🫧𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𓇼 ࣪ 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ⋆｡𖦹 °. 𓇼

alright older, divorced, nickelback-dad ellie... i see you... (pics from @/angelgbc)

jackson with ellie 🌿🐑🪵

{ Acquaintances to Enemies (to Lovers?) E.W. } COMPLETED

Summary: You find Ellie in Santa Barbara and she invites you on her journey back home and trust is tested between the women.

Warnings: Cussing, angst, toxic relationship. Please let me know if I missed anything.

Author's Note: Does my writing style suck? Let me know how to improve (plz and thank u) .

Parts: 1 , ❎ , 3 , 4

The noon sun laid high in the sky. Walking behind Ellie you took the opportunity to look at her bandaged hand. You barely had any sleep the night before. You were in a separate room downstairs, but you can hear Ellie’s muffled screams as she cauterized her fingers. Once the worst of it was over, she cried for a long time. As much as she tried to stay quiet, you were able to hear it. You had sensitive hearing, and it usually came in handy, except for last night. However, you did catch a name that she cried out: Joel.

You two walked down a street when Ellie took her map out. You could hear Ellie clear her throat before speaking, “Juno, you know these parts? I’m trying to avoid going through an area with a shit load of infected.” You looked around and saw familiar landmarks.

“There’s a mini mansion a couple miles ahead. Stayed there 6 months ago, it’s secure.”

“Okay,” she folds up the map, “I’m following you then.” 

You led the way through broken streets when suddenly stopped with Ellie nearly colliding with you. She was quiet for a few seconds but heard nothing, “What?”

You held your hand up so you could listen more to make sure what you heard was right. “Get down,” you said calmly and you both hid in the tall grass nearby. You took out your bow and arrow. Ellie confused squinted through the grass to see if she could see anything. Then, coming from the tall grass field across the road, a bobcat swaggers out. Ellie’s eyes widened as there was no way she could have picked up on that. You hold your position until the bobcat is out of sight. “We’re almost to the mansion,” you put your arrow back in your backpack. Ellie looks over and nods. 

“How did you know?” she asks from behind you.

“I heard it.”

“You heard it? What, you have, like, bionic hearing or something?” 

You chuckled, “Yea something like that.”

Ellie raised her eyebrows and scanned down your back until she was looking at the ground, “Huh.. so.. how long have you been alone?” 

“Two years, you?”

Ellie was quiet for a while before answering sternly, “A year.”

“Here it is,” you two approached a large house with a wall surrounding it and a barricaded entry.

“Let’s stay here tonight,” she approaches the wall and leans her back against it with her knees bent, “Ready?”

You nod and climb on her. She pushes you up, giving you the momentum to get on top of the wall. You reach down and pull her up.

The place was clear. The sun was setting and you two set up in the living room. Ellie sat stretching her legs out on the couch and writing in a journal. You laid comfortably on the other couch. You planned to sleep after Ellie and kept your knife close where she couldn’t see. 

“You can sleep. I’ll keep first watch if you’re paranoid,” she looks up from her journal, “I can feel you staring.” 

You feel a rush of anger and embarrassment for being caught and you try to recover, “I was wondering.. where your home was.” Ellie closes her journal and puts it back in her backpack before leaning back on the couch and lifting her arm up, putting a hand behind her head. Your eyes wonder, in the dimly lit space, over her figure. She licked her lips before speaking. Her tattooed arm laid over her stomach and rose as she spoke. Every so often she would turn her head to you and her hair would cascade to one side as she looked over at you. Your breathing deepened. 

“...it’s a real town with decent enough people, not like these fucked up places. You wouldn’t be alone anymore.” It sounded too good to be true. 

“Why did you leave it then?” The question just escaped out of your mouth without you thinking about it. You gripped your knife knowing you just pissed her off. 

Ellie stares up at the high ceiling. “These people.. outsiders killed someone close to me. So some of us tracked them to Seattle, then to Santa Barbara.” She takes her hand from behind her head and rests it over her eyes. You sensed her sadness.

You watched for a while until you saw her chest rise and fall with sleep before getting off the couch.   

Ellie woke up about an hour later. She shuffled on the couch and looked over to see you weren’t there. She rubbed her eyes with concern and sat up. She noticed her backpack was open. “What the-” She quickly rummaged through to see if anything was missing. The only missing content- her journal.

Shortly after Ellie fell asleep, you took out her journal and made your way to an upstairs office where you lit a candle. Ellie made Jackson sound nice, but you needed to be sure of her, 100% sure this wasn’t some nice act just to use you or abandon you to some slavers. So you sat there, going through each page. Ellie wrote about that name you heard, Joel. You understood why she left home and saw how she tracked down the WLF and Abby. She drew a lot. She also drew Dina. You were shocked, she had left her family to finish her quest for revenge. You could only assume with the last picture of Joel that she either killed Abby, or made peace in her efforts trying.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Ellie snatched the book, nearly ripping a page. “What, you fucking get off from invading people’s privacy?” She stares at you wide eyed. You were stunned because you didn’t hear her coming. “I-I had to make sure-”

“Make sure that I wasn’t going to fucking kill you? Trust me if I wanted to you’d be fucking dead by now,” she was angry but she meant every word and you knew she could dispose of you whenever she deemed fit.

“That’s exactly why I had to check! That you weren’t going to take me to some new slave colonie or worse! You have no idea the fucked up things I had to go through to keep my freedom, to keep myself alive!” Your eyes pleaded against hers.

“And what? You read my deepest thoughts and now you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“That makes one of us.”

Your chest rises and falls as you feel your eyes water. You don’t know why you’re upset, you did what you had to do to know you were safe, or so you thought. Ellie was different from others you’ve encountered and she never gave you any reason to not trust her. Deep down, you knew you fucked up and you weren’t sure what would happen next.

Ellie saw the shine rimming your eyes. “Tomorrow, I’m leaving this place early. You can come if you want. I still don’t think you should be out here alone- but keep your fucking hands to yourself,” she looks down at the journal in her hand with an uneven page sticking out and she she shakes her head before looking at you one more time and leaving the room. With Ellie gone, you let the tears overflow and run down your face. You thought you did the right thing, but it left you feeling disgusted with yourself. You sat on the floor feeling small. ‘Why do I have to be so fucking stupid?’

{ Acquaintances to Enemies (to Lovers?) E.W. } COMPLETED

Summary: You find Ellie in Santa Barbara and she invites you on her journey back home and trust is tested between the women.

Warnings: Cussing, angst, toxic relationship, sexual themes.

Author's Note: Bruh why would Juno do that like.. I would never.. (o *~ - ~)o

Parts: 1 , 2 , ❎ , 4

It had been three days. You trailed behind Ellie with your tail between your legs. You had lost her trust and she still chose to keep you as a companion.. ‘Useful burden’ you thought of yourself. She didn’t waste much time talking to you either. You felt relieved though, knowing she wasn’t going to lead you to a pack of slavers, but now any chance of you forming a genuine friendship, which you knew was founded on trust, was crushed, like your pride.

Another hot day and Ellie’s hair was clinging to her neck. She carried on despite her injuries. You couldn’t help but think of that woman named Dina and her son who Ellie left behind. Maybe you were alone too long.. maybe it was the growing pain of wanting someone close to you because you felt the bitter sting of jealousy.  

You two approached what used to be a golf course, but was now a field with long, tan grass that seemed to stretch for miles. Ellie paused and looked at the field, “Damn..” she said quietly to herself. “Does it remind you of your home?” you ask standing beside her. She hesitated before answering, “Yeah..” her voice was quiet, scratching her ear. A small progress in communication, but you don’t dwell in it for long. You decide to take the lead through the field. Ellie stops her reminiscing to watch you wade in the grass before following.

Then you saw it, an oasis hidden in the grass. You listened to your surroundings before proceeding closer. A pond glimmering in the sunlight. You rushed over, almost giving Ellie a heart attack. You cupped your hands to drink the water and Ellie approached dropping her backpack to join. The water was like heaven sent, you hummed at how cool and fresh it was, and how it dripped down your chin. Ellie got up and went into the water and you watched as she dunked herself in, wiping her hair and face. You tried not to watch so intently as you were, so you decided to follow her lead in.

You dunked and came up next to her. You wiped your hair back, pretended like you didn’t notice how tightly your shirt hung to your body- your chest- and you acted like you didn’t notice that she was watching. The water was perfectly cold and your body reacted to it.The sunlight danced on the water, and through squinted eyes, you saw that her body responded to the cold water in an obvious way as well when her tank top hugged tightly against her chest. You two were staring at each other. You wanted to approach her, not knowing why, but before you could, she turned away dunking herself in the water one last time before walking to shore. “Let's find a place to set up camp,” she said nonchalantly. You wanted to retort and tell her it was still early, just past noon, but you didn’t say anything.  

You and Ellie camped in a dilapidated house. The roof was partially missing and you decided to camp in the upstairs' bedroom where you planned to sleep under the stars. Ellie hadn’t slept in the same room as you since you read her journal, but as you unpacked on the bed, Ellie came in, giving you an acknowledging nod, and dropping her bag on the other side of the bed. Ellie had her back against the headboard and took her journal out to write. You didn’t want to think about this too much and started to look around the room that must have belonged to a teenage boy. The room was lined up with posters of different bands and shelves with books. The other half of the room was exposed to the elements and covered with climbing vine. “Ever listened to ‘The Sick Habit’? Ellie asked, not looking up from her writing. “No,” your voice was soft, a bit unsure. You looked at the black and white poster of the three band members. “When we get back to Jackson, I’ll let you listen to their CD. I mean if you’re into loud music,” she glanced up.  You chuckle, “Sounds fun.” You were relieved Ellie had forgiven you for reading her journal- or so you fucking thought. 

{ Acquaintances to Enemies (to Lovers?) E.W. } COMPLETED

Summary: You find Ellie in Santa Barbara and she invites you on her journey back home and trust is tested early on between the women.

Warnings: Just cussing so far. Angst. Established female OC name but no physical descriptions used. Each chapter has a different warnings. Please let me know if I missed anything.

Author's Note: First fic! New Year's Resolution is to write more so here is something I whipped up this month.

Parts: ❎ , 2 , 3 , 4

You weren’t sure how you managed to get into the position that you were in. Trekking behind some girl you found just days before hanging upside down and bloodied. Some girl that you helped free and somehow allowed you to patch her up. You had no real motive in doing this except for not wanting to see the Rattlers take in another wanderer as a slave. Despite you saving her, this girl had a death wish, and she headed towards the Rattlers’ base anyways. After a day, she came back to the house where you two had camped out in, missing two fingers, and a defeated look in her eyes. Another day passed before you found yourself here, with the California sun beating down on both of you, traveling back to where she came from, and making you wonder if following her was a mistake.

You followed a few yards behind the taller woman through the streets, following the path where she had taken to get here. Little words have been exchanged between you and the dark auburn since you’ve met. You were used to being alone so talking didn’t come naturally. It also didn’t help that you couldn’t trust easily and already had some escape routes in mind in case this sudden partnership soured. She seemed to move on pure will alone, and you knew she could easily over power you if she wanted to. 

“Are you alone?” she asked a few days prior. She was laying on a dining room table where you two had set up camp in a house nearby from where you found her, and you were suturing her stomach. She half whispered the question in a low tone as she held her breath through the pain. Her question broke a fourth wall of sorts. You were just a passerby in her story, an observer, a blip in her existence, not someone worth getting to know. You only joined this story as a stranger, who from time to time had moments of kindness- weakness- that usually did not end well for you. You were cautious about answering but considering that she seemed to have been left for dead, hanging in the Rattlers’ trap, she must have been alone as well, so you answered honestly, “Yes.. It’s just me.” Her lip was thin as she grimaced from the pain, her light eyes looking up at you briefly at yours before she cursed and threw her head back, shutting them tightly. “Fuck.” 

You didn’t expect her to come back to the camp after she said she was going to the Rattlers’ base, but when she did come back, missing her two fingers and covered in blood again, it was clear this girl really had nowhere else to go. She went upstairs without saying a word and spent that night in one of the bedrooms, with a leather belt between her teeth, cauterizing her own fingers. You could hear the muffled and strained screams followed by quiet sobs.

The next day, her two fingers were bandaged up. She was checking on her supplies when you walked over and handed her oranges that you had foraged that morning. You sat and started to check on your supplies too, not wanting to stay at that camp any longer than need be; it was too close to Rattler territory. She had stopped rummaging through her backpack and you felt a pair of eyes watch you. “Do you have a name?”   

Her question made you wonder what her angle was despite her calm tone. “Juno,” your voice was soft, like a chime in her ears. You blinked over and looked at her, “and you?” She paused and kept you in her gaze longer than you would have expected. You felt heat tinge your face in embarrassment for those few extra seconds. “Ellie,” she responds dryly, managing to peel her eyes away. She seemed to have been lost in thought before continuing. “I’m going back home, it’s a long journey, but if you want to leave this place, you should come.”

A life altering moment delivered in a nonchalant question. ‘Home?’ A foreign concept. “We leave in an hour,” she zips her backpack and goes into the garage to use the workbench.

‘We?’ Seemed like Ellie already decided that you were coming along. You have proven yourself useful, you thought, and Ellie was strong. Anyone who survives going into the Rattlers’ base and making it out without getting caught or killed had to be one hell of a fighter- ‘or fucking crazy.’

Ma’am can I just 👅

Riot! (2007) - Paramore 𓂃

ᵎᵎ i do not own any images ALL CREDITS TO THE ORIGINAL CREATORS ᵎᵎ

。·˚˚· aquarium date ·˚˚·。