An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
post-episode 8 hurt/comfort with a dash of angst
Ellie & Joel One-Shot
When she had skipped all her meals, he decided that today - day three, night four - if she didn’t eat by dinner, he would do more than just say, “okay…we’ll give it another go tomorrow.” Her body couldn’t just wait until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
And that reality became scarily apparent to Joel not too far into the morning.
Finish reading it below the cut or on Ao3! but don't forget to drop a comment wherever you read :)
Push Through It:
The dim room was permeated with the continuous sound of dripping water. A slow, measured rhythm was created as droplets fell and splattered against an old, beaten-up plastic bucket situated in a corner. The cadence of the dripping was unexpectedly soothing, a stark contrast to the room's somber ambiance. Like the snow melting away outside, the palpable tension that had gripped them both for days seemed to be slowly ebbing away.
But, it sure was slow.
Ellie, though her sleep was restless and interspersed with occasional twitches or murmurs, seemed to be sleeping longer today - which seemed like progress. With the quiet of the morning enveloping him, Joel busied himself with an old piece of wood, whittling into it, allowing the shavings to spiral and tumble listlessly onto his lap. The old leather recliner he was seated in creaked subtly under his weight; it matched the sofa on which Ellie lay. He tried to distract himself with the carving, but his thoughts kept wandering back to her. The sight of her, injured and bloodied outside that blazing restaurant was still vivid in his mind; and he tried not to stare, but ever since finding her the need to check she was with him was compulsive. His eyes would dart to her, always just a few feet away from him, confined to this small living space, but no matter how many times he checked, his brain worried that one time he would look up and find an empty couch - just like how he once looked up and found an empty basement, his Ellie gone.
But of course, this house wasn’t the basement, this living room wasn’t the basement. Ellie was always in eye line. He had got her back, safe, maybe not sound.
The couch wasn’t much of a bed for her, but the mattresses in the two bedrooms were black with mold and the living room furniture had been spared the same fate. He had wished he could give her something better, but after literally stumbling into this house on the far side of the neighborhood- the furthest away from the resort and even further than the one Ellie had found for them- Joel had no energy to relocate when he came to find the state of the rooms. And apart from the unusable bedrooms, the rest of the place wasn’t half bad. The kitchen even blessed them with some supplies and some food - three cans of beans, one can of minestrone soup, a bag of brown rice, and a family-size can of pumpkin puree.
However, they had not made much of a dent in any of it. Both their appetites had been pretty non-existent since he was stabbed and she was .. well… traumatized.
Ellie had remained closed-lipped about what went down while she was away from him. He knew it had to do with cannibals - he saw the bodies hanging, blood draining, ready to be parred into filets - but Joel also knew there was more to it than just that, more that had left her so anxious that her desire for food was stripped away. She endured something more that left her constantly nauseous, struggling to keep anything down once she forced it in. It had been days since finding her and he was sure her caloric intake was totaling maybe two hundred- if that.
Truthfully though, he wasn’t doing much better. Now not riding on the adrenaline of finding her, the pain outputting from his side was excruciating, and while he could push through the searing ache to be steady as he looked after her, Joel couldn’t will his body to ignore his own nausea tied to it all. Still, he was fairing better than her, his body having much more excess to burn through while he purposefully steered away from food.
It was easy to tell she was more fragile than before when they were last fully together - at the University - but it was hard to tell if it was just the poor nutrition or a mix of a myriad of other mental and physical things compounding together. She tried to keep them hidden, but Joel had gotten glimpses of the bruises plastering several areas of her body while they held up here - her shirt riding up her midriff when she withered around in her sleep on the couch, legs exposed when she switched into a pair of grey shorts when they washed her jeans, neck on full display when she leaned her head back over the sink for Joel to wash the carnage from her hair. He never said anything, but he knew each mark probably was weighing on her psyche more than its physical manifestation.
Ellie used to be a bull in a china shop, but now she seemed like the porcelain on the verge of breaking.
He wanted to push her recovery along, get her to eat more, and build up her strength, but he feared it would break her. The risk of overwhelming her was a gamble Joel was hesitant to take. He didn’t want to be responsible for making her worse.
But that was also a two-way street. He couldn’t let her get worse. So, yesterday, when she had skipped all her meals, he decided that today - day three, night four - if she didn’t eat by dinner, he would do more than just say, “okay…we’ll give it another go tomorrow.”
Her body couldn’t just wait until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
And that reality became scarily apparent to Joel not too far into the morning.
She awoke with a sharp intake of breath, a clear indication of a turbulent dream. Joel's gaze met hers from where he sat, but he remained still, not going to soothe her, remembering her dislike for being crowded - got an angry push out of it the other day from just sitting too close to her on the couch after the same situation.
He raised an eyebrow, a silent inquiry about her well-being. She nodded slightly, her head brushing against the worn leather of the couch, before slowly sitting up.
For several minutes, she remained upright, her gaze distant as she processed the lingering fragments of her dream. Joel observed her carefully, noting the worsening bruises on her hairline and jaw, now a deeper shade of purple. Dark circles under her eyes stood out starkly against her pale skin. He hoped today would be the last day she awoke worse than when he had put her to bed, but Joel also knew the bruises would just turn another ugly shade of some other color as they healed, and every day he had to be confronted with them would be worse than the last.
It pained him deeply.
“Nee- gonna go pee,” Ellie mumbled while rising to stand, a minuscule sway hitting her body as she came vertical.
Setting his carving and knife on the armrest, Joel eased out of the recliner. “Yeah, no problem,” he said gently, almost sweetly, ready to help her. Tenderness seemed to flow out of him now, rugged demeanor gone, like he was making up lost time for not being so gentle over the last several months.
“I’m not a baby, I can go pee by myself.” She asserted, waving him off as she turned toward the sliding door that led to the backyard.
He had been escorting her out there each bathroom break, hovering within modesty while she did her business before leading them both back inside. The first night and morning it was a necessity. She was dizzy from hitting her head and her body ached so severely from being thrown around that she barely could move without toppling over. He held her upright as they made it outside and propped her up against the house, leaving an arm outstretched on the edge of her shoulder to keep her from careening into the ground, while he diverted his eyes and hummed to make her embarrassment a little less acute. The following days were better, transitioning from less and less aid with each go, but her request for no support was a bit jarring, especially since she still looked so unsteady on her feet.
“You sure?”
“Yeah dude,” she mumbled as she hobbled away, body still rigid with lingering pain. She had been sleeping with her shoes on - ready if they needed to run - and they thudded softly as they slid across the cold hardwood, barely able to lift them as she walked.
The sight didn’t inspire any confidence in her abilities, and with a mix of concern and reluctance, Joel instinctively moved forward, trailing her.
“Why don’t I-“
“I can do it, ” Ellie snapped, cutting him off.
Her hands came to the handle of the slider and grasped it firmly, tugging it open hard with a clear grimace, her whole body jerking to the side with the effort. Joel swore he saw her eyes roll with a wave of dizziness at just the simple effort, but he held his tongue. He wasn’t going to fight her.
“I’ll be back in like a second.” She told him as she crossed outside, cold air swarming in as she left the glass door open in her wake.
Joel wrung his hands nervously as he stood alone in the living room, weight shifting from one foot to the other, every fiber of his being screaming at him to follow her - make sure she was safe.
One second turned two, then three, and then it was a minute turning two and then three.
A pit of dread settled in his stomach. His hands were going sweaty with worry. With a deep sigh, he made his way across the room and to the door, hoping to quell his anxieties with a simple check.
He would just get a quick eye on her- that was it - keep his distance inside, poke his head through, and go back to his place in the middle of the living room. She wanted space, so he would try to give her it as much as his anxious heart could bear.
But, a quick peak quickly turned to Joel bursting through the door with a surge of adrenaline, eyes quickly locating her body flat in the snow.
His feet hastily crunched through white powder, boots sinking in and slowing him down, tripping over his own feet as he flung himself forward. He didn’t shout for her, but his heart screamed to reach her. She was tantalizingly close, maybe fifty feet. She had tried to take a shortcut, moving diagonally from the corner of the house probably in an effort to save time, but it had done just the opposite, too much for her. She should have just trailed the edge of the house, or relieved herself on the patio, where the walk was mere steps and the snow wasn’t so deep.
His heart thumped loudly inside his chest with each rushed step, fear filling every part of him. Joel quite literally dropped to his knees when he reached her, making his face twist in pain with the jerk, body still in no state to be moving like that, in a frantic panicky dash.
“Ellie?” He choked out, her name getting caught in his throat as his hand shakily hovered over her form, momentarily petrified with a fear that she was suddenly dead.
An aneurism, a blood clot, internal bleeding…what if…so many things had the possibility of tearing her away from him in an instant. Yet, thankfully, the soft rise and fall of her body were contradictory to his dark intrusive thoughts. She was very much still alive.
She was lying on her side, half her face obscured by the snow, the other half covered by the loose bits of her brown hair. She had on his old weathered coat - barely had taken it off since he had given it to her - and it somehow just made her look smaller against the white ground.
Swallowing hard, he lowered his head closer to hers. With trembling fingers, he brushed her hair aside.
“..hey, baby girl, Ellie?” he murmured, his hand moving from her face to rest on her shoulder, hoping for some sign of something. But as seconds passed in silence, with her eyes remaining shut, a note of desperation crept into his voice. "Don't do this, kiddo…” he whispered, heart heavy.
Then, without warning, her eyes snapped open. They darted around, taking a moment to register her surroundings. As her gaze slid leftward, she caught sight of Joel's hand on her shoulder, and for an instant, a flicker of disdain passed over her eyes. That fleeting emotion was all Joel needed to see, was enough to know that she was okay, or at least as okay as before she came out here.
He removed his hand immediately, and with a sigh of relief, he sat back a bit, letting his body decompress from the sudden adrenaline boost.
“Why don’t we…ah get ya inside, okay?” Joel suggested gently, softly, suppressing a grimace as he worked his way to standing, knees cracking, pain in his side flaring.
Ellie let an inadvertent whine as she pushed herself to sitting, snow still stuck to her face and half her body. She took a second to wipe it away from her cheek with her sleeve as Joel came around behind her.
“I’m just gonna -“ he began to prompt as his hands snaked under armpits and hoisted her up quickly. The action should have hurt his body more, but Ellie felt far lighter than what was normal, far lighter than any weight that would cause Joel considerable strain. When she was straight he held his hand gently in between her shoulder blades, watching her sway for a second before she eventually steadied herself.
He would have let her get her bearings longer, but Ellie had other plans, already taking a shaky, step forward and back to the house.
He gently wiped some lingering snow off her back as he followed behind her, arms at the ready in case she suddenly pitched back or dropped down, ready to catch her. With the way she looked, he had no faith it wouldn’t happen again.
A memory of baby Sarah flashed in his head then, quick but poignant- walking behind her in the backyard, arms hovering around her as she tried taking quick steps, just learning that you can move your feet more than one long step at a time. Toddling along, he watched nervously, just as he did with Ellie now, although far different circumstances.
Once inside, Ellie made a beeline for the couch, sinking into it as if trying to disappear. Joel quickly slid the door closed behind them, pausing for a moment to observe her. She sat there, lost in a distant gaze, reminiscent of her posture from earlier that morning, eyes vacant, staring somewhere far off, silent.
He’s noticed she goes this way sometimes now, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying down, but always lights on, nobody home. Initially, he’d assumed it was a physical pain that caused these episodes.but now, living with day three of this, he knows it's beyond that. Still, every time she goes blank, and especially when it lasts several minutes, it is no less disconcerting than the first time it happened days ago:
“Ellie, hey, you’re okay..just..listen to me Ellie, what hurts baby?…Somethin’ hurtin’?… El can you focus on me for a sec? Please…come’on…say somethin’ kiddo…”
Joel was getting better about not outwardly panicking about it though. Wiping his sweaty palms on his thighs he moved over to her, sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch, the old wood creaking under the weight. Carefully, he nudged her knees apart, positioning himself between her and the couch, edging closer than she probably wanted. He paused, allowing her a moment to register his proximity, then gently tilted his head, attempting to catch her faraway gaze.
“Is it your head, again?” he inquired softly, lowering his voice just in case she had gone so far off that she hadn’t realized how close he was.
Her eyes darted down, followed by a shallow tilt of her head in the same direction.
She was still with him, just quiet.
Joel delicately lifted her chin with the tip of his pointer finger, seeking her gaze. However, Ellie deliberately averted her eyes, casting them to the side instead.
“How many fingers?” Joel questioned, putting one solitary finger up to her face.
“I’m not blind dumbass.” she snapped, finally locking eyes with him, her irritation evident.
“Can you follow my finger then?” He pressed.
Begrudgingly, Ellie complied as Joel moved his finger up down, and side to side. Her pupils looked normal, and her reaction time was fine. Joel's heart settled a bit, knowing she didn't show signs of severe head injury like he had feared when discovering her face-down in the snow
“Nothin’ hurting more than yesterday?” he probed gently.
With a pout, she shook her head.
Joel's internal checklist moved swiftly: likely no internal bleeding or clots. Which really only left one thing.
“Did you just get dizzy? Pass out?”
Ellie bit her lip and moved her eyes away from him again, nodding her head. She looked annoyed, but not exactly at Joel, more at herself. Tears pricked at her waterline, and Joel tactfully looked away. No sense in embarrassing her about it. She was clearly struggling with not being as ambulatory or independent as she normally was.
Joel lowered his head and nodded, knowing he couldn’t hold off pushing her any longer.
Drawing a deep, steadying breath, his voice was firm: “You’re eating today.”
His words weren’t posed as a question or a suggestion; they were an unequivocal directive. Ellie's body needed food, desperately needed energy - he had to get fuel into her. Joel would be pushy and mean about it if it came to it, would fight her if it meant not letting her body wither away.
Ellie's lips parted, as if readying to protest, but instead, they pressed shut again.
“You ain’t going to get any better without anything in ya,” he said as he stood, crossing over to the kitchen.
“I know,” Ellie whispered, her voice heavy with resignation, chin to chest as she picked at her cuticles in her lap, trying to push down overwhelming personal frustration.
“Beans or soup?” Joel called over his shoulder.
“Beans,” Ellie grumbled, flopping backward on the couch, head cast back to look up at the ceiling. She blinked away her tears.
“Alrighty then,” Joel said under his breath, taking the can of beans in his hands and spinning it around absently as he gathered the rest of the cooking supplies.
She was going to eat.
----
Ellie was not eating.
Her fingers drummed against the worn-out wooden table, the soft rhythmic beat echoing her internal turmoil. The food in front of her was just barely releasing wisps of steam, but her appetite was nowhere in sight. Each whorl of vapor felt like a taunt, challenging her. She continued to stare at it, the contents threatening to go cold. She had dragged herself to the kitchen table almost ten minutes ago, five minutes after Joel had set it down for her, and she still couldn’t even bring herself to touch the spoon.
"Ellie," he said, his voice carrying the deep richness of concern. "You can't keep doing this.” Joel leaned over, continuing to sternly implore, ”You need to eat it.”
His arm came from over behind her shoulder to mix the contents of the bowl, hoping that would coax her into taking some of it in before settling back behind her, hovering.
The thought of eating felt utterly disgusting, and the thought of throwing it all back up - a very plausible future - was even more disgusting.
“It’s going to come right back up,” she huffed as her hand stilled with a soft slap to the table. Her mind wandered back to the first bowls of rice, the spoonfuls of pumpkin, the water, and the bile that all had forcefully been expelled from her body in the days before. She feared it was just going to be the same - gut painfully clenching up until nothing was left.
“You won’t know that till it goes down, ” Joel quipped back, without much empathy.
A long-dormant part of him was coming back alive, old paternal authority reigniting deep in his soul. He would wait hours for her to take a bite, stand behind her with his hands on hips all day if he had to.
He used to wear Sarah out the same way, wait all night long until she finally ate three tiny pieces of broccoli - and that was during far less dire times.
“Start with a bite.”
“Joel.”
“It’s getting cold, come ‘on,” he pushed, his tone soft yet firm as his hands settled onto the back of her chair, urging her to eat.
Ellie exhaled deeply, allowing her head to drop onto the table in a dramatic fashion, her ponytail brushing perilously close to the bowl's contents.
Joel let out a weary sigh. He remembered these battles, from another life lived, and if it wasn’t so important he stay here with Ellie in the present, he probably would let his mind slip back there, indulge in the melancholy memories.
“Want me to feed you?” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Fuck off dude,” Ellie shot back. Her retort was slightly muffled, the words somewhat stifled by the table beneath her cheek.
“Then have at it,” he replied, giving her arm a little pat as he leaned over again to reposition the bowl more out of the way of her head.
Ellie reluctantly pushed herself up, her movement emphasized by an exaggerated groan that rippled from her chest. The drama of it all would make Joel feel more relaxed - that was the Ellie he knew - if it wasn’t for the fact that she still was refusing to even attempt to stomach the food.
“You haven’t eaten enough since we got here and your body can’t heal without it,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she murmured with an almost childlike defiance.
“Then just eat,” he pushed again, trying to be firm but not harsh.
There was a moment of silence as Ellie dragged in an audible breath.
“Then.. why don’t - you….you’re calling a cup black Joel.."
The words tumbled out of her in a mumble, more quietly than she had been in the rest of the conversation, trying to deflect but not doing it with much gumption.
Joel almost didn’t understand it at first, brow furrowing in confusion before quickly raising in realization.
"Pot calling the kettle black…not cup," he gently corrected, settling into a seat across from her at the rickety old table. He would wait with her to eat, sure, but his body was getting awfully tired of standing for so long.
"Oh..well.. whatever…you need food too," she said, sliding the bowl over the cracked wood top to him.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, truly taking in her face - he could clearly see the spark of her old self, stubborn and fiery, shining through her eyes.
He dragged in his own long breath.
"I ain’t…” he began, ready to tell her that his stomach literally couldn’t stomach it, but the hypocrisy was almost blindingly glaring. He knew she was feeling the same way, a mental wound driving her issues rather than a physical one.
After a heavy pause and a slow nod, Joel conceded.
“Bite for bite then.”
Despite his throat feeling tight, and his stomach rolling, he grabbed the spoon and took a bite of the canned beans he had warmed for her. He would swallow down the almost overwhelming urge to vomit if it meant she would try to do the same.
Pushing the bowl back to her, he met her gaze, determination clear in his eyes. He held out the spoon to her.
”Your turn."
Ellie reluctantly took the spoon from him, her hands trembling slightly as she scooped up a small spoonful of beans. She brought it to her mouth and hesitated, her gaze fixed on Joel as if seeking reassurance.
"You can do it," he encouraged softly, his own discomfort temporarily set aside to focus on her. He watched as she finally took the bite, her face contorting briefly before she managed to swallow it. The soft beans might as well have gone down like a mouth of pebbles, and she could already feel them hanging heavy in her gut.
Did my workout this morning, and my shoulder was hurting a bit, but I pushed through it. I’m not having as much pain after doing squats either, so that’s a plus.
I felt super sick to my stomach after my workout though, so I’m not sure what happened there.
I’ve gone slightly over my calorie intake yesterday and today. It’s a work in progress. And I need help trying to meet my water goals.
What do you guys do to remind yourselves to stay hydrated??
Its the first day of classes, and Im all nerved up. Going as my true self isn't the easiest thing to do, but I will push through. Ive been stuck thinking this for weeks. I know everything will turn out finest kind. I just gotta look as friendly and mean as possible. Its time to shine!
