Consequences [The Last of Us Part 2 x Male Reader]

Chapter 15: Breaking Point

It wasn't Nora she was sad over, she couldn't have cared less about the doctor. She just couldn't help but imagine Dina, who was put in the same situation. Y/N had made a judgment call, he's made a lot of those recently. It was a hard choice, and Y/N chose to have mercy on the person who had helped wrong him. "Ellie, come on!" Joel called, waiting at the doors. "Yeah, I'm on my way!" She called, turning around and breaking into a jog towards Joel. Nora laid dead behind him, with no proper burial, and an impromptu death. Such was the nature of the outbreak. Ellie made it back to Joel, who held open the door for her. Before he went in as well, he looked over and gave a distant look towards Nora's body. Joel wished he could lift this burden from Y/N, but the man had to face it alone.

Chapter 15

Y/N was looking into a cracked mirror, mostly looking at himself. His hands were down on the broken sink as he tilted his head back and forth. "I think it looks nice," he said quietly. Next to his hand was a pair of scissors, and around his feet were chunks of his hair that Y/N had cut off. He wasn't an artist by any means or a barber for that matter, but he had kept it as even as he could. "Y/N! Come on!" A voice yelled from outside. Y/N sighed and grabbed the scissors, stuffing them back into his backpack. He looked at his much younger face one last time, and then he turned and walked out.

The boy exited the public bathrooms, holding an arm up to shadow his eyes from the sun's light for a moment. Birds were flying overhead, chirping loudly into the open sky. "Woah! What did you do?" A feminine voice asked. Y/N looked forward, lowering his arm so he could see a younger Ellie in her entirety. "You don't like it?" He asked, running a hand through his newly cut hair. Ellie tried to hold back her laugh, but she ended up letting out a small giggle. "You look like a dork," she replied, which caused Y/N to pout. "That's just mean," he responded.

Ellie walked up, reaching up to put a hand on top of his head. "But you're my dork. Alright, come on! We're almost there!" Ellie said, turning on a heel to face the other direction. Y/N tried to wipe his starstruck look from his face, but he couldn't hide the smile that tugged at his lips. "You still haven't said where we're going," Y/N reminded the girl as they continued their trek. "Or why we had to sneak out," Y/N continued. Ellie turned her head to look back at him for a moment, losing focus of the path in front of her. "You know Joel would never let me out of Jackson! He's always like uh," Ellie cleared her throat and lowered her voice as best as she could, "You're not ready to go out there, you could get killed!"

"I mean, how is that fair? You get to go on patrols with him, sometimes you even get wall duty!" Ellie continued complaining. But her words were cut short when her foot was suddenly caught on a tree root, and then she felt herself begin to fall forward. Ellie closed her eyes and tried to brace for impact. A moment passed and she didn't feel herself hitting the ground roughly. She opened her eyes to see the ground below her and then turned her head to see Y/N holding her up. He pulled her back to a standing position, looking down at the root. "Look, Ellie, he's right. You're an amazing shot, but you miss the small things," Y/N said, kneeling by the root. It was a little hard to see, but not if you moved some dirt out of the way.

Ellie was too busy looking at Y/N with grateful eyes, he had saved her from imprinting her face onto the ground. "For example, you didn't notice that clicker a few feet back," Y/N pointed behind Ellie. The girl whipped around and sure enough, there was a clicker lying dead on the ground. There was a hole in its head where a knife had supposedly entered and killed it. "Are you sure you're human? Because that was not there," Ellie said, pointing at the dead clicker. "I'm just observant," Y/N said with a shrug. "Yeah right, if I didn't know any better, I would say you're a robot!" Ellie said, jumping onto Y/N.