"Huh, smart idea."

Out of all the things Y/N expected to see when Joel resurfaced from the water below, the wooden pallet was definitely not the thought that crossed his mind. But he had to give it to him, it was good.

"Oh - this thing again." Ellie sighed, slumping her shoulders as Joel swam in the water, and stacked up against the pier, holding onto the wooden pallet as it docked.

"Oh, there you go. That's smart." Henry called out from atop the stairs, before bristling as Y/N bumped past him not so subtly.

"So you've done this before?" Y/N asked curiously, watching as Ellie answered Joel's call.

The teen took her time to climb down and drop on the pallet, Joel holding it securely so she wouldn't fall or tumble over the edge.

"Yep," Ellie said as she dropped, her footing made contact with the wood. Steading herself on the board, she bit her lip nervously as the water splashed at her new found contact above the tide of the sewage. "And it never gets easier." She groaned, before calling out to Y/N when Joel began pushing her along. "How about you?"

Y/N shook his head, silenting debating whether to answer, before making his mind up. "Nope, 'cause I already know how to swim."

"Oh, really?" Ellie exclaimed, sarcasm marking her tone, almost annoyed at the fact that he had that advantage over her.

"Yeah, really." Y/N mumbled to himself.

Taking one last look at the murky water that was below, Y/N sighed and followed after Henry and Sam back up the stairs and to the platform. When he reached it, he could almost hear Ellie's repress about her own situation.

She hated the water, that much he knew.

Probably about as much he hated heights.

A few minutes later Ellie had reached the opposite side of the water and climbed aboard, gingerly taking a hold of the generator and bringing it to life. Noted by the hum of the machinery and then the loud cranking of the platform behind, located with Y/N and the others.

"Alright!" Ellie cheered, a thrill of satisfaction coursing through her very body.

The small platform began to move across the room. Providing a way for the other three to get across, as Joel climbed up from the water below.

"About time." Y/N said with a groan, as he stepped off the platform when it reached the edge. He grimaced, suddenly reaching down to cup at the leg of his wound as his movements agitated it.

"You're welcome." Ellie rolled her eyes, flipping Y/N the bird when the others moved past them and out of her range.

Y/N shoved down any pride loss at having need of a person dependent on, and nodded his head, gratefully, "Good job." 

At that, Ellie's face lit up and the two moved on, following the others as they walked on into another tunnel heading further into the sewer, and god knows where it led.

"I gotta say, I'm impressed with you two." Henry said, taking a look at Ellie and Joel as they moved ahead, and neither missed the dip of Y/N's head when he wasn't included.

But quite frankly, he didn't really care.

"Psshh... We're pros at this by now." Ellie replied, almost cocky as she moved on.

While not so subtly turning to her right, gazing at Y/N for a few seconds at most, before facing ahead again.

The group kept on walking through the tunnel, flashlights on and fingers closely against their holsters. While Y/N himself kept a tight grip on the sling of his rifle as they came to a stop.

An open doorway to the left, and the opening into another larger room ahead, barrels with spikes embedded in them stood motionlessly in front of them, acting as makeshift barricade for the infected, or anyone unfortunate.

Y/N and Joel took the doorway to the left to scavenge for supplies, while Henry, Sam and Ellie took a rest and observed their way in.

First step into the room and Y/N immediately reached for the toolbox that sat on the shelf, and the workbench stacked up against the wall. While Joel moved to the other side of the small room and picked up any supplies he could find.

"Agh." Y/N grimaced harder, the pain in his leg getting worse. Without any proper meds or antibiotics he could be at risk of an infection.

Though the bleeding in his leg caused by the bullet had stopped considerably, he would still need to sterilize it when they get to where they're going.

Even if he had to cauterize it himself.

"You alright?" Joel asked, coming over as he noticed the boy's grimace and rigid movement as he buckled against the workbench.

If he was being honest with himself, Joel was beginning to take a liking to the kid. He was mostly quiet, if not for the occasional snark and outbursts, and he knew how to handle himself, a lot more so than Henry and Sam combined.

And Joel hadn't forgotten how Y/N had stayed with them when Henry and Sam ran. Choosing a death sentence rather chickening out. Why he had done what he did was a mystery, but Joel was anything but prying, everything was a job to him, and he didn't need to confront a kid on why he was sticking his neck out.

Helping you. Or I'll never forgive myself.

But the mind was curious.

"Just peachy, old man." Y/N grouched as he gritted his teeth at the pain that itched and scorned him, but ten times more deadly. "And I thought the fire was bad..." He murmured lowly to himself, shaking his head as he closed his eyes before willing himself off the station.

Joel didn't bother asking what he meant about the fire, but decided he may as well help the kid, if he was sticking along with them for a while. Besides, he had helped Ellie when he hadn't needed to.

And well, Joel didn't like being in-debt to someone else.

"Here you go." Joel had pulled out a small bottle from his pocket and threw it towards him. Y/N caught it immediately and turned the bottle over, revealing the inside contents. "Painkillers, long overdue, but might give you some pain relief, for now."

Stunned, Y/N looked at the small bottle that cradled back against his palm, before looking back up at Joel's face, that was masked up, but Y/N couldn't mistake the look in the old man's eyes that said a debt was paid.

"...Thank you, Joel." Y/N said, as he opened up the bottle and found two small circular pills. Grudgingly, he shook them around, before gulping them down quickly and grimacing at the bitter taste of the pills.

"Don't mention it." Joel replied, before taking off back outside the room.

Y/N quickly followed after him, while his body began to feel the effects of the painkillers diverting his pain signals and allowing him some relief away from it.

Noticing the two back outside, the five of them continued on, moving past makeshift defences and up to the double door that led into the unknown.

"You think there's people inside?" Sam asked, looking up at his older brother who shook his head, and answered, unsure at best.

"Maybe..."

"If they were..." Y/N started, the noticeable limp in his movements stopped temporarily as the pills fully kicked in. "We would've heard from them by now."

"Kid's right." Joel agreed with him, making the boy incline his head towards him in a nod that thanked, if not awkwardly, for his backup. "If they were alive they'd revealed themselves by now."

"So... infected?" Ellie asked, almost dreading the answer as she looked back at Y/N and then to Joel. With the former directing his gaze to the floor for a few moments then back up to her and nodded his head. While the latter did more of the same. "So... we're really going in there."

Without much of a word, Joel proceeded ahead to the doors while Y/N stood guarded, his rifle in his hands, waiting as he readied it up towards the doors, with every intent blowing away whatever came through.

'Here we go.'

Joel opened up the door on the left slowly and revealed an opening into another room and tunnel that led forward. But not before a string line above was tripped via the door opening up, and glass bottles held in a basket were dropped from the ceiling. Smashing against the stone pathway and scattering broken glass on the floor, creating a sound that echoed throughout the sewer.

"Oh shit."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah."

"It's a sound trap." Y/N sighed, lowering his rifle as he moved up beside Joel and peered into the room more closely, to the broken glass on the floor and back up to the ceiling which held the trap. "Crafty little fuckers."

"A what?"

"It's a sort of alarm," Joel answered Ellie who had asked the question, and moved further into the room, allowing the rest in.

"I don't hear anybody." Ellie said, listening out but she only heard silence.

"Someone used to live here." Joel explained, taking another look at the trap, and then to the tunnel that kept going on forever. "Don't look like that's the case anymore."

'Yeah, or so it seems...' Y/N thought, obviously not convinced that they were truly alone.

In his experience, it was never this easy.

The group moved further in, their eyes pinned to the walls and the approaching light in the tunnel, to the ground filled with grim and dirt, and signs that hovered across the walls of the sewer.

The one thing on Y/N's mind, and Sam said it.

"Who would want to live here?"

"Well," Henry started, "Someone who thought they could keep a place like this safe."

"Guess that worked out well." Y/N snorted, as he carefully vaulted over the carts and knocked over shelves in their way. "It's hard to keep a place safe in this world without someone fucking it all up."

There was a way in which he had said that, which sounded almost bitter, like ash in his mouth that threatened to make him gag.

Turning to his left, he noticed tables lined with blue cloth and what he figured to be a radio or a tape recorder. The entire place looked abandoned, and he doubted they all took a vacation for the summer.

"You think that's what happened here?" Ellie asked him, as she vaulted over and ended up behind him, noticing how bitter he had said it. She cracked it down to the pain in his leg, but something told her it was something else that hampered him. "Someone fucked up?"

"Maybe..."

Y/N and the rest of the group began to spread out, searching and taking any supplies. He picked up some ammunition from a locker across the way, bagging up pistol ammo, alongside some rifle ammo and even some shells for a shotgun.

'I gotta get one of those...'

Turning to the right, he opened up another locker, and lo and behold, what did he find?

A shotgun.

'Thank you, God!'

Trying his best not to geek out, Y/N reached in and pulled out the pump-action shotgun, taking it gingerly as he got a feel for the new weapon. Excited, even for him, Y/N looked it over before reloading it with fresh shells he had found, only three, and pumped it back.

'About time I got one of these.' Y/N thought as he placed the shotgun behind his back and secured it properly, and turned to search the rest of the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Joel picking up a shotty on the table in the far left, a small shotgun/revolver that only took shells.

Powerful gun.

"Hey, Henry. Did you see that?" Sam called out after the sound of an object hitting against a wall reached their ears.

Y/N led his gaze to the source of the sound and found that the soccer ball (for all you Americans) had landed back on the ground. Having been kicked into a makeshift goal.

But Henry was focused on the surroundings and keeping alert and guarded. And though Y/N wasn't on the best of terms with Henry, he at least agreed with him on that, if nothing else.

"Let's keep it down, buddy. Okay?"

"Yeah," Sam slouched his shoulders in quiet disappointment. "Sorry."

Y/N scoffed at the two and decided to keep on searching through the lockers, grabbing extra ammo and more cloth for bandages, and then checking his wound on his leg. He would need to change out the bandage soon or it would get worse, not to mention the bleeding.

While Henry and Sam moved out to the rest of the room, and Joel was focused at the table, grabbing anything he could find, Ellie stayed behind, watching the ball that Sam had placed back, and not noticing Y/N as he turned up behind her.

"So, when are you gonna give it to him?" He asked, coming up beside her, his presence making her jump.

"What do you mean?" Ellie questioned right back, her eyes narrowed at him as he folded his arms in place.

Y/N rolled his eyes and shook his head, "The toy you picked up back at the store," He turned back to find the others still scavenging the rest of the room behind them. "Huh?"

"I don't know." She answered honestly, not even attempting to hide it, as she knew Y/N could see through her, she might as well tell him. "Later."

'There might not be a later.' Y/N thought, before continuing. "Well... it's nice... of you." He said slowly, wary in his approach to the conversation.

"Yeah," Ellie agreed, though her lips turned up at his awkward social constructing, shaking her head. "I mean, Henry's so hard on him. Shouldn't he at least get to be a... a kid, you know?" Y/N nodded in agreement. "At least, for a little while."

Considering Sam was only a couple years younger than herself, it felt weird to associate it with that term, when she herself had only turned fourteen a couple months ago.

"That's thoughtful of you." Y/N said surprised, and by now, he really shouldn't be shocked.

Consideration, compassion, if not a little naive, but strong and... caring. She was drawing up a long list, and Y/N knew there was more to her than even that, there had to be.

Ellie nodded, her eyes shining brightly back at him as her lips developed into a smile at his words, that caused Y/N to show the slightest of smiles that became true when Ellie looked away, and back to the ball, and he couldn't help his next words.

"So, you gonna give him the football too?" Y/N teased dryly, arching his eyebrows up as he noticed the blush of embarrassment as she stared at the ball Sam had previously played with.

"No." Ellie hissed, almost self consciously, as she turned quickly and sharply at him with a heated gaze. "Besides, where am I gonna put that?"

She backed out and looked across the large room to notice Joel was busy at a nearby workbench working on his weapons and Sam and Henry were conversing as they took a stop to rest again.

'True...'

"Just stick with the toy. then." Y/N said, his lips turning upwards, twitching at the look on Ellie's face that littered with either outrage or embarrassment at his discovery.

"Yeah," Ellie turned away from him and avoided his eyes that stared her down, feeling shy at the sudden attention from him and the closeness, not forgetting how he had dragged her by the hand when the truck had chased them. "We should go." She took off, leaving Y/N behind as she proceeded ahead, finding that Joel and the rest were already moving on.

"Huh..."

Y/N said aloud, watching the retreating form of her back with newfound curiosity. He had to admit it, his liking of her was increasing, and his curious manner was the one that was driving it home.

But once again, that was slowed by the reason of his tag along. That's all it was, he was just tagging with them until he reached... somewhere.

In truth, Y/N had always been a sort of loner, a person that preferred to be alone rather than burdened with the needs and the wants of others. But yet Ellie, even Joel, and this group was growing on him. And he didn't know what he would do in the end.

Thinking back on her previous words to him, Y/N himself was left behind, wondering if he truly had found a friend at last, and even more so, if they could truly be trusted.

Not like before.

--

"You hear that? Infected."

The group had reached a gated door leading out the tunnel they had been following, and was now faced with the unknown amount of infected in their path.

Well, they were prepared.

"Shh ssshh. Quiet."

Joel was first, quickly taking the lead as he pressed his hand against the handle bar of the door before opening it up. Which only caused a great groan of mechanical engineering when it latched back against its hinges.

Alerting the infected to their presence.

"I think they heard us." Y/N said sarcastically, as he was the first to fire. He raised his rifle up, quickly taking aim with the scope and shooting down an incoming runner. Directing hitting it in the head, and blowing its brains clean out.

As Y/N cocked the rifle chamber bolt, he heard Ellie retort over the hail of gunfire from the group, "You think?!"

Declining to answer further, Y/N moved out, rushing past Joel who had opted to jog ahead and blast any away with his shotgun while Henry covered Sam and kept him safe.

"Clickers!" Ellie warned as she shot and killed a runner beam-lining right for her. Sending three shots into it's torso, causing it to collapse with a wailing pitch.

"I see 'em." Joel called out as he moved to finish them, blasting one as it got close with his shotgun.

'I got this one.' Y/N thought as he stacked himself against the railing, positioning his rifle and taking aim.

The clicker was the furthest away, taking its time as it lumbered its way down and to the gate where the rest of infected had come from.

Slowing in his breath, his scope zeroed in and the sight lined up directly with the clicker's head, and pulled the trigger. Immediately it's head exploded into a large paste of red, and collapsed to the sewer grate floor.

"....Well, I think we know what happened to these people." Ellie announced herself when the gunfire stopped, and the last of the infected had been dealt with.

Joel grunted, reloading his shotgun as he responded, "Seeing how there was a clicker, they've been gone for awhile."

"We keep moving forward." Henry told the rest. "All we can do is hope that there aren't anymore of 'em." The four of them turned to look at him with disbelief covering their faces, and in turn he responded, "Doubtful, I know."

Looking around at the dead infected, Y/N in his humble opinion, doubted as much. "That usually the case in your book?"

Though it had been a somewhat rhetorical question, Joel and Ellie answered in unison.

"No."

Y/N nearly laughed, "Thought so."