Silver ||Joel Miller||

just take me to her

JOEL

Joel had lost count of the days they'd been walking for. This time around he wasn't focused on the end, he was focused on the journey. He wanted to use the time he had with Laura and Ellie to the fullest extent, he now knew it wasn't necessarily a given anymore.

As they walked for days on end, the snow slowly melted around them and had begun to give way to spring. If Ellie wasn't still stuck in what had happened to her at Silver Lake, he might have even said he'd enjoyed this section of their trip. Not that he blamed her, he just didn't know how to help her through it.

He and Laura had tried to bring her back to who she was before, but she was still quiet. Finding food and a game and asking if she wanted to learn how to play guitar hadn't worked. Joking about blowing up rubble hadn't worked. The only thing that seemed to have worked was finding some giraffes that had likely been in the zoo and never really left the city.

But then the reality of their situation had come crashing back down, and he didn't know how to fix it. He'd given Ellie the option to back out, to decide whether she actually wanted to go through with this or not... and of course she decided to continue. She'd said that she'd follow him and Laura wherever they went, but they needed to finish this first.

And now they were still searching for the damned hospital in this fucking city, and his stomach twisted with each step they took. Something bad was going to happen, he could feel it.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" He asked Laura as they walked, watching as Ellie ran ahead of them.

"Yeah, in time. These things... they take time, and people who care to help you through. She's got both of those things, so she'll be alright." Laura replied, her hands gripped the straps of her bag so tight that her knuckles had turned completely white. She was stressed, completely anxious about what they would face once they reached this hospital. He couldn't blame her. "How are you going?"

"Still hurts a bit, but..." he trailed off, touching the side of his stomach that had been wounded. It was mostly healed now, it just felt like he needed a few more days to be completely back to normal. "We should be alright for some... adult activities soon."

"Adult activities?" Laura questioned and he smiled at the flicker of joy in her eyes.

"What? How else did you want me to say it? The kid is just-"

"The kid has heard our adult activities, I'm sure she won't care if you say you'd be ready to fuck me again soon." She cut him off, and Joel just shook his head as he let out a quiet laugh.

"Fine, I should be ready to fuck you again soon," Joel said. He almost immediately regretted it.

"Gross!" Ellie shouted back, turning to face them briefly with a smile on her face. Maybe that was what they should have been doing the entire time to help Ellie-gross her out with their flirting like they used to.

"I thought you were happy we were together?" Laura shouted back, and the kid screwed her face up.

"Well, yeah, but there's a difference between being happy you're no longer awkward-flirting and wanting to hear your parents discuss when they'll be able to fuck again." That was fair... wait, her parents? He opened his mouth and took a breath as if to say something, but Laura's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Don't point it out, you'll scare her back into silence," Laura whispered, so he smiled down at her and nodded. "I, um..."

"What is it?" He pushed her, keeping to the same whisper as her. Her hands shuffled their grip on her bag straps. "What's wrong?"