Title: The Likes Of Us

Author: Sharingan-Youkai

Summary: Ellie didn't understand how it could have happened, but it was a long time coming. Their luck had to run out sooner or later, but did it have to be like this? Did it have to be Joel? Why him; her friend, her savoir, her everything? It was her fault, that's why; Joel got bitten because of her.

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: It's the Last Of Us, that should be its own warning, but what the hell. –takes deep breath- Violence, horror, bloodshed and gore, cannibalism, naughty words coming out of a 14 year old kid, people/infected getting bludgeoned over the head with various hard/sharp objects and violent little girls. Also, an odd relationship between Joel and Ellie, no it's not romantic, it's more like…erm…all they have is each other? Argh, just read it before I confuse myself.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Last Of Us.

Notes: I have no idea where this came from, I think it might have to do with me sick and twisted desire to see all of my favourite characters from any fandom become something other than what they're supposed to be; so really this idea is just a product of my twisted muse. I think a few of you can get where I'm coming from. Also, I haven't seen this done…yet.

. . .
. . .

They were coming from everywhere, how could there possibly be so many in so small an area? It had looked like it was empty, spare the occasional Clicker or lone Runner, but this? This was insane. This was dangerous. This was going to kill them both.

"Ellie! Get down!" She didn't even question the order, before the last word had finished passing his lips, she was on the ground with her hands over her head as something sailed over her and landed with a tinny thunk over the bar she was hiding behind. Not a second later a deafening boom rocked the small pub they had entered looking for supplies. Several screeches and the sound of bodies hitting the floor alerted her to the fact a shrapnel bomb had just been tossed over her head.

"Are you crazy!" She shouted over the din of pained shrieking and distant screeching. Before she could so much as begin a follow up firm hands gripped her shoulders and hauled her up and onto her feet before latching onto her wrist and all but dragging her around the bar over twitching, disfigured bodies before a door was slammed open and closed and her face was suddenly blasted with warm fresh air. The fresh air was short lived before she was once again being dragging around a corner and up a flight of stairs which she tripped up on twice until strong arms just scooped her up and carted her through the choked remains of a rooftop green house and over onto another rooftop a short hop away. It was all going so fast, and Ellie made it a point to herself to tease him about it later, but before the thought could finish forming she was rather unceremoniously stuffed into something square shaped, dark and dusty.

"Don't move, don't talk." Was whispered into her ear as another larger body shuffled in around her, all but cocooning her in warmth and safety as the last of the light was cut off. She remained still, listening to her protectors words, following his lead as she took shallow, even breaths to make as little noise as possible as the distant shrieks and clicks grew closer and louder until the sound of movement all but thundered around them, and she choked down on a squeak as their hiding spot was bumped around roughly, jerking them both around as the shrieks nearly deafened them.

They were completely surrounded, boxed in on all sides and it was all so much. A whimper escaped her throat and a tear threatened to escape her lashes. She didn't want to die, they were so close to being safe, to being free from all of this, she just wanted it to be over. She acted tough, put up a brave take-no-shit front, but sometimes she remembered that at the end of the day, she was still only a fourteen year old girl who had lost her parents to monsters, watched her friends eat or tear each other apart, and she had been bitten, attacked and bitten by her own uncle and it was all getting to be too much, the shrieks, the screams, the thick smell of blood and old rotten flesh…

And then arms were wrapped tightly around her; warm, solid and suddenly it all faded away.

They remained like that for what seemed like hours, and probably was before the silence became more of an empty silence then a tense silence. Her cage of warmth and comfort shifted, and suddenly she was blinding by light as the top of their little haven was lifted. Taking it as her queue, Ellie shifted and cautiously popped her head up, peering out and into the room she had been carried into. Empty. Not a single infected in sight.

With a relieved sigh she lifted her arms and pushed the lid of their hiding spot all the way back up where it thudded lightly against the wall it was lent on. She paused, ears straining to hear the slightest sound of movement around them, when silence greeted her she grinned and moved to climb out of the- she paused and looked closer at the walls boxing them in before turning to stare dead pan at the scruffy man still half squished under her.

"…A freezer Joel, really?" She drawls, doing her best to convey just how unimpressed she was. She got a blank stare in return, before she was shoved quit rudely out of the freezer to fall face first onto the dust eaten rug.

"It was the freezer or the pantry. Freezer's sturdier." Joel grunts as he tries to get himself out of the rather small chest freezer. Ellie watches in silence, inwardly amused at the image he makes with his boots stuck in the air and his hands gripping the sides, trying to wiggle his body out of a space too small for his bulk. She decides to comment.

"You look like a turtle stuck on its back." She says, giggling. Joel, in a rare show, flips her off.

"Either help me, or clam it." He grouses, and Ellie's giggles turn into snorts as she tries to keep the noise to a minimum. She moves over to help him anyway, and grips one of his wrists, the one with the broken watch and pulls with all her might. When Joel finally comes free of the freezer, Ellie imagines a loud 'pop!' before she's suddenly buried under a lot of heavy Joel.

"Oh dude!" She wheezes, shoving ineffectively at the shoulder in her face. "Air." She gasps, and Joel rolls off of her with a grunt and thud as he connects with the floor. She inhales dramatically.

"Knock it off." Joel sighs, rubbing his face in his hands. He hasn't moved off the floor. Ellie takes that as an invitation to be a brat, and rolls over the top of him, making sure to jab her bony elbow into his stomach in revenge. He oofs in protest as she rolls, and she lands on his other side on her feet and grins down at him before standing and offering him her hand.

"We should keep moving." She says and Joel eyes her hand suspiciously before gripping it and allowing her to attempt to haul him to his feet. He stands and dusts himself off before proceeding to check that both of his guns are in their holsters at his sides. Ellie takes the hint and checks her pocket. Surprisingly Joel didn't stab himself on her knife while they were squished in the freezer, and she's happy to find it still where she left it.

"That was a big swarm, they should have moved on by now, but keep it quiet just in case." Joel says as he quietly moves past her to peek out of another door and presumably down a hallway. Ellie mock solutes behind his back, but he turns and glares at her over his shoulder anyway, and Ellie briefly wonders if that thing about adults having eyes in the back of their heads is actually true. "Come on." He nods to her, and Ellie jumps into gear, sidling up to him before skirting around his bulk to enter the hallway.

They come to another door that's been left slightly ajar and Joel makes grabby hands at her as she bravely –stupidly- shoves the door the rest of the way open and struts into the room. Its empty save for a mattress pushed up into one corner, but the window that's been left gaping open looks promising. She approaches it, and it looks like their ticket out of the building, because there's a fire escape right outside the window. She lifts a leg to climb out of the window, but Mr Grabby-Hands snags her backpack and pulls her back.

"I'll go first." He says and shoots her this look that just dares her to do something stupid so he can give her another one of his little bitch faces while he chews her out for almost getting herself killed, again. She bows graciously.

"After you then." She quips, and Joel rolls his eyes before hefting himself out onto the fire escape, testing its sturdiness after twenty or so years of being left to rust. He leans over the railing and looks around for a good few minutes and Ellie rolls her eyes as she picks dried blood out from under her nails.

"It's clear." He says after a while, and Ellie hops on the spot before pulling herself out and onto the fire escape with Joel, who ruffles her hair as he walks past, descending the old metal stairs with his favourite spiky baseball bat in hand. Seriously, he sleeps with it, he eats with it, he takes it to the 'bathroom' with him and she has even seen him use it as a back scratch once, the guy should just marry the thing. She snorts into her own hand at the images that thought brings to mind, and Joel glances suspiciously at her over his shoulder. She fails in giving him an innocent smile.

It continues in that vain for a few hours as they look for a safe place to rest for the coming night. Their search takes them to the edges of the small town they stumbled into, and Joel says it's a good thing, it leaves them closer to their destination, and the further out of town one goes the less infected that loiter about. Finally, after another hour of looking through houses and Joel bashing a random Clicker over the head with Mrs Joel –she snorts loudly to herself- they find an old and slightly less rundown apartment.

It has no fence around it, but it's been built with brick and it has solid timber doors. The windows have already been quit thoroughly boarded up, and the inside is actually pretty well off and cosy, Joel says it must have been abandoned recently.

Ellie waits in the entry way with the door slightly open behind her as Joel sweeps the apartment for infected. She doesn't hear any agonised screeching or pained grunts, so when Joel remerges from the belly of the apartment Ellie bumps the door the rest of the way closed and Joel is quick to flick the numerous locks into place before shoving a small but heavy bookcase in front of it. He does the same to the back door before checking to make sure all of the boarded up windows are sturdy.

While Joel goes about sating his paranoia, Ellie roots around the apartment, crowing in victory when she comes across an old oil lamp half buried under a box of old clothes along with three candle sticks and a box of matches. Stepping back into the main room she lights the oil lamp and sets it down on the small coffee table in the centre of the room before falling back onto the dusty but soft sofa next to it.

"Oh yeah." She groans appreciatively, snuggling into the soft cushions. The dust tickles her nose, but she ignores it in favour of the comfort. This apartment was turning out to be their best find in quite a while, it was safe, relatively clean and comfortable. 'For once we might actually be able to sleep.' She thinks, grabbing another cushion and hugging it to her chest. It's dusty, just like the rest of the sofa, but there's a very faint aroma of old perfume still clinging to the fabric, and Ellie inhales it thoughtfully, trying to judge what it was. "Fruity." She says as Joel re-enters the main room.

"What is?" He asks as he repositions the oil lamp to the edge as he up ends his bag onto its surface. Scissors, random bits of cloth, tape and a couple of energy bars spill out onto the table

"Your face." She deadpans. Joel predictably ignores her, even when she pokes her tongue out at him. Ellie watches in silence as Joel goes about mauling a pair of scissors until he has two separate blades, which he then tapes to a piece of timber. She raises a brow, idly wondering if he was going to cheat on Mrs Joel. When the simple piece of broken timber is transformed into a deadly Clicker killing piece of timber he sets it aside before rotting around in another pocket in his bag, withdrawing a bottle of alcohol that he then proceeds to stuff a cloth into. The minutes tick by with Joel making or repairing various household items turned weapon, and Ellie feels her eyes drooping closed. After several attempts to keep herself awake, she gives in and slumps the rest of the way into the sofa, drifting off to the sound of Joel absently humming under his breath.

. . .
. . .

Ellie jumps awake with a gasp, shooting upright in an instant with a cushion clutched to her chest. The apartment is silent as the grave around her, and the oil lamp is on its last legs, its dim light barely enough to see by. Joel's bag of tricks is nowhere in sight, and the apartment is undisturbed around her. "Joel?" She calls softly. There's no response. She swings around on the sofa, feet touching the carpeted floor under her. "Joel?" She calls again, louder this time. Still no response. A little freaked out Ellie stands, cushion still clutched to her chest like a teddy bear. She steps away from the sofa and peers into the dim room around her. "Joel, this isn't funny." She calls, trying to sound annoyed, but her voice wavers.

Stepping further away from the sofa Ellie leans down to pick up one of the candle sticks she'd found earlier. With a bit of effort she manages to light it with a match without letting go of the cushion. She holds it up and the room is only a little less dark, but it's enough for her to step into the hall. "Joel? Come on man, this isn't funny." She tries, and is once again met with silence. She forces a scowl onto her face and pushes on, checking the two bedrooms down the hall and even the bathroom. All empty. Even the kitchen hasn't been touched. The doors are as Joel left them, locked and barricaded. She's a little scared now, and she grips her cushion tighter. "Joel!" She shouts. Silence. This isn't a joke, he's not going to pop out of a cupboard and go 'boo'. He's gone, Joel left her.

She hurries back into the main room, tears blurring her vision and sobs trying to choke her. Her hand shakes and the candle flickers, she's squeezing the cushion so tight it hurts. She enters the main room and jumps as her foot touches the carpet.

It's wet.

It wasn't wet before. Dread wells up inside, but she forces herself to look. The carpet hadn't been clean to start with, it may have been a light blue at one stage, but was more a light speckled brown. When her eyes land on it now, its black in the candle light, and she whimpers as the cloying scent of blood threatens to choke her. "Joel?" She chokes out, following the black staining the carpet. There's a dark smudge of colour in the space between the sofa and the wall, and it moves slowly with breath. She chokes down her sobs and viciously rubs her eyes, not caring that there's hot candle wax all over her hand. Her vision is clearer now without the tears, and she recognises the smudge of colour to be man shapes. She approaches it slowly, wincing every time her feet touch the blood soaked carpet, the blood seeps up between her toes, and she doesn't remember taking her shoes off. She gets closer and the dark man shaped smudge becomes clearer, and it's definitely Joel, she'd recognise that tacky shirt and scruffy birds nest anywhere. She breaths a small sigh of relief.

"Joel, why are you in the corner? You're being creepy again." She says, teasing. Joel suddenly tenses against the wall, and the blood between her toes is suddenly too warm. Her candle flickers warningly, it's starting to drown in its own wax and will go out if she doesn't tilt it. Joel shifts, still huddled against the wall and suddenly the fear is creeping back into her. "Joel?" She asks again, and suddenly Joel snaps his head around to stare at her, and Ellie stumbles back at the luminous red eyes glaring at her from Joel's snarling face.

At her sudden movement, Joel snarls loudly and launches himself at her. Ellie trips and falls back onto the blood soaked carpet, a scream ripping free as what was once Joel slams down onto her.

"-lie! Ellie!" A sharp pain on her cheek has Ellie bolting upright with a scream. "Jesus Christ, Ellie calm down! You were having a bad dream!" Ellie snaps her head around to come nose to nose with Joel, and she screams again, flailing backwards and flinging herself off the sofa and onto the ground. "Ellie!" Joel growls, grabbing her ankle and dragging her back before grabbing a fistful of her shirt to pull her roughly into his lap. She's still struggling, tears coating her cheeks. She didn't want to die, why did it have to be Joel? How did it even happen? He'd never hurt her, but then he'd had red eyes and sharp teeth and the blood and- "Ellie!" She's shaken around like a ragdoll, and suddenly everything snaps back into focus. She stills, blinking tears out of her eyes as a hand rubs up and down her back soothingly. Her stinging cheek is pressed hard against something warm and soft, and she can hear Joel's heart thundering against his ribcage. She pulls back and looks up into wide brown eyes. Brown, not red. Not red, just brown…still Joel. She hiccups suddenly, eyes tearing up and she all but tackles the large survivor, probably choking him with her bony shoulder as she hugs him as tight as she can while she cries.

Joel just rubs her back soothingly while muttering calming nothings into her hair. After a few minutes Ellie sniffs loudly and wipes her face on Joel's shoulder, leaving wet streaks from her tears. "M'sorry." She mumbles, voice hoarse. Joel just rubs her back some more, and Ellie sniffles again. He acted like a big meanie most of the time, but he really was just a big old teddy bear. He'd never hurt her, and she knew he'd rather shoot himself then let himself Turn and harm her.

"Wanna talk about it?" Joel asks gruffly. Ellie snorts.

"Not really." She says, sniffing once more.

"What was it this time? Giant spider wolves? Flying alligators?" He asks, and Ellie scowls. One time she dreamt about flying alligators, and yeah it scared the crap out of her.

"I wish." She mumbles instead. Joel sighs into her hair and she pulls away from his shoulder to huddle in his lap instead. He doesn't push her off, he just wraps her up in his arms and lets his chin rest atop her head. "It was terrifying." She starts, and makes grabby motions at the cushion that had fallen off the sofa in front of her. Joel obliges and reaches for it, handing it to her without a fuss. She crushes it to her chest, and if she does the same to one of Joel's big hands neither mention it. "I didn't even think I was dreaming, I just woke up in here, except I couldn't find you." She continues, sniffling. "I thought you'd left me." Her voice wavers, and Joel tightens his hold on her just a bit.

"I'm not goin' anywhere." He says. Ellie pets his hand.

"I know…but I found you eventually, but the place was covered in blood and you…" She trails off tearfully.

"Dead?" He asks, and Ellie shakes her head.

"Turned." She whimpers, and suddenly Joel stiffens against her back, understanding.

"I'm not infected Ellie, I'm not gonna Turn, you're safe, you're fine, I'd never hurt you." He whispers into her hair, and Ellie believes him. She nods resolutely, before her head is suddenly forced downward slightly as Joel releases a jaw cracking yawn with his chin still on her head.

"Bed time for you mister." She says, disentangling herself from Joel's lap and standing. She turns around and grabs his arms, hauling him to his feet. Well, he does most of the hauling, she just kind of steers. She turns him around slightly and shoves him at the sofa she had rolled off of. "It's comfy, trust me." She says, shoving him down onto it. The fact that Joel goes without a fight tells just how tired he really is, and Ellie vows to make him sleep in, infected people banging on the doors be damned. She rearranges his legs before wrestling off his boots. They drop to the ground with muted thuds. She then proceeds to wrangle off his tacky long sleeved shirt, which she tosses in a random direction before hoping on the spot to remove her own shoes. She was still tired, and that nightmare insured she wouldn't be able to sleep alone for the rest of the night.

Joel, left in an off white and slightly stained singlet snorts as she wobbles and falls to the ground. He rolls over until he's on his back with his socked feet propped up on the arm rest. Ellie finishes with her shoes and drops them next to Joel's before eying the remaining space on the sofa. There's not even enough room for a cat to curl up next to him. With a huff Ellie taps her foot on the carpet and folds her arms. Predictably, Joel ignores her. He's gone from teddy bear Joel back to big meanie Joel. She huffs, then shrugs and lets herself fall onto his front. He oofs in surprise, but It's her turn to ignore him as she arranges herself so she's sprawled out and using him as a mattress. Joel grumbles something under his breath, but Ellie ignores him and snuggles further into his chest.

"You're an awesome pillow." She teases, and Joel sighs long sufferingly.

"Shut up and go to sleep." He grunts. Ellie drifts off to the steady rhythm of her protectors heart under her ear.

. . .
. . .

TBC...

I'm in the middle of playing the game, and I love it. It scares the crap out of me a lot of the time, but I love it. Joel is such a honey. -purrs-

Don't expect radicle updates for this, this story is more of a project that I'm using to pass the time and test my ability to right dark themes. I realised I cannot write a fic without some measure of humour in it, its physically impossible in fact. Hence giggle worthy moments, plus it seems more in character for me.

Anyway, let me know what you think, review. I'll continue this, I will, but it won't be a long fic, its an experiment. Suggestions are welcome. If someone says I need a Beta, know that for this fic I don't care, as I said, experiment. If it ends up half decent I'll rewrite it into a proper story. Again, let me know what you think.

~Youkai