I ship these two like the flames in my soul. With such a great storyline written in for a GAME of all things, I couldn't help but write about these two. They're so fucked up together it's beautifully depressing.

AND AS YOU KNOW, I STEEP IN ANGST.

so here.

The last time Joel and Tess get together.

"Yeah well, you wanted to be left alone, remember?" - Tess; The Last of Us

It's just another drop to make. Same old business all over again; in-and-out, fight a couple of smartasses and walk away with new battle wounds and another victory under their belts. That's about it.

Just business.

The night before, Tess and Joel split whatever rations they have left - it's almost a luxury, really, splitting a can of corned beef hash they'd stumbled on while on their last drop. Usually it's a miserable dinner of beans and Spam, chased down as quickly as possible with whatever alcohol they have around. They eat to survive, and that was it.

Something's different though, Tess can feel it in the dim room with them. It isn't unusual for Joel to be quiet; he's never been much of a talker, but there's a difference between a normal quiet Joel and a 'something-is-bothering-me-and-I'm-gonna-sit-here- and-brood-about-it' Joel. She chews on the briny meat and hash slowly, halfway wondering if she isn't poisoning herself slowly in the process; eyes ever sharp in the darkness as she watches the scruffy man push his spoon around in his can. Part of her wants to snap at him, tell him to quit fucking around with the food and eat it, but another part of her isn't sure how she wants to ask him if he's okay.

The way he touches his watch every so often, and the look that borders between pain and melancholy on his face tells her that it's not something he's going to share anytime soon. Joel looks like a mean ol' grizzly bear, but she knows him to be a gentle soul and a teddy bear inside when he can be. She's gotten used it by now, mostly, and she respects it to a certain level.

She's never been much of a talker either, especially not about their histories; alcohol usually helps remedy the memories mostly.

Other times, when they're not bone tired and bleeding all over the damn place...sex is nice too.

He exhales, noisy and loud through his nose as he shoves the hash around again, and Tess does her best not to roll her eyes at him. "Somethin' botherin' you, Tex?" she asks flatly, leaning forward to drop her empty can onto the coffee table before snatching up the bottle of water they're splitting too and swigs from it.

She leans back into the couch, resting her leg against the back of the couch as she watches the man sitting at the other end. She places her elbow down at her knee, swinging the bottle in his direction when Joel looks up at her lowly. There's a curve in the corner of her mouth; the trademark Tess smirk that can either aggravate or arouse the man depending on the situation.

This time he seems torn between the two.

"Ain't hungry," he mumbles, and inside him his stomach cramps at the lie. He grunts, leaning wearily back into the couch as he scrubs a hand over his face, scratching over the bristles covering his jaw. She's almost worried now; the sag of his shoulders and the way he stares blindly at the faded label of the cans in front of them. Grouchy Joel, snarky Joel, angry Joel - all of these Joels, she can handle and handle like a boss.

Quiet and sad Joel...throws her. Makes her nervous.

They're down to a bottle of whiskey left, so Tess helps him in the only other way she knows how.

When her mouth presses to his, his immediate reaction is to kiss her back, hard. It's a trained reflex from all the bullshit they've been through - when sex comes knockin' on your door, you don't turn that opportunity away. But at the moment, Joel's all kinds of muddled up in his brain to think straight, and he grips Tess' lean arms with the intent of pushing her off him.

Of course, Tess doesn't tolerate that bullshit. Instead she reaches down, cups him through his jeans hard enough to hear Joel grunt against her mouth and feel the sink of his teeth into the corner of her mouth. She grins against his mouth, nearly purring at the way his beard scratches ticklishly over her cheek. She doesn't say a word, just presses herself between his legs and grinds down into his hips as she snakes her tongue between his lips, teasing, taunting.

Joel manages to pull away only briefly, heaving ragged, panting breaths as he tries to get a hold of his own body and his whirling mind. "Tess..." The guttural rasp of her voice makes her shiver, and the woman doesn't give him more time to think as she begins to unbutton his shirt.

"Relax, Tex," she hums, and her mouth presses hungry kisses along his jawline, down his neck, licking the pounding pulse there and biting down gently. He tastes like sweat and a little bit like dust, but even then; there's something underlyingly male in his skin that makes her press harder into his body.

It doesn't surprise her when Joel starts taking initiative - she's never known a man to turn down sex, and while Joel is one of the better men she knows, he's still a man. They function the same way in that sense; emotions and depressing thoughts can get the best of them when they least expect it, and sometimes having someone around to...herd away the memories helps. So Tess lets his grip tighten on her arms hard enough to bruise, and lets him take the lead.

He makes quick work of her clothes, a rough growl in his throat when he pulls off Tess' bra. His eyes flash in the dark, the rumble in his throat becomes possessive as he palms her heaving breasts in the callused pads of his hands. Her skin is creamy in the dark; she's made of muscle because she needs to be, but she's losing much of that too. Her skin is mottled around the edges with varying shades of bruises, but it doesn't deter him as he takes a dusky nipple into his mouth and lashes his tongue across it.

"Fuck!" The whispering hiss elicits a grunt from the man, and Tess wriggles impatiently out of her jeans before helping him along with his own. With her feet she shoves his jeans down to his knees, only half aware of the way he kicked them aside somewhere as she reaches into his boxers and takes him into her hand. He's hard steel in her hand, pulsing and hot as the touch of her cool hand makes him bite down just a little too hard to feel good on her breast.

Tears bloom in her eyes, and Tess bares her teeth to the ceiling as she tugs him closer, almost breathless beneath the weight of him. She's wet already, and she runs the weeping head of him along her entrance, hissing as Joel presses forward against her clit. Her eyes snap open to his, black on black; they're both too caught up in the moment now to really want to talk. She sees something inside his eyes though, something she can't decipher just yet, but as he pulls her hand away from his erection and shoves her thighs further apart, Tess doesn't linger much on it.

There's a grunt and a gasp - he pushes himself inside her viciously enough for it to hurt.

They pause for a moment, he lets her adjust and she gets to breathe a lungful of air that's been escaping her since they kissed. It's not for very long; she can feel Joel shaking over her from fighting the urge to move, and her mouth forms a ghost of a smile at him when he reaches down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. A gentleman and a romantic, as ever.

Again there's that something whirling in his weathered gaze, and he looks as if he wants to tell her - pour everything out of his soul into her, and Tess feels something other than lust and need in her throat then.

She's...she's actually afraid of what he has to say.

Swallowing thickly, she shakes her head in a jerk, just enough for him to understand, and flexes her hips around him pointedly. "Come on, big guy," she whispers, licking her lips. "Don't leave a girl hanging."

Her legs find their way around his hips, urging him deeper inside her as he begins to thrust with earnest. It's nothing gentle; he's growling into her skin as he slams into her as deeply as he can, as harshly as he needs to, all to Tess' breathless gasps and mewling profanities. She locks her arms around his shoulders, keening higher when it makes him sink that much deeper into her, pressing into that one place inside her that makes her thighs tremble.

It's not very often that they fuck on the couch. It's bad for his back and it's bad for her neck to stay in such an angle for long, but they don't care much about anything but getting to the end of that tunnel at the moment. Joel is brutal on her skin, his mouth biting, sucking, marking her neck and shoulders while his hands and his hips bruise and mold into her skin. She gives as good as she gets, of course; Joel makes his approval of the way she sinks her nails into his back by thrusting so deep into her she feels him in her throat.

His hands loop under her knees, pulling her wider, sinking himself deeper, and Tess sees the stars above them.

Her hips grind up to meet his thrusts, her breathy gasps in his ear drives him wild as he pins her hands over her head on the armrest and he shifts to a better angle and drives hard into her. He pulls up to watch her face, smirking in the dark at the way her eyes roll into her head - it gratifies him when Tess is like this. He's so used to listening to her orders all day, or having her boss him around; knowing that he has this much influence over her makes up for all the times she makes him feel like anything less than a man.

A man can take orders from a woman, sure. But a man can make her eyes roll into her head and forget how to breathe too.

With one hand, he keeps her hands over her head while the other snakes down between them; pressing to that sweet spot that has Tess jerking hard in his grip. He circles her clit gently at first, intensifying the pressure as her hips roll and grind into his fingers desperately. Her bony hips will probably bruise him too, and he thinks to himself again that she's not eating as much as she should. He presses her harder into the couch, pinning her nearly motionless when he recognizes the frantic pace of her breath and the flush blooming over her skin.

It isn't long before she's clenched around him hard enough to hurt him, and he holds in place as Tess arches into him, crying out in desperate gasps as her body trembles and shakes and writhes beneath him. "Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck -." She bites down on her lip hard as she cums; the taste of blood on her tongue is replaced by the taste of Joel, as he presses his mouth to hers to swallow the rest of her mewling screams.

He slips his hand away from between her legs, roving her body soothingly; passing over the swell of her hips to her breasts, cupping her jaw briefly before he's back up to her hands. Over her head their fingers intertwine, hers gripping tight as she convulses in the aftershocks, and he flexes his fingers in hers as he moves slowly inside her, drawing out her release for as long as he can.

Eventually she wriggles out of his grip, using her freed hands to shove at his chest none too gently when she gets too sensitive to keep going, and pushes him back into the couch instead. With her heaving breaths still, Tess kisses him roughly once more, before shoving him into the cushions and making her way down his body. Joel groans loud and low when she takes him into her mouth, throwing his head back into the armrest and tangling his hand into her dark hair as her tongue sweeps over him and her hand grasps the base of him to stroke.

Finishing inside her has never really been an option - the last thing they need is for him to knock her up and bring an innocent life into a shithole like this. Still though, sometimes he wishes that it could be normal; that he can lie on top of her and feel her heart pounding against his, to feel her warm and tight around him as he spills himself inside her without the fear of getting her pregnant.

Condoms are something like a myth nowadays.

Something close to the growl of an animal comes from between his gritted teeth, and Tess looks up just in time to see the taut line of his neck and the harsh set of his jaw before she feels him twitch in her mouth and the briny taste of him comes to her tongue. She hums lowly, coaxing him further with her hand and her mouth, as her free hand strokes lightly along his tense thigh muscle; she revels in the way his hips buck into her mouth and the way his thighs twitch in time with his cock.

She waits until he's finished, and swallows - Tess is a girl that follows through all the way. There's a feral smirk of pride and satisfaction on her face when she pulls back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as they both slump back down on either side of the couch. With their heaving breaths filling the quiet space between them, Tess slips her feet between his and presses her cold toes into the side of his inner thigh.

Something between giggle and a snort comes from her when she hears Joel swear, and she watches as his cock jolts against his stomach, weeping onto the trail of hair below his navel. She bites the corner of her lip, eyeing Joel's broad chest hungrily even though she's still jolting from the aftershocks inside. Joel cuts an impressive figure; six feet tall and made of lean muscle even in his older age. The way his chest tapers to his hips, the hair of his chest that leads down to the toned abs makes her wonder what he was like when he was younger, before everything went to hell, and she wonders if the infection hadn't spread, if he would go for a girl like her.

What does it matter now, anyway? They're here. That's all that counts - is that they're here.

"C'mon." Joel's suddenly pulling her upright, holding her to his chest as they stumble into his bedroom, falling clumsily onto the sheets. The sweat cools them both down dramatically; he feels Tess shiver against him, and he pulls the sheets around them both to stave off the chill. He sighs as she presses into him, curling her long leg around his possessively as she rests her head on his chest. His arm wraps strongly around her narrow waist, tucking her in close, because he needs it.

With his eyes falling shut, he feels Tess press her mouth to his chest, the graze of her teeth on an old scar there, and Joel falls asleep knowing that he isn't as alone as he thinks.

The next morning, Tess wakes to Joel upright in bed, sitting with his head in his hands and his chest moving in low, heavy breaths. A nightmare, as always; a bad one by the looks of it. Goosebumps riddle her skin in the morning chill, Tess reaches out carefully, jolting back when Joel flinches away from her touch. She sighs, pulling the sheets to her chest. "Joel -."

"Leave it, Tess," he tells her, and there's a warning in the gravel of his voice as he spares her a glance over his shoulder. He takes in the bruises from last night, the place where his teeth had sunk in deep sits like a brand on the pale expanse of where her neck and shoulders meet, but the surge of male pride does little to ease his anxieties. "Just go back to bed."

"Not unless you're comin' with me, Texas," Tess replies smoothly. She's used to him shutting her out; she gets it, she really does - but she likes to cuddle in bed and Joel is warm. A cuddle does people good, but if anyone on the street finds out, she'll have a lot of blood to clean off her clothes. She reaches out to him again, grasping his shoulder, only to have the man whirl to her with a low snarl.

"Just leave me the hell alone, Tess." It's harsh and loud, thick in his Southern drawl as his eyes blaze at her from across the bed. There's something wild in his eyes; a disconcerting mixture of rage and defeat as he sits there like a snorting bull.

"Yeah, fuck you too, Joel." She doesn't let him see the hurt in her eyes when she slips out of bed and marches into the living room. She doesn't look at him when he appears in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her silently as she tugs her jeans back on roughly. He makes no move to stop her when she makes for the door, and Tess thinks she's partially grateful that they've got a drop to make. He'll cool off and so will she.

Deal goes off without a hitch; she's actually disappointed. But when those two assholes crowd her, Tess takes pleasure in breaking their noses and stomping on their fingers. It's a release that leaves her with new bumps and scrapes, but it's all the same to her when she limps back up to Joel's apartment.

He opens the door fully dressed by then, and Tess finds herself disappointed as she takes in the green shirt and jeans. He takes one look at her and he knows something's gone down, but Tess just greets him with an awkward, tight smirk.

"How was your morning?"

I might want to write more about them. In oneshots, maybe. I don't think I can handle another multi-chap to keep track of at this point. They're just so beautiful together though.