Chapter Text
“Stay back.”
“Shit.”
He has a kid. It shouldn’t affect your decision in this circumstance, but it does and you hesitate the moment you see her. That hesitation and your sideward glance at her left you vulnerable to him. He makes a move, but you raise your pistol.
“I don’t wanna shoot your daddy, girl,” you yell keeping your sight lined up in between his brows. What Joel didn’t see was your malinois Stark move silently from behind the counter. The girl, however, took immediate notice. Despite the tense situation currently unfolding, the girl, couldn’t be older than 13-14… her eyes lit up, enamored with the dog having only seen QZ guard dogs from afar. Stark positioned himself between your legs, dipped his head, and snarled in their direction.
“She has a dog,” the girl’s voice was small.
“I have eyes, Ellie,” the man’s voice was gruff, annoyed.
Ellie. A name, no longer just a body, an obstacle. His use of her name and their little interaction stilled your nerves slightly. You lowered your gun from his head, but still aimed at his trunk.
“Sidet,” you command, and your dog sat.
“Can I pet him?”
“Not the time, El.”
El. A nickname, too. Fuck. No. Trust no one. Stay focused.
“I’ve got a few cans of 10 year old ravioli, I’ll give you that and we part ways,” you offered, still holding onto your pistol.
“Is it that Chef Bogarti stuff?” The girl – Ellie – asked.
“Chef Boyardee,” Joel deadpanned.
“Whatever, same shit.”
You accidentally let out a single breathy laugh. She half smiled at you.
“Smotret',” your dog stood and watched the man as you put away your gun and opened your bag. You toss the cans to Ellie. “We good?”
“Does your dog speak German because he’s a German shepherd or what?”
“He’s a malinois. And it’s Russian.”
“Why would he speak Russian, though –“
“Ellie, really?” The man, you still don’t know his name – don’t want to know his name - looked exasperated. You accidentally let him catch your eyes before quickly returning your gaze to Ellie.
“Taught ‘em in Russian so strangers won’t know his commands,” you explain.
“Is he nice?”
You could tell Joel was itching to get going, leave the situation and the person that had a gun trained on him and now a dog.
“Thing wants to chew through my femoral artery, the fuck it ain’t nice,” the man answers before you can speak up.
“C’moooon, he looks like a good dog. He speaks Russian!”
You smirked and shook your head. It quickly crossed your mind that this could be their tactic. Break down your defenses with humor, cause you to let your guard down, then kill you and your dog. You touched the knife in the side of your cargo pants which you know he sees you do, because he does the same.
Rifle on his back. Knife in his right pocket. Kid looks unarmed. Pistol … somewhere, man like him doesn’t walk around without one. You assume it’s in the same spot as yours, back of his pants.
“Listen, we ain’t lookin for trouble. Thanks for the food, we’re goin.”
“But Joel –“
“Enough.”
She gives it up and leaves with him, not without one last glance back at you and the dog. You wish the world was kind enough to allow you to let the kid pet him, but that wasn’t the scenario anymore. Trust no one. Keep moving. Keep your head down. You watched them leave, disappearing out of the store. You contemplated whether you’d made the right choice letting them go.
Joel.
Joel and his daughter Ellie.
---
He grabbed her arm and yanked her down the road toward the next street of buildings.
“The fuck is the matter with you?”
“What?!”
“You know what. Why the hell didn’t you stay hidden, number one; and two, why the hell were you asking to pet the goddamn attack dog?” he stopped in the street to look at her.
“One,” Ellie mocked, “I didn’t know I was meant to be hiding, and twoooo he looked nice! I’ve never seen a dog that close.”
“Until a building is cleared by me, you stay hidden, clear?”
“Yeah, Joel, geez.”
Joel tuts, “And no petting attack dogs or talkin’ to their owners. ‘Specially not when they just had a gun aimed at my forehead.”
“She wasn’t gonna shoot you, Joel,” she said as they continue walking. “She even gave me ravioli, and I bet she woulda let me pet that dog.”
“You don’t know any of that.”
Joel thought to how he watched you inventory his weapons and Ellie’s lack of one, and how you touched your knife. You knew what you were doin’, that was clear enough to him, and enough to let him know to steer clear of you.
“I’m gonna teach you how to shoot a gun once we’re out of this town,” Joel said after they’d walked some distance.
“Fuck yeah!” Ellie smiled and said excitedly.
“It ain’t for fun, kid.”
“I know that,” she answered. “This ‘cuz of that lady and her dog that didn’t harm us AND gave us food? Which, when can we eat by the way I’m staaaarving – “
“No,” he cut her off. “And later, we gotta keep moving. Sun’s settin’ here real soon.”
They eventually found a small abandoned office space, no infected, and enough furniture to barricade the door for the night and a window to keep watch if need be. The city wasn’t huge, not many infected either it seemed, but that girl and her dog were out there somewhere.
Girl. Woman, really. She couldn’t be more than, what? Mid, late twenties? Why the hell was she out wandering alone, why wasn’t she in a QZ? … QZ don’t allow dogs, or would take him from her. S’pose that’s good enough reason for some not to join one. Heck, I wouldn’t.
He didn’t know why but he thought about her while rolling out their sleeping bags on the dusty floor. Not much else to dwell on, honestly. Maybe it was the fact that she got the draw on him, maybe it was the dog, or the fact that she seemed to be alone that had him contemplating her. Only other person he knew that made it this long on their own, well … was himself. And he knew what he did to survive this long, what he had to do. If it were him, he wouldn’t have let a man and his kid go like that. Even now, he wonders if he should’ve reduced the number of known threats in the city to none. He wondered if you and your dog would come to bite him in the ass.