joel miller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shittybirthday) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu_logs2014-04-13 01:59 am
shittybirthday) wrote in tushanshu_logs2014-04-13 01:59 am
Entry tags:
open to all!
Characters: Joel and open!
Date: Mid-April through to... whenever??
Location: All sectors.
Situation: Joel has arrived in Keeliai and is searching for Ellie.
Warnings/Rating: PG. Will edit to a higher rating if necessary!
If you want to do anything specific with Joel, feel free to hit me up at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
spongebong!
Joel has been wandering lost through the city for what feels like hours.
Ellie. That's all he can think about amid the mess of bewilderment racing through his mind about where he is: Ellie. Finding Ellie. From the moment he woke up in that damn tub of water, groggy and feeling like he'd been heavily drugged and finding himself staring up at a severe looking man staring right back down at him, Ellie is all he's been able to think about. His immediate thought had been that he'd been kidnapped and that Ellie had been-- Shit, he didn't want to think about what had happened to Ellie, what they'd done to her. He just wanted to find her.
And so, with the stagnant taste of water from the tunnel still in his mouth, in his throat, with the mental image of frantically applying compressions to Ellie's chest while she lay lifeless on the wet, water-logged ground, as his strength slowly began to return to him and the heavy fog began lifting from his mind, he started to fight. He weren't gonna listen to any bullshit about some great evil or some asshole called Malicant. He needed to find Ellie, god damn it.
Where is she? The girl? he'd managed to demand, his voice weak and croaky as he was lifted out of the water. When none of the strange people around him were willing to answer his questions, he began wrestling against them with all his might. He threw clumsy punches, tried grabbing them and slamming them into the wall, tried throwing them to the ground to stamp as hard as he could on their faces. Where is she? WHERE IS SHE? All to no avail: he'd been too damn weak to do much more than grope and grab and listlessly shove at anyone who tried to come near him. He was easily overpowered. Soon, he was shoved outside, left to fend for himself with no answers to any of his questions.
And now, here he is: navigating his way through a bewildering maze of streets and crowds. He's dressed in ratty jeans and a dirty, threadbare blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscular forearms; his skin is weathered and nicked with scars, scabs and bruises. On his left wrist is a wristwatch, the glass face cracked, the hour and minute hands frozen in time. Strapped to his back is a dirty brown backpack, laden with various weapons: a bow, six arrows, a metal pipe with scissor blades crudely affixed to the end of it with duct tape, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, a flamethrower and a military torch clipped to his backpack shoulder strap. His face is tired, world-weary, the wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead deep and heavy-set. His dark hair is greying and there are flecks of grey in his dark beard. Not a shred of mirth can be seen in his expression; but there's a look of something resembling barely contained worry, if not panic, in his hard eyes.
It's the first time in twenty years that he's seen or been in urban civilisation. Civilisation, that is, that isn't overrun by martial law, isn't secured into quarantine zones, isn't surrounded by militia, by the constant threat of Hunters, by decayed ruin and despair. By Infected.
He doesn't trust any of it. As he walks through the streets, he keeps glancing over his shoulder in paranoia. It's all too much. Too overwhelming. Too much noise, too many smells, too much stimulation. He's grown so used to the dead, dank silence of a world torn apart by chaos and sickness and terror that a thriving civilisation is completely foreign to him now; much less a civilisation as strange and almost otherworldly as this. Sudden noises make him tense; sudden movements make him defensive; people approaching him or getting in way makes him itch to whip out his pistol from where it's tucked in his waistband and aim it point-blank at their faces.
Date: Mid-April through to... whenever??
Location: All sectors.
Situation: Joel has arrived in Keeliai and is searching for Ellie.
Warnings/Rating: PG. Will edit to a higher rating if necessary!
If you want to do anything specific with Joel, feel free to hit me up at
Joel has been wandering lost through the city for what feels like hours.
Ellie. That's all he can think about amid the mess of bewilderment racing through his mind about where he is: Ellie. Finding Ellie. From the moment he woke up in that damn tub of water, groggy and feeling like he'd been heavily drugged and finding himself staring up at a severe looking man staring right back down at him, Ellie is all he's been able to think about. His immediate thought had been that he'd been kidnapped and that Ellie had been-- Shit, he didn't want to think about what had happened to Ellie, what they'd done to her. He just wanted to find her.
And so, with the stagnant taste of water from the tunnel still in his mouth, in his throat, with the mental image of frantically applying compressions to Ellie's chest while she lay lifeless on the wet, water-logged ground, as his strength slowly began to return to him and the heavy fog began lifting from his mind, he started to fight. He weren't gonna listen to any bullshit about some great evil or some asshole called Malicant. He needed to find Ellie, god damn it.
Where is she? The girl? he'd managed to demand, his voice weak and croaky as he was lifted out of the water. When none of the strange people around him were willing to answer his questions, he began wrestling against them with all his might. He threw clumsy punches, tried grabbing them and slamming them into the wall, tried throwing them to the ground to stamp as hard as he could on their faces. Where is she? WHERE IS SHE? All to no avail: he'd been too damn weak to do much more than grope and grab and listlessly shove at anyone who tried to come near him. He was easily overpowered. Soon, he was shoved outside, left to fend for himself with no answers to any of his questions.
And now, here he is: navigating his way through a bewildering maze of streets and crowds. He's dressed in ratty jeans and a dirty, threadbare blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscular forearms; his skin is weathered and nicked with scars, scabs and bruises. On his left wrist is a wristwatch, the glass face cracked, the hour and minute hands frozen in time. Strapped to his back is a dirty brown backpack, laden with various weapons: a bow, six arrows, a metal pipe with scissor blades crudely affixed to the end of it with duct tape, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, a flamethrower and a military torch clipped to his backpack shoulder strap. His face is tired, world-weary, the wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead deep and heavy-set. His dark hair is greying and there are flecks of grey in his dark beard. Not a shred of mirth can be seen in his expression; but there's a look of something resembling barely contained worry, if not panic, in his hard eyes.
It's the first time in twenty years that he's seen or been in urban civilisation. Civilisation, that is, that isn't overrun by martial law, isn't secured into quarantine zones, isn't surrounded by militia, by the constant threat of Hunters, by decayed ruin and despair. By Infected.
He doesn't trust any of it. As he walks through the streets, he keeps glancing over his shoulder in paranoia. It's all too much. Too overwhelming. Too much noise, too many smells, too much stimulation. He's grown so used to the dead, dank silence of a world torn apart by chaos and sickness and terror that a thriving civilisation is completely foreign to him now; much less a civilisation as strange and almost otherworldly as this. Sudden noises make him tense; sudden movements make him defensive; people approaching him or getting in way makes him itch to whip out his pistol from where it's tucked in his waistband and aim it point-blank at their faces.
no subject
His finger curls in, hand balling into a fist. And then, he turns away sharply and goes to pace off, his hand now rubbing anxiously across his prickly beard. He only makes it a few paces away; he turns back to Ellie and begins heading back towards her.
"D'you have," he continues, hand held out again as though to tell her not to damn well interrupt him while he's speaking, "any god damn idea what I've been through? Wakin' up in whatever the god damn hell this place is s'posed to be, thinkin' that you were dead? And you wanna go and pull shit on me like that?"
no subject
She didn't want to throw that out there.
"And it's the same fucking thing Tess and Sarah went through, and they're gonna want to see you." She stands suddenly, and marches towards the console. "Let me... Just let me fucking show you. I've talked to Sarah and Tess on this thing before."
She was flipping through conversations, expertly, her side to him. If she couldn't get him to believe her, she'd show him. The audio rings out soon after.
Oh come on, Tess! Don't be like Joel! 'Sides, I already saw stuff like that in some magazines I stole from Bill. Read the articles and everything.
Sometimes Joel is right, y'know. And seein' some stuff in a magazine doesn't make you an expert. Trust me, that shit's not... realistic.
She stops it abruptly, and then plays a video recording next.
"... They're here."
no subject
"Ellie," Joel cuts in sharply over the top of her saying Tess and Sarah will want to see him. And suddenly, he don't feel too good. Suddenly, between the flooding relief of knowing that Ellie is alive and hearing the unsettling conviction in Ellie's voice about Tess and Sarah, Joel don't feel good at all.
"Ellie, you need to stop--" he begins, his voice suddenly rough, as she's marching her way over to the console.
And suddenly, he's hearing Ellie's voice over the console. Saying Tess' name. And then-- Tess' voice. Joel goes stock still. He goes stock fucking still. Feels a twist of something sharp and terrifying coiling inside him.
"Ellie--"
And then--
Sarah's voice. The glow of an image on the screen has Joel staring at it and he can see, even from all the way over the other side of the room, that it's Sarah. Her voice. Her face. Alive. He starts slowly walking towards it, his face draining of colour, the hardness in his eyes draining into something unreadable.
"Yeah, okay I-- Wait," he's hearing Sarah say, and it's suddenly like he's in a long tunnel, like nothing around him is real, "You found ice cream in this place?" And Ellie replying that, yeah, this place has ice cream, best way to start the day! "Oh maaan, it's been forever since I had ice cream."
He stops. Begins walking slowly backwards, like he can't handle it. His foot connects with the leg of a chair he doesn't realise is behind him; he stumbles, the chair legs scape across the floor, he grabs hold of the chair with a fumble of hands. Eyes still staring at the screen. At Sarah. His little girl.
"Oh, god," he hears his mouth saying in a hitched whisper.
no subject
But she couldn't make herself move forward, in part because she knew she'd been cruel, just throwing that at him. She knew that Joel had erected barrier after barrier up, she'd had to claw through every single one of them, and there was no getting around that she'd just tried to viciously dispatch them.
For her own ease.
She swallowed, and rocked from one foot to the other. "Joel, I--" a pause while she tried to think of how she could even start. And the only start that was coming was, "I'm sorry. I didn't... know what else to do. To make you believe me." She felt horrible. Not even vindicated, just horrible.
no subject
This is like those dreams he sometimes has - those dreams where Sarah is alive and everything feels disjointed and like everything is a lie. Those dreams where his grief is confused with the bewildering elation of her being alive. Those dreams where the part of him left hollow by her death is filled whole again. Those dreams where she's looking up at him with those blue eyes and telling him, Why didn't you come to find me? I've been waiting for you to find me, daddy. Or those dreams where she's saying, Why did you leave me, daddy?
Dreams he always wakes up from feeling disoriented and filled with terrifying hope that Sarah is alive, only for reality to come crashing down on him seconds later and the gaping hole of loss to tear open all over again.
He feels like he's simultaneously trapped in one of those dreams and only just woken up from one at the same time. The gaping hole of loss in his chest feels like it's been ripped wide open and bleeding.
He feels sick. He feels... fuck, he doesn't know. Like nothing around him is real. Derealised. Depersonalised from everything.
"Ellie," is all he says, soft, vacant but commanding. An unspoken command for her to stop speaking. Just stop.
Elbows propping on his knees, he drops his head into his hands. It's on the tip of his tongue to tell her to leave. To tell her to get the hell out of his sight. But somewhere within the fog of shock in his head, he knows he can't send her back out there, not after having almost fucking lost her, too.
no subject
She probably should leave, but even if he wanted her to, she wasn't going anywhere. He was back, and there was a part of her that worried she'd have to do this all over again if she let him out of her sight. He'd go away again, and even this would have been for nothing.
So she sits there, looking at him, and then looking away. What did she do? Part of her wondered if raiding the fridge, food for both of them... if that was a good response. But the more sensible part of her realizes, no, no it isn't. Joel was probably still recovering, and all she'd done was make things worse. But I'm glad you're back, she thinks, as she fidgets with her sleeves.
no subject
Eventually, he lifts his head, drops his hands to dangle between his knees, eyes cutting over to the console. Slowly, very slowly, he rises from the chair and almost starts to make his way over to the console - but stops before he makes it not more than a step away from the chair. There's a strong pull in him to go over to the console, find that video, watch it again but--
No. No, he can't handle this. This is too… This is too fucking much. This has gotta be some kind of… some kind of cruel fucking joke. Some kind of disgusting, cruel prank. He squashes down hard, as hard as he can, on the sudden desperate rush of wanting, needing to see for himself that Sarah is alive. To find her, look at her, hold her. Hell no. No. Doesn't matter how much Ellie insists this is real, that Sarah is alive, there's no way he's going to risk going through having hope crushed.
He lifts his hand and rubs it over his mouth, over his beard, throws a glance towards where Ellie is on the couch. And then, he's heading for the living room, and he stops in the doorway, his eyes hard.
He opens his mouth. And suddenly, he's horrified to feel a lump forming in the back of his throat. He snaps his mouth shut again, jaw clenched tight.
"We're leavin'." He moves into the room, heading straight for his backpack. "We're gonna get outta here, find our way back to Tommy's settlement, just like I shoulda done ages ago."
no subject
If she knew what he was thinking... if only. But when he speaks, she immediately stands up. "We can't!" But logic isn't good enough here. "Where would we fucking go?! We're on the back of a god damn turtle!" She gestures around her, as though the apartment would reveal that.
"We're trapped here, for better or worse, and I thought you'd be glad to be away from the fucking infection!"
no subject
Nope. He hefts one strap of his backpack onto his shoulder, slips his arm through the other. Shrugs the back onto his shoulders. They're leaving. His mind is all made up. They're leaving. End of fucking story.
As Ellie argues that they're trapped here, that she thought he'd be glad to be away from the infection, Joel reels around on her, eyes flashing angrily.
"We are leaving!" He slashes his hand through the air; a sharp, terse motion to tell her to quit arguing with him. "End of story. Now, get movin'. We're gettin' your stuff and gettin' the hell outta here."
no subject
"We can't. And if we could-- what happened to finding the Fireflies?!" She draws herself up, standing tall. "We can't just run away from here, or from that. I told you, I don't want everything we went through to be for nothing. Besides that--" she bites back her words. She's pushing it, she's pushing it way too hard, and she doesn't want to deal with the disappointment that she was dead.
The cure wasn't going anywhere. And neither were they. Her hands clench into fists, and she just wants him to stop for a moment. "At least wait, we have a place to stay and there's food here. And you just fucking got here." He was probably still weak from that.
If he could even find a fucking pallet for her to rest on, what made him think he could kick it like he did back home?
no subject
Jesus, he feels so weak, but anger and some kind of confused terror is making his adrenalin pump hard through his body. He lifts an arm, points his finger with a hard stab as if pointing back at that fucking tunnel they'd both been in.
"I had to drag your god damn lifeless body outta that water. If you weren't standin' here," a pointing stab to the floor now as he takes a half step closer to Ellie, "right now, alive, then all of that would've been for nothin'. Fuck the Fireflies." Another slash of his hand across the air, indicating that that is final. "We are leaving."
no subject
No, she wasn't leaving. No, they couldn't actually leave. The look on her face said she wasn't going to be cowed that easily on this. She'd gotten far too used to life on the turtle-- and it was better than what she left behind. While she wanted nothing more than to help find the cure for humanity, to give everyone a chance to stop being shitheads... That time was gone. Impossible, even.
"No, we are not leaving. Did you even listen when they brought you here? This is the land between dreaming and death." She emphasizes her last sentence, with strong pauses between the words 'dreaming and death'. He needed to accept it. "This isn't some-- ship that's only a couple miles away from the coast. People come here when they're dreaming... or they are dead."
Her own hands were balled into frustrated fists, confident enough in her place with Joel that she could even begin to say all of that to him. "Just fucking listen to me!"
no subject
Joel abruptly turns away from Ellie, starts stalking off with a furious shake of his head - but then he's turning on his heel again, pacing right back towards her. Pacing, almost like a wild animal trapped in a cage. He doesn't know what to do with himself, where to put himself, how to even stand still, not while his head is reeling with things he doesn't know how to handle.
"Did you even listen to what I just told you?" Joel fires back, eyes blazing with anger. "Huh? I had to drag your god damn body outta the water. I woke up in this place, convinced," a hand now levelled out at Ellie like she better damn well listen to him and had better not fucking interrupt him, "that I'd been kidnapped and that you--"
Shit, his voice suddenly wavers, thick and rough. "You do what I damn well say, when I damn well say it," he continues, his voice so tight with something fierce and indescribable that it's close to breaking. "And I am sayin' that we are leavin'. I am not gonna risk losin'--"
--losing you again the way I lost Sarah, but he can't bring himself to finish the sentence because Sarah, Christ, Sarah - her face on that video comes slamming back into his head, and suddenly Joel turns away from Ellie again, starts pacing away from her, then paces back a few steps, paces away, paces back, eyes no longer furious and fixed on her but lost somewhere in some unspoken, locked in panic while he's anxiously rubbing his hand over his beard.
no subject
She steps forward, breaking her position. Her gut was telling her she needed to be firm in this, if only because he was asking her to leave behind six months of friends and good memories. But she knew they couldn't leave, and he was just trying to run away from a possibility he'd never considered in his life. She'd thought it was fucking weird to see Sarah, the girl she knew only from a photograph, the first time too.
But she liked her, and she wanted her and Joel to meet. She wanted Joel to see what this place was like.
"I'm sorry you put all that behind you as best as you could, and that this place changes all of that, but I am not leaving. And neither should you."
She inhales. "I got people I hope to fuck don't show up here too, and people I do. And... either way, I'm not going."
no subject
But this, this - this is something Joel doesn't know how to think his way through. Leaving is the most straightforward, most clear-cut option. When you find yourself trapped in some situation you know you ain't gonna get out of alive if you stay and fight, when you find yourself in a situation that you have no fucking clue how to handle, you just run for your fucking life.
"Ellie," Joel booms over the top of the girl speaking, telling him she isn't leaving. His hand is held out with a hard thrust, to silence her.
And that's-- That's all he can-- That's it. He's gotta-- He needs space. He needs fucking space to think about this, and Ellie going on and on at him about how she ain't leaving isn't going to help. Hand still held out at her, telling her to shut it, don't talk, don't even fucking come near him, he turns away from her with another, almost frantic shake of his head, and he's storming off through the living room.
But just before he bursts out into the hallway, he reels around again to face her. "You are not-- leavin' this house 'til I work out how to get us outta here. We clear?"
no subject
"Crystal."
She flopped back on the couch. He was insane if he thought she was leaving anyway, not when she'd only just gotten him back. As much as he was pissing her off right then, having him back was more important than parading around showing how frustrated and annoyed she was.
That could come later.
no subject
And when she flops onto the couch - well, that's about as good an assurance that she's listened to his orders as he's going to get, and he knows it. He turns away then, and he pushes away from the door frame to continue storming down the hallway to… wherever the hell he's going, he doesn't even know yet. He paces through the kitchen, fingers rubbing over his chin, eyes cutting across to the console every few seconds. Everything in him is screaming more and more to bring that video up again, watch it, try to make sense of it… listen to Sarah's voice. See her gorgeous little face--
No. Hell, no. No, that's too damn confronting, nope, no, no. With another, angrier shake of his head, he's storming towards the staircase instead, and he finds himself taking the stairs quickly to the next floor, where he stops on the landing and glances around him at the unfamiliar place. He finds one bedroom clearly already occupied by whoever lives here, finds another equally as occupied, finds another two bedrooms that are empty of any personal effects apart from the bare necessities. He walks slowly into the bedroom as farthest away from the occupied bedrooms as possible, comes to a stop in the middle of the room for a moment, lets his shoulders sag. And then, he steps over to the bed and sinks down onto with a weary and shaky sigh. His elbows set onto his knees and a hand comes up to rub over his tired face.
Joel ends up staying seated right there for a long while. Just staring around the room, or at the wall, or at the floor, thinking and thinking and thinking some more. About the video of Sarah. About Tess. About Ellie and the things she'd argued at him about back down there in the living room. About how god damn good it had been to see her when she'd first been running up to him on the street. How relieved he'd felt to feel her arms fling around him and hug him close. How god damn fucking terrifying it is out there on the streets, with all the noise and stimulation and a civilisation that he hasn't seen thriving since before the outbreak.
Eventually, finally, after ages of just sitting there thinking, thinking, thinking, he braces his hands on his knees and pushes himself up off the bed. Slowly, he makes his way back down the stairs; he's calmer now, though in a numb, blank way, like everything inside him has shut off completely. Ellie, he's thinking as he makes his way back to the living room: he's gotta think about Ellie. The kid knows how to look after herself but he still feels responsible for her regardless.
He reaches the living room door and hovers just before it, breathing in a deep sigh, he before he steps into the doorway. "You, uh," he begins, quiet and perhaps sounding very mildly sheepish, "you hungry?"
no subject
Give him space. Maybe he'll change his mind. Read a book, chill out. She looks up when she hears him speak, and if she's still mad, her face doesn't show it. She'd had time to calm down, as much as he had, and an almost relieved, pleased look crosses her face as she puts the book aside. "Starving." She'd meant to eat a couple hours ago.
But she wouldn't leave, not without him. Wouldn't move from that couch until he said it was fine, because as angry as she was with him, she was more relieved to have him back with her than anything else.
no subject
Ellie. He can focus on Ellie. Okay.
He regards her with a tight expression, gives a vague, almost imperceptible nod. "Well, uh," he shifts in the doorway, looks off to his left with a gesture of his hand towards the kitchen, "don't know what'd be in the kitchen, but maybe we can scrounge somethin' up."