borderline - the last of us.

44. KO.

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE SO PROUD OF ME," Something about that tone, and the mischievous glint in those hazy black eyes, leads Joel to believe he will not be proud of Ralph in the slightest. If anything, he'll be pissed at him. Between his half-full glass being cast aside and onto a random table, him being trailed by the hand, and the animosity of that tipsy proclamation, the older man is staring down at the man in his arms with an expression of warily amused confusion by the time he's led onto the dancefloor.

"What'd you do?" He shrinks back ever so slightly to exaggerate things as Ralph's hands join at the nape of his neck, weathered fingertips tracing little shapes at the bottom of his hairline. Joel's hands instinctively make their way to the younger's narrow hips, holding them loosely as Ralph guides him to sway in time to the music.

He's never been a dancer, but the ambush blindsided him. Sneaky fucker.

"I was talking. To Tommy. Without arguing with him." Ralph explains robotically, eyes wired directly to Joel's, like there's nobody else around them. He smells like beer and that cologne he's constantly stinking of, the wood-y one that makes him reek like a forest all day if he risks more than two sprays of it. He's not drunk, not yet. Drunk Ralph and tipsy Ralph are two different people. Joel knows both of them well by now.

"You're leaving something out." Joel reads him like an open book, eyes flitting around the crowded church hall in sight of his younger brother, who is nowhere to be found. Until he finds Tommy talking to his friends. Very visibly drunk out of his mind. Joel laughs, at the sight and at the implication. "Oh, you mean that Tommy? The red-faced one who can't stand up straight? I'm sure you had a real meaningful talk, yeah."

"Okay, he was not that bad when I sunk my teeth into him," Ralph giggles, turning his head to look over his own shoulder at the shit-faced Miller brother. After another round of laughter at his brother-in-law, which he's never one to pass up, he turns back to his husband and puckers up his lips as if he's nervous to let the info he's sitting on fly. "I got your patrol shifted tomorrow. You're not going with Dina anymore."

"Yeah?" Joel furrows his brows.

"I'm going." Ralph smiles.

"So... You got my brother blackout drunk and managed to make him break his own rule? A rule that was put in place because of you?" Joel raises his eyebrows, scoffing in what must be impress. It looks like he's impressed, and he wishes he never let that show, because Ralph's grinning wide as fuck, all proud of himself following the unnecessary ego boost. "You're a shady fucker."

"I'm your shady fucker," Ralph bats his eyelashes comedically, but Joel has to clench his jaw and sigh through his nose. Those fucking eyes. "And, hey, the 'couples don't patrol together' rule was your fault, not mine."

"A collective fault." The Texan shrugs nonchalantly.

"No." The Korean shakes his head with a knowing, sinfully smug smile. "No, it was your fault. That condom fell out of your pocket in front of Jesse and the kid was mortified. Of course, he went running to Tommy."

Joel looks around with a sweep of his eyes to see if anybody overheard that, and lowers his voice a little. "What, so I'll put it in a different pocket tomorrow?"

Ralph's cheeks flush a little, and he pats Joel on the bicep like one would a pal that they're proud of. "You're a quick learner."

Joel's hum of amusement is pressed against Ralph's own lips chastely, their lips meeting for no longer than five seconds of a stolen moment, of a jarring drop in their usually raised guards.