The Last Of Us: Part I - Darker Days (Male Reader)

Chapter 28 - Winter's Wrath: Part 2

A/N: It's a long one. Total of 6,000 words. Enjoy!

Heavy eyelids blinked slowly to life, and subsided breathing laboured into a quickened pace, Joel awoke a day later, reacting fast as he moved too quickly.

He flinched at his wound, cupping a hand where the spike had gone through. Sparing a glance around the room, he found himself in a basement.

Alone.

"Ellie...?" Joel called out, carefully picking himself up, "Y/N...?"

He received nothing but the wind, and his own ragged breathing.

"Ellie!? Y/N!?"

He staggered as he moved, collapsing to the floor as he did, his gaze looking upon his backpack stored in the corner with all his gear. He forced himself to move despite the pain, and grabbed the bag, hefting it on his shoulder, and headed to the stairs.

"Where are you two...?"

Opening the door once he climbed the stairs, Joel steadied himself on the kitchen counter, hand at the freezing table top. Winter. He had been out for weeks, dripping in and out of consciousness.

Except now he was awake.

He made his way to the garage and gingerly reached for the handle, pulling the door up and he was greeted by the snowy landscape and harsh winds that cut bitterly. He needed to find them, and fast.

Pushing through the neighbourhood, it was deathly quiet. Any sign of what had transpired hours before was gone with the bodies, blood and guts washed away by snow and ice, and despite that, Joel felt something in the air.

And it wasn't good.

"Ellie! Y/N!" He shouted out to them, worried in his heart and fire in his voice, he wouldn't forgive himself if anything happened to them.

It was his job to protect them, not the other way around.

"There he is!"

A couple raiders appeared before him, pressed between the street of wrecked vehicles and houses, each brandishing melee weapons and the odd firearms.

"Shit."

Joel equipped his shotgun from his back and went to town, ducking behind a wrecked sedan, he fired at them. Killing one of the raiders, the rest of them squirmed in fear and pushed to attack him.

"Where are they!?" Joel raged, hands rough and voice scratchy as he killed another raider that rushed him, a machete through the man's neck, clean through. "One way or another, you're gonna tell me!"

No matter what he said, the raiders were nothing but loyal, rather focused on killing him than uttering pleas. Joel gunned them down, making quick work of them as he moved on, rushing further and further down the street from where they came.

Ducking into an alleyway between a set of houses, Joel heard the scraping of boots against the iced courtyard ahead of him. Lighting up a smoke bomb, he threw it as far as he could, landing dead centre between three more hostiles. It soon followed with an explosion of smoke that had them coughing up their lungs, stunned and distracted.

Joel barrelled right into them, shotgun in hand he blasted the first and turned his head to pure red mush, before turning to his buddy and firing into his chest. The body went diving into the snow, as the last one recovered and went to hit him with a bat, only for Joel to block it with his shotgun. A kick to his legs, he knocked the man over, and smashed the butt of the gun into his head, again and again, until the man moved no longer...

With the raiders dealt with, Joel hurried into the house across the courtyard and made his way through the house. The front door was blocked off, but a window in the kitchen to his left was smashed open. Vaulting out and into the alleyway, he made it to the end, following his earlier action and climbed over the bins in the way.