10 Works in Post-Episode: s01e05 Endure and Survive (The Last of Us)
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Set during their travels following Kansas City, Ellie and Joel navigate an empty Nebraska through the late summer heat. A story about a few hats and keeping distance.
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collaborators by becomethesun
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
08 Jun 2025
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Ellie slows down and looks back at Joel with chagrin, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips, but she elbows Sam and gestures for him to wait for Joel and Henry to catch up. He’s reminded with a pang of another little girl on another hiking trip, a far less perilous trip than this on one of the trails outside of Austin, scampering up a boulder that screamed a broken collar bone or broken ankle to him, but she made it down unscathed, rolling her eyes at his worries. Like every memory of her, it’s tinged with the reminder of how, ultimately, all of the worrying he did wasn’t enough, still left her dead, blood staining her favorite t-shirt.
Ellie and Sam are waiting when they catch up, back to giggling over some inside joke. Joel shakes his head, shouldering his backpack and forging ahead.
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Sam and Henry live. Adventures and found family bonding ensue on the journey from Kansas City to Jackson and beyond.
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There’s No Road That Will Lead Us Back by JudithWilde
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
14 Apr 2024
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Tess shot her a tired look. “He hunts alone. It’s not personal.”
“It’s not just the hunting. It’s everything. You saw how he was at the rest stop.” Ellie made her voice deep, imitating Joel’s southern accent. “Put that back cause I said so—over a fucking necklace. Like, what’s next? He gets mad at my backpack?”
—————Ellie, Joel, and Tess learn to live on the road together without wringing each other's necks in the process. Ellie is feral, Joel is savage, and Tess is trying to get everyone to Wyoming in one piece.
Set during the 3-month timeskip before winter. There are wonderful character arcs and nice campfire scenes, but it gets dramatic as hell—buckle up.
Series
- Part 3 of 'Tess Lives' AU
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Inertia by Bumblepony for flannelfeelings
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
07 Dec 2023
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“So is this just something you guys used to do all the time, or was it like a special occasion thing?” Ellie stands by a dilapidated windmill, pushing the blades that still miraculously spun.
“Well, for us, it was a once-in-a-while type of activity. Tommy really liked the one near us that had a waterfall.” Joel walks over to a kidney-shaped depression in the ground filled with standing water. Faded green outdoor carpet, ripped and torn lays beneath his feet.
“These places had waterfalls!” Ellie whistles, or at least tries to, as she squats down and peers into the hole at the base of the windmill.
“Little ones weren't real a’course. Man-made, but they looked neat when they was runnin’.” Joel crunches past the pool and moves around the corner, a mini-mountain off to his left.
“Joel! Holy shit, look what I found,” Ellie calls to him, and he spins around to see Ellie pulling her hand out of the hole she was peering into, a faded blue golf ball in her hand.
IE: Ellie and Joel Find a miniature golf course, shenanigans ensue, and Joel starts to find himself again.
Series
- Part 2 of The In-Between Places
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Move Me To The Sun by two_birds_alone_together
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
10 Aug 2023
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Newly infected are strong.
Ellie learns this the hard way.
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"It'll be faster, just watch." He'd said.
As if Ellie would argue. They've been traveling for what feels like forever. She's grown blisters that have long-since become calluses on her feet. Her hair has started to get matted. And her teeth yellower. They've been out in the wild for far too long. But they still have so very far to go.
(Takes place during/before the time skip at the beginning of episode 6. Joel and Ellie finally talk about how he killed that soldier the first night they met. Just a little thing.)
Series
- Part 3 of The Last Of Us Snapshots
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A Ride with My Best Friend by stainedglasspanel
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
28 Feb 2023
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Having her first new friend after Riley die almost immediately, in the same horrible, horrible way feels like a giant “no” from the universe. *Fuck you, Ellie, you don’t get to have friends, you don’t get to have people in your life like that.* She had told Sam that she was afraid of being alone, and then fate had laughed at her.
The healed cut on her hand throbs, a ghost of the pain that had nagged her for the first week after Kansas City. She realizes she has a death grip on Joel’s sleeve. She’s not inclined to let go. It occurs to her that he’s literally the only person she has in her life.
This scares her in a thousand different ways.
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An accidental detour results in a rough night on the road.
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Joel helping Ellie with her the knife wound on her hand from episode 5, and then her breaking down a bit over the other things that happened.
Series
- Part 20 of Febuwhump 2023
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This is a sound he remembers. It’s the very specific type of crying someone does when they want comfort but can’t—or won’t—ask for it directly. When they're trying to hide it, sort of, but truthfully they want someone to know what’s happening, want desperately for someone to remind them that everything will be okay.
Ellie is capital S Sad and Joel can’t bear to let her deal with it on her own.
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white lies by hereforthehurts
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
11 Feb 2023
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Joel wouldn't tell her white lies even if it'll save her - that's why Ellie believes him.
What they didn't know; in a span of a week, he'd told her three - and in the span of ten hours, he told her another two.
None of them knows that just yet. And none of them knows that those lies will eat them both alive.