Work Text:
“Bang bang bang!” You hide behind a table as you hear an automatic weapon start to fire. You hear Joel shouting as bullets fly through the air. The smell of blood hits your nose as a runner thuds to the ground beside you.
“We need to get out of here kid!” Joel shouts to you from across the diner you two are trapped in. You had come here to have a nice breakfast and to see if you could raid their kitchen for any supplies, unfortunately, another group had the same idea and now y’all are in deep shit. Another two shots fire from right behind you, shaking your chest and causing you to gasp out in shock. You need to get out, now. You scurry to your feet and scramble towards the door before hearing an ear splitting pop causing you to crash to the floor and black out.
A wet cloth scratches across your face as you wake with a sharp gasp. You try to calm your breathing, but you just keep coughing and wheezing, fighting for air.
“Woah, woah there easy boy. Just take some deep breaths.” Joel says, patting you on the back and trying to calm you down.
“My– my binder it’s,” you choke out, before being sent back into another coughing fit. You struggle to pull off your long sleeved shirt, but once you do Joel looks surprised to see that you’re wearing a binder–and a tight looking one at that–underneath your shirt. “Need you to take it off now.” You gasp, turning around and weakly pulling at the back of your binder as he helped get it the rest of the way off. You quickly pulled your shirt back on and tried to relax your breathing back to a normal pace. Without thinking, you pull Joel into a hug, grasping tightly into the back of his shirt and you start sobbing, hot tears streaming down your face.
“There there kid, I got you, you’re safe, I got you,” he hugs you back. After a few minutes of sobbing, your eyes feel sore and Joel’s shirt is now soaked so you pull away, Joel uses his sleeve to wipe your face dry as you take deep breaths. “Wanna talk about it kiddo?”
“Yeah, it's just… the shootout. I've never been in one before. I mean at school we always had the lockdown drills, but that’s all they were, drills. There were bodies Joel, dead bodies right next to me. For fuck’s sake I was shot at, they wanted to kill me.” you say, breath still wavering, “What has the world come to?” You look up at him with sad eyes and he caves.
“You know, I had a daughter once, she was about your age and she… she didn’t make it, I swear to whatever fucked god who let this happen, that you’ll be safe. I can’t lose anyone else.” he looked back at you, this time he initiated the hug, but it was more than just a hug. It was a promise. A few stray tears wandered down your cheek as you slowly slipped back to sleep, Joel there by your side, and that’s where he vowed to stay.