borderline - the last of us.

29. men.

'RALPH! Ralph, wake up. Wake the fuck up, man! Wake up!' Was not the most pleasant way to be woken up the next morning. Ellie's yelling followed by the shaking of his shoulders had certainly set him in a bad mood for the day ahead, and he placed his hands over the younger girls' to pry them from his jacket. The second he released her, she was pressing his pistol into his arms and not sparing any seconds to give context.

She rose to her feet quickly and unsheathed a knife from a workbench, walking over to Joel's sleeping self and clenching his limp fists around it. Ralph blinked a couple times, worried about the two girls, and then found Lou in the corner, reloading Joel's rifle and the other one she had "found" yesterday.

Obviously, Ralph had a shit ton of questions.

'Ralph, you need to keep him safe.' Ellie ordered frantically, pointing down at Joel as she stood by his side. 'There are- There are men coming, okay? We're gonna lead them away from you guys, but if anyone makes it down here, you fucking kill them, you got it?'

'Men? What men?' Ralph scrunched his nose, pressing his palm to the floor to support himself as he got to his feet. Ellie didn't stand still, not even answering him, zipping around the basement on the tips of her toes. In a short span of time, confusion turned to irritation, and Ralph raised his voice. 'What the fuck? You two told me that you didn't see anyone, why the fuck would you lie about that!?'

'I don't know, okay!' Ellie replied hurriedly, throwing her hands up in surrender for a brief second and then ducking down to tug her backpack over her shoulders. Ralph's yelling wasn't helping either of them to calm down, especially not when he started naming and shaming the two of them individually. Then, the yelling died down, and Ralph thought for a moment before making a beeline for the stairs. Ellie watched him with wide eyes. 'Where are you going?'

'To go kill those men.' He replied through gritted teeth, cocking his pistol back and planting his feet on the old, wooden boards. He got about four steps before a different gun clicked behind him.

'Stay here.' Lou demanded, and he turned around to find her aiming the rifle right at his chest. She was bluffing. He knew she was. She knew she was. But, he appreciated the hustle. There was still no way in hell he was giving in that easily, though. He spun back around and kept walking.

Until a gunshot rang out, accompanied by the sound of wood splintering, and the bottom step was split right down the middle.

'Stay. Here.'

...

RALPH REALLY WISHED HE HADN'T LISTENED. Like, really wished. But, it was either that or Lou fired that gun again and drew those men to their exact location, so, he listened. He was regretting it a shit tonne, though. Especially after those gunshots he had heard outside, off in the distance. He prayed to God that Lou and Ellie had actually listened during all of those aiming lessons, hoped that they were the ones firing the bullets instead of the bullets being fired at them.

Ralph was pacing with a fingernail between his teeth, marching back and forth at Joel's bedside with his pistol in his hand and a pool of anxious vomit burning the bottom of his throat. He was still pretty sleep-deprived, though he certainly wasn't as delirious as he had been the past few days. Joel was still lying there, heavy eyes watching as he did laps around nothing.

'I shouldn't have let them go.' He said finally, shaking his head. 'Shouldn't have let them go. Fuck sake, man, what the fuck was I thinking!? They're gonna get themselves fucking killed, dude, they're gonna die out there!'