( gif by ; -tzarrion )

━ CHAPTER TWELVE ...

'  kin '

THREE MONTHS LATER

Somewhere located in an icy, snow covered environment a small warm cottage stood, as wood was seen outside of it in piles, and the sound of creaking is heard from the food hanging up outside.

Footsteps approaching the same cottage was heard, as a male covered in fur and warm clothes carried three dead rabbits in his hand, while the other held weapons from his hunt.

He walks up to the cottage door, making sure to hang up the food outside on the small house, before he tapped his feet to get rid of the snow on them.

He opened the door to inside, closing it behind him as he was met with the warm air inside and turned around to see a woman in a rocking chair, sitting peacefully.

Until her eyes move to beside her, blinking slowly and directs them back to the man in front of her. The male places his bow down on the small table, taking off his gloves and removed his coats hoodie, before he took that off as well.

"And the gun."

A familiar deep, rough voice speaks from across the room, and it caused the male to turn their direction, "Who the hell are you?"

Joel came out from behind the pillair, in different clothes because of the cold and held up a gun, "Just someone passin' through." He comes to stand in between the two, "Take the gun out, two fingers only, put it outta reach."

The male with the hat on his head does what Joel said, grabbing the gun with two fingers slowly, holding it up with a hinted look and placed it on another table beside him. He turns to his partner in the chair, "Why didn't you shoot him?"

"The gun's all the way over there." She motions her head to way over behind Joel, and looks back at her husband, "He didn't hurt me, by the way."

"Yeah, I got eyes." He grumbles to her, as he walks a few steps forward and spots the map on the table, with three empty bowls of soup. He looks at his wife incredulously, "You made him soup?"

She shrugs a little bit, an innocent expression on her face while he sat down in the chair, "Yeah, I did. It's cold out."

"I'm lookin' for my brother." Joel tells the male with the cap on, gun still aimed in case even though they didn't seem like threats.

He scoffs at the words, taking his hat off and lifts his nose at Joel, "Well, I ain't see him."

"I haven't told you what he look like." Joel shakes his head, frowning at the male.

He raises his eyebrows at Joel, "He look anything like you?"

"A bit." Joel confirmed casually.

"Then I ain't see him."

"He's got two girls with him." Florence jumps into the conversation, head turned the way where those girls were hiding.

Joel snaps his head at her hearing this, and at the same time another familiar calls down to Joel, "Can we come down?"

"No. Girls!" Joel tried to stop the two sisters from coming down, as the two of them appeared from down the stairs and the couple share a chuckle seeing this.

(Y/N) appeared beside Joel with different clothes on also, as she held a bow and pointed it at the couple in warning. Her (H/C) hair had grown a bit also, as it reached past her shoulders now. Ellie also came up beside her sister, holding the gun and pointed it at the couple.

"What did I just say?" Joel scolded the two next to him, giving them a hard stare as (Y/N) shrugged her shoulder, smirking a little at him.

Ellie sighed exasperated, and turned to briefly look at him, "Joel, come on. They're like, a thousand."

"Who's these little psychos?" Marlon, who was still in the chair queried as he points to the sisters.

"Never mind them." Joel grumbles, giving another scolding look to the oldest before walking up to the map on the table, "I need you to tell us where we are."

"If you got a map, why you lost?" Marlon questioned confused.

"Must've missed all the streets signs in the enormous fucking forest." Ellie snapped with annoyance, and (Y/N) bumped her sisters shoulder, making Ellie give her a 'what' look, and she gave her a wide one back.

"Ho-ly." Marlon commented with bafflement, and his partner chuckled asmused, continuing rocking in the chair a little.

"We're somewhere here." Joel starts talking again, giving Ellie a incredulously stare also, before pointing to the map, "Exactly where? And your answer better be the same as your wife's."

The male in the chair looks between his wife, and Joel, "Did you tell him the truth?"

"Yeah." Florence replies shortly, and places her hands on either side of the chair she was rocking in.

"Are you tellin' me the truth?" Her husband asked cautiously.

"Yeah."

Marlon trusted her word, before glancing at the sisters and then Joel, before leaning forward to the map, and pointed where they were.

(Y/N) bites her bottom lip nervously, turning her head to look at Joel who was already staring with a frown, and placed his gun in the holster on his belt.

"Well, you found a great place to hide, I guess." He says this towards the couple, before taking a seat on the couch with a hand on his face, and (Y/N) sat down next to him, their knees touching while Ellie sat on her thigh.

"Hide?" The homeowner chuckles, shaking his head at Joel, "Came here before you were born, sonny. Get the hell away from everybody."

"I didn't want to." His wife pipes up, looking at the trio listening on the couch.

"Eh." Her husband brushes her comment off, before directing his attention back to Joel, "Listen, I didn't mean to upset you about your brother, but if you've come this far, then you know what's out there. You seen Cody?"

(Y/N) humms at his question, pushing some of her hair back as she nods at him, "Yeah, got close enough. It's crawling with infected."

"Yeah, Laramie and Wind River Reservation." Marlon agreed with her statement, "Anywhere people used to be, you can't go there no more."

"So you haven't heard the name Tommy?" Joel asked Marlon hopefully, having a feeling this was a dead trail they were following.

"Nope." Marlon confirmed with a small frown.

"What about the Fireflies?" Ellie now jumped into the conversation, and fiddled with her sisters bracelets as she asked the couple.

"We get those in the summer." Florence told them bluntly, not understanding what Ellie actually meant.

"Not the bugs, the people." Ellie corrents her with a heavy sigh, giving the woman a weird look.

"There are Firefly people?" She questioned innocently, raising a brow at the younger girl, while Marlon laughs at his wifes words, which caused her laughter to start also.

(Y/N) smiles fondly to herself hearing this, wishing someday to have something like they had, as her eyes immediately moved to Joel at that thought. She broke out of her inner thoughts when he started talking.

"You got any advice on the best way west?" Joel questioned Marlon, after he rolled his eyes at their silly laughter.

"Yeah." Marlon trails off as he leans forward, making sure his words would stick, "Go east. But you never go past the river here." He points to the river on the map, and took a glance at the sisters, "Ever."

"What's past the river?" Ellie asked cautiously, while gripping her sisters wrist even more in her hands.

"Death." Florence simply sums up, making the siblings head turn quickly her way, "We never seen who's out there, but we see the bodies they leave behind. Some infected, some not. If your brothers west of the river, he's gone."

(Y/N) felt her stomach churn at her words, feeling even more upset for Joel as she sees the distant look in his eyes, his brain processing the information.

Ellie, who didn't see her sisters and Joel's expressions declared confidently, "You're not gonna scare us."

"Scared him." Florence knowingly tells her, head motioning in the quiet Joel's direction.

Marlon laughs once more at his wife, while Joel swallows harshly and ignored the concerned look from (Y/N), as he collects the map in his hands, which indicated they were leaving.

...

Joel opened the front door to the cottage, as he had his backpack and gun on, while the two sisters followed him out with their stuff on.

(Y/N) pulled the beanie on top of her head on tighter, which was actually Joel's, and shivered as the cold air had hit her as they walk out.

"You don't seriously believe them." Ellie speaks up to the male, the girl grabbing one of the rabbits hanging on the wall.

"They've lived here a long time." Joel reminded the young girl, before spotting what she was doing with the animal, "Put that back."

"They don't know anything." Ellie grumbled with a scoff, as she follow her sister up the small hill and throws the rabbit over her shoulder, "Never heard of the Fireflies."

(Y/N) looked up from the snow covered ground, and frowned worriedly as she saw Joel pausing his steps, and leant his hand on the pillar of the fence around the cottage.

However, her eyes went a bit wide as she realised he was going to have a panic attack, and rushes up next to him, "Joel, Joel, breathe, you're okay." She smoothed him frantically, pressing her gloved hand against his cheek which has him looking at her, his fast breathing easing a little bit.

"Holy shit, is he dying?" Ellie exclaimed with big eyes, as she watched her sister try and assure the panicked Joel, "Are you okay? Because just a reminder that if you're dead, we're fucked."

"Joel, don't listen to her. You're okay, just breathe in and out." (Y/N) demonstrated the last words, as she gently rubbed her thumb over his cheek and his breathing finally steadied, while staring into her (E/C) worried gaze.

"I'm fine, It's just the..." Joel trailed off out of breath, as he moved her hand off his face, and swallowed hard, "cold air all of a sudden."

(Y/N)'s shoulders slumped at his excuse, before stepping back from him as she felt embarrassed for touching him suddenly like that, "Uh, well, all right.." She mutters to herself, giving him a soft frown before holding out her hand for Ellie to take, and they started to walk out of the cottage front yard.

"So let's go and find Tommy, and the Fireflies." Ellie spoke up again once the situation was ended, and she was walking up the snow with (Y/N), and almost tripped over if it wasn't for her sister, "It's gonna be easy. All we have to do is cross the River of Death."

Joel sighs shakily to himself, his eyes finding (Y/N)'s figure as he felt slightly bad for pushing her away like that. He shakes his head, pulling his sniper over his shoulders before taking after the girls.

...

The trio were now walking through the snow covered land, as they past many different environment's in the snow and finally came up to where the river mentioned was.

"The River of Death. Scary." Ellie comments sarcastically as the group spot a river down below, and came to a stop as they gaze at it.

"Don't start." Joel warns the girl with a grumble, and sighs to himself as he grips his bags strap, "It's too close to dark. There's some caves along the river. We'll set up camp there, cross in the mornin'."

"Good," (Y/N) nods her head in approval, before grinning over her shoulder at him with gleaming eyes, "I'm starving. Ellie should've stolen two rabbits." She nudges her sister shoulder, who snickered with a smile.

"We can get our own rabbits." Joel told them with a scolding tone.

"You gonna teach us how, cowboy?" (Y/N) teases the older male with a hand on her hip, and raised brows amused.

Joel somewhat faltered at the nickname, avoiding her gaze as he motions to ahead of them, "Just keep movin'."

Ellie hid her laughter behind her hand seeing this, as she pulls along (Y/N) who felt a bit proud for making Joel act like that, and they all start to walk through the snow again.

...

Nighttime had hit fast for the trio, as a small fire was in the middle of them and kept them warm from the cold atmosphere.

Joel was using the tape he had to place it underneath his boot, making sure his shoes wouldn't crack nor break as he bites off the end of the tape, and finishes with wrapping it.

He looks up to the sky, and spots the aurora borealis, which was beautiful dancing waves of lights that lit up the nighttime sky. He turns his attention to the sisters standing on a higher rock, also watching the magnificent view and whistles to gain their attention.

"Come down from there. You're gonna break your necks." He calls out to them, as they turn to look down at Joel by the fire.

(Y/N) exhales at his words, giving one last longing gaze at the constellation of lights, and gestured for Ellie to hope down. When she was down safely, she joined her as she carefully climbed down and landed on the ground with a grunt.

She walks over to where Ellie was on their sleeping bags, and sat down next to her with a sleepy sigh, legs outstretched in front of her as she baked in the warmth of the fire.

"So, I've been thinking." She starts off her rant softly, breaking the silence between them, "Let's say we find the Fireflies, it all works, they draw my blood and put it through some of their machines and make a cure."

Joel sat up a little more at her talking, giving her his full attention, "Okay?"

She gulps anxiously, and fiddles with her dog chain around her neck as her eyes flickered to his, "Then what? Like, what do we do?"

"Oh, it's 'we'?" Joel questioned roughly, raising his eyebrows at her as she looks down at his sudden harshness.

"Okay, I meant you." (Y/N) corrects herself quietly and glances at the fire in front as he stares a her soft features from the fires light, "You can do anything you want. Where are you going? What are you doing?"

Joel ponders at her questions for a second, before answering her honestly, "It's never been an option." He clear his throat, and looks off into the distance, "Maybe...and old farmhouse, some land, and a ranch."

"Cool. What kind?" Ellie now took over the interrogation, as she sensed her sister didn't wanna talk anymore and grinned at bit excited to hear his reply.

"Sheep." He bluntly declared his so called dream after this mission, "I would raise sheep. They're quiet...do what they're told." He implied this at the siblings, as they both roll their eyes at him.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay." (Y/N) mumbled with a grumble herself, and leans against her palms on her sleeping bag, tipping her head to Joel and smirks smugly, "So, just you and a buncha sheep. Romantic."

He somewhat scoffs at her attitude, crossing his hands over his stomach and went to ask her curiously, "And what about you? Where are you gonna go?"

She pauses at his sudden deep question, the girl not really having had the time to actually think about it, as her priority and attention was always on Ellie.

Her (E/C) eyes glance up at the star filled sky, and lingered on the bright moon, "It's probably because I grew up with Ellie in the QZ. Behind you, there's ocean, and ahead of you, there's a wall. Nowhere else to look but up." She explains to him calmly, as he listened to her every word, "I tried to read everything I could in the library I had, and made sure Ellie did also. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell. But you know who our favourite is?"

"Sally Ride." Joel said to her confidently, having a feeling this was true when the sister shared a small excited glance.

"Sally fuckin' Ride!" Ellie exclaims to him brightly, hitting her arms against her legs for emphasis, "Best astronaut name ever."

(Y/N) smiles fondly at her sisters fangirling, and wraps an arm around her shoulders as Ellie leans into her sister, grinning up at her as the older girl holds her close.

The (H/C) haired girl felt a sudden clench in her heart, eyes dropping to the distance away from the two as she goes to blurt something that's been swimming around in her thoughts for ages now, "It'll work, right? The vaccine?"

She couldn't deal with anymore loss to this virus, not when she could help prevent that from happening, could save innocent lives with her blood. She'd do anything to make sure this happened, even if it meant her dying for it.

Joel stares intently at her for a little while, knowing this probably has been lingering on her mind since all the deaths that's been occuring around them, "It's a little late to start wonderin'."

She bites down on her wobbly bottom lip, squeezing Ellie closer to her side as she seeks comfort from her, and rested her chin on Ellie's head, "I tried, with Sam."

"Tried what?" Joel questioned a bit to forceful for her liking, as he furrows his brows.

"We knew, I knew he was infected." (Y/N) admits through a sniffle, still thinking about the brothers even after all this time, "I rubbed some of my blood into his bite. I knew it wasn't gonna work, but I..." Her voice gets all choked up, and blinks back her hot tears, "I just wanted to save him."

Joel's expression softens at her confessing, reminding himself that she was still human, and a kind hearted one at that, "Well, I reckon it's a lot more complicated than that. Marlene, she's a lotta things, but... she's no fool. If she says they can do it, they can do it."

She felt her second guessing thoughts somewhat ease at his reassurance, before nodding her silently with her palms rubbing her eyes and questioned, "You wanna take the first watch or second?"

He sighs to himself, relaxing his shoulders as his boot gently bumps against hers near his, "I'll do both. Get some sleep."

She gives him an unsure look, but he just motions for his head towards the cave behind them and she releases a breath, before pulling Ellie up with her towards their sleeping area.

...

Morning now developed over the environment, as the fire in the middle was just barely there anymore, but still had a flame burning.

Joel was sleeping like a baby on the other side of the fire, as he somewhat mumbled in his sleep and his eyes suddenly fly open with a gasp.

His gloved hands try to reach for his gun, but couldn't find it anymore which made him sit up immediately with fright entering his veins. However, he visible relaxed seeing his gun with (Y/N), and Ellie, who were both awake and standing near the rocks to look out.

"Still mumbling in your sleep." Ellie comments teasingly, which caused her sister to bump her shoulder harshly and she winced with her hands up.

"We woke up early, and you were passed out, so we took the second watch." (Y/N) explains to him, after giving her younger sister a scolding look.

Joel looked appalled at what they did, "You gotta wake up me if that happens." He stands up slowly from the ground, the cold air showing every time he exhaled, "You can't do things like this."

"But we can, I can.." She remarks smoothly, giving him a tight lip smile and raised brows, as she motioned to the gun, "'cause we just did."

Joel narrowed his eyes down on her, "I'm responsible for you two, okay?" He wasn't afraid to admit he was staring to care about the sisters, (Y/N) even more so, but wouldn't actually tell her that.

Ellie clicks her tongue, and shrugs innocently, "Then don't fall asleep. We were quiet though, and checked our six, looked for tracks, found the high ground, and we kept watch. Like you taught us how to."

(Y/N) grins a bit smugly at Joel, who had walked over to them and raised his brows at them, and motioned for her to hand him the sniper.

She passes it to him, and he takes the object from her, swinging it over his shoulder and stared down into her eyes. He noticed his beanie at her head was croaked, which made him reach out and pull it down gently, touch lingering as he gave her a single nod, and pulled back.

"Wake me up next time." His voice rumbles as he removed the hold, making her stomach flip at his touch and voice.

"Yeah, yeah, of course." She mumbles to herself, kicking the snow beneath her boots as Ellie hides her amused smirk at how shy her sister was acting.

...

Snow was starting to fall down from the misty skies, as the trio had made it down more towards the river, and lurked behind a tree as Joel wasn't sure it was safe yet.

He fires a gunshot from his sniper, it making a loud noise as the geese around honk at the sudden bang, and they all see no people appear.

"The River of Death. Still no people." Ellie voices her comment in a sing song tone, as her and (Y/N) were behind Joel and peeked out to see no one.

Joel reluctantly gives him, as he sighs and stands up with his gun raised, "Fine."

He leads the girls through the snow covered woods, on edge as they moved and eventually made it up to the metal bridge connecting both sides of the river.

(Y/N) gulps back any hesitation, as she holds Ellie's hand in her own and steps her boots on the bridge, following close behind Joel as he leads them across the bridge, and all the way to the otherside.

...

They had passed the bridge and were now following along the bank side of the calm river beside them, while Joel continued to be the one in front.

"You should teach us how to hunt." (Y/N) speaks up from her spot, as she gets in front of Joel and Ellie trails behind her, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth.

"Huh." Joel muttered lowly, keeping his attention focused on the path ahead and not on the chirpy girl.

"'Huh'. Like," She complains and then mimics his deep voice again which caused him to roll his eyes, "'They're girls, they can't handle it'."

"You can handle the shootin'." He told her truthfully, already knowing how good she was with her bow, and walked past her, "Not so sure about the dressin'."

Ellie sighs to herself, but wanted to know what he meant and asked intrigued, "What's the dressin'?"

"The part where you takes the guts out." He calls back to her question, as the sisters linger behind him.

"Oh, yeah. Why do they call it dressing?" Ellie wonders out loud, as her sister helps her walk up the little hill they were passing on, "It's like, you should call it undressing 'cause it is. It's like... undressing from the inside."

(Y/N) gives her sister a disgusted look, cringing at her words while Ellie shrugs her shoulder, smiling innocently and tugged her along to catch up with Joel.

When they made it up the top of the small hill, the sound of water rushing filled their ears as they walked to the edge of the cliff, and spotted a massive dam with running water.

"So that made electricity?" Ellie questioned with her eyes glancing over the dam, interested.

"Yeah." Joel confirms her words, and stops her before she could ask how it does, "Don't ask me. I don't have a clue."

"You know, you couldn't just made something up. Ellie would've believed you." (Y/N) tells him as she teases her sister, making Ellie gasped jokingly and hit her arm.

The older Williams cackled at this, shaking her head and pulled her along as Joel started to walk on ahead.

...

"Look at that river. It's crazy blue." Ellie noted as the trio had arrived near another river, and walked a bit away from the bank side, "What if this is the River of Death?"

(Y/N) squeezes her sisters hand reassuringly, looking down at her for with a comforting smile as they all stop and stare ahead at the calm blue river.

Joel pulls out the map inside his jacket, opening it up quickly and read where they currently were, as he goes to turn away from the river, walking up a bit with the siblings following behind him.

However, suddenly the noise of horses neighing appeared on top of the small hill they had to walk up on, and the horses all held people with guns in their hands.

Joel automatically reacted as he grabbed (Y/N)'s gloved hand in his own, who had Ellie's hand in hers already and Joel tried to pull the girls to safety, but was easily cornered and out numbered very quickly.

(Y/N) tensed up at all the people on horses surrounding them, as she shielded Ellie behind her and Joel was in front of (Y/N), her body against his side as they all watched the people around them.

The three of them raised their arms up in the air, as the people stopped where they were, "We ain't lookin' for any trouble. We're just passin' through." Joel tried to ease the sisuation out.

The man on his horse in front of them raises his gun at them, and demanded through his cloth over his mouth, "Drop the gun."

Joel slowly but surely drops his gun to the ground, as (Y/N) watched nervously as he did this, making sure Ellie was still behind her as the people stared at them.

"You two..." The male who first talked motioned his head at the sisters, "take five steps back."

"How 'bout we talk this through?" Joel offered with his hands still raised, and caught the scared look taking over (Y/N)'s face which had him becoming agitated.

"How 'bout you shut the fuck you?" The male countered back in a sharp tone, gun now raised higher in warning.

"Okay, easy." Joel smoothed, and clenched his jaw when he looked around at all the people, trying to figure a plan of escape, but nothing came of it. He turned his head halfway, and met (Y/N)'s wide eyes, "You'll be okay." He reassured, giving her the best confident look he could muster up.

She exhaled shakily at this, her fingertips letting go of his jacket's sleeve, as she grabs Ellie and stands back five steps away from Joel.

"You been near infected?" The man on the horse questioned the tensed up Joel.

"There's no infected out here." He exclaimed back, as he and the girls saw no infected while travelling through the snow.

"The hell there ain't." The man snapped back, before he whistled and a dog barking was heard as one came out with a guy holding it on a leash, "Last chance for a bullet. If you've been infected, he will smell it, and he will rip you up."

(Y/N) visible flinched at his warning, trying her hardest to look strong in front of Ellie, who was panicking for her older sisters safety, since the trio knew she was bit, but not turned.

The dog was barking, but it stopped yapping when his leash was taken off his chest and he was let loose. He went to sniff out the frozen Joel first, and the dog pressed its paws to his chest, sniffing around for something but found nothing as he hopped down.

"Like I said...." Joel trails off through a swallow, eyes glancing around at the armed people, "we'll just move on."

The male on the horse moves his attention to the girls, gesturing his head to the older one, "Now her."

(Y/N) felt her stomach drop at his words, breathing picking up as the dog got low and growled at her. She looked at Joel with a terrified expression, who looked the same way she did.

Joel's heart rate picked up vastly, deep fear on his face as he didn't know how to protect her from this. He scrunched his knuckles tightly, when he felt his hands trembling, wanting to do something to safe her, but was frozen in his place.

The dog started to advance on (Y/N), who felt her life flash before her eyes and continued to keep her body in front of Ellie's, making sure she was protected to the very end.

Joel physical flinched when he heard the dog bark behind him, his ears ringing as he was too afraid to move or turn back to face his worse nightmare. However, the sound of (Y/N)'s giggles reached his ears, and it caused him to take a brave turn around.

The sisters were squatted on the ground, patting the dog as he licked their cheeks and pawed at their stomachs, tail wagging happily from the attention.

The male on the horse nods his head in approval, as he whistles for the dog to come back, and he does as he sprints back to his owner.

(Y/N) gave Joel a small, reassuring smile as she stood back up, seeing how stressed he was, but didn't exactly know how much he was worried about her, how much this accident would haunt him.

"You just bought yourself 10 more seconds." The man on the horse says, as the guy who brought the dog lead him away, "What are you doin' out here?"

Joel breathes deeply, trying to relax his fast beating heart and answers strongly, "I'm just lookin' for my brother. That's all, nothin' more."

The beautiful woman next to the male calls to her horse, making it walk forward towards where Joel was, and stopped a few feet away from him, "What's your name?"

He was hesitant to give her his name, but nevertheless told her, "Joel."

The woman looks between him, and the sisters for a second, before making up her mind as she knew someone back home would be happy.

...

Horses were galloping fast across the snow field, as the trio were being brought back to where the peoples home was, and Joel was on his own horse, while the sister shared one.

Massive gates appeared up ahead, as some people stationed up on the small bridge above it saw the incoming group. The woman up top looked through her binoculars, and spotted one of them holding a red flag, which caused the people inside to open the gates for them.

Once the doors were fully opened, the group went through them on their horses as (Y/N) directed the horse she was on, and Ellie held her sisters waist, both of them trying to keep up with Joel who was in front of them.

They were met with a town full of people everywhere, either working or walking around the fully functional place.

(Y/N) was in slight awe at this, never seeing something like this before as most places she went, they ended up under FEDRA's control or destroyed. She spotted the many kids playing in the snow, turning her head to grin at Ellie who returned it brightly.

They continued to stroll through the middle of the town, as Joel came up beside them on his horse, going to say something to (Y/N), but pauses when he spotted someone familiar helping others with lowering wood to the ground, "Tommy!"

The male from the makeshift workers railing looks up from his work, eyes going wide when he spotted his older brother on the horse. He quickly made his way down the steps, as Joel hopped off his horse at the same time.

The two brothers were quick to meet in the middle, and Joel threw his arms around Tommy in a massive hug. Tommy laughs into the reuniting hug, rocking them from side to side a little bit as he pats Joel's back.

(Y/N) smiled softly a little bit at the scene, feeling happy for Joel as he was finally with his younger brother again. But, for some reason, it left a horrible feeling in her stomach as she looks down at her hands, where Joel once touched.

The brothers pull back from the hug, as Tommy keeps his gloved hand behind Joel's neck, and grins brightly at him, "What the fuck you doin' here?"

Joel swallows as he looks off to the side, before touching Tommy's shoulder and turns his gaze back to him, "I came here to save you." He now freely laughs, a massive grin on his face as he pulls Tommy back into a hug.

That was first time (Y/N)'s ever seen Joel's real smile. It made her heart flutter rapidly, and she wouldn't lie, but she wanted to see it again, badly.

( gif by ;
sporadicstarsx )

AUTHORS NOTES;; fricking hell im only 19 minutes into the ep and this chap is literally 5460 words 😭 like???? bro that's so wild. anyways thank you for your support guys, i love you sm and see you in the next update <3