Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maybe half an hour after they fled the university and the raiders who stabbed Joel and wanted to kill them both, Joel starts to slump sideways in the saddle. Ellie clings to him, desperately trying to keep Joel sat on Callus and not breaking his neck on the road. But to her eternal frustration, Ellie’s small stature means she lacks the strength to keep him on the horse for much longer. As she cries “shit!” over and over, Joel goes limp, his head lolling forwards, and he slips to the side until… he topples out of the saddle.

Joel hits the ground hard, thankfully landing on his shoulder and not his head, but despite the heavy impact (the sound makes Ellie wince, already imagining a broken arm or a dislocated shoulder to deal with), Joel doesn’t even groan. He doesn’t try to move, just lying in a crumpled heap.

“Joel!” she cries, hopping off their horse and dropping to her knees at his side. She rolls Joel onto his back, revealing his face. His skin is so clammy, his eyes shut and his jaw slack, obviously unconscious. Blood already made a mess of his shirt back at the university, but after sitting in the saddle, rushing off without time to bandage the wound, the bloodstain has spread so much that Joel looks like he fucking murdered someone, blood soaked through his shirt and the crotch of his pants, spreading down his legs. No wonder he’s passed out; she isn’t squeamish, but Ellie grimaces, because holy shit, he’s lost so much blood. Ellie shakes his shoulder, trying to wake him up (and suddenly stricken by a memory of Riley’s bloody body on the floor in the mall, freshly Infected, with a bullet hole in her head after the runner that was her best friend tried to bite her and Ellie sobbed as she pulled the trigger and…), but he doesn’t stir. “Joel, you gotta get up.”

Getting frantic, panic beginning to coil around her ribs and fucking squeeze, Ellie shakes him harder. She needs to dig the first aid kit out of Joel’s backpack, but she can’t move. Not when her eyes land on Joel’s chest and she can’t see it rising and falling. Is he still breathing?

“Joel?!” Ellie says, putting her hand on Joel’s neck, trying to feel his pulse. His clammy skin feels like ice beneath her trembling fingers, and Ellie wants to fucking puke. “Joel, wake up right now, you asshole.” She hovers her head over his face, her ear above his mouth, desperate to feel his breaths tickle her cheek. But… he isn’t breathing either.

As she sits there, staring down at Joel (bloodstained and unmoving—a sight that’s surely going to give her even more nightmares), Ellie shivers as though someone doused her in freezing water. Is he dead?

No! He can’t be.

He can’t be…

Her eyes begin to burn, but Ellie will not let herself fucking cry. Even though Joel won’t move and isn’t breathing and has obviously lost a fuck load of blood, Ellie’s brain can’t process what she sees before her. Because if he’s dead… what the fuck is she going to do now?