ellie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
vaccination) wrote2013-09-17 07:59 pm
vaccination) wrote2013-09-17 07:59 pm
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The entire world is silent. Ellie has no idea how long she’s sat there, watching Joel’s chest rise and fall beneath the ratty blanket she’d found, but his sounds of pain and discomfort have stopped. For now.
It’s dark outside, snow beginning to coat the ground. Fucking wonderful. She has no idea how she’ll feed Callus, let alone her and Joel, so she sits on her legs in the basement next to him. Her clothes are stiff and cold, stained with blood. Joel’s blood. She wants to vomit. Her hands are stained, too, fingers still aching from the effort it took not to tremble while hastily stitching up his wound.
She doesn’t know how to sew. She doesn’t know how much blood is in the human body, but she’s pretty sure Joel’s lost most of in the scraps of cloth she’s pressed against him.
God, it couldn’t get any worse if a bloater busted in.
“Please don’t die,” she finds herself whispering aloud. Her voice in the silence startles her. After a moment, she keeps talking. “You’ve gotta stick with me.”
She wants to cry, but instead, she gets angry. She stands and rips off her jacket, her shirt, and bolts up the stairs into the cabin proper. It’s freezing, and she shouldn’t leave Joel alone, and she shouldn’t be stomping around, but fuck it. It’s not fucking fair.
She finds a sweater and a jacket, and angrily whips them around to get off the dust and cobwebs. Just her size. Dressed, she heads back into the basement, feet heavy.
--
Days later, Joel is still alive. He doesn’t wake up, just moans in agony and sweats with a fever that came out of nowhere.
Ellie’s never quite sure if he can hear her, but she keeps talking, if only for her own sake.
“This is pretty gross,” she cringes, pulling back his shirt to inspect her sloppy work. The skin is held together by fishing line she found, but the edges are puckered, an angry red. It’s infected, even though she washed everything with alcohol. It wasn’t enough.
“I’m sorry. I know it hurts, just hang in there, Joel. Please.”
She found a bottle of whiskey while raiding the kitchen, hidden behind chemicals that no longer had their labels. She can use it to disinfect the wound, see if that helps, but instead she tips the bottle to Joel’s lips. It probably takes a lot to get a man Joel’s size drunk, but she figures with the blood loss and weakness, it shouldn’t take more than a few mouthfuls to ease him out of whatever grip of reality he has left. He gets it down with only a few tired coughs. A cold hand wipes the dribbles off his beard, and she wets a cloth to start gingerly cleaning his wound.
“To be honest, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. You’d probably be freaked if you were conscious. You’d think they’d teach first aid in a military school, huh? Well, guess not. People die, less mouths to feed. I should’ve asked Marlene or something. Never thought I’d need it, though.”
She pulls down his shirt, and pulls up the blankets. For the first time since he’s been injured, Joel breathes easily.
“This won’t last us long, but I’m gonna do my best. Just remember, you live, and you owe me a song. No getting out of it by dying, okay?”
Her breath leaves her lungs in a soft cloud in the dark.
--
It’s been five days, and it’s been two since a storm blew in. Ellie’s never been in a snowstorm, and so the cold and the quickly piling snow surprises her. Joel’s still burning up when she presses her palm to his forehead, but his teeth chatter as if he’s outside. Ellie realizes she’s shuddering, too, because this basement with its broken windows isn’t retaining as much heat as it should.
She carefully slips her legs under the blanket. She’s careful not to jostle him, not that it would wake him at this point. She can smell the sweat and the blood mixing with the musty mattress.
It’s quiet save for the chattering of their teeth.
“God,” she sighs, fingers of one hand finding Joel’s sleeve under the blanket, her other hand pressing against her forehead, “You’re so fucking lame if you die from this. You lived through the end of the world. You survived so much shit, so much worse shit than this. C’mon, Joel.”
--
A week in, and she wonders if he’d rather die.
She stares at the photo of Joel and his daughter. She knew what happened. She didn’t know that man in the photo, but she knew that girl was the key to who Joel was. Is. Was before. Might never be.
She told Sam she didn’t believe it, but if Joel died, she wanted to believe he was happy. With Sarah.
“I know you miss her. But I need you here.”
As usual, there’s no reply.
“We could make sure there’s no more Tesses. No more Sams, no more pain from losing someone to the infected. I can’t get there without you.”
--
Every time she leaves to forage for supplies, she holds her breath when she ventures downstairs, afraid of what she’ll find. She hates leaving him, but almost two weeks in and he’s getting weaker and weaker and their food is almost gone. She forces small bites down his throat, and she hates the pained grunts and groans he makes, but she thinks he’s trying. He’s trying to eat, trying to get better, and even if he can’t talk, she has to keep going.
She’s always worried he’s going to die. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she came downstairs and found him dead. Even worse, find that he died alone—so she stays by him as much as she can, sleeping on the dusty, cold concrete.
Sometimes she thinks she hears Sarah’s name under the rasps and pained breaths, maybe Tess’, and she wonders what he sees.
She wonders if she’d see Rylie.
She needs to find them more food. She’ll have to go past the empty cabins, deeper into the woods. She saw rabbits there the other day, romping through the snow as she imagines they did even before the infection. But she’ll do that tomorrow.
For now, she sits next to Joel, pressing a hand to his forehead in some attempt to comfort him from whatever his fevered dreams are throwing at him.
There has to be an end to this, some end that didn't leave her all alone.
It’s dark outside, snow beginning to coat the ground. Fucking wonderful. She has no idea how she’ll feed Callus, let alone her and Joel, so she sits on her legs in the basement next to him. Her clothes are stiff and cold, stained with blood. Joel’s blood. She wants to vomit. Her hands are stained, too, fingers still aching from the effort it took not to tremble while hastily stitching up his wound.
She doesn’t know how to sew. She doesn’t know how much blood is in the human body, but she’s pretty sure Joel’s lost most of in the scraps of cloth she’s pressed against him.
God, it couldn’t get any worse if a bloater busted in.
“Please don’t die,” she finds herself whispering aloud. Her voice in the silence startles her. After a moment, she keeps talking. “You’ve gotta stick with me.”
She wants to cry, but instead, she gets angry. She stands and rips off her jacket, her shirt, and bolts up the stairs into the cabin proper. It’s freezing, and she shouldn’t leave Joel alone, and she shouldn’t be stomping around, but fuck it. It’s not fucking fair.
She finds a sweater and a jacket, and angrily whips them around to get off the dust and cobwebs. Just her size. Dressed, she heads back into the basement, feet heavy.
--
Days later, Joel is still alive. He doesn’t wake up, just moans in agony and sweats with a fever that came out of nowhere.
Ellie’s never quite sure if he can hear her, but she keeps talking, if only for her own sake.
“This is pretty gross,” she cringes, pulling back his shirt to inspect her sloppy work. The skin is held together by fishing line she found, but the edges are puckered, an angry red. It’s infected, even though she washed everything with alcohol. It wasn’t enough.
“I’m sorry. I know it hurts, just hang in there, Joel. Please.”
She found a bottle of whiskey while raiding the kitchen, hidden behind chemicals that no longer had their labels. She can use it to disinfect the wound, see if that helps, but instead she tips the bottle to Joel’s lips. It probably takes a lot to get a man Joel’s size drunk, but she figures with the blood loss and weakness, it shouldn’t take more than a few mouthfuls to ease him out of whatever grip of reality he has left. He gets it down with only a few tired coughs. A cold hand wipes the dribbles off his beard, and she wets a cloth to start gingerly cleaning his wound.
“To be honest, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. You’d probably be freaked if you were conscious. You’d think they’d teach first aid in a military school, huh? Well, guess not. People die, less mouths to feed. I should’ve asked Marlene or something. Never thought I’d need it, though.”
She pulls down his shirt, and pulls up the blankets. For the first time since he’s been injured, Joel breathes easily.
“This won’t last us long, but I’m gonna do my best. Just remember, you live, and you owe me a song. No getting out of it by dying, okay?”
Her breath leaves her lungs in a soft cloud in the dark.
--
It’s been five days, and it’s been two since a storm blew in. Ellie’s never been in a snowstorm, and so the cold and the quickly piling snow surprises her. Joel’s still burning up when she presses her palm to his forehead, but his teeth chatter as if he’s outside. Ellie realizes she’s shuddering, too, because this basement with its broken windows isn’t retaining as much heat as it should.
She carefully slips her legs under the blanket. She’s careful not to jostle him, not that it would wake him at this point. She can smell the sweat and the blood mixing with the musty mattress.
It’s quiet save for the chattering of their teeth.
“God,” she sighs, fingers of one hand finding Joel’s sleeve under the blanket, her other hand pressing against her forehead, “You’re so fucking lame if you die from this. You lived through the end of the world. You survived so much shit, so much worse shit than this. C’mon, Joel.”
--
A week in, and she wonders if he’d rather die.
She stares at the photo of Joel and his daughter. She knew what happened. She didn’t know that man in the photo, but she knew that girl was the key to who Joel was. Is. Was before. Might never be.
She told Sam she didn’t believe it, but if Joel died, she wanted to believe he was happy. With Sarah.
“I know you miss her. But I need you here.”
As usual, there’s no reply.
“We could make sure there’s no more Tesses. No more Sams, no more pain from losing someone to the infected. I can’t get there without you.”
--
Every time she leaves to forage for supplies, she holds her breath when she ventures downstairs, afraid of what she’ll find. She hates leaving him, but almost two weeks in and he’s getting weaker and weaker and their food is almost gone. She forces small bites down his throat, and she hates the pained grunts and groans he makes, but she thinks he’s trying. He’s trying to eat, trying to get better, and even if he can’t talk, she has to keep going.
She’s always worried he’s going to die. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she came downstairs and found him dead. Even worse, find that he died alone—so she stays by him as much as she can, sleeping on the dusty, cold concrete.
Sometimes she thinks she hears Sarah’s name under the rasps and pained breaths, maybe Tess’, and she wonders what he sees.
She wonders if she’d see Rylie.
She needs to find them more food. She’ll have to go past the empty cabins, deeper into the woods. She saw rabbits there the other day, romping through the snow as she imagines they did even before the infection. But she’ll do that tomorrow.
For now, she sits next to Joel, pressing a hand to his forehead in some attempt to comfort him from whatever his fevered dreams are throwing at him.
There has to be an end to this, some end that didn't leave her all alone.