Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Early morning dew fogged up the windows of the low-rise buildings as she passed. To her right, a sudden flyer flew to her face. 

With a gasp, she pried it off her face and held it out in front of her. 

“What…” Ellie mumbled and straightened the paper and reread the flyer. 

It read as, ‘Join the Westside Rebels today! If you are interested in joining, call XXX-XXX-XXXX!’ She gave a confused look and folded it up, and placed it in her back pocket. Ellie did not have time to think about it further, she had somewhere to be. She continued down the street and went to her familiar path to home base. When she approached the open garage door, a man's back faced her and she assumed he was messing with the engine of the truck in front of him.

"Got any news?" She prompted, moving to the workbench on their left. Ellie opened the drawer and searched it.

The man slammed the lid of the truck and pulled off his gloves, and rubbed his hands on his worn jeans.

"Uh, yeah. Old Majarne is having problems with her Honda again." He moved to stand next to her, and Ellie sighed when realized the thing she was looking for wasn't there and closed the plastic drawer.  

"Again.." She scoffed and leaned against the workbench, and looked at him.

"Joel, you have to be more direct next time. We'll just have to keep fixing it, and fixing it, and fixing it until that old thing's whole structure breaks to the point it's unfixable." 

"But it means more business and more business means more money, Ellie." He gave an girl you know I'm right, sort of look that made her scowl.

"God.' She mumbled and moved to the door that led into the auto shop front room. Joel followed behind her, sporting a kind smile in case there was a wandering customer waiting for him. 

But there was no customer that awaited him. The room was more commercial than the rest of the small building, a few stains on the carpet but other than that it was clean. A few waiting chairs were placed along the wall upfront of the room, near the entrance to the Auto Shop.  She sat behind the front desk and pulled out a folder that contained the history of Old Majarnes car. The old woman's car had problems with its brakes, and Joel was quick to fix them. But it was like a curse that it would break every month. Joel was talented when it came to cars and it was not his fault that the old thing needed to go. And of course, after Ellie told him multiple times not to accept the old lady's 'urgent' requests, he was too nice and always accepted to fix the old thing up anyways. 

Annoyed, Ellie pushed the folder aside and turned the office chair to face Joel. He was leaning against the doorframe that led into his small, cluttered-knit office. It always gave her a weird sense of comfort, that even in a workplace like this, Joel seemed to make it his own. He owned an Auto Shop on the outskirts of Manhatten. A city that threatened Ellie with a simple glance. Too much went through that city, the crazed supes who filled her favored convenience with merchandise was one of those things that made her hand clench in anger. 

Joel dipped into his office and sat at his desk, and looked at Ellie through the open door. He gave a conflicted frown.

She returned the frown, "I think you should tell her that her old Honda needs to retire." Ellie held a more serious tone, one she frequently used when talking about business and clients.

Joel's fingers tapped the edge of his desk and looked like he was thinking of a response.

"I..." He cut himself off and his brows furrowed, he looked upset. Even though Ellie was his adoptive daughter, he hated getting upset in front of her nowadays.

"I think you're right." 

"Huh. Wow." It wasn't supposed to sound rude when It came out of her mouth. Whoops.

He rubbed at his forehead and looked away from her.

"Do you want me to tell her? I know how you feel about her Joel." She tried to hold in a random laugh that tried to throw itself out of her mouth, she was probably going to cry.. yikes.. t wasn't that she didn't like the old woman, it was just that she always got on Ellie's nerves. Fuck it, Ellie disliked her a lot. When she had conversations with Old Majarne, she always complained in some way. Like in anything, something that happened in the day that upset her, her car, or she would even complain about Ellie! Joel did defend her in those moments, but he couldn't just curse out a client. 

That's what she disliked about working, the people themselves ruined it. Yeah, she could've gotten a job where she didn't have to talk to people she didn't like, but this was Joel. And Joel is dear to her, he was the one that was there for her. He was always there. But Ellie's getting older, and it's only natural she would want to explore other means of a job.

The rest of the day went alright by her standards. She filed paperwork..after paperwork..after paperwork. Joel made her work an office job at the Auto Shop most days despite the fact she was an apprentice. More people worked at the Auto Shop, they were more focused on going to calls and doing jobs there. In the end, the money always came back to the home base. 

Her apartment was on a dead-end street, and she was weirdly fond of it. This was the first thing she could call her own, even though the rent may be high for such a shitty place. Ellie did her best to clean the place, reapplying the caulk in the bathroom, and such. She was proud of it, Joel's mouth hung open when she showed him the updated version of the apartment. 

It was a pretty shitty neighborhood, and that's a lot coming from Ellie. She grew up around surrounded by every kind of person you could think of, and because of that, she knew the way around the outskirts of Manhattan. Ellie knew when and how to speak in most situations, but she was mostly a loner. So those situations were rare.

Ellie kicked off her shoes as she entered the room, and plopped down on the couch that sunk too far than normal. A stray spring could be felt within the couch cushion poked her ass and she groaned in annoyance, moving to the other side of the couch. She pulled out her phone and unlocked it. A little widget on her home screen flicked to a picture of her and Joel, and she smiled. The picture was taken when they went to NYC for Christmas, and it was one of the happiest moments of her life. Then the abruptly changed to the one when someone calls you, and the name "Joel," was at the top. Her thumb moved to accept it and was treated by a rustling sound in the background. Tarp on the pavement to be more exact. 

"Joel?"

He made a weird huff-pant-i've run a mile sound before speaking.

"Ellie? Did you make it home alright?" This was a frequent event, every day after work he would call her to make sure she was safe ever since she moved away from home. 

"Yeah, yeah. how'd it go with 'Ol MaJ?" There were a few seconds of silence before a new sound of shuffling came from Joel's side.

"What're you doing?" 

"..Joel?" A sudden pit of worry formed in her stomach, only to leave when he spoke before it could get worst.

"Sorry, she's got me taking care of her backyard." 

Ellie sat up straight on the couch and she gripped her phone tighter. Annoying ass lady. 

"I'll talk to you back later then, bye" She hung up before he could answer and threw her phone onto the coffee table. He probably wasn't going to call her back, the old hag's backyard was probably a tragedy. It just so happened that Joel and Old Lady Majarne were neighbors, that's why he was so upset earlier. He didn't want to hurt the already insane lady's heart, but he didn't need to know how Ellie felt about her. 

She leaned back on the couch and stretched her arms. Suddenly, she remembered that flyer she saw earlier. If it didn't make such a crazed introduction by attaching itself to her face then she would've forgotten about it by now. Ellie folded it open and reread it with new interest. 

The 'Westside Bandits,' what kind of name is that?  She snorted and placed the flyer on the table in front of her. Lately, she's been itching to get her hands on some Light Ultra.  Joel sparingly drank around her, and if he did it was always Light. Once he offered her a taste of it and she spit it out right after, 'Joel, how can you drink this shit?!' But that was when she was 14, and now she's a young woman with new taste buds. She's grown a liking to it, maybe it was the non-related genes she inherited from Joel for liking Light Ultra even though it's watered down and disgusting. 

That night, Ellie went to sleep thinking about how stupid the 'band' name was, and fell asleep before her thoughts could pick more at the idea.

Chapter Text

It was early night and the air grew chilly when the night started to shadow more around Manhatten. He zipped his vest closed and sat on the backstep of his back porch. His friend trailed behind and sat a step up next to him. 

The porch had a view of a graffitied alleyway but was relatively clean due to the neighbors; He stared straight ahead, at the plastic fence across the street with a cartoonish middle finger on it.

"You really think I should join man?" Jesse asked, pulling out a lighter. His friend beside him pulled out two cigs and held out one to Jesse, who took it and held it to his mouth.

"I think you should, there's a lot of benefits you could get from it, an opportunity."

Jesse lit his and his friend's cigarette and exhaled the smoke into a cloud. 

"What even is it about Dogg? Some sort of band or somethin'?" He looked to his friend who smiled, his white sclera was pinkish-white red, showing he was high. 

"You just gotta come with me mane. Nothing dark n' shit. Hard to explain what it is." Jesse nodded, taking his friend's words in.

There was a pause, Snoop looked at Jesse curiously and Jesse felt a sudden feeling of bliss. Warmth. Now that he was really, really staring... He noticed that they never really shared eye contact.  

He nodded again in consideration. 

"You know what? Sure."