyhow." His standard answer to that one.
"And we'll definitely be home by then, right?"
"If you want."
"I will want. By then. ...I think."
Joel chuckled; she was as wishy-washy as ever on the subject of when to leave. "We won't go until your 'I think' is more like a... 'I'm pretty sure.' If not stronger. All right? Sound like a plan?"
"Whatever you say, Joel," she said lightly.
As the months ticked by here in ~paradise,~ Joel found himself caring less and less about returning to Jackson. He reckoned Ellie was romanticizing it a bit in her memory... their last night there had felt a bit magical, even he had to admit. He remembered how Ellie had absolutely glowed that night, the center of attention at her going away party (their party, but Joel never was one for the spotlight), and how that had almost made him reluctant to leave.
Almost. Sophie had been desperate to reconnect with her brother, so Joel had agreed to escort her here -- without knowing exactly where here was -- and he wasn't one to go back on his word, but more than that, he had really needed to escape the scrutiny and tension before he did something he would regret. He'd never figured out who it was that had driven them from their own home, into Tommy and Maria's. Who had carved up that rock and decided to chuck it through their window, missing Ellie by mere inches. It had been dark at the time, inside and out, and Joel believed the asshole had had no idea Ellie was standing where she was... but that was beside the point. The point was that some idiot who believed the nasty rumors going around about him and Ellie could just decide to torch the place if they wanted, perhaps while he and Ellie were sleeping. Secluded from the rest of the town, it had seemed like such a perfect spot for them... but remoteness worked against you if your enemies knew you were there, isolated and vulnerable. It was clearly unsafe to stay there.
Joel hadn't thought about that crap much in these last few months. No doubt the town had lost interest in their affairs shortly after they left; would their return stir things up again? At the moment, it was a bit hard to imagine why anyone would give a shit. The level of acceptance they'd found here had felt like a luxury, at first... a dream, a fantasy. Now it simply felt normal. He didn't want to grope Ellie's thighs in public because it was crass and tacky (especially with two young kids nearby), not because he needed to be cognizant of what it might reveal about their relationship. Her upper half was always covered by a long-sleeved T-shirt, on account of her bite scar, and though he knew she was occasionally annoyed by that, he certainly didn't mind her cleavage being covered at all times as a result. Especially when that boy Parker was around... the only other teenager at the resort. He hadn't made any moves on Ellie or anything like that, but Joel reckoned he must feel some level of desire for her. The only girl there even remotely close to the boy's age, who also happened to be the most beautiful girl in the world? It was a no-brainer. Ellie had told him she was pretty sure he was gay, but her hunch wasn't enough to put Joel's mind completely at ease.
Overall, though, he was definitely at ease here, compared to Jackson. The location was secure, the people were friendly and open-minded, and it was much easier to keep an eye on Ellie here. They weren't necessarily together 24/7, but she was pretty much always in eyesight. The few times that she wasn't...
Well, he still needed to work on that. It wasn't natural to react the way that he did. He knew this, and he tried to conceal it from Ellie, but he didn't always succeed. She didn't seem to mind. In fact, she'd even told him that she liked the way he always had to know where she was. It made her feel special. This, of course, wasn't natural either. She should rage at him about how smothered she feels, how he doesn't need to treat her like a child, that she's perfectly capable of looking after herself. He wished she would do those things, because maybe that would knock some sense into the part of his brain that liked to freak out over Ellie's absence.
And it would mean that she was... healthy, he supposed would be the word for it -- although he didn't much care for the word, as it reminded him of his sanctimonious brother. Unafraid, then. Independent. Not--
Shit.
Yes, baby brother, you were right about THAT word choice: codependent. Joel was irrevocably so, but Ellie might be able to recover from it. She was young, so there might still be hope for her. They hadn't talked about it in a while, but he knew she was scared to death of him getting himself killed and leaving her alone... and it wasn't right. She was too young to be burdened with that. It also wasn't right that a fifteen-year-old girl was spending so much time with a man more than three times her age. In Jackson, she'd had a life that didn't necessarily revolve around him. Two jobs that had nothing to do with him, friends her own age to hang out with... she would watch movies, listen to music, play video games, read books... all without him. And what did she do here? Hunting-and-gathering was their main occupation, and they also did miscellaneous chores, like chopping firewood... digging up worms to use for bait... exercising the horses... (yeah, that last one wasn't exactly a chore, most days). And they played on the beach or in the water, went for walks, enjoyed campfire time... There was nothing wrong with any of that, it's just... they were always together.
No, not ALWAYS... he supposed the times she hung out with Sophie counted as not-with-him time, even though he was nearby. Or when both of them spent time with Sophie, or other people -- including campfire time -- surely that counted for something. It just ain't the same, though... it ain't like Jackson. And he noticed that Ellie still always referred to Jackson as home, even though they'd been away from it now for almost as many months as they had actually lived there, and had found themselves a cozy new home in the meantime. She got along with everyone here, but hadn't really bonded with anyone to the same degree as she had at home... aside from Sophie. ...Well, Sophie COUNTS, don't she? She's staying here...
It still didn't make up for what Ellie was missing in Jackson. She got bored here sometimes, and he couldn't remember her ever saying she was bored at home, where there was so much to do. Not just in terms of entertainment and people to interact with (though both were considerable)... he figured it had something to do with the lack of purpose that radiated from this... well... hippie commune, was basically what it was. Joel felt it, too. When he was fixing things or building things back home, he felt much more satisfied at the end of the day than when he sat on a pier with a fishing rod or lazed on the beach for hours on end. All play and no work, was what it felt like here, even when he was working. And though he might butt heads with his brother, he respected the way he and Maria were always looking to grow the town and expand to other areas of the state. Joel was curious as to how that new farm was faring... does it have a name yet, other than sister farm?
And he had to laugh at the memory of working at that remote farm for days and days -- more than a week, that one time -- without seeing Ellie at all. How did he stand it? He'd missed the hell out of her, he remembered, but he must not have been too distracted by thoughts of all the harm that could possibly befall her in his absence, because he'd done good work there, helping construct a perimeter wall. But ever since those three days of hell in Sacramento, she may as well have become the air he breathed, because he felt a physical ache in his chest -- like a fist of panic squeezing his lungs, his heart... whenever he lost track of her for more than a moment or two. Unlike Ellie, he didn't suffer from actual panic attacks, but this shit felt like... like it was in the same family. Good thing it was easier for him to keep an eye on her here. She respected his wishes and didn't go Outside without him -- but unlike back home, she could let herself out if she wanted to. (He still wondered if she'd be pissed if she knew that despite her agreeableness on the matter, Joel had talked to every single guard on staff in Jackson and made sure they understood that Ellie was not to be let out without him under any circumstances; if the outcome of her little excursion with Max hadn't been so amazing -- the start of our romance -- he may have killed the hapless guards who had let them pass, so he'd thought it best to clear up any future misunderstandings.)
That fell more along the lines of reasonable concern, though. Curbing the sometimes-reckless whims of a teenager. It wasn't feasible, however, for her to never leave his sight. Trying to reason with himself didn't work. Of course Ellie wasn't lying dead in a ditch somewhere just because she was taking longer than expected to return from the bathroom back at their suite, or from taking the kids in for a snack or something. Logic dictated that she was probably just taking a shit, or had run into someone along the way and gotten chatty. One time, the little girl had tripped on the sidewalk and skinned her knee, so Ellie had comforted the child and brought her to her mother. There was always a reasonable explanation. Panic was such a goddamn extreme overreaction, and it angered him. What the hell was the matter with him? He was tougher than this. He knew he was.
Ellie's bouts with panic were similarly impossible to reason through... but the difference was the severity, and the fact that more often than not, there was a trigger -- a legit trigger, not something as benign as him leaving her sight. They'd identified one back home, a gift from her time spent with that piece of shit David... and those had seemed to subside, after that. Or maybe it was just the passing of time. Now there was a much harder one to avoid: the dark. There was no electricity here, so the night was illuminated by the moon and stars, solar lights (which didn't stay on indefinitely), a big-ass fire, and flashlights. And maybe candles, on occasion. The moonlight that streamed through their window wasn't always bright enough to stave off an attack. Joel would have liked to get her a night light. The flashlight was so damn bright... he thought he'd turned it into a decent night light once by confining it to the bathroom, with the door ajar, but Ellie had scoffed at that and declared it a horrible waste of batteries when all she really needed was him.
It did seem to be true, to some extent; she was fine when they made love in the dark, or when he just held her. The physical proof of his presence must have penetrated her psyche or something, assuring her subconscious that she wasn't actually trapped alone in the dark for days. And he found that he still had a knack for soothing away her nightmares before they really got a firm grip on her. Neither one of them had as many nightmares these days; Joel wondered if the trip home would change that.
No, Joel certainly wasn't in any hurry to leave paradise. He had even entertained fantasies of staying until Ellie turned eighteen. That sure would resolve some shit back home. People could -- and would -- judge him still... he knew that. There might still be some foot-stomping, rock-throwing idiots to deal with. But legally (by Jackson law, at least), they would be two consenting adults, free to do as they pleased. The threat of Ellie being placed in a different home would be null (as would the consequences of whatever Joel might do to anyone who tried to separate them). But he suspected Ellie wouldn't want to wait that long. Tommy and Maria and that unborn baby were her family, and she'd waited her whole life to have a family; she didn't take it for granted. Joel was family, too, of course, but it was understood that wherever they went, they went together, and she would never have to choose between him and anyone else -- she could take him for granted.
And somewhere inside him -- some cavernous, murky place Joel didn't choose to visit if he could help it -- he knew that if something seemed too good to be true, it was usually because it was exactly that. Applying that logic to his relationship with Ellie was just... no, he couldn't go there. But this resort in Monterey? That was easier to contemplate. Just like any other place, things weren't always what they appeared to be on the surface. Some of it was harmless enough... like how they'd been living here for almost two months before learning that the horsekeeper/hunter duo of Mark and Parker were not actually father and son, even though Parker called him 'Pops.' Ellie had innocently asked one day if Mark had chosen the name Parker because it sounded similar to his own, spurring the confession (Joel had wondered, initially, because there was no physical resemblance between the two that he could see... but then, people always assumed he and Ellie were father and daughter despite them looking nothing like one another, so maybe he put too much stock in that).
However, Joel suspected that the place held more sinister secrets than mislabeled relationships. At times, he felt a dark undercurrent here... something in a furtive look or a snippet of cryptic conversation that would stir his gut a little, in a way he couldn't put his finger on. As long as he and Ellie were unaffected by it, though, people's business was their own, of no concern to him. Besides, it could possibly be chalked up to paranoia, couldn't it? Because his overactive gut hadn't registered bad vibes off of anyone here. These were decent folks. Not saints, but nowhere near the dregs of humanity.
Most of the time, Joel was content to abide by what he advised Ellie whenever she fretted too much over the decision: when it was time to leave, they would just know.
~Continue to Chapter 2~