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Joel walks, his clothes stained as red as the grass beneath his feet, towards the one figure still standing amidst the perplexing scene - Joel found it miserable, but the last of his life within found it exhilarating. It wasn't very new of a feeling, but he'd never survived this long before, so the extensive carnage running along the side of the mountain was expected. He'd watched Grian die by his own hand, and he was the third remaining player. That meant...
“Y-you know what, Joel, I made an oath-”
Jimmy gestures with his sword, pointing it towards Joel. It's not particularly intimidating, but it punctuates his statement.
“I made an oath that I was going to win!”
Joel stands opposite of Jimmy, plenty room for a running start between them, and grins.
“Better follow up on it then!”
Weapons are drawn and their stances are as firm as they can manage, but neither make a move. They're shaking with adrenaline and anxiety, both gotten a taste of blood already, but they continue to stand, and watch. And Joel isn't grinning as much as he is baring his teeth in nervousness. Both of their voices wavered as they spoke.
“If you're nervous, Jim, I am too. Been nervous all this time.”
“Heh, y-yeah, it's all been leading up to this…”
Joel isn't as hyper aware as he should be, he was trying to fight the lightheadedness from the various wounds he'd sustained, but even then, he allowed himself to be distracted as his eyes shifted to Jimmy's wings, flared on his back. When had they gotten so big? He could still remember when they couldn't even be seen from the front, and now… Flared as they were, they were bent in caution and uncertainty, and still they made Jimmy look so large. They framed him, bathing him in dirtied and bloodied gold, but gold nonetheless, like a victor already decided.
Joel blinks slowly. He doesn't eat. Jimmy probably has and healed up as much as he could.
He then turns, facing away from Jimmy, to look at the statue of him. The parrot, blue with just a touch of yellow. It isn't a canary, it's Jimmy. But stood among the other two parrot statues, it is the only one to have been damaged. Significantly so, anyway. Joel is surprised it's still standing with how much of its foundation had gone up in flames, or blown up, or destroyed by hand - he didn't know. Still it stood, like the other two.
He turns back to Jimmy. The half-avian's stance is still cautious, still expecting of an attack or ready to dish one out, but he hasn't moved any closer. Joel's legs are tired and he stands straight, his arms limp on his sides until finally, he throws his sword and trident to the side, the metals colliding with a horrible noise, but Jimmy doesn't dare let his attention falter.
“Try it then, Jimmy!” Joel shouts with what octave he can still muster, raising his hands as if to welcome an attack.
Jimmy has started shaking worse, sweat drips down his face as he watches Joel closely, trying to focus, but his vision is blurring. He tries to focus on the bloodied slash across Joel's side, on the cross around his neck; he tries to focus on the rugged green in his hair that still stands out as the most vibrant part of him, but it all blurs until there is nothing for his eyes to easily distinguish.
“Hey, Jim, you don't need to worry,” Joel reassures, even if a bit of the desired effect gets lost with the volume at which he speaks to ensure that Jimmy can hear it: “I'm unarmed, bud.”
Jimmy shifts from one foot to another, taking small steps to readjust his stance but never once moving closer. He grips the hilt of his sword tighter again, its gradually lowered blade now pointing back up towards Joel like it was at the start of this confrontation. But Joel is no closer to dying.
Slowly, Joel steps forward, taking each step with great care as if to minimize the noise of stray cherry tree foliage beneath his feet. Jimmy seems to become much more aware of the situation suddenly.
“Joel-...”
His hands tremble, his voice panicked, and still, he doesn't move as Joel stops right before the blade of the sword can rip into the fabric of his shirt. This must be the sword he helped craft, the one Jimmy could only forge because of the diamond Joel gave him for having stayed alive as long as he had. And he was still here, with his reward of a sword. Before then he'd been getting by with nothing but iron weapons and gear. Joel recalled the diamond armor he had thrown away into lava so haphazardly, but regardless, it was netherite that Jimmy wore now. His reward for answering the trivia bot right. And the time that he didn't, when a Ravager was hot on his tracks, he ran to Gem and Joel, and Joel protected him. Just a short while ago, he'd protected him. Just a bit ago, they'd fought side by side, not once lifting a weapon at each other until this very moment.
“You've killed me once before, you can do it again.”
Jimmy doesn't immediately answer, and when he does, he's lost track of what's being asked of him.
“I've never made it this far before, Joel. I'm so close, I'm so close…”
Joel steers him back.
“You are. Doesn't it feel good? You've shown them all, Jimmy. You've shown them what for for doubting you.”
“It feels electric.”
“Exactly. And you're this close, mate. You've got this.”
“Are you proud of me?”
Joel's expression stills for a moment.
“I'm proud of you. I couldn't be more proud.”
A small nervous laugh escapes Jimmy, and his posture relaxes a little bit, and he's shaking a little less.
“Okay, I'm doing it.” he declares with a small voice, and Joel smiles. Expecting his sword to plunge through him any second now, he closes his eyes, admittedly apprehensive about the pain that is to follow, but he's suffered worse before. But there is no pain. He sees Jimmy crying when he opens his eyes again.
“It's okay, lad. Soon as you get this over with.”
“No, it's not! It won't be! Joel-, you're trying to sacrifice yourself again!”
“Maybe this time it'll work.” if you take it. You didn't take it last time.
“It's not going to work, th-... You're just upsetting me!”
Jimmy's disregarded his own sword by this point, pressing his hands to his face instead, completely vulnerable. Joel watches him, his legs looking like they're ready to give out any second, so the brunette approaches and he wraps his arms around Jimmy, sliding them beneath the feathers of the wings on his back. Jimmy hugs back, his own arms gripping at whatever part of Joel they immediately find, his nails ready to rip the fabric they dug into. They might just draw blood at this rate. Joel thinks this is good. He might be able to make Jimmy chip away at his health bit by bit. It wasn't like he had a lot of it left anyway.
“Kill me, Jim.” he utters, reassuring yet pleading. His voice is quiet, but it doesn't need any more volume to reach Jimmy at this proximity.
Jimmy hugs tighter in frustration and protest, and as he does, his sharpened nails break skin. Joel grunts in pain, tears brimming at his eyes, but he does everything to stay at least somewhat quiet, or else Jimmy might come to his senses and back out of it.
“You can bite me,” he struggles to get out. Anything to get his health down was fair game.
“On the neck, even.” he tries to hum encouragement in addition, but he's choking on the words.
Jimmy didn't sport sharp teeth like Joel, but human incisors couldn't be underestimated. Surely Jimmy was feeling the bloodlust, the electricity , he said so himself. He'd have to give in eventually. They all did.
Jimmy's teeth close in on the base of his neck, too close to the shoulder for Joel's liking, and even then, he doesn't draw blood, he doesn't even try to. Joel can feel teeth against his skin but no pressure is applied. Jimmy's hesitating. This wasn't going to work.
“You've got to kill me, lad.”
Jimmy removes his teeth from Joel's neck and buries his face into him instead. Joel, already weak, briefly stumbles backward with Jimmy's weight and larger stature applied to him.
“I can't. What about the family?”
“Oh, so now we're family?” Joel inquires in mild amusement. “Thought you wanted me dead.”
“I can't kill you when you're red! I'd never… I'd never for-”
“-Isn't this what you wanted? Didn't you ask me to do this?”
“And you refused.”
“And you knew better.”
Joel is too delirious to hold back his admittance, Jimmy saw through that facade anyway. But Jimmy doesn't respond, his frustration is giving way for sadness as he stops digging his nails into Joel's skin. His hold on him remains desperate, but he's deflating and his wings are hiding away behind his back.
“Because no one's ever done this for you before, you say.” Joel continues. “Even though you and I both know that's a bloody lie.”
He'd been there when Scott let Jimmy kill him. He'd been there for Bdubs’ sacrifice too. He'd seen Jimmy and Ren together moments before Jimmy took Ren's life upon his own insistence. Joel was far from the only one to have tried - and he tried . He hadn't even succeeded. But this time was going to be different.
“But because... because you never do that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, unlike some people.” Joel remarks with a strained chuckle before his voice falls again. “But I'll do it for you. I might change my mind though if you don't do it quickly.”
“Maybe I want you to change your mind…”
“No you don't. Come on Jim, don't let this go to waste. Let me feel good about this.”
He wanted to be the noble sacrifice, Joel told himself, but even he knew better. How noble was anyone going to label a sacrifice to Jimmy of all people anyway? They'd deem it pity that made Joel do this, but he just wanted to feel good about himself and Jimmy, like he'd made up for something. To leave behind reason to be missed, and not to be resented for all that he'd done in the past. In doing so, he'd robbed Jimmy of any chance at a fair fight to the death. He wanted to make Jimmy win, not let him, like he believed him to be able to previously.
What would the others have said about this? Would they have credited Joel for Jimmy's win and not Jimmy's own perseverance and skill? It infuriated him, how no one seemed to recognize what Jimmy brought and what he possessed. Surely if Jimmy won, it would prove something to them. Joel would've killed for it, and he would die for it. …Was his sacrifice going to ruin all that?
Damn it, they'd taken too long. In spite of the dizziness, he was thinking too much now, and he was never going to be able to convince Jimmy like this. Had he failed again?
All of a sudden, the thought of death seemed less favorable, less desirable… Right now, he didn't really want to die. He gathers what strength remains to hug Jimmy closer - tears brimmed at his eyes again, not out of pain this time, but of the emotional turmoil that was catching up to him. He thought about a fair fight, but what if Joel won then? He'd be driven mad, even if he was the last one alive, but recalling the way he'd felt on the skynet - on the Bread Bridge, or what remained of it… Maybe it was selfish, but he was willing to weather any pain just to not go through that again. The thought alone was destroying him.
“The last, and I mean the last bloody thing I want…” Joel started, but trailed off, his voice cracking when he found it again. “is to see you die, Jim. Not again, you hear?”
His voice was terribly small, smaller than Jimmy's throughout this, and it would've felt embarrassing and pathetic were he in any remotely sound state of mind. Truly, Jimmy's deaths weighed heavier on him with each of these games. This time was no different, with each of Jimmy's deaths here his anxiety spiked; he was close to spiralling at least once, he thought. But Jimmy was still here, he was so close. Jimmy laughed.
“Well don't blame me for the nature of the game!”
He had to pause, winded from just one sentence and a little bit of laughing, before he continued.
“You think I want to see you die either?”
“For the whole season, you've…!”
Joel could hardly string words together and gave up, smearing his tears into Jimmy's flannel in frustration.
Indeed, he'd been out to get Joel, Jimmy thought. He wanted to get Joel, just to show that he could do it. Just to show Joel he could do it. To be able to boast about it to his face, that in all the time that they've spent across these games, Jimmy had a kill on Joel and Joel had none on him. In spite of all the ways Joel had treated him in several other lives. Here, he'd protected Jimmy more than hurt him, and he'd praised him more than he'd deprecated... If at all.
“I think you deserved it.”
Previously, Joel would have snapped back to tell him that there was nothing he'd done to Jimmy, that they were buds. But that wasn't really true outside of this game, no matter how much he wanted it to be, after the guilt of his unfavorable actions against Jimmy started catching up to him.
“Joel? You're not gonna argue?”
“No. So…”
Joel gathers his strength, and it feels so alien and so cold now, but he pushes against Jimmy, at last breaking the embrace. His balance immediately falters for a moment, but he finds his footing, wiping at his eyes roughly with the sleeve he no longer had to rid of his tears. His arm then joins his other on Jimmy's shoulders. His desire for Jimmy to win just to oppose those who had doubted him was significant, but maybe not as significant as his desire for some skewed idea of redemption, and he didn't see much point in hiding it now, he was growing desperate.
“So kill me, let me be good to you.”
He's responded back to with a resigned, sad look as Jimmy damn near scoffs.
“Good? Joel, this isn't how you fix things, bud.”
Suddenly, everything goes silent for Joel and the sensation of the brisk cold against his searing wounds fades.
“You want to feel good about this - that's what you said earlier. You want to feel like you have done good by me, but this is an extreme. This is an extreme and it's easy for you, easier than- Than being… nice, to me.”
Joel couldn't combat it. He merely stared, fully aware of the truth in Jimmy's words. He was trying to be nicer, he was nice this time, but nothing was going to undo the past. Him wanting to die for Jimmy might have been a grandiose statement, but what did it mean with none of the groundwork?
“So, let's fight. Let's end this the way we're supposed to.”
Joel couldn't formulate a response even if he wanted to. He wasn't sure if he was in some sort of shock or just dying from natural elements at this point. The reality of his suicidal tendency being laid out for him wasn't something he was ready to grapple with.
Jimmy takes a step closer and Joel thinks that they could feel each other's breaths if they turned to look eye to eye. Instead, his attention is drawn to Jimmy's hand.
“Here.”
It's a golden apple that Jimmy's holding, lightly pressing it against Joel's chest for him to take. Joel makes no move to grab it, he looks up instead.
“Come on, you look like you'll wither away if I breathe on you too hard. I never remember to eat these in combat so I still have them… One for me, one for you, yeah?”
Joel wants Jimmy closer. Despite their prolonged embrace, and proximity now, no amount of it was going to communicate to Jimmy how much he cared and wanted to do better. He thinks about sliding his hand up Jimmy's shoulder, across his neck, to settle it on his jawline and bring him down for a kiss. Even a peck on the cheek to get back at him for earlier, even though it wouldn't mend anything. He thinks about it. And then he looks down, reluctantly taking the apple.
He was going to have to work a lot harder to accomplish what it was that he was trying to achieve here, Joel thinks with bitterness, but he wanted to try. Right now, they fight. Until one of them wins.