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

[aintyourdad]

It was a kid. That, as much as Ellie's reaction, put Joel's guard down - if only a little, enough to keep back and let her greet her friend, anyway. While still keeping one eye on her and the other on potential exits, just in case.

"Another friend, huh?" His tone of voice held a lot of things - affection, definitely, because he knew that was just Ellie's way. People liked her, she was a nice kid, obviously even he wasn't immune to her charms. Maybe a hint of disapproval, too, or at least caution - sure, making friends her own age was probably okay, but she seemed to have a lot of people she trusted. Which made Joel wary by his very nature.

Holy crap, I missed this, damn.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy watched the two of them. Somehow, and this was strange to her, there was a pang of her back home seeing this scene. She wasn't sure how to present herself though: she knew Joel was important to Ellie, so she had to at least get an idea of what he was like.

"Yeah, we sorta just stumbled into each other," she said, grinning. She liked the wary look in his eyes too: they were ones that were experienced in reading a situation to make sure he knew where all the exits were. "She's told me a little about you too. You guys have been through a lot. It's good you're both reunited, yeah?"

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah," Ellie said, agreeing with an honest smile.

"Mindy's good people, Joel, though uh - We kind of have a death pact so be careful not to let her get too close when she's armed." The grin was wide but she was only half kidding.

[aintyourdad]

"A death pact?" Joel asked, somewhat incredulously. "And exactly what have you been tellin' everyone about me, anyway? Did you tell this one I'm a golden retriever, too?"

His tone was half-exasperated, half-affectionate, still too relieved to have her back with him and alive to be really bothered by any of it.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"A golden re-" What the fuck was he talking about?

"No, you're still a guy in her stories. Death pack for us is as follows though: if we have to face each other, we kill each other face to face, not with tricks or with some slow killing poison shit. She's my friend: she deserves that much, if it has to happen."

Never mind she prayed that it didn't.

[onlyimmune]

"Nah, that was just Hawkeye," Ellie assures him, before offering Mindy a grin. "That's right. Last two, we take each other on, see who walks away standing."

Only Ellie knew it would be Mindy.

Pact or no, she'd never be able to go through with it. Not with her friend. But Mindy didn't need to know that.

[aintyourdad]

"Uh-huh," he says, rolling his eyes a little. He knows Ellie - knows that's not her. She'll kill to survive, to protect her friends, he knows that, has seen it more times than he can count. But she wouldn't kill a friend, ever. She'd rather die.

She's that type.

"You okay on supplies?" he asks Mindy after a moment.

[hit_girl_mindy]

The less she thought about it, the better. She just hoped that Ellie would put up a fight. She wouldn't just haul off and kill her.

"I have some," she said. "You guys need any?"

[onlyimmune]

"We're good," Ellie assures her. "Looks like supplies aren't so bad this round, at least. There's some weird shit around, though."

Then she grinned.

"Did I tell you that I met a fucking dwarf? Like - like a real one, going on about dragons and wizards and magic and shit."

[aintyourdad]

Joel's first inclination is to tell Ellie she's got an overactive imagination. Then again, this place is weird as hell, so why not? Why not a dwarf?

"So not one of Snow White's," he offers helpfully.

Ok, this damn indicator thing better work now...

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Nah, but from what I hear, she WAS in this place," Mindy piped up. "Apparently the capitol decided to make an example of her by making her permanently look pretty. It was like some kind of vengeful plastic surgery. When they were done with that, they killed her off."

She looked at Ellie. "Ok, you have to tell me about your dwarf shenanigans now!"

[onlyimmune]

Ellie arches her eyebrows. "Woah, are you fucking kidding? I didn't hear about that! What the fuck!"

But she lets it go for a second. "Yeah, that's where I got these fuckers," she says, pointing to the little burns on her cheeks. "We were trying to cook up some meat we found in one of the kitchens, and started the fucking sprinklers..."

[aintyourdad]

"Guess they like poetic justice," Joel remarks absently. Everything he hears about this Capitol place just further engrains the idea that they're all sick sons of bitches.

If the whole death arena thing didn't cement that enough.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"It would have been less trippy, but the girl telling me it is actually a comic book character AND in my district to boot," she said. "Also she's crazy, but in the fun way. When you meet her, you'll know what I mean."

Mindy paused, moving closer to inspect the girl's cheeks. "Shit, you're right. Did he get hit too?"

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah but we got out of there pretty fast. Lost all the meat." Ellie looks honestly grieved at the idea of losing all that food.

"You have a comic book character in your district? Who?"

[aintyourdad]

"Oh boy, here we go," Joel says, almost affectionately. Well, he did go to the trouble of finding all those comics for her back in their world, after all.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"That sucks," Mindy said, as she could certainly sympathize losing something that would definitely have helped you survive, not to mention she'd been near starving the last time.

"You ever read any Batman comics? His arch nemesis was this sadistic madman guy, The Joker. Joker had kinda a sidekick: a former psychiatrist turned crazy, Harley Quinn."

[onlyimmune]

"No, I haven't," Ellie said. "That's-- that's fucking intense. I love comic books, but I mean, there aren't exactly a lot of them left, you know? Who would fucking think that someone you'd read about could actually show up here."

She looked back at Joel and grinned. "What if Dr. Star showed up? That would be fucking awesome!"

[aintyourdad]

Joel huffed a little. "I'm sure she'd find a way to set things right pretty quick," he said genially. He hadn't really read any of those comics, just glanced at the back covers, flipped through one or two, but hey. Ellie liked them. He'd go along with it.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You guys make her sound like Superman or something," she said, laughing. "I'm kinda curious about these comics now. What the hell is this Dr. Star all about?"

[onlyimmune]

"Dude, she's only the kick ass commander out to save the universe," Ellie said, as if amazed that Mindy didn't already know, but she was mostly teasing.

"There are like these crazy aliens invading and she has to go kick the shit out of them and it's awesome."

[aintyourdad]

"So basically your run-of-the-mill comic book about aliens," Joel said, gruffly but still with that almost-affectionate undertone to his voice.

He sort of made a mental note that when he got to this Capitol place, he needed to see if there was a comic book store somewhere.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Sound awesome, I can see that," Mindy said, wondering why she was called a Doctor. Then again, Lady Death existed.

"They better have comics here as good as the ones we know back home then!"

[onlyimmune]

Ellie stuck her tongue out at Joel for calling Savage Starlight 'run-of-the-mill'.

"I fucking well hope so. I didn't really look for them back in the Capitol, but when one of us win, we totally should."

[aintyourdad]

Joel just grunted faintly - yeah, definitely filing away that mental note to try and get her some comic books, next chance he got.

He always gave her crap, but never meant anything by it.