open;

[aintyourdad]

Who| Joel, Ellie, anyone else!
What| Joel shows up and gets tossed into the ring. Let's see how he does!
Where| I can put him just about anywhere in the museum you need - he'll be scoping the place out.
When| Mid-Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Joel is a highly suspicious dude and may assume anyone he meets is hostile until proven otherwise. This means he might punch first and ask questions later! I'll update this if anything else comes up.

Finally, please specify if you would like to meet Joel before he finds Ellie or after - if before, he'll be on his own, really worried about his baby girl, and slightly more prone to violence. If AFTER, you will probably get Joel and Ellie (two for the price of one!), and a lower chance of Joel trying to throttle you immediately.



"Put your hands in the air!" "She's not breathin'."

He woke with a start, phantom pain in his head and surrounded by - military? They were clearly military, but not any military he was familiar with. When they grabbed him, all sense went out of his head - normally, Joel would go quietly, because struggling tended to get people shot, but all he could think, all he could remember, was Ellie, her body so still. She's not breathin'.

"Where is she?" he demanded, over and over, landing a few punches but never able to break free. The pajamas they made him wear, the explanation given, all barely registered as he had only one thought in his head - find Ellie now. "What the hell did you bastards do to her?" he demanded yet again, attempting to yank his arm free when they came at him with a needle. Still, nothing. His shouts and struggles were in vain, and the next thing he knew, he was... in a parking garage?

With no one around to confront, and the knowledge that he was here to kill, or be killed, Joel quickly shoved his feelings to one side, dropping low and seeking a stairwell to climb to higher ground - it would take him a bit to realize the only way up was via elevators that actually still worked. They were far too slow and noisy for Joel's taste, but it became obvious that they were his only option, and he needed to get to higher ground, if he was going to find anything. Especially Ellie.

Joel moved quickly, quietly, and with one singular purpose: find the girl, and get the hell out of here.

Comments

[onlyimmune]

She shot an apologetic look at Hawkeye and went right back to glaring at Joel.

"How the fuck should I know? Last thing I remember I was in the fucking river and then I find myself here, fucking alone, and I figured they fucking kidnapped me and killed you, until I found out all the bullshit about the fucking time travel and shit and they don't even have infected here, Joel, this whole fucking world is clean." She hadn't meant for the words to spill out quite like that, but out they had come anyway.

She drew in a huge breath and walking over to Hawkeye and ducking down to grab his knife and hand it to him. "Here," She says, pressing it into his palm. "Sorry. I didn't know-- I didn't know he was here. I'm glad you're alright."

She turned back to Joel, to kick at his heel before grabbing another tight hug. "I fucking missed you, okay? Thought you were dead, just like--"

Just like everyone else.

[swill]

He could say so much to the rottweiler just then. How the knife was a tool-to-be, not a weapon. How associations shouldn't matter, if he'd never made a move to hurt the guy. How terrible it was that everyone was so eager to just follow orders barked at them by the Peacekeepers who had drove them in. He tries to play deaf at the story unfolding instead. He felt a chill. Joel had passed out, the girl had been fished out of a river-- he grins and takes the knife when Ellie presents it to him.

He had enough to worry about without the twerp. Let her be someone else's problem now. The man sure seemed to be up to the task. And when Ellie kicked, Hawkeye let himself laugh for a moment before holding up a hand. Kind of like signaling a stop, except he knew no one was watching him. "Don't break the fella," he calls. To his surprise, he's dead serious. Emotions be damned for this second- these emotions thrown around weren't for him- he was talking about work. "You'll put someone else on my waiting list and that's the last thing I need." And where the hell was his hug? Stupid, he knew, but he could wait.

[aintyourdad]

Was he still talking? Joel could've cared less at this point - he had eyes only for Ellie. She could hit him all she wanted, frankly, they were just more reminders that she was here, alive, herself.

"Oh, baby girl," he said, grabbing her up in his arms again. "You had me scared, too. Don't ever jump in the water like that again, okay?"

She ain't breathin'.

He took a deep, steadying breath - her own breathing there, obvious, he could hear it.

"I'll teach you to swim, first chance we get."

[onlyimmune]

Ellie can't help it, she laughs to Hawkeye's comment, the very idea that she could break Joel ludicrous. Even after everything that he had happened, half of her believed he couldn't die.

Even after she'd nearly seen it happen.

She didn't struggle, hugging him tightly and shaking her head against his shoulder.

"I am not going anywhere near anything I could possibly swim in, ever again," She said, half joking half not. Eventually, though, she had to let go, and she did so, brushing down her onesie as she regained her composure.

"Well uh-- welcome to the fray, I guess," She said, a slightly lopsided smile coming to her lips. "Good to have you." And she means it.

She cleared her throat, gesturing back to their guest. "This is Hawkeye. He's a Doctor. He's pretty harmless but he's good, Joel. He's saved my ass a couple time." She looked back at Hawkeye, "And this is my golden retriever," She said, trying to smother the smile but finding it impossible."

[swill]

Oh. Look. Acknowledgement.

He turned to Joel, watching him through tired eyes that Hawkeye remembered only just now were still sleepy. His grin had faded, been replaced by this sort of tedious look found on antsy schoolboys forced to sit at their desk for hours at a time. He felt heavy and, well, the excitement had started to die down, wasn't it? These were the introductions, and he was intruding.

When Ellie glanced back at him, he blinked the sleep off. Stood straighter, prouder. Shot the fella what he figured was a disarming little grin, but if anyone expected a handshake, they were wrong. Not from him, not now, not when his throat still hurt from the choke. "Or Pierce," he offered, deciding to keep the rank out of it. Joel wouldn't like the nonsense of his nickname. He gestured with one hand- a nonsensical little pattern traced through the air when he spoke. "Ellie here's talked about you a lot. She never told me anything about needing to bring along a muzzle, though."

[aintyourdad]

Joel wasn't about to offer a hand to shake, regardless. It wasn't really his way - shaking hands was kind of verboten - touching people you've just met in general was not a smart thing to do where he came from, for multiple and varied reasons.

"I'm not sure if I like bein' talked about like I'm a dog," he pointed out, but there was very little hostility there. Joel couldn't care less what other people thought of him, for one thing, and the fact that he had Ellie with him again sort of mitigated a lot of potential negative feelings, anyway.

At least he was a big dog. Not a little yappy one.

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah, well, it made some of the stories make a little more sense," Ellie said, leaning up to get a good look at Hawkeye's throat and feeling more miserable as she could see a little shadow of bruising already.

"What he means is that he's sorry. We're not exactly used to uh... non combatants in our world. Not from strangers, anyway."

[swill]

Oh, he was being tuned out, he figured. No reaction he had thought of- no glare or rotten jab from Joel, and he would have made a face of displeasure hadn't Ellie been there. It was difficult to fully wrap his head around, and he doubted he truly would. He didn't know who Joel was-- didn't have the faintest fucking clue. He didn't understand their world, which by itself was one more thing to add to the never-ending list, but now it wasn't just Ellie's life, no.

There was this man he didn't know, sharing it.

"It didn't make a lot of sense when we called you Fido, anyway," he says, shrugging. He turned the knife over in his palm, and then remembered his robe had pockets and let it slide down there. Gee, he'll have to remember about that. And he continues, feeling like everything was suddenly stale. "'s fine. I thrive on abuse. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here." And he recalls something about blabbering about Massachusetts and masochists, and he chuffs in laughter, a sincere and haphazard and sloppy smile tugging at his lips. She'd be fine. The rottweiler would kill anyone-- and she'd be fine. And he'd be alone, and he sighs and the smile slides off whimsically. He wished he'd been drunk for this, really, but of course he didn't mean that. "You two kids have a lot of catching up to do," Hawkeye points out, and the lilt had returned and now it was more sing-song, the smile shining in his eyes only, because his mouth was too preoccupied in wrangling a serious look that wouldn't keep.

He was interrupting.

[aintyourdad]

Joel wasn't actually sorry in the least, but he wasn't going to say that - let Ellie apologize for him. He'd left politeness and manners behind a long, long time ago. Asking people if they were planning to kill you before attacking wasn't generally a sound strategy for anyone who wanted to keep breathing.

He could sort of see why Ellie liked the guy, in a weird way he was a bit like her - what with the clowning around, the obnoxious cheerfulness. Joel had gotten used to it from her - to the point where he didn't like it so much when she wasn't that way - but that didn't mean he suddenly found it endearing in anyone else. Finding her made him want to just take her in his arms and hole up somewhere for the next however-long they could manage, and yeah, without anyone else. It was just the way he was used to things being, after all these months. If he were Tommy, that would be one thing, but he wasn't. He was just a stranger, and not a very useful one from Joel's perspective.

Belatedly realizing that he might be expected to respond, somehow, to this guy's dumb babbling, he managed a vague sort of noncommittal grunt. Mostly because Ellie would probably get mad at him for agreeing that Hawkeye should probably make himself scarce about now.

Maybe he was more like a guard dog than he realized.

[onlyimmune]

Ellie's face fell a bit as Hawkeye spoke, and she glanced back at Joel for half a second before looking back at Hawkeye extremely apologetically.

"I... yeah. Someone needs to catch him up to speed so that he doesn't go shanking everyone." She frowned, and paused to dig in her pockets and took out one of her fire starting kits and a slightly stale pastry and pushed them into Hawkeye's hands. "I've been looking for you this whole time, Doc, so you better not just go and get lost on me, okay? Here. Don't light a fire unless it's your absolute last resort - the fire alarm is uh, literally killer. But it'll get anyone off your tail if you need a quick get away."

She pushes it all into his hands and then points a finger at him.

"And don't fucking die, got it?"

[swill]

Hawkeye could assume well enough why Ellie was suddenly looking like she was, and he felt horrible for having brought it on. He told himself she'd get over it in a minute- young girls were flighty, don'tcha know- and only looked mildly confused when she handed him the items. After only half-way listening to her and after looking them over, the pastry being brought up to his nose for a sniff, he huffed out a sharp little breath. Pocketed the items. Wondered how she knew about the alarms. He glanced up at Joel as if he'd ignored her all the while, as if having her at arms-length and still never quite touching her hadn't stirred and angried a pit he knew was forming in his gut. Hawkeye glanced up at Joel, his voice shifting to something not quite gruff, not quite as even-tempered as before. If Hawkeye could only guess, he'd call it a warning.

"You listen to what she tells you," he says. No hand gestures, but he wishes for them anyhow. "There are bigger men here than you, pops. You can't get through this jumping on anyone you see alone. We wouldn't be in this mess if only some guys decided not to give in to any killer instinct." And to hell with any response that one might get him- he didn't need it. Didn't want it. He only wanted to turn back to the girl he couldn't say he'd been looking for, too, because he'd been tired and busy and telling himself that if he hadn't crossed her path or heard her name from the intercom, she'd been faring fine. So he did. He turned to Ellie.

He stood straight, heels together, all military except for the way his pale legs and sorry chest showed through the bathrobe. He grinned like he was hoarding a joke all to himself and felt like he was being swallowed by lake water.

And to Ellie he gave an extravagant salute, and a much more rigid nod of acknowledgement. "Major." Outranking or not, he never took orders well.

And, gee golly gosh.

This must have looked great on the colored televisions.

[aintyourdad]

Joel, as a rule, did not allow himself to become complacent. Simply because he was usually the scariest guy in the room did not mean there weren't often bigger, scarier things right around the corner. Clickers, bloaters, maybe worse things.

Luck, is what it was. Sheer dumb fucking luck, not skill, that kept him alive as long as he'd been. Luck, maybe, and knowing when to keep his mouth shut, when to talk, and when to fight.

No one needed to tell him that he should listen to Ellie. She'd saved his ass one time too many for him to take her presence, her ingenuity, her cleverness, her observation skills, for granted.

He didn't like her giving this guy precious supplies, but he kept his mouth shut, kept his distance, feeling like whatever this guy wanted to say to her probably wasn't his business. He was close enough to help her if something happened, but that was it. If he wanted to make some overdramatic gesture, that wasn't Joel's problem.

[onlyimmune]

Ellie only looked more miserable as Hawkeye spoke, her shoulders slumping slightly as she couldn't really keep it off her face. Then he called her major and, well. That was a bit too much. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around around him while he saluted her, squeezing him tightly.

She wasn't ever going to leave anybody. Not really. Everyone else left, and she wasn't going to do that to anyone. So this wasn't a goodbye, it was just a so long, and just for now.

She let go, and stepped back, looking miserable.

"See you around, Doc."

[swill]

Couldn't she have left him without that? Without the theatrics? Ellie attached herself to his middle like some terrible parasite and Hawkeye's gaze snaps over at Joel with mild alarm. He told himself the fellow looked strong and had wit, and that if the lumberjack had kept Ellie alive through her own twisted and previous world then they would be alright here-- they'd be playthings, but together, and maybe that'd make things better. Maybe it'd make things worse. What mattered was that he wouldn't be around, and that would be fine.

Peachy, even.

He lowers his arms, gives the girl a quick and easy squeeze because she had enough strength in her own embrace to pick up his slack. Thing was, Hawkeye was always the one for long goodbyes. Prying her off was a chore, but one he masked as easy. "Yeah, yeah, you're getting mushy on me," he chided, mussing her hair. "Stay out of trouble and we're bound to run into each other again. You know me- jumping bean." And he does it, finally. He steps back, points at Joel for half of a second and then tugs his bathrobe down and acts like he's dusting his hands off. "And keep that man on a leash. That'll get him sponsors." How he could leave his girl, he didn't know, but he'd have to. He figured BJ had felt like this so often and for so long, and he parts his lips kind of. To breathe easier. The smile was there and honest to God genuine, but it still didn't quite feel right.

He gave a single wave. "Here's looking at you, kid," he said, Humphrey Bogart all throughout, turned, and left. Joel's blessing was keeping Ellie.