Orange Slices (Joel Miller x f!reader)

Chapter Ten

The following morning, you wake up before the sun begins to rise. The room is dark and you can only see the faint outlines of the furniture. Swinging your legs over the side of the couch, you push yourself up into a sitting position, taking a moment to fully wake up from your poor state of sleep. As you sit up, you can feel your thin t-shirt unsticking itself from your back causing you to bring your hand up to your cold, clammy cheek and then up to your sweat-clad forehead. What the fu–, you think in confusion. A small ache begins to form in the spot right between your eyes the longer you stay seated. You let out an audible sigh before forcing yourself to stand up from the couch. The soreness in your legs nearly drag you back down like an anchor, causing you to stumble.

With heavy footsteps, you scramble to find the lamp switch in the dark. You can hear the coasters scatter on the ground after accidentally swiping them off of the side table. After what feels like an eternity of feeling around, you finally find the switch, having to twist it a few times before it actually turns on. The sudden light makes you wince, squinting your eyes at the overwhelming brightness. Turning back around and taking a seat on the edge of the couch, you lean over and grab the painkillers off of the coffee table. The safety cap causes you some trouble, but once you get it off, you put two of the blue and red pills into your palm, turning them over in your hand as you reach for the half full glass of water. The pills stick to your throat as you swallow, feeling like sandpaper as you force them down; following up with a sip of water does nothing to help.

A part of you wants to lay back down and try to fall back asleep. Last night was a rough night. You kept waking up every hour or so in a cold sweat due to the dreams– or perhaps they would be considered nightmares– that kept occurring. At first, they were solely of Nessa, particularly the day the outbreak happened; you watched her get torn apart by the infected, begging you for help, and for some God awful reason, you were unable to get to her, unable to help her, leaving you in a panicked and fragile state. Later in the night, your parents started to make an appearance, screaming out your name in terror, begging for you to save them, begging for you to come home; just like Nessa, you were unable to do anything but watch it happen. The last nightmare you remember having were of people you actually weren't able to save, situations that really did happen. Ones that you let happen. The people appeared in a single line standing across from you; an older woman with blood running down her head as FEDRA soldiers beat her with the butt of their assault rifles, a little girl with a pink ribbon knotted in her hair who had been shot in the stomach, a man crying out for his mother as those things claw and rip at his flesh. This was the first night this type of thing has happened, it's always just all black; you go to sleep, you wake up, that's it. At the very least, it's never been anything this vivid. You stare at the ground as you contemplate your choices, you could use the rest, however at what cost? You don't want to see Nessa or your parents getting hurt again, you don't want to see the faces of the people you've gotten killed. Regardless, you should actually be ready when Joel comes by to get you, unlike yesterday. Going out on patrol with him is something you do not want to mess up.

Before heading upstairs to change, you are sure to turn on the gas stove and prepare the percolator. Coffee is something you desperately need right now. The stovetop percolator is a little bit intimidating by its looks, a kitchen gadget you never had to learn to use before, however you did half-observe Nessa using it for the first week she stayed with you. If she can do it, surely you can do it as well. After filling the reservoir with water, you fill the basket up with the little remaining coffee grounds Nessa left. That seems simple enough, you think as you turn the burner higher, hoping you did it properly.

While the coffee begins to brew, you go upstairs. Slowly taking one step at a time up the stairs, your ankles ache at every push up, sending an alternating jolt through each of your calves. You and Joel didn't do that much walking yesterday, nothing that you haven't done before. It's almost unbelieve how sore your body is.