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
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."