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As soon as Ellie blinks her eyes open, she knows it’s going to fucking suck today. It takes almost all of her willpower to not immediately yank her blankets up to her chin and let herself be swallowed back up by the jaws of sleep.
Her head fucking hurts. Not the kind of hurt from toppling off of a horse, or bashing her face into bars, but the kind of hurt that thunders through her head and makes her eyeballs feel like they’re going to explode. The kind of hurt that makes her vision swim and limbs heavy.
But, it’s a Saturday morning, which means she has to do her work assignment. Teens in Jackson don’t have too much – they attend school for a few hours on most weekdays (begrudgingly), sometimes forage for fruits and seeds on Fridays, and help out with jobs around town on weekends.
Ellie isn’t looking forward to seeing what happens when someone doesn’t do their work. Jackson doesn’t have the Hole and probably doesn’t have a whipping room. They certainly don’t enforce limited rations, too. It leaves her nervous for what they do have in store.
So, she pushes her blankets off of her and fights through the dizziness and nausea that clouds her senses as soon as she stands. She managed it with FEDRA then, whenever she’d have days like this. She can suck it up and deal with it now. It’s not like Jackson has her running military drills, she can do her part at the stables.
She just throws on the first flannel and jeans she can grab, Ellie can’t give a single shit about appearance today. She doesn’t even put her hair into its usual ponytail – something that seems to startle Joel when she makes her way downstairs.
“You okay, kiddo?” he says with a frown on his lips. He looks like that a lot now, whenever he’s worried about her. Which is apparently really fucking often. “You can stay home if you’re not feeling well, I can go talk to Tom–”
Hell no, she’s heard that one before. She’s not gonna fall for it this time. There’s no lazing around when there’s work to be done, even if she feels like absolute roadkill.
“I’m fine,” Ellie mumbles, cringing at the way her own words sound like a QZ alarm. All she needs to do is get her work done – done well – and then she can come back and crawl back into bed.
Joel tries to offer her a plate filled with toast and eggs, but she can already feel nauseated at the mere thought of food. She shakes her head – distantly, she pictures her brain like one of those ping pong balls they have in the community hall – and instead begins sliding her boots on.
“I’ll eat when I get back. I don’t wanna puke from the stench of horse shit,” she makes up as an excuse, and Joel seems to somewhat accept it. He still looks like a wet cat, but he’s not pushing the plate at her. She finishes lacing up her boot, and nearly stumbles from dizziness as soon as she stands up.
“If you gotta leave early, just come right home,” Joel calls as her fingers hover over the doorknob. “I’ll talk to whoever I gotta talk to. You’re more important.”
And just, fuck, Ellie wants to believe it. She knows she should, Joel would never hurt her on purpose, but all she’s ever known is to suck it up and deal with it, she doesn’t know how to take a day off. A part of her, deep down, is terrified of being useless. Terrified that if she doesn’t do her part, everyone will realize how dumb and replaceable she is.
Terrified that they’ll get rid of her as soon as she’s no longer useful. She wishes that she could feel as important as Joel says she is. But she doesn’t. Instead, she pushes the door open, and sets off for the stables.
Ellie’s been shoveling shit for all of (maybe) fifteen minutes when Tommy shows up. He’s got a stupid hat on and wears his stupid cowboy belt like it’s his most prized possession. She’s half tempted to toss some shit at him, but her arms feel like noodles at the moment.
(She’s completely aware that if she voices this, Tommy would tell her that her arms are noodles, and that she needs to eat more).
“Woah, I barely recognized you with your hair down, little miss,” he says, amused. Tommy’s pretty much always annoying, but today of all days, his voice booms like an explosion. Her head fucking hurts. “Everything alright?”
“Fuck off,” she groans. She dumps her scoop of shit into her bucket, and the scent hits her like a slap to the face. It’s gross, and too fucking strong. Her head throbs, there’s so much pressure behind her eye that she feels like she’s actually fucking dying.
She tries to stomp away from it – Tommy and the shit – but as soon as she’s moving, her vision darkens with little spots of purplish, greenish, black. She’s on her hands and knees in seconds, emptying bile into the dirt.
To make it worse, Tommy’s at her side in a second, holding her hair back.
She wants Joel.
“Shit,” Tommy curses. Too loud, he’s like, right in her fucking ear. “Joel said somethin’ about you being a bit off this morning. Why’d you come if you’re sick, sweetheart? Do you feel alright enough to get back home?”
“Please,” Ellie spits into the dirt and moves to wipe her mouth with her sleeve. “Please just shut the fuck up. My head’s exploding.”
“C’mon, let’s get you home,” Tommy starts to try and lift her from under her armpits, but as soon as she’s back on her feet, she pushes at his chest. He looks at her, the wet cat resemblance to Joel uncanny in his expression. “Ellie.”
“No,” she whines. “I gotta fucking finish, man. I deal with this shit all the time. It’s just… usually with less actual shit. Fuck off, I’m fine.”
“I can finish for you,” he says, softly, and Ellie’s almost too fucking relieved for the quieter tone to be thankful for the offer. “But you gotta get home. You can’t be working like this, you’re allowed breaks.”
Okay, sure, she’s allowed them, but Ellie still can’t fathom that she might deserve them. She doesn’t, she just can’t believe it.
But for this moment right now, her head hurts, she’s shaky and tired, and she wants Joel. Somehow, her sense of self-preservation is withering away, and she finds herself accepting Tommy’s offer.
Ellie’s back at the house she and Joel share before she fully realizes it, and from there, Joel picks her up and plops her down on the couch. She watches him shuffle about downstairs – shutting off all of the lights, closing all of the curtains. A comfortable darkness washes over her, alleviating just a bit of the throb.
Her eyes slip shut, and when she opens them again, the fuzziest blanket in the house (her favorite) is draped over her, and Joel’s handing her a steaming mug of tea. She asks no question, simply accepts it and takes a few sips. Joel’s already put ice cubes in it – it’s warm, doesn’t even burn the roof of her mouth.
“You can take breaks, baby girl,” he whispers to her, settling into the couch next to her. Ellie leans onto him, his Joel-y warmth sinking into her skin and pacifying her pain. “Ain’t no shame in it. Nobody’s mad. We want you to be safe and healthy.”
He hesitates. “We love you.”
Ellie sets her mug down and wraps her arms around Joel’s waist, letting her head stay in the crook of his neck. He wasted no time returning the gesture, holding her tight in his arms. She feels safe, she feels at home.
She miraculously escapes into the realm of sleep, with Joel’s heart beating rhythmically, keeping the pain at bay.