WHEN JOEL GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE, it was silent. He had missed the end of Ellie and Ralph's movie by a narrow fifteen minutes and was now trying to navigate the inside of this unfamiliar house in the darkness, arms waving out in front of him like a zombie.

Aside from those antics, Joel wasn't feeling very good this afternoon. For starters, what Tommy told him about Ralph threw a total curveball at him. And then, right after that, one of those mini heart attack things crept up on him straight afterwards, adding insult to injury. Then, in the workshop, he had finally gotten to the meat and bone of it all and completely broke down and confessed everything to Tommy- About him and Ralph, about Ellie, about why he wanted Tommy to come with them.

Now, he was left with the dull task of telling Ellie what was going to happen next, shuffling up to the door she was sleeping behind and placing his hand over the handle of it, letting the cold metal press against his warm hand.

'Ellie?' He called out softly, twisting the handle and opening the door, happy to see there was a light on inside the room and that he wasn't disturbing anything by being here. He shuffled into the room and found her sitting by the window, a book opened in her lap and her eyes darting across the page from left to right.

'Is this really all they had to worry about?' She asked him, not even looking up from the page and continuing to read. 'Boys. Movies. Deciding which shirt goes with which skirt. It's bizarre.'

Joel stared at her blankly, not able to give her an answer. Not wanting to give her an answer because that would only drag out this detrimental conversation and keep him here, frozen on the spot, for even longer. 'Listen.'

'Why are you here?'

'I came here to talk to you.'

'No, why are you still here?' Ellie looked up at him with a scrunched-up face. 'If you're gonna ditch me, ditch me.'

'What exactly did you hear?' Joel asked, scratching his thumb against his palm.

'Why don't you ask Lou?' Ellie stared out the window at the snowfall behind the glass, giving up reading or looking at Joel for the calmest activity out of the bunch. 'She heard everything, told us everything as well. "I have to leave her, you have to take her. I can't do it, I can't get him hurt. Can't risk it." You know, I should've listened to her. Everything she said about you, I stood up for you, because I thought...'

'...I made this decision for your own good.' Joel had half the mind to go stomping into the room next door and tear Louise Zhenya a new one for being such a goddamn snitch, but every action had a consequence, he supposed. 'You'll be way better off with Tommy. He knows the area better than I do-'

'Do you give a shit about me or not!?' Ellie got to her feet, slamming the diary down on the windowsill and glaring daggers at him. 'Or do you only care about Ralph? Is that why you're doing this? So you can be stuck with someone who fucking worships you?'

'Of course not!' Joel yelled back at her.

'Then what are you so afraid of? Ralph cares about me. You always copy everything he does, so why can't you copy that? Why can't you care about me!?'

'Ellie, I do care about you! I do!' Joel insisted loudly, holding his hands out in front of himself. 'But... These things, they're difficult. This is for your own good, kid. It's best for you to go with Tommy. You and I both know it. I'm old, Ellie, and I-'

'I'm not her, you know.'

Joel's heart dropped, and Ellie noticed it within a second.

'Maria told me about Sarah and-'

'Don't.' Joel shook his head, eyes glistening with tears as he clenched his fist and ground his teeth together. 'Don't say another word.'

Frowning, Ellie took a step towards him, the old floorboards creaking underneath her as she walked. 'I'm sorry about your daughter, Joel. But I have lost people, too.'

'You have no idea what loss is.'

'Everybody I have cared for has either died or left me. Everybody, fucking except for you guys!' She screamed, stepping forward and shoving him backwards. She backed up instantly as if that wasn't her intention, but her emotions got the best of her and she wasn't able to stop herself from yelling at him. 'So, don't tell me that I'd be safer with anybody else because the truth is, I would just be more scared!'

Joel watched her as she caught her breath, tears staining her cheeks as similar ones were threatening to spill from his eyes. Ellie's face dropped for a moment, her anger all gone, let go, and it was like she was rewatching everything she had just said, refeeling every emotion she had just felt. She wanted to apologize, but Joel spoke before her.

'You're right. You should've listened to Lou. You shouldn't have ever thought for a second that me and you are like her and Ralph. 'Cause, you're right, Ellie. You're not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain't your dad. Now, come dawn, you're going your separate way. You're going the hell away from us.'

The door slammed behind him.

...

WHEN JOEL ENTERED THE BEDROOM, Ralph was already there. He had been expecting it, there was no other place in the house that he could be, but he was dreading it, startled by it, nonetheless.

The door had betrayed Joel because it swung open with a creak and caught Ralph's attention, not allowing him to stand there and plan his next move. Ralph turned around and pursed his lips at Joel. He was sitting on the far side of the bed and facing the wall as if he had been thinking about something until Joel had interrupted, wearing pyjama pants and a tank top that Maria had most likely dropped off.

Maria. Joel wondered if she had said anything to Ralph, seeing as the other side of the Miller family was out to get him for no reason at all. It would've made sense for her to be the one to speak to Ralph because Tommy wouldn't be caught dead in the middle of it and she was the most intimidating against the most intimidating. Joel didn't like to admit that, but only one of them was covered head to toe in the blood of an attempted child murderer.

Speaking of the blood, all of it was gone. Scrubbed off in a shower that probably rounded up to an hour or so. Ralph looked different without it, and it was disturbing to think that Joel had become accustomed to it. Joel had never forgotten what Ralph looked like before it, though. How could he? The guy was fucking gorgeous.

Ralph turned back around when Joel didn't say anything, leaning down and picking up his boots to place them by his nightstand, acting like that was what he had been planning to do ever since Joel entered the room and caught him by surprise.

He had heard the yelling. It was very obvious. He just didn't want to talk about it, and neither did Joel. So, they didn't.

Instead, Joel shuffled to the foot of the bed and sat there, close to Ralph but not next to him, a hand over his jaw like he was processing everything, and he was.

The argument with Ellie, Lou overhearing him and Tommy, Maria, Ralph, everything. Everything about it was too much. Right now, Joel just wanted to sleep, but he knew that his brain wouldn't allow him to, even if he tried his best.

He would end up staring a hole into the ceiling above him, leaving him exhausted for the morning when he had to bid Tommy and Ellie their farewells, when Lou would no doubt call him every name under the sun, when Ralph would probably let her because he had his reasons to be upset as well.

But, just for clarification:

'Are you mad?' Joel croaked, forcing the words out and fighting against the burning in his throat. He hated this feeling. He hated crying. That time in the bathroom, Ralph had made it a little more tolerable with his smiling and his hugging. But now, Ralph wasn't even looking at him. He stared at the wall and pressed his knuckles against his mouth and didn't respond, only sighed through his nose and thought.

'...Ellie is a good kid, Joel.' Ralph said, clicking his tongue and dropping his hand and looking at the old, worn-out floorboards beneath him. 'She wants someone to care about her. She deserves it. She's a good kid.'

'I know, I know she is, but...' It was Joel's turn to cover his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes to rid them of tears and shielding himself from the world for a moment until he lifted his head up. Ralph was looking at him now, waiting with sadness on his face. Joel couldn't tell if it was sympathy or sadness of his own. 'I don't want to risk it, Ralph.'

'You're not risking anything, Joel.' Ralph shook his head, turning around on the edge of the bed to face him. 'If I thought you were risking yourself, I wouldn't have ever let you out of Boston in the first place.'

'I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you.' Joel sighed with a big frown on his face. 'I... I watched you get fucking shot, Ralph. I-I saw you, and you were bleeding, and... And I couldn't even get- I couldn't even kill him. Lou had to. Lou, of all the people in the world... I was so scared. I didn't know what to do, or how to help, I was just hoping that- That the world would do me a solid. It would let one good thing happen to me.'

He let out a shaky breath, placing his right hand onto his jaw and his left on the bedsheets beneath him, fingers trembling.

'None of that was your fault, Joel.' Ralph shook his head again, placing his hand over Joel's. Joel shifted abruptly, his body facing Ralph's, fingers interlocked now. He felt bad about it, but Joel was happy to see that Ralph was equally upset as he was, breaking his frown to smile for a second. 'None of it.'

'I wanna- I just wanna keep you safe, Al.' He said softly, eyebrows pinched together, eyes wide and shiny and sad. 'I don't... You're-You're just so... I wanna keep you safe.'

'I know you do, Joel. I know.' Ralph nodded slowly. He brought his free hand up to rest gently on the right side of Joel's face, cupping his jaw, smoothing his thumb across his cheekbone, guiding him forward.

'I want to keep you safe too.' Ralph assured him quietly, his voice fading more and more as Joel got closer and closer to him. He stopped him, their faces no more than three inches apart, and he waited. Waited for Joel to come to terms with things, waited for him to decide if this was how he wanted this to go. Maybe Ralph was a little hesitant too, or maybe he was just being the smug prick he always was when it came to flirting with Joel.

Joel stared at him for a while, eyes darting around Ralph's face, landing on minuscule things that only Joel would care enough to notice and admire. Dimples, wrinkles, freckles, blemishes, cut-up lips.

It took twenty-three seconds, not that Ralph was counting, for Joel to lean forward and kiss him.

Ralph didn't count the seconds that they kissed for, the seconds they spent wrapping their arms around each other and making a competition out of who could yank the other closest, but he knew that it ended but a short while after it had begun, Joel cutting it short.

He pulled back, but not far back by any means. His breath was still burning hot against Ralph's chin as he drew his eyebrows together, furrowed as he stared at Ralph's lips again, hands gripping either side of the other man's neck loosely. Ralph looked up at him with a similar expression. Patient, worried, maybe even sorry depending on the circumstances, on what was going to happen next.

Slowly, Joel joined his hands together behind the bottom of Ralph's back, not having to worry about pressing on his bullet wound, and pressed his chin into the crook of Ralph's neck. Ralph reciprocated, pressing another kiss to Joel's cheek as he wrapped his arms around his shoulders silently, not saying another word.

Joel hugged Ralph like he was never going to let go, and that was okay because Ralph didn't want him to.

...

NOTES!
im gonna be so fr with u guys i refused to publish this for like the entire day because i am horrific at writing romance im so sorry squad fam but

HEY AT LEAST THEY KISSED!?!? THAT'S WHAT WE'RE ALL HERE FOR RIGHT?!?! WOOP WOOP!!!

i just hope that no certain events happen within the next few chapters that lead them to totally isolate themselves from each other!!! #y2k #girlboss #aesthetic #thekebabificationofjoelmiller #tommymillerletgaypplbehappychallenge

ok time to sleep i am so tired night night u guys
honk shew honk shew honk shew