open; lay your weary head to rest

[shivving]

Who: Joel & YOU
Where: Tartarus
When: Throughout the event
Rating: R for eventual death
Summary: There's a hundred monsters between him and Ellie. Joel will cut through every last one of them to get to her if that's what it takes.
The Story:

[ Joel opens his eyes, and his heart sinks. The room he's in is unfamiliar, and it's immediately obvious what's happened. It's another event, the mansion transforming itself around them as they sleep.

At least he remembers who he is this time.

He gets to his feet and goes to the window, frowning at the sight of a dark, foreboding green sky. Then he takes out his phone and calls Ellie. The connection's spotty, but he manages to get her location - his main objective, because he's willing to bet that she's no longer in the next room over, as she had been when he'd gone to sleep the night before. He's also willing to bet that it's not going to be a picnic in the park getting back to her.

And as it turns out, he's right. He's barely taken two steps when something horrible and screeching whizzes past his head, and just the sound alone is nearly enough to drive him insane.

Oh, this'll be fun. ]

Comments

[postictal]

She making her way down to you too?

[Meeting in the middle will probably mean that Joel doesn't end up taking off his own foot just by stressing it, because apparently pacing himself is completely off the table.]

[Not that Tim can blame him.]

[shivving]

No. She's stayin' put.

[ His own potential (or actual) physical limitations had never even been a consideration. Joel shakes his head firmly. ]

She's pretty safe where she is. I don't want her wanderin' around.

[postictal]

[He nods shortly. She's safe where she is. Unlike Jay, he knows Ellie can take care of herself - and given that Jay's last encounter with shambling things that wanted to kill him involved setting fire to a house while playing the worst possible selection of eighties tunes imaginable, he's not exactly optimistic.]

What are these things? They're not...I mean, the last few times it was zombies.

[shivving]

[ Joel just shakes his head. He doesn't know, and frankly, he doesn't care. ]

They're bad news, is what.

[ Helpful. ]

You goin' somewhere in particular?

[postictal]

Looking for someone. [That's about all he can say - other than that, he's pretty much been aimless in his attempts to do so, stymied as those are by the fact that he's being stalked by things he doesn't want to put a name to at nearly every twist and turn in this fucking place.]

No idea where he is. I don't think his phone came with him.

[shivving]

Network's hardly workin', anyway.

[ Joel's glad he'd been able to get a message to Ellie at all. He glances at Tim. ]

You just wanderin', then?

[postictal]

I guess.

[For lack of a better word. He suspects that if Jay did have his phone with him, he'd have made his presence known electronically by now - not that he can be positive. Jay's predictability kind of gets called into suspect once he starts panicking.]

I mean - not sure what else to do, until I find him. [Because hiding in some safe zone sure as hell isn't going to be his priority until after he manages to pin down Jay - at the very least.]

[shivving]

Not much else you can do.

[ If he had no idea where Ellie was, he wouldn't stop looking until he'd found her. ]

Well, if you're headin' up, you're welcome t'stick with me for a while.

[postictal]

[If he were a little more together with it, he might've smoothed that all away beneath a noncommittal grunt, compartmentalized everything the offer accompanies with a shrug and a jerk of the head and a painless veneer of blunt neutrality.]

[But right here, right now - ragged as he is, weary and flagging and tremoring right down to his bones - the look he shoots in Joel's direction is unreservedly and painfully grateful.]

...thanks. And - [He doesn't - can't - look back. But he can jerk his head vaguely without turning around at the carnage he left behind.] Thanks for helping. Back there.

fade out from here?

[shivving]

[ Joel grunts noncommittally, shrugging and jerking his head. ]

C'mon, let's get the hell outta here.

sounds good to me!

[postictal]

[He supposes that's the closest they're gonna get to a heart-to-heart. Seeing as it means no one is bludgeoning anyone else over the head with a sawed-off, Tim has learned to fucking well take what he can get.]

Yeah. [He's agreeable to that.]