Don't let go: Joel Miller x OC

Where You Belong

TW: Mentions of underage sex with dubious consent!
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No more tears. No more tears! Deep breaths controlled by the heavy rise and fall of her anguished chest. It was all becoming too much, unsure of how she was supposed to continue on when her heart was full of so much debilitating pain, yet she forced herself to not let it be shown any further by a deluge of hot salted tears- she was stronger than this but... how was she meant to raise Lily alone? What on earth was she supposed to tell her little girl who loved her daddy so so much? What if they reach Seattle and it was too late... what if their baby was long gone? Would he still leave her alone? Would she ever be able to recover from both losses?

She wasn't entirely sure for how long she was out in the river... the beguiling spell of nature always had a way of warping time but enough minutes had passed for Tommy to move himself from the old seedy floorboards, resuming his position on the dilapidated couch. His figure sprawled out over the cushions, muted snores puffing through his nostrils. Goddamn it Tommy... A frustrated huff forced from her own nose and her hope that she'd be able to nab the piece of furniture before him, now dashed.

She couldn't help but feel guilty as her focus lingered for a moment more on her brother-in-law. A man that should be at home, tucked up with his own wife and children. A man that shouldn't be traipsing across the country to make an attempt at rectifying the combined fuck ups caused by herself and Joel that lead to their daughter being taken... The quiet days had given her plenty of time to process the events, mulling them over at a painstakingly slow rate, allowing her to come to the conclusion that neither of them were solely to blame. They both fucked up... they both caused this in one way or another. Joel and his violent past, one that had likely caused a number of manhunts to be released in the hopes of tearing him down. Herself? Well, her sheer naïvety in believing that the past stayed in the past. She let her guard down and invited the enemy right into their home... 

She did what she could to shake away the guilt as she moved from the living area and into the singular conjoining bedroom but it remained stuck to her like a thick black tar.

The room wasn't much, picked bare just like the rest of the small cabin. A withered hardwood bed frame and an old stained mattress, no sheets, no duvet. Wallpaper peeled from the walls, revealing blotches of dark mould sprouting from the crumbling plaster beneath. In one way or another, it felt as if the universe was centred around fungus. Fungus for dinner, fungus growing in the trees, fungus sprouting from the walls, fungal diseases spreading like wildfire. Fungus, fungus, fungus... A small snort escaped her nostrils as she swapped her damp tee for a dry one- one of Joel's, her mind drifting back to a conversation they once had many moons ago, right at the very start. Her mind taking her all the way back to when they stood shoulder to shoulder inside that museum,  marvelling at the fossilised remains of creatures that exuded so much power after slaughtering perhaps a dozen infected themselves. Talking about how Mother Nature has a reoccurring habit of making room for a new ruler once she became bored with the old... Fungus was the new designated ruler in all its different species and forms... a ruler that would dominate this modern world for countless years to come... She was only left wondering what would come to take its place once nature again grew jaded... It had to be something worse? Not a lot felt as if it could be worse in all honesty... Perhaps the human race would evolve with a vengeance... Now that would be worse.

Her eyes scanned over the battered old mattress, each stain absorbed making her stomach feel a little queasy. She wasn't fussy... she really wasn't but the idea of resting her face against what could be an amalgamation of various dried bodily fluids from god only knows where and who, didn't sit well.  The blanket she had hoped to hide herself under now being strewn over the spongey rectangle as a protector.