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𝙱𝙴𝚈𝙾𝙽𝙳 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 𝟶𝟸

summary: two years later, ellie’s back in jackson. from what you’ve heard, she’s not exactly been doing great either.

warnings: angst with no comfort yet (ITS COMING I PROMISE), you’re in another relationship (ellie gets kind of jealous…), vague ref. to drug abuse and addiction

an: sorry this took like five years, as always, love you guys, stay safe, never stop talking about palestine. do your clicks. :-)

chapter 1

TWO YEARS LATER

There should probably, definitely be a lot of things on Ellie’s mind right now but, truthfully, the exhaustion flooded them all out.

She’s been sitting next to Tommy in his shitty, busted, old truck in the densest silence she’s ever been in, hurtling her way back to the place she was damn sure she was never going to see again just a few months back, and all she can think about is how badly she wants to close her eyes and finally fucking sleep, but he keeps throwing out questions randomly, and Ellie feels obligated to answer them all given the fact that he just picked her scrawny ass up from rehab following almost a year of no contact.

She takes in a sharp breath of air. It doesn’t rattle her lungs as much as it used to. Then, she swallows, forcing a gulp down the dry enclosure of her throat, and turns to look at Tommy.

“Hm?”

“Am I taking you to ours or yours?”

“What?”

“Jesus- Am I driving you down to Maria and I’s, or are you gonna go back to your old house?”

Ellie’s brain stutters.

The impending situation is suddenly becoming too real.

You were starring in the film in her mind ever since the one-way flight to LA, and every time you came up on screen, she felt her stomach wrench with longing, with guilt.

She was far from home, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people who’s faces were unfamiliar and, quite frankly, scary. She had no idea how the fuck she ended up where she did, but she knew that the thoughts she needed a distraction from required remedies more concentrated than whiskey.

The last few months were especially shit: stuck in that building with junkies who would be back in just as long as they stayed, with nothing to do but sit with every last one of those thoughts.

Joel’s death had beaten her to a pulp; she was only just beginning to be able to talk about him, to draw him, to remember him, without all the anger and all the all-consuming guilt. Only just beginning to do that after the absolute shit-show her life became for a long moment. Yes, Joel’s death beat the hell out of her, but she herself delivered the finishing blow.

There is a lot of guilt in Ellie’s life, towards Joel, towards Tommy, towards her friends, towards you – more than she can bear for this lifetime and maybe the next few too. So, like she promised herself, there’s no use in any of it. All she can do is just focus on each day and try to make things right where she can.

The question plagues her mind, the one she has absolutely no right to ask, of whether or not you’ll be there, whether or not you waited for her. She doesn’t know which would be worse.

“Mine.”

Tommy nods, glancing at her before shifting his line of view back to the road and Ellie lets out a small puff of air. She hopes things can go back to how they used to be between the two of them one day. Joel’s death also beat the hell out of Tommy. In fact, Ellie was slightly surprised to hear that Tommy’s place was “Maria and I’s” again, since they weren’t exactly on good terms when she left, divorced and all.

“Do… Do you know if… she’s still staying there?”

He goes quiet, dropping the coy exchange of practised words and turns to look at Ellie for longer than what’s considered road safe.

“… Honestly, I’m not sure. Haven’t seen her in a while. But, come to think of it, I must’ve heard someone mentionin’ some’ about her stayin’ with someone for a while... You, uh, you sure you’re gonna be okay goin’ back to yours?”

“Yeah… I mean… It’s gotta happen eventually.”

Tommy nods, breathing out,

“That it does,"

And Ellie reclines into the hardened cushion of the seat, pressing her cheek to it to rest, gazing out at the familiar sequence of buildings blurring by. She thinks she should probably drop by Dina’s tomorrow.

Ellie’s become mythical. 

“I just got a text from Jesse…”

You look up from your screen at Dina, who is sprawled out across from you on the couch. She sits up, all serious, and the look in her eyes tells you she knows you’re not going to like what you’re about to hear.

“He said Ellie’s coming back to Jackson.”

Sometimes you have these… dreams, if you can even call them that; nothing about them is hazy or dream-like, just… like your mind opens up a part of itself that you keep closed when you’re in control and forces you to look at it.

You’re lucid every time, of course, even your subconscious knows that it’s impossible for Ellie to be near you, to be smiling at you the way she used to.

No. She walked out and didn’t look back. And, in all honesty, you can't even blame her for that. Not when she was falling apart back here just the same. Not when she wasn't even herself anymore, when the thoughts got a hold of her.

When you open your eyes, you can’t bring yourself to look at your girlfriend laying next to you. She feels like a stranger who sleeps in your apartment sometimes.

Your mind strays, and you wonder if that’s how Ellie felt about you. Then, you close your eyes again and try to soothe the nausea that inevitably builds in your stomach - flex your fingers to remind yourself that you're a living, breathing person, who can’t just rot in sheets, clinging to morsels of sleep.

When Ellie left, there was a massive gaping hole in, not just your heart, but your entire life. You tried to stay put in the house but, God, it was painful. The dusty trinkets she left behind lining the desk alone were like totems of your one-man cult devoted to her.

You packed all your shit soon after, leaving Ellie’s exactly as it was.

At first, crashing at Dina’s place was a temporary fix, but it turned out you desperately needed the company and Dina loved having someone around to bother too. Things got better slowly, or at least they stopped hurting as much.

So, every day, you stumble out of bed and get ready for the shitty little job you got to make yourself feel human again, kissing the girl you’ve been fucking around with for way too long, and then waving goodbye to Dina as you go.

You’re rebuilt, no longer in pieces like you were when she left. In fact, your mind doesn’t look back on her much anymore, but there are traces of what she did to you in everything you do.

The way you put yourself back together, it’s a bit twisted up, not quite the same. 

Dina’s eyes never leave yours, gaze firm in its preemptive empathy, though there’s not much use. Your mind must have malfunctioned; there’s not a single emotion playing out in it right now but there absolutely, definitely should be. You’re just not sure which.

After a tense moment passes, you hum in feigned pensiveness.

She was playing bigger venues is what you heard – sold out shows, collaborating with artists she used to dream of meeting, getting into scandals and posting snapshots of her new, flashier life, or at least her manager was.

You knew Ellie, and you were well aware that she felt like a phony doing shit like that.

But, then again, you thought you knew she wouldn’t leave you for LA too.

A while back, it was radio silence. Her posts stopped, the new releases ceased abruptly, and it was as if she had vanished, dropped off the face of the planet.

Rehab is what the shitty gossip threads were saying. The things you began being told every now and then were hard to hear: she was foaming at the mouth, being seen in a random state thousands of miles away with little recollection of how she got there, drunk off her ass again at an awards show. Shards of glass, cutting through the fragile peace you'd built.

At the time, it still impacted you, of course. She was once your girl. But you were forced to look it in the eye: the fact that she was in the worst shape you’d seen her in when you came across images of her online, with sunken cheeks; yellowed, bloodshot eyes looking emptier than ever, and dry, chapped lips. Fuck, it made your stomach writhe with pain. She was still suffering, only scraps left of who she used to be.

Not that you expected anything other than deterioration.

Dina inhales sharply, nodding as she struggles through the wording of the question she’s about to pose,

“…How are you feeling?”

It doesn’t matter though. None of that matters, because you’ve moved forward. You live in a different neighborhood, with different hopes, a different job, and a different girlfriend.

“…I’m not exactly gonna welcome her with open arms, if that’s what you’re expecting. But, you know what? I’m okay.”

Different.

She nods again.

“I mean, it’s been a long time, D. I’ve moved on.”

Dina smiles at you reassuringly, and it pisses you off because why is she reassuring you? You said you’re fine, didn’t you?  What reason is there to be all empathetic?

“Yeah, of course, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I mean, it’s completely normal to feel… upset, I guess, even if you’ve moved on. She was still super important to you for some time in your life, even if things didn’t exactly end well.”

“Yeah… Well, I don’t really wanna see her, but I hope she’s doing better.”

She doesn’t know what she expected, but she couldn’t stay in that house.

The first step in was cautious, casting hesitant glances into the darkness in the hope that she’d catch a glimpse of something that would tell her you’re home, before she took notice of the hollowness.

Everything was spotless and your things were gone.

The display case with your tea set was empty, the little trinkets on your bedside table were nowhere to be found, your side of the closet was barren, and every trace of the life you shared had disappeared. The house seemed to be cocooned in a layer of dust, preserving only the imprint of Ellie.

You’d left the duvet and a pillow tapped up for her on the bed you shared if she ever did come home, but that bed is too big for her alone now.

Ellie turned around and walked out, leaving it all behind again. She wasn’t sure where to go, though she was positive she needed to be alone, away from all the people she’d hurt. Away from all the damage she’d done.

So, she walks till her muscles ache out to a motel on the other side of town, praying the dark keeps her face hidden enough from anyone who might recognize her and makes a nest in the stained sheets and matted carpet floor, because she much prefers this discomfort to the one in that house. Alone with her thoughts and the mechanical whir of the AC, she doesn’t want to cry; she doesn’t have the right to, but when a tear escapes, the dam breaks. At least it helps her sleep better.

The night passes like a flash and daylight filters through the grimy motel windows, past Ellie’s tired eyelids. She stirs awake, rubbing a hand down her face groggily, and lays in the haze for a while.

She’s supposed to see Dina today. The only friend she really ever kept in contact with while on her long ass bender and throughout her stay at the facility was Jesse, because she couldn’t bring herself to face Dina, not when she was in that state.

She has absolutely no idea what will happen, and it’s terrifying. But she can’t deny that she feels a deep-seated anxiety that can only be satiated by asking Dina about you, though the questions themselves haven’t exactly been decided on yet. She thinks she’ll quickly tire of having no idea what will happen but she doesn’t have much of a choice, so she slinks out of bed and trudges over to the sink to freshen up before setting off.

After confusing the fuck out of a half-deaf old man at Dina’s old apartment and a text exchange with one of their mutual acquaintances, Ellie finally shows up at what she really hopes is the right door and delivers a series of three shy knocks.

When the door is opened, she is immediately overtaken by a wave of warmth and the scent of freshly made pancakes. She still has a hard time getting food down but, honestly, she’d start drifting through the air towards it if she were in a cartoon.

Then, she looks up and, for a moment, her face falls at the sight of another unfamiliar face, but her eyes catch a glimpse of someone else across the apartment and Ellie’s heart stills.

You stare down at the text Nathan just sent you with guilt-ridden relief. A family emergency means the café isn’t going to open today, so you don’t have to go to work.

Feeling happy that Nathan has a family emergency makes you feel a little ashamed too, because Nathan’s a standup guy, but you didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night, and getting up to go to work with the tiresome deadweight of your eyebags is the last thing you need right now.

In truth, all that has been on your mind since that godforsaken exchange with Dina on the couch yesterday is Ellie, and the night following was a restless one. You laid in bed, staring at the ceiling with a permanent furrow in your brow that was making your face ache, unable to quiet the torrent of memories and emotions in your mind, feeling like you were back in that house again, trying to sleep the night after she walked out.

You tossed and turned, grasping pathetically for comfort, but every position felt like suffocation. In your dark and still room, you felt like you were going to rupture with the pressure of the whirlwind inside you against the confines of your skull.

Each second dragged out longer than the last. Each second, you remembered what it felt like to be with her and then to watch her fade, and it was all so vivid, so inescapable. You’re not even sure if you can call it longing, because what settles in your stomach feels a lot more like anguish, distress, a desperate hope for her to be in a better place. You so badly want to believe you’ve moved on from her, but the truth is so glaringly obvious that you can’t even turn away from it, so you just close your eyes.

You don’t want to think about her today. You’ll do anything to not think about her today.

You guess it’s a good thing Dina set off early because even the sight of her would’ve reminded you of Ellie.

Instead, when you glance to your left at the rustle of bed sheets beside you and see Alexis rubbing the sleep from her puffy eyes, you smile softly and try to feel some semblance of warmth at the fact that you can just laze around with her for now.

Alexis smiles back, groggily stretching the arm tossed over your waist and running it gently along your side.

There is a sinking in the pit of your stomach, though, at the realization that things are getting very domestic for something that was supposed to be ‘casual.’ You know now more than ever that you cannot handle that.

When she leans in and works her lips on the crook of your neck, mumbling,

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” you take it as your queue to sit up, shifting away from her.

“Good morning, babe. I got the day off, so I think I’m gonna start on breakfast. You want anything?”

Normally, she’s the one who makes breakfast, but you try not to acknowledge that the guilt of your impending split pushes you to take the reins this time.

Alexis crosses her arms behind her head, watching intently as you tug on some pants and states,

“You know, I’m kinda in the mood for pancakes.”

While she clears up the scattering of wrappers discarded along the couch from the evening before, you set up at the stove, and for the first time in a long moment, the feeling is golden, laced with the gentle timbre of Sade’s voice spilling from your phone as you put on your playlist and keep an ear out for the hiss of the coffee machine.

Your love is king, crown you in my heart.

The wall buzzes from the beat of a knock at the front door, but Alexis is already up on her feet, clarifying that she’ll ‘get it.'

Your love is king, never need to part,

You lift your head to offer a greeting from behind the kitchen island to the visitor and the air is choked out of your windpipes instantly. Around you, the noise and color fades to grey so all you can hear is the echo of your own heartbeat and a shrill ringing pounding in your ears, the blood rush making it feel like your whole body is palpitating.

Your kisses ring round and round and round my head,

Across the room, the air between you becomes charged and strained with the weight of the years that part you, the memories that became dust, crumbling beneath the pressure of careful fingertips.

Touching the very part of me, it’s making my soul sing,

You’re suspended in the memorial waves like cicadas in amber, before Alexis breaks the spell, glancing between the two of you perplexedly,

“Uh... Hey?”

Tearing the very heart of me, I’m crying out for more.

You reach out and pause the song, your eyes meeting the text Dina sent just a few minutes prior.

𝚒 𝚊𝚖 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢

𝚓𝚞𝚕𝚒𝚊 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚒𝚖 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝

𝚒 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗

You take in a sharp breath of air, inflating your figure before you look back up at the wide-eyed girl standing in the doorway, whispering a weary,

“Ellie…”

Ellie doesn’t quite catch it, pushing out a softer than intended explanation in the face of people looking at her like she is an alien.

"I... I came to see Dina."

You nod, slowly, unsurely, fingers curling around the edge of the countertop. When you’ve finally mustered up the strength to speak, you respond,

"She’s gonna be out for a while. You can wait inside."

You’re surprised by the harshness in your tone.

Ellie presumably is too, lingering in the doorway for a moment, and the tension in the room is palpable, so Alexis, makes up an out.

"I gotta go… grab… something,”

The auburn-haired girl’s gaze follows her as she leaves, before she quietly moves into the room, clicking the door shut behind her with a tightened jaw. She thinks that maybe if she stands still enough, it’ll be like she’s not even there, like she doesn’t even exist, but when you bring Alexis’ mug of coffee to the table by the couch for her to drink, you pull the chair out wordlessly, eyes held fast to anything but Ellie’s, before going back the stove to turn it off.

"Who's she?" Ellie wants to ask. She’s not an idiot, so she doesn’t.

Instead, she sits down quietly, watching you with weary eyes.

Ellie doesn’t look so gaunt anymore. At a certain point, she couldn’t even recognise herself when she looked in the mirror. She’s still too skinny, hair dishevelled, eyes red, and her face is littered with small scars and the remnants of a black eye, but you can look at her without wanting to break down now, or at least not for the same reasons.

You say a silent thank you to whoever’s out there looking out for her and then turn around to face her.

“I… I’m sorry, I should’ve… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t kno-”

“It’s fine, Ellie.”

A beat passes before she looks up at you, eyes wide,

“How… How have you been?”

You try to take in air without it catching as you respond, keeping your eyes on the counter.

“I’m okay.”

“Good… That’s good.” Ellie picks at a loose thread on the hem of her sleeve, chewing at her bottom lip, “I’m sorry.”

It comes out a whisper, breathless, and you close your eyes before saying,

“You know what, Ellie? It was hard at first. Really hard. I got really lonely, and I missed you a lot. I tried to make it work in that place and it just didn’t. But its been 2 whole years. I’m… I’m not the same...”

“I really am sorry. I fucked up- I should never have gone to LA. I never should’ve-”

She takes a moment to breathe, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to work through the explosion of thoughts, wishing she’d just kept her mouth shut, wishing she’d had more time to think of what to say, wishing she’d just stayed in that fucking motel room.

“I should’ve tried harder to get better…  I-I know that… it might not be possible, but I checked myself into rehab, and… and I want to try to make things right… I just- I don’t want to live like that anymore, I don’t wanna be alone anymore-”

You let her speak, the lump in your throat growing painfully as you watch her fumble sadly through her words.

“I know we can’t go back to how things used to be- I just… want to make things right and I don’t know how or what that means but-”

Alexis walks back into the room, making her way over to Ellie with a tight-lipped smile before she can finish what she wants to say.

“Sorry, had to go do that thing. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Alexis, she must’ve told you already but I’m her girlfriend.”

Ellie looks up at her with wide eyes,

“Oh.”

She holds her hand out to shake and Ellie takes it before reclining into her seat silently, staring at the wooden table in front of her.

Suddenly, it has become very apparent to Ellie that she lost her place in your life a long time ago, as a friend and as a partner, and she feels like an alien again.

She clenches her jaw.

“It’s… Uhhh, it’s nice to meet you too but I should get going. Dina won’t be back for a while so there’s… no point in sticking around.”

You think of stopping her, of telling her to sit back down, but you know this is for the best as you watch her scramble to her feet, looking like a kicked puppy, and walking back out the door.

Things will never be the same. You can’t go back to how things were, and your head knows you shouldn’t trust Ellie’s words.

But, when she sat in front of you at that table, telling you she didn’t want to be alone anymore, you thought you saw something you haven’t seen in a long time, a sliver of your Ellie. Of her old self, of her resilience, of her will, of her love and hopes.

And you so badly want to believe you’re over her, but the truth is looking you right in the eye, and some supermassive weight has lifted off your shoulders.

“Dude, was that literally Ellie fucking Williams?!”

𝙱𝙴𝚈𝙾𝙽𝙳 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 𝟶𝟹

summary: ellie and dina finally get to talk, you see her again at julia’s party

warnings: mentions of drug abuse and mental health issues, some description of injury, ellies jealous again, angst with comfort in later chapters

a/n: there’s a lana reference hidden in here if you can find it. this took so incredibly fucking long and i don’t even have an excuse (other than that this one is really long), i’m just really lazy 😬, see you next year. i hate this, not even fucking around, it feels so rushed even tho it took a month and a half to post 😶‍🌫️ it’s so long and barely any of it is about the two of them together but I SWEAR it’s so necessary for the next chapter cuz they’re literally gonna be together for the entirety of it… DONT STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE

tag list: @diddiqueen, @amberputh, @fatbootymuncher (dude.), @sapphointhe21stcenturyposts, @jadelovesyou00, @ravyaryn.

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Ellie is back in that room.

She never left.

Fluorescent lights overhead are blurred by an influx of tears as she sits by the hospital bed, scratching at and clinging to his cold and still body, sobbing like a bedlamite with blood drenching her clothes fresh carmine.

It was pouring out of him like it was desperate to escape and would not stop no matter how desperately she tried to bar the floodgate, seal the supermassive black hole with blockade of her pitiable palms.

She's felt this fear before, this helplessness, over and over. That pain is familiar.

And that glaring screech never quiets, always tormenting her, getting louder and louder as she watches Joel slip away, kicking, begging and screaming. She feels like one of those motes of dust that hover in mid-air with no limbs, no sway. It gets so loud, waves crashing against the walls of her skull like a tsunami, flushing her brain out of the night terror and jolting her heaving body upright.

She clutches her chest, grappling at the reddened skin, feeling that pain as raw and real as the day she had actually been in that fucking hospital. With a heavy head and a body scrawled with beads of sweat, she stumbles to her feet and strains to focus her mind on getting away, anywhere else, in spite of the crushing throb of blood rushing through her.

She cannot fill her lungs, each sharp and desperate intake of air feeling like gritty sand scratching her throat, and she needs to get out right now or else… or else- fuck!

She doesn’t know! But she can feel it, and it's bad- real bad. She can feel it deep in the knotted-up pit of her stomach, and it’s making her retch from nausea.

Her vision’s already blurring and the rest of the world melts away into a distorted sway of formless shapes and colors, overwhelmed by a pounding sense of terror. Holy shit, she can’t feel her face. She can’t feel her face. She needs to get out. Why are her legs suddenly so weak? She’s telling them to move but they won’t. Get out of here. She need to get to the door to outside. Fresh air. Right now.

Before she knows it, she’s stumbling out the wooden door and slumping onto the cold wooden planks of the veranda, hit with a wave of cool night air, prickling her clammy skin with goosebumps. She squeezes her eyes shut tight and never loosens the hold she has on her thumping chest, all focus placed on calming its assault, and then she feels it.

The gentle nudge of a wet snout against her hand, pulling her out of her mind. Ellie’s eyes meet the culprit sat beside her with his tongue hanging out as he pants excitedly.

She buries her hands in his matted fur. The sensation of it running through her fingers is like an anchor. It was one of the techniques they taught her at rehab, and she wheezed out a tired laugh in pride at her studiousness. Like a tidal wave, the panic ebbed, receding into the expanse of water beyond.

The scruffy shepherd dog nudged his head into her leg this time and Ellie groaned in disgust, still whispering a strained and quiet,

“Thank you, buddy.”

Head up to the sky, she counts each star her eye can capture to bring herself down, each constellation so much clearer back here than in the city, so much brighter now. Even the night air is a little crisper, filling her to the brim in a deep, stuttered sigh. As she sits there, her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, halting when she reads the sender’s name.

Ellie stares at the screen for a while, keeping her fingers deep within the tufts of fur beside her but her frayed nerves don't spark. She shoves the phone into the front pocket of her hoodie, not bothering to type out a response. Dina knows she’s seen it.

When she finally retreats to that haunted bedroom, she doesn’t bother trying to sleep. Those motes and flecks of decayed memories still linger in your and Ellie’s old apartment days after her eventual return from the godforsaken motel. Every couple of minutes she lifts a stiff arm out to let them flutter between her calloused fingers, glowing in the honeyed light of her bedside lamp.

Sometimes, the fact that your shift ends at 4,

“This is absolutely unacceptable!”

brings you an unimaginable flurry of joy,

“And I won’t be coming here again!”

because dealing with this for an entire day would probably make you catatonic.

You do your best to keep your facial muscles flexed into an expression that comes across as even mildly concerned, because you couldn’t give a fuck less if you tried, and now you’re just counting down the seconds till this boomer asshole turns around and leaves.

God, why is he still standing here?

Eventually, he walks out with all the cadence of a nine year old, and Nathan is patting your shoulder all reassuringly as he laughs at his own joke which you completely tuned out, and now you have to force yet another fake-laugh, and holy shit, this is the worst.

You spend the rest of your shift sort-of hovering around the espresso machines, pretending to be present. When the digits on your phone hit 16:00, you huff as you undo the finicky knot at the back of your apron and hurl it onto the counter before hurrying out.

You’d deal with the mildly irritating consequences of that dramatic exit tomorrow. For now, you just needed to get home and get into bed ASAP.

The front door slams shut, shaking the walls. You’re bounding up the stairs to your bedroom, flinging the door open when you get to it, before stopping in your frenetic movements at the sight of Alexis perched on the edge of your bed, scrolling on her phone.

You forgot she didn’t work on a Saturday.

You open your mouth to speak and, before the sound escapes your windpipe, she’s enveloping you in comfort, throwing her arms around you in an attempt to rid your face of that glum countenance.

Quickly, you clamber to cling onto her too, eyes wide as they flicker around the room from over her shoulder.

But… this feels stiff – claustrophobic. Too hot, too constrictive.

Like a giant wall enclosing you, moving in closer and closer. All she's doing is making an empty room smaller.

And maybe it’s just a bad reaction because you've had a bad day, but tears are pooling in your eyes rapidly as that dull ache that accompanies your perpetual loneliness suddenly grows louder and louder.

Constantly in the back of your mind, since your family turned their backs on you, with a friend group so small that you can still barely hold onto, with Dina so close but never close enough to trust completely, and the day the love of your life left you alone.

Just can’t ignore the feeling that there’s something so intrinsically different and disagreeable about you that you’ll never beat that isolation.

Endless love to give without an outlet.

You squeeze your eyes shut over tears you refuse to cry anymore.

You never intended for this thing with Alexis to get too far. You know nothing’s going to come of it. That’s just the way it’s been since Ellie.

Ellie’s foot’s got groove, tapping against the spongy grass surrounding the park bench with a ferocity transcendent to that of Ellie’s body.

She hasn’t been to this park in a while. Almost two years, to be exact.

Fuck, she thinks she might vomit.

She can’t stop whipping her head around the place erratically, trying to evaluate the people strolling aimlessly along the path. She thinks she must look suspicious as fuck. She’s probably drawing even more attention to herself, craning her neck like that. That thought stills her.

With her hood up and the drawstrings keeping the thick fabric taut to her freckled skin, she’s desperately trying to avoid recognition. She doesn’t think she can handle conversation with a friend, let alone a jittery fan. Also, she isn’t often vain, but she’d rather not be caught looking like shit.

Especially not after all the things people said about her online during her recuperation at rehab.

“Boo.”

Ellie yelps indignantly, lunging her body away from the source of the mutter behind her. When she turns around, she’s face to face with Dina’s head thrown back into a laugh, something she hasn’t come face to face with in an ashamedly long time.

To be frank, Ellie was not prepared for anything short of quiet resentment and awkward stretches of silence between the two of them, as was Dina.

However, Dina doesn’t think she can handle that. In fact, she doesn’t think either of them can handle that.

She doesn’t think she can handle hearing Ellie’s hushed voice and seeing that coy smile after so long of being worried sick about her, while keeping the well-guarded distance they’ve built over the past months.

Ellie has suffered a lot, Dina knows that too well. And she’s going to suffer more, going to get enough of that dreaded brooding silence from others (you). So, Dina decides to lighten the weight.

Ellie huffs out a sigh, face shifting into a small hesitant smile as she gauges the strange unfolding of this whole situation, before looking away and muttering,

“What the fuck, D? You scared the shit outta me.”

Because she was ready for something different, yes, but if this is what she’s going to get, she’ll take as much of it as she can. God, she craves normalcy more than those drugs she had to go to rehab for.

But then Dina takes a seat beside her, and the wind is knocked out of Ellie, suddenly so close to everything she left behind, amalgamated in the form of the woman who was, at some point in time, one of her best friends. She takes in a sharp breath of air, looks down at her hands, and feels awful.

“I… I’m sorry for… you know, showing up out of nowhere, but I-“

She takes a deep breath and looks up, cleverly utilizing gravity to discreetly send tears back down. While she takes a moment to gather her words, she appreciates the thin, cotton whirls, curving into the azure sky, and blinks.

Ellie didn’t used to cry. She thought, for the longest time, that something was wrong with her. And something was. She's been through a lot. She drifted through life like a ghost, pushing it down and down, and further down. But a few months ago, it was like the dam burst, and now tears are ready to flow no matter when or where.

It’s getting slightly inconvenient.

“I couldn’t bring myself to text you… a- after so long. I jus-“

Dina holds a hand up, and shakes her head,

“You’re good,”

before a heavy silence blankets the park bench again.

Further up, a little kid runs across the field and trips over air and eats shit on the ground. Ellie presses her lips together. Dina presses her lips together. They both look away.

“How… How have you been?”

“…Good. Different, but good. A lot’s changed around here since you…”

Ellie winces, eyebrows knitting into grievance as the words land heavy on her mind. She knew it was coming, Dina has every right to feel what she feels but, holy shit, it still cuts through her like a blade. Ellie can’t bring herself to look at her as she stutters through another apology, her voice cracking through her scramble for the right words,

"Dina, I’m… I’m so sorry. I should never have just… left like that. I didn’t mean for it to-"

"Ellie," her voice is firm,

"you don’t have to explain yourself. What happened… yes, it hurt really fucking bad at the time, but you weren’t well... You’ve been through a lot... too much, and I’m sure you’re gonna have more than enough shit on your plate here too, but I forgave you a long time ago."

Ellie’s words catch in her throat. There is so much to say, and no way to say it, but the look on Dina’s face makes her feel comfortable just leaving it behind. It’s so difficult to muster the energy to speak, and there are no easy answers or simple explanations. They both know that.

"Anyway, enough about me. How’ve you been?"

“I… I’ve been doing a lot better – emotionally. Rehab was good. It… helped me a lot. But… I don’t know. Leaving LA was a given, it’s just… I don’t think I can face a lot of the people here. I want to try, I want to make things right, I wanna be better, but the people… they just… look at me like they hate me…

I don’t know if coming back here was the right thing to do…”

Dina stays quiet for a moment. Her heart is full, and her waterlines are flooding for the first time since she sat down.

“Fuck ‘em all. They don’t know a thing, Els. They don’t even know you.”

Her voice is small and her eyes are wide; she watches the ripple of movement through the trees lining the sidewalk at the other side of the park as wind rushes by them, before turning to Ellie with a small smile tugging at her lips and continuing, louder,

"You know, there’s a small party tonight at Julia’s place. You should come. I think it’d be good for you to get out for once, ya hobbit."

Ellie looks up at Dina from the absolutely captivating spot she’s been scratching and staring at on her jeans for the past few minutes, expression like a deer caught in headlights,

"I don’t know… There’ll be too many people there, and… you know."

Dina nods.

"I do. But it’ll be a small thing - just some friends, hanging out, talking. No pressure. You’re gonna have to face those people eventually. It’s a small town. But, who knows, you might even enjoy yourself."

Ellie tugs her bottom lip into her mouth, mulling over the suggestion.

There are a lot of reasons why she should turn in down, a lot of people she doesn’t want to run into, pushing her to retreat to her casket-like abode. And then there’s the nagging question she finds herself wanting to ask again. Will she be there? But she already knows the answer to that, and she wasn’t lying when she said she wants to make things right.

"Okay," Ellie rubs her neck, "I’ll see if I can make it."

She figures that’s a start.

Dina closes the door gently in her wake, her outward listlessness a screen concealing the frantic liveliness of her mind as she plays through her conversation with Ellie.

She hovers to the living room and tosses her cap onto the table, letting her loud hair breathe. She runs a tired hand through the loose knots intertwining its dark curls and leans against the back of the couch, where she finds you and Lexi embracing each other.

Or, Alexis is embracing you at least. Dina thinks the way you’re positioned on the couch sort of resembles an archaic painting, with her clinging onto your waist and you stretching away from her grasp. Anyway, Alexis is snoring softly, and you're lying awake, arms crossed behind your head, as you stare up at Dina, giving her a tight-lipped smile.

When Dina walked in, her head was bursting with morsels of things she needed to tell you immediately, but they fade to static in her mind with Lexi’s presence, especially after she stirs awake and rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Dina isn’t fond of Alexis, in case it wasn’t already obvious.

After an awkward exchange of reserved ‘hey’s, she movesto the kitchen to heat up some food in pensive silence, watching it rotate in the yellow, whirring glow of the microwave.

Eventually, the outsider takes her leave, and Dina flumps onto the couch beside your now sat-up form, holding two plates of food and handing you the one in her right.

“Here. Because I know for a fact your dumb ass has not eaten.”

You snicker as you scarf down a particularly large spoonful.

“Yeah, I was being held down, dude.”

She watches you in awe and bursts into laughter at the sight of you absolutely wolfing down your pasta.

“Damn, bitch.”

Once your plate is hammered down to a scattering of crumbs, the two of you ease into petty conversation. Dina tells you she’s going on a date soon, and it isn’t so petty anymore, as you sit up and lean in.

“So, you were serious about ending things with Jesse, huh?”

“I’m done with him. For good. I just… What we had was nice but it fucking felt like we were on autopilot at that point, ya know?”

You nod; she sips her beer as the conversation wanes. Then, you notice the stiffness of her expression – the wistful twitch of her lip. You know what that means.

“What?”

“What?”

“What is it? You look like you’re dying to tell me something, so go on. What is it?”

Dina sighs and looks away and your stomach sinks, because you also know what that means. Your suspicions are only confirmed when she tells you she met up with Ellie today.

“How is she?” you ask. Your chest hurts with how hard your heart thumps.

“She’s doing better, I really think she’s going to be okay…”

You nod. There’s nothing else you want from her. Being clear with yourself, your mind never quite left the last conversation, did it?

Fucking Ellie, coming back and taking over your mind so easily.

A sick part of you hopes she thinks of you even more than you think of her.

You don’t know it, but you’re right. Painfully so.

Dina’s conflicted. She hesitates, because she's not sure if you’ll react badly but she can’t help letting it slip past her lips.

“I really think you should give her-”

“What, Dina? Give her what?”

Your eyes are wide and trained on her.

She sighs. Never mind.

“Look, I invited her to Julia’s party tonight.”

And now your eyes are narrowed at her, harsh and interrogative.

“Well, she can’t stay hidden away forever! She’s gotta get out eventually, and you’re gonna have to face her again, whether you like it or not…

I know it’s hard to trust her after what she did to you, and I’m not asking you to… I’m just saying… I know that you know the state she was in when she left… But she’s not there anymore… She was our best friend at one point and, when I spoke to her today, I really felt like she was serious about what she said… I just think, for old times’ sake, maybe… just, as friends, acquaintances even… give it a chance…”

It's getting really hard to keep up the pretense of disinterest – keep pretending this doesn't go as deep as it does.

You still love Ellie. You would never deny that, even in spite of the bullshit idea that you’re over her. And you do want to see her happy, to see her smile, to see that smile again. So, if there is even a slight chance of putting things right and moving forward, you’re willing to be friends with her, with the person who broke your heart. Just friends.

“…Okay.”

Ellie shows up to the party on a wing and a prayer a little while after it gets dark out.

She’s still on the fence about whether or not she regrets it.

Julia’s moved since she last visited. Granted, it’s been a fuck of a long time, but she likes the new place. It’s charming, or whatever. Or maybe it’s just open-plan. Ellie feels like an old fart for thinking about the room being open-plan; Ellie feels like Joel.

Then she remembers that that feeling alone would have sent her into a spiral just a year ago.

Regardless, the place is glowing gold, with soft lights, and a rhythmic, drunken buzz of chatter among the cliques of people. A lot less than she'd expected. It’s also slightly reminiscent of the get-togethers Maria used to set up, drawing Ellie’s mind back to the fact that she needs to go over to Maria and Tommy’s soon.

She feels like an alien again, standing outside of it all, like the twang of a snapped guitar string during a melody.

Also, Dina was right: things are different. Very different.

In fact, with a quick scan of the room alone, Ellie can’t make out any familiar faces, save for a few, which she often sees looking at her distastefully throughout the course of the evening.

It makes her visibly retract into the table, hunching her back slightly, but she is used to the whispers.

She’s gotten a lot of them in her time.

And now she’s sure she regrets coming, because it isn’t even a little fun if you’re the only one who isn’t the least bit drunk.

She notices a buzz in the pocket of her jeans and pats the space for her phone, pulling it out to see that it’s yet another missed call from Max.

It leads her to a lookthrough of masses of texts left on delivered and blocks of unanswered calls from him in her phone history.

With a sigh, she returns it to its place in her pocket. She might as well block him at this point. He’s not gonna be hearing from her for a long time.

“Ellie!”

She flinches upright and doesn’t scour the scene for long before her eyes land on the tall Asian asshole that has seemingly appeared out of thin air beside her. She’s secretly a lot more relieved than she should be at the sight of a friend.

“I swear to God, both of you love to fuckin’ torture me.”

He guffaws while she waits for him to calm down, unimpressed.

“Wait, both of us? Who’s both of us?”

“Who d’ya think?”

“Oh, right. You finally spoke to Dina then, huh?”

Ellie nods, taking a sip of the drink sitting in her Styrofoam cup.

“I swear to God, you two are perfect for each other.”

He raises his eyebrows,

“Actually…”

“What? Again?”

That’s one thing that has remained a constant no matter how much time has passed.

“I give it, like, two weeks. You’ll be back together.”

Jesse takes a deep breath,

“I don’t know, man, I think we’re done for good this time. Already been two weeks… Why? Did she say anything?”

Ellie shakes her head and Jesse leans back against the table defeatedly before peering into her cup.

“Whatcha got there?”

That should probably rub her the wrong way, but it doesn’t.

“Water.”

They’ve drifted apart, and it’s blatant. Of course it would be. Ellie’s had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to prepare, and she’s expected this, but the conversation drifts back into that same easy flow like it used to all those months back, speckled with laughter, even some of Ellie’s own. She can’t help but feel slightly more hopeful, slightly more human.

He asks about Max and songwriting, having caught a glimpse of a text, and she considers it.

She hasn’t considered music in an almost saddening amount of time but her notebook is scrawled with half-finished poetry, so she knows it’s begging to be let out of her, and the thought elicits serenity in her. Making songs without intent to release. No purpose, no pressure. Just for herself and whoever she chooses to make privy.

She thinks she just might start.

An hour or so later, Ellie, having floated around the place, aimlessly entering conversations with Dina and Jesse, leans against a counter top beside a stumpy drink cooler.

She’s been mulling over the option of leaving for a while since Dina somehow disappeared on her trek to the restroom and Jesse took off early. She eyes the factions spotting the empty space across the floor. Somewhere near the dining table, Ellie catches sight of you, and she tenses up almost instantly.

You look good. You look beautiful. You always look beautiful, like the first time she saw you all those years ago, and she couldn’t get her eyes off you from up on the stage. No matter how warped things became towards the end, those memories will always be paradisaical.

The only difference, she considers, with a tight feeling in her chest, is the glaringly large new factor lingering around you, Alexis.

If Ellie and you were still together, if Joel was still here, if she hadn’t lost her mind, if she had gotten better sooner, or if she had never left at all, that would be her.

But it’s not.

It’s like a physical reminder, standing across the room, of the cruel consequence. Of everything she lost, what she left behind.  A reminder that the two of you were never a given, that you weren’t just going to find your way back to each other, and that maybe it’s for the best, because Ellie hadn’t seen a smile so genuine on your face for the entire month leading up to her departure as the one you’re wearing now. It stirs something within her, and it makes her take a deep breath - decide to get a refill on her water.

With her head tilted down, brows knitted like a kicked dog, she walks over to the sink, before she crosses paths with a woman. She looks to be a few years younger than Ellie, a few inches smaller too, with frizzy hair like strands of hay, grinning at her.

"Excuse me," her voice quivers with hesitant excitement and Ellie dreads what’s yet to come.

"You're Ellie Williams, right? I’m such a big fan, I saw you perform in Radio City back in New York last year! You were, like, genuinely fucking amazing! Man, I can’t believe I’m actually seeing you in the flesh!"

Ellie tries to make her smile look less like nervous, eyes briefly meeting the woman's before darting away. Her capacity for fan interactions has significantly decreased since she came back from LA, which is not good since it was already pretty fucking awful. Especially now that her mood has flat lined. Her jaw tightens as she mutters curtly,

"Yeah, that's me.”

“Oh my god, okay, um, would you mind if we took a quick photo together?"

With a hardened expression, Ellie takes a sip from her cup before responding.

"Actually, I'm just here to chill. Not really up for photos."

She immediately feels a tinge of regret as she watches the woman’s shoulders slump and her eyes dim,

"Oh, right. Of course. Sorry to bother you."

As you meander through the course of people and furniture, Ellie doesn’t bother watching the woman retreat to her place among the others. She releases a shaky exhale, drumming her fingers against the rim of her cup, her gaze fixed on a distant point before you yank the stack drink cooler open beside her.

"Ever the charmer, I see."

Her lips part to respond, but you’re so near, and she wasn’t expecting you to even come close to approaching her, so she stumbles through her words like a dumbass, mentally punching herself in the face.

“Uh- Hey… Didn’t know you were coming…”

“Well, I’m here. In the flesh.”

Ellie blushes, her voice low,

“You heard all that?”

“Yep.”

“How bad was it?”

You chuckle,

“Yeah, pretty fucking bad, dude.”

She sighs, running a hand over her face,

“I swear I didn’t mean to be an asshole, it's just… I haven’t spoken to any fans in, like, three months, and I have lost all ability to.”

“Pfft, okay, Justin Bieber. You and your hoards of fangirls.”

Ellie chuckles lightly, the dimple in her cheek deepening as she huffs out a quiet,

“Shut up…

Look… I-uh… I’m sorry for showing up like that at your place, I didn’t know you were living there… and… and, I’m sorry for how the conversation went, I just- had a lot to say, and it came out weird, and I understand if you don’t wanna see me anymore. I understand if you want me to keep my distance… If that’s what you want, I’ll do it, but what I said, I meant it… And I know it isn't really not possible to go back to how things were, but if you’re willing to give me a chance, I really would like to make things right.”

“Ellie… I’m gonna be honest with you. When you left, it was… “

You take a deep breath, shaking your head,

“I felt like my life was over. And then I kept hearing about overdoses and rehab and-

I don’t know…

I’m not gonna pretend I stopped caring about you. I never stopped… but… I don’t know… I just… I don’t fucking know if anything can go back to the way it was…

I used to feel like I’d never be able to forgive you.”

When you look back at Ellie, she takes in a sharp breath of air and her expression shifts as she looks away from you with glassy eyes.

“But… I’d like to try.”

She releases the air slowly, nodding her head as the tears pool, swiped away by steadfast hands before they cascade down her freckled cheeks. It reminds you wipe away your own.

“We have to take it slow, just try to be friends again, okay?”

She’s nodding,

“Yeah, okay…”

For the first time in way too fucking long, you feel oddly liberated. It’s like a weight has been lifted off your soul, released in the form of a heavy sigh, deep and visceral.

When you lock eyes with Ellie, you feel overrun with the desire to hug her - beyond just a hug. It’s been too long.

Perhaps it’s the nostalgia laced through the air in the moment, all the memories of late nights at the bar under dim lights, with the world shrunk to just big enough for the two of you and your honest laughter and the song changing to something you remember, and you watch a few couples start swaying in their drunken leisure.

"Hey," you look over and speak softly, your voice almost drowned out by the music.

"Hey,"

"I used to love this song."

Ellie nods, her gaze flickering towards the center of the room, where a few couples had started swaying to the slow beat and an ember of recognition glows in her dilated pupils before she chuckles softly.

"Yeah, I remember."

"Wanna dance?"

You blindside her completely, but she only lets the shock stunt her into hesitation for a brief moment before nodding,

"Yeah… I’d like that."

But, like clockwork, Alexis jogs over, weaving through people with a drunken flush across her cheeks, eyes lighting up when she spots you. You know it shouldn't disappoint you, but it does, because you can already feel Ellie tensing beside you and it takes everything in you not to groan.

"Hey, there you are!"

Her arm finds its way around your waist but the touch feels more suffocating than anything. Again.

"I've been looking for you everywhere, babe," her eyes dart between you and Ellie.

"Oh, hey, Ellie," Alexis adds,

"It's good to see you."

Ellie forces a gulp down her constricted throat with a stiffened posture. Her fingers curl into her palm before she takes hold of her left ring and pinkie in her right hand, squeezing them gently to feel something.

The easy smile she’d been wearing moments ago discreetly faded, deforming into something more guarded, uncertain, and when she speaks, her voice is quieter now. You think it's almost too quiet.

"Yeah. You too."

There's a strained silence, and it makes the air thick, too thick to breathe in comfortably, as the three of you stand awkwardly, the music a distant thrum in the background. You can feel Ellie retreating into herself. An old, familiar insecurity is creeping back into her eyes.

Clueless, Alexis leans into you,

"Wanna dance, babe?"

What if you said no? You would really, really love to say no. You already asked Ellie, after all. You look over at her.

But, before you can respond, her voice cuts in, soft but laced with something you placed a long time ago. Her smile was tight and forced.

"I’m good. You two have fun. I was planning on leaving soon anyway.”

And even through the polite wording, you can feel a pin-prick edge, a subtle distance that hadn’t been there previously. Her eyes land on you for a split second and then back at Alexis, but it was hard to miss the look in them.

"Really? Why? You should stick around for a bit longer."

“No, really, I’d rather not. I don't wanna impose.”

You clench your jaw, placed on the outskirts of the conversation again. Deja vu washes over you as you think back to the abrupt cut-off of the last one.

She turns to you,

"I'll see you soon?"

You nod.

You aren’t blind. You've lived with Ellie, spent every waking moment with her for years and years worth of time; you can tell when she's jealous.

But she knows she doesn't have the right to feel hurt..

What really plagues you is the fact that it shouldn’t make you feel this way.

When she leaves, you say nothing.

Ellie drags her feet up the wooden staircase leading to the veranda, mind clouded with thoughts, good and bad, with nothing but the shrill cry cicadas and of the oak beneath the weight of her shoes to punctuate the night.

When she reaches the top step, a familiar shepherd dog leaps at her torso, barking enthusiastically with his tail wagging and his tongue out. It knocks the wind out of her, and she grabs onto the rail.

“Woah. Hey, Buddy!”

She chuckles down at him.

The name just stuck. And, she supposes that, since she named him, she’s stuck with him for good too. It’s not like anyone will be looking for him anyway; he’s a stray she’s been feeding since she got back, with matted fur speckled in dirt and a slightly more skeletal structure than most. Ellie doesn’t like to acknowledge fact that he sometimes reminds her of herself.

When he barks up at her, she scratches him behind the ear and watches him contort into her touch like it’s crack or something.

And then, he somehow manages to get inside when she opens the door, paws smacking against the laminate floors as he scuttles across them. Ellie appreciates company a lot more these days.

She collapses onto that fucking king-sized bed as soon as she reaches it and runs a hand through her scruffy auburn hair.

Her fingers run through a lot longer than they used to. She needs a haircut.

You used to cut her hair for her. She’d sit in her underwear, shivering on a stool in the bathroom with a towel over shoulders that she’d hold tight like a cap, and you’d laugh at her as you sifted through her locks for ones that looked too long, blowing the cuttings from her bangs off the bridge of her freckled nose,

The last time she was due for a cut, she did it herself. Craned her neck over a bin and swiped the cut hair off her shoulders before looking at the choppy shit-show sitting on her head in the mirror.

Maybe she’ll just go to a hairdresser this time around.

She sighs and looks around the room. This was the only one in the house still full of things, because you’d left all of her possessions neatly arranged around it. Leaned against the foot of the bed is a painting she’d started a little after Joel passed, unfinished. A thin layer of dust sits upon the cotton and acrylic surface of the canvas, blurring the image of your face.

There are a few of that sort scattered around the room. Ellie turns onto her side and lets the tears run quietly. No pounding heart or hyperventilating. Just crying.

It’s bittersweet but, after tonight, she feels a flicker of hope, a dangerous thing for someone with her past.

She’s grateful for the door you opened to her, grateful for anything you give her at all, because she’ll take it gladly, and make things right, piece by piece, slowly, regardless of how long it takes.

It’s the only way she can keep going, because she’s tired of the way things have been. She’s tired of running.

At this point, you’re about ten minutes away from Julia’s place. You left, still not uttering a word. You left, without telling Alexis, and trailed down the sidewalk, paved with streetlights ushering you on, with a hazy mind but a set goal.

When your journey ends, you’re at the pebble beach that you and Ellie used to come to together.

Because you want to remember what it felt like.

Because you want to feel Ellie.

Smooth stones roll off each other as you walk to the shore, causing a series of mini avalanches with each step you take.

You stand before the shoreline, watching the foam blockade rush up to your feet and then back again. Down the center of the water, there’s a ribbon of moonlight, luminescent ripples glinting in the water, a thousand diamonds.

You sigh, and pull out your phone, tapping Alexis’ number.

It’s probably time.

Ellie in her Jackson outfit in Seattle is so fit I might get pregnant

just finished the first game and AAAAAAA it hits so much more different when you play it yourself :( I also noticed that when Joel's talking about how he struggled with surviving, he touched his watch :( which is just so AAAAAA ouchie :((( he almost lost both his girls :(((( I am so normal :((((

lord help me i’m going feral

artist @nramv

don’t talk to me.

ellie williams is the type to wear these

omg?!???

📸 from @astralnymphh

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEL

I CANT BELIEVE I MISSED HIS FUCKING BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE SKRUNKLY OLD MAN

Joel Miller!!!

Dialogue Styles and The Last of Us

There are many different ways that media handles dialogue, but in my observations they can usually be sorted into three different categories: Poetic, Witty, and Real.

There are more complicated and technical ways to look at it, but most shows have one that is the main “style” of dialogue.

Poetic Dialogue: People talking pretty, basically. It’s unrealistic, but speaking in metaphors or beautiful words can make you cry or give you chills.

Many monologues use poetic dialogue. Think of Luthen’s “revolution” speech in Andor or Silco’s “drowning” speech from Arcane. Period pieces or fantasy media also tend to use poetic dialogue.

Witty Dialogue: Dialogue that’s funny or smart. It’s also unrealistic, but really fun to watch!

Most good comedies most often use witty dialogue, like Community, Arrested Development, and Brooklyn 99. As do dark comedies like Succession or Aaron Sorkin Dialouge like the Social Network (that movie fucks, btw).

Realist Dialogue: Pretty self explanatory. Realistic Dialouge that sounds like how real people talk.

Examples of good realist dialogue include The Bear and Better Call Saul.

(Quick side note: Realist Dialogue isn’t indistinguishable from normal conversation. Usually dialogue and the way people talk is very different. Real dialogue just captures a more natural and raw way of speaking than the other examples.)

So what category does The Last of Us fall into?

Well, here’s the interesting part. I would say that the game and the show fall into different dialogue categories.

I would say that the game falls into the ‘Witty’ dialogue type, while the show falls into the ‘Realist’ dialogue type.

The show also occasionally dabbles in Poetic Dialogue, like Bill’s speech to Frank at the end of ep 3, Joel’s “I’m failin’ her in my sleep’ speech. If you’ve watched Chernobyl you’ll know that mixing real and poetic dialogue is a Craig Mazin specialty.

While both, like most pieces of fiction, have moments of all three (like the show absolutely has witty moments and the game has poetic ones), their main styles are different.

While there are many ways that you can see the differences in dialogue styles, but the starkest contrast is the way Ellie talks.

In the game you can definitely see the Juno-esque origins of Ellie that people have speculated about. She talks with this quickness, even in dramatic moments. She’s always got a quip or a joke or something clever to say (though you see less of it in the final part of the game).

In the show Ellie talks more like a real teenager. She’s clever and a she’s funny, sure, but she also gets flustered or doesn’t know what to say. She says the wrong things or rambles or she blurts stuff out and she sounds young in a way that game Ellie doesn’t.

You can see the difference most clearly in scenes very similar in both the show and the game, like when she shoots the man in Kansas City/Pittsburg, or when she wakes up in David’s cage.

In both these scenes you can definitely see show Ellie a bit more flustered, a bit more scared, and a bit more young.

TLOU HBO was able to use it’s medium to increase the realism of the story (something I’ve talked about before), and a way of doing that is to change how the characters themselves speak.

There are many other examples, but these are definitely some of the clearest.

But while the way they talked changed, the characters stayed quite consistent with only a few very intentional differences, and I think it’s awesome, and a testament to how strong the characters were, and how the writing in the show is that it doesn’t feel too jarring or separate. At the end of the day they’re very different, but both absolutely play to their strengths as a medium and I think that’s pretty cool!

Ficlet where Ellie gets a fever/mild cold while still on the road to Lincoln or Pittsburgh? There's just so much time skipped in that whole period before jackson where endless bonding moments and potential for learning to trust can exist

Sorry this took a hot second! Thank you so much for the request!

Anyone can send me asks for specific TLOU story ideas and I’ll write a bit for them! So anyone reading this—feel free to send me requests!

(1.1k words. Mentioned character death.)

(Also I know you said before Pittsburg but I did right after because it worked a bit better for this story)

They were nearly a week out from Kansas City when Ellie’s cough started to worry Joel. It had started small, just a sound he’d attributed to the dusty tunnels they’d all gone through with Henry and Sam. But it had gotten worse. Small, sharp exhales to guttural roars that racked her tiny frame. 

She’d been quiet since KC, something Joel had been trying and failing to convince himself was because of how raw her throat most likely was.

Eventually they found a small town, a place called ‘Lecompton’, as far as he could tell from the worn, tattered signs scattered around the eerily empty neighborhoods.

It had been one of the places FEDRA tried to clear out before they gave up and started barricading civilians in the QZs, or at least he thought, judging from the tank tracks etched into the concrete, bullet holes in the shabby, cracked plaster of houses, and homes burnt until they were just charred frames.

They barricaded themselves in an old bar, Joel sealing all the windows in an attempt to muffle their sounds to the outside. Ellie’s coughs were loud enough that he felt like everyone in the world could hear, and even if the town seemed relatively safe there was probably a stray infected or two somewhere nearby.

”Hey, Ellie, I’m goin’ out for a second.” He took her shoulder after her latest round of hacking screeches. She looked up at him with a pathetic choke, her eyebrows drawn together. “Try to be quiet.”

She looked up at him, widening her eyes and making an explosion gesture above her head. ‘Woah, really?! I hadn’t thought of that’. 

Joel sighed, a hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Somehow she could still manage to snark him with her voice blown out.

“Yeah yeah, I get it.” He told her. “I’ll be right back.”

He took a seat outside the abandoned bar, letting his head fall back as he stared up at the cloudy sky above him. The cough was making him nervous. A frantic kind of nervousness that could only be cured by getting it to stop. Getting Ellie okay.

He couldn’t trade for medicine. Even if he found another party, people offering something as valuable as medicine almost always had an ulterior motive.

He made a mental note to tell that to Ellie later.

Really all he could do at this point was hope that the cough wasn’t an infection or strep throat. But he was never good at waiting or hoping, and as he stood and prepared to try and find anything useful he could in the small houses surrounding them, he spotted a small pine tree off in the underbrush where the town trailed off twenty feet away.

“Brought you some tea.” He said gruffly, sitting down next to where Ellie was curled in her sleeping bag on the floor. “Need some fuckin’ peace and quiet.” He handed her the tea he’d brewed, still hot in his thermos from the fire he’d snuffed out outside.

Ellie looked down at it, a crease between her eyebrows as she looked back up at him.

“It’s Eastern Red Cedar tea. You make it using the pine and boiling it. Helps with coughs.”

Ellie looked back down at the tea, slowly lifting the cup to her lips and tilting her head back to drink. She made a face, nearly dropping it. 

Joel’s first instinct was to snap at her, but she hadn’t really done anything wrong.

“Yeah, I know it doesn’t taste great,” he told her instead. “But it’ll help.”

Ellie scrunched her lips to the side, nodding once before she reached over towards her backpack, unzipping it and shuffling through the contents.

She pulled out a sketchpad they’d found a few days ago in an abandoned gas station and a blue pen which she shook a few times.

‘U botenist now?’ She wrote in the smallest possible font, trying to save as much room as possible for her surprisingly good drawings.

“First off it’s spelled with an ‘A’, not an ‘E’. Second off… just drink the fuckin’ tea.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, scratching down a quick ‘fine’ before pausing and staring at the letters.

He knew they were both thinking of exactly the same person.

Suddenly the silence didn’t seem so refreshing anymore.

“A couple years after the outbreak this young woman joined our little group of raiders—me and Tommy’s.” He started before he could think better of it. But by the way Ellie lit up he knew it was the right choice. “Drink your damn tea while I’m tellin’ you all this.” He told her, gesturing at his thermos. “So her name was Poppy, which was pretty funny ‘cause she loved plants. Loved ‘em.” He scratched his cheek, considering his words. “She was the caretaker of this garden at her college before the outbreak. Brought the whole thing back from just a couple dead weeds. She was real proud of it.” 

Ellie finally took another sip of her tea.

“Once we’re all headin’ through Kansas and she points out this pine tree. She says ‘that’s an Eastern Red Cedar, it’s good for coughs and bronchitis and joint pain and digestion’. And I really didn’t give a shit, but I go ‘damn, why ain’t we usin’ this all the time?’ And Poppy goes—” he smiled a bit, thinking back to it. “—‘’cause it tastes like if a pinecone could shit’.”

Ellie let out a small laugh, wincing and reaching her hand to her throat. 

“So there’s your story. Now drink.” Ellie grudgingly took another sip, reaching towards her notebook and scribbling something down.

‘What happened to her?’ 

Joel forced himself not to wince.

“We went our separate ways.” He lied. “The group disbanded eventually and we just said our goodbyes.” He could still hear her screams, trapped, rattling around inside his skull, clawing for his eardrums.

He blinked, her decimated corpse flashing behind his eyes.

Ellie looked down, taking another sip.

‘Really?’ She wrote. Joel nodded.

“Yeah. Saw an old ally of mine and they said she’d settled in the Phoenix QZ.” He knew he shouldn’t lie. Shouldn’t come up with tall tales trying to spare Ellie’s already gone innocence, but he didn’t want to see that look in her eyes anymore. The one she got when he knew she was thinking about just another person who died.

“Y’know, I had another ally. His name was Hank, but we all called him ‘Barrel’ because he could handle a rifle best I’ve ever seen.” 

Ellie perked up, looking surprised he kept talking. 

“So one day me and Barrel, we’re out scavenging for food—drink your tea—and we get ambushed. There’s ten raiders on us and we’re dashing like hell to—”

THE END

Remember, send me requests for more! This was super fun to do!

Now that this has become a topic of discussion (again) there’s something I gotta say…

Honestly? I have some problems with Ellie’s part 2 design. Not because it’s a bad design, but because of a completely different reason:

Ellie in TLOU part 2 is nineteen years old. After the time-skip she’s 21-22.

Ellie in Part 2 is a Hollywood teenager. Plain and simple. And I know people are going to hate on this because they love Ellie’s character design, and it’s not that I think it’s bad, I just think it’s important to acknowledge that it isn’t realistic.

I’ve seen so many ways people have tried to justify it, saying things like “well stress and lack-of-food make people look older”. Yeah, they do. What they don’t do is turn people into models. Stress doesn’t give them perfect cheek-bones and plush lips—it gives them wrinkles. A couple scars doesn’t make someone look realistic—especially when they’re precisely placed as to keep the sex-appeal at a maximum. Ellie in TLOU part 2 was absolutely designed to be attractive and appealing to people. The design wasn’t made to be realistic, the design was made to be marketable.

It’s absolutely fine to love the character design, what’s not fine is to expect people to look like it and be mad that they don’t.

Bella Ramsey looks like a real nineteen-year-old. Bella Ramsey looks like a human. Bella Ramsey didn’t have their appearance designed pixel-by-pixel and shown to focus groups and adjusted so they could look good to as large a range of people as possible.

People look like people. Get over it.

Can we as a fandom PLEASE learn to use #anti?

I feel like every time I want to just read jokes or peoples analysis’ or see cute fanart, I’m absolutely bombarded with vitriol for the show, the actors, the changes, etc.

I realize I can’t stop this behavior, but I would like to distance myself from it, and unfortunately I can’t do that just myself. I just want to enjoy my favorite show in peace, without every online space being full of unavoidable hate.

So, I’m begging you…

“I hate how they changed Bill’s storyline” wow, fascinating, tag it #anti tlou hbo

“They should recast Bella Ramsey” well that’s certainly an opinion, and may I just add… tag it #anti bella ramsey

“The show is worse than the games in every way and I hate the show so much adijnfokdcm” hm, I see, #anti tlou hbo

If your first thought is “but all I’m doing is providing good faith criticism!” Or “I don’t hate Bella Ramsey, I just wish they cast someone else!” I don’t care. Tag it #tlou hbo crit or #bella ramsey crit if you’re unwilling to tag it #anti. You’re smart, you know full well when you should be tagging things like that. I don’t want your justifications, I just want to be able to look at #the last of us on tumblr and have good time.

I always try never to compare Pedro and Bella’s performances with Ashley and Troy’s.

That isn’t to say I don’t compare performances in general, or that I don’t have character choices that prefer in one version over the other, because I absolutely do. I just think that in this specific instance, the comparison of ‘X did better acting than Y’ is nonsensical and reductive of both parties. Both versions of TLOU have absolutely stellar performances, but they aren’t the same kind of performances!

In gaming, the actors have to be more exaggerated in order to get emotion across, since mocap doesn’t allow for the kind of subtle emotion that video does. You can’t tell what someone’s thinking by the look in their eyes or the way they hold their bodies without it being more exaggerated. But being more exaggerated doesn’t mean being more expressive. Pedro and Bella are both truly fantastic subtle actors, who act more with their eyes than most Hollywood stars do with their whole bodies. That’s just as expressive, it’s just a different kind of expressive. Acting with your eyes and with the subtle ways you hold your body just isn’t possible in video games yet.

If you took Ashley and Troy’s performances in TLOU game and stuck them 1:1 in a live action show, they would seem out of place and over-acted. That’s good! That’s how it’s supposed to be, because mocap and v/o acting are different from live-action, in-front-of-camera acting. Ashley and Troy are also incredible tv actors, but video game acting isn’t tv acting!

My point is that not is comparing these specific sets of actor’s performance useless and unnecessarily antagonistic, it’s also nonsensical. They both gave stellar performances, each pair delivering all-time-great acting specifically tailored for their respective mediums, and that deserves our respect and admiration, not useless manufactured competition.

Ellie Williams, game vs. show similarities #1 [photos by: VP_TLOU; go and follow my talented friend]

Maria: Who wants to put the angel on top of the tree? Joel: I'll do it Ellie: PUT ME DOWN, JOEL

Ellie Williams, The Last of Us; all stages

The more I think about it, I can't get over the scene with the cops at the beginning of the game; it's so powerful, real, and raw. There is so much happening in just one minute.

First, Ellie knows her 'infection' is going to be revealed. She needs to act quickly, and even though it's against her nature, she must do this. She doesn't want to, though; it bothers her. It says a lot about her as a person when, a few seconds before stabbing the guard in the leg, she apologizes to him. The guards are there to probably kill them, and she says 'sorry' before hurting one of them out of fear. The kid is unbelievable.

Then it's Joel and Tess, so ready to immediately fight back, moving quickly and efficiently without hesitation. They are used to this; it's not the first time they have had to deal with something like this. They know there's no other way than to use violence, making Ellie realize what kind of people she's been sent on a mission with.

She can't handle this. She feels sick; she doesn't enjoy seeing people being killed—not even the bad guys. She's a good kid; violence is the last thing on her mind. This is one of the reasons why I'm not fond of the whole "Ellie has a violent heart" thing in the show.

They really messed up with this. Making such a sweetheart of a character someone who enjoys seeing a man being beat up to death only to excuse Ellie's ptsd behavior in Part 2 is not exactly wise. The Ellie we all know was not 'activated' by Joel's aggression, quite the contrary. She was shaken to see this kind of violence.

NOOO I'M LATE

Everyone say happy birthday to Tess rn