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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.

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Joel was disinclined to trust more than a few people at any given time, but he didn't need to tell her that. They'd cross whatever bridges they came to, whenever they got there. The important thing was that he'd found her, and she was all right.

He took the offered pastry with a nod, eating methodically. He hadn't had a pastry in a long, long time. Not many people bothered to bake, anymore. "I'm sorry you were here so long without me," was his only answer to that. "We're a team, right? We'll figure this out."

He didn't plan to let her out of his sight, that was for sure. Not ever again.

She knew very well that Joel didn't trust anyone as far as he could throw them, except maybe her. And Tess, once. And maybe Tommy, on a good day. But Ellie had only survived as long as she had by figuring out who to trust.

That had been Joel, once upon a time.

"... Yeah." She tried to smile but it came out strained. "I'm sure you've got, uh, a lot of questions. I can't really pretend that I know everything, but I've kind of got a one-up on you this time. For once."

Joel snorted faintly. She was right about the questions, but still - "A lotta questions I'm not sure I wanna know the answers to," he drawled between bites.

"So what happens when all this - " He waved his hand at their immediate surroundings - "is over? Last one standin' wins...?"

She wet her lips. "Yeah. Last one standing wins, and is crowned Victor. Has a giant party and doesn't have to fight any more. Pretty much." Except sometimes they did. She left that part out.

"This is uh-- different. From the last arena. We were in the jungle last time. Everything was poisonous, and there were uh..." She hesitated on the word 'dinosaurs' and decided to leave that for later. "Lots of things to kill you. Let's put it that way. This one is totally tame, compared."

Joel scowled rather eloquently at her description - not so much at the experience itself but at the context of it all. "And they do all this for fun. Just 'cause they can," he said, and it wasn't a question, just kind of a disbelieving sneer.

"They must have it pretty good, then, huh?"

That made her pause.

"You have no idea, Joel," She said, and there was a strange sort of honesty in her voice. "I've never seen anything like it. They just-- eat, constantly. They eat so much that they need to throw it up just to eat it again, or they throw dream parties where they can eat forever and never get fat. They've got computers and televisions everywhere. It's like walking around in a fucking sci-fi comic book."

If there was a trace of awe in her voice, she tried to hide it. Yeah, she hated what had happened to her and the games and why she was here, but it was hard to ignore the splendor that simply had never existed in her world.

Not since she'd been born into it, anyway.

It... sounded like, more or less, the way the richest people back home had been, before the outbreak. Which fit with Joel's mental picture, more or less - a bunch of rich people with nothing to worry about, no infection killing them off, hosting elaborate blood sports for their own amusement.

Games. And he and Ellie and all the others in this place, they were the game pieces.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to make sure you win, yeah?" If that would mean she didn't have to do this anymore, he'd do what he could to make sure she was the last one standing.

Her brows furrowed and she held her gaze on him, leaning back.

"And then what," She asked, her tone turning a bit sharp. "We go ahead, kill everyone, you sit me on a nice little throne and then what. I watch you go back in? Or worse, you don't come out at all? No. No way. I'm staying with you."

"Then you're out, and you can help me from out there, until I win. Then we're both out," he pointed out - logically, he thought.

"Yeah, and I only have to kill all my friends to do it," Ellie said, her voice hard.

"Great fucking plan, Joel. This isn't home, okay. There's no- there's no noble ending here. It doesn't mean shit if you get me through to the end."

"You're right. It's not home," he said firmly. "I'm not sayin' we go out and kill all your friends - I'm sayin' we keep you alive."

There was a difference, in his mind, between going on a killing spree and simply having priorities.

"I'm not lookin' for a noble ending, here. I'm lookin' to get you out. That's the point."

"Yeah? So we get to the end, and then what, you make me watch you slit your own fucking throat? Great. Fucking thanks, Joel."

She was too agitated to keep sitting so she stood up, glaring down at him.

"That's not the point, okay? I don't fucking care what they told you and I don't fucking care about the crown, I'm going to keep you and everyone else that I care about alive as long as I fucking can. I'm sick and tired of watching everyone else die around me, Joel. I already lost you once. You are not fucking putting me through that again."

It wasn't about a crown, or a title, or winning. It was about getting her out, so she wouldn't have to die, wouldn't have to kill anymore. So she could have that cushy life she described in the Capitol.

That's all that mattered to Joel.

But what else could he say to her? Point out that they were all bound to die anyway? She knew that, and it wouldn't help to remind her.

"I wouldn't do that to you," he pointed out, voice quiet. But he had no illusions, either. It's called luck, and it is going to run out. He sure as shit was going to make sure hers didn't run out just yet.

"Why don't we just focus on survivin' the next few hours, yeah?" Anything else - well, they'd just have to see what happened. That was how Joel did things, anyway. Living one day to the next, working with what he had, shunting away everything else as irrelevant.

She glared at him, not quite that easily placated but at least he'd shut up about winning. So she chewed at her lip, hands on her hip, and let out a hard breath.

"... Yeah. Alright. Fine. Focus on the now."

Because it was making her sick to her stomach to think about the then.

Eventually, she sat back down. "Just-- just promise me that whatever happens, we face it together. Okay? Just promise me that."

She could glare all she wanted - having her around and capable of glaring was all Joel was asking for at the moment. It didn't really matter if she was angry or sad or what - he would prefer happy, of course, cheerful and whistling and throwing shitty puns at him, that was his favorite Ellie, but he'd take whatever version of her he could get at this point.

"Hey. I'm not goin' anywhere without you again, not if I can help it, okay?" he said. "I promise."

"Okay." It was a resigned okay, a heavy okay. Knowing that the caveat of 'if I can help it' was more key than anything else in that sentence.

No one could ever really help it.

They all just died anyway.

Or worse. Died for her.

She fell silent for a long moment, picking almost absentmindedly at her bow, before slowly, almost reluctantly, she shuffled closer until she could lean in to his side and rest her head against his shoulder.

Joel hadn't really felt whole for twenty years - losing so much, it was like pieces of him were missing, probably forever. Nothing would change that for him, but Ellie, in a way, had glued a few of the pieces back together, maybe. Maybe.

If nothing else, her presence was, well. Comforting. She'd become familiar, trusted. He felt bad that she'd had to do without him for months and months. He never intended for that to happen. But a lot of things happened that he didn't intend.

When she leaned against him, his arm went around her shoulders to keep her close. She'd been without him for a while, but she didn't have to go without him anymore. He was here now, and he intended to stay here, with her.

She didn't shift away, just let the silence deepen as she leaned there, content to get used to him just being there. It was still weird, like she was dreaming and was going to wake up at any moment and he'd be gone again. A part of her was terrified that the Capitol had just figured out a way to mess with their minds, that he was never actually there at all, just a figment of her imagination.

The personification of her desperate need to belong somewhere, anywhere. To not be alone.

But she could hear his breath, even and calm, and she could feel the gentle rise and fall of his shoulder, and she somehow managed to convince herself that he was there. You'd think the yelling would have done it, but no. She needed time to process, and she took it, with that small but pointed amount of physical affection, and the heavy arm around her shoulders.

She let out a long breath after a few minutes had passed, and began to speak, without moving.

"So," She murmured, "... They say you should never invest in funerals." She paused, completely seriously, and let it hang there. "... It's a dying industry."

It was good - a comfortable kind of silence, of the sort they shared pretty often back home. Joel could almost forget this was some different place, away from everything they were familiar with.

It didn't really matter all that much where they were, anyway. As long as they were together.

Her words shook him out of his reverie, a bit, and for a moment he wondered what the hell she was talking about... until she delivered the punchline. His shoulders relaxed and he huffed faintly - in disgust, of course, most definitely not laughter.

"That's the worst one yet."

She snorted, chuckling lowly, head still on his shoulder.

"Yeah," She agreed easily. "Thought it might lighten the mood a bit." But her smile faded.

"... Something's been bugging me," She said quietly. "I uh... I'm sorry. For back there. With the water, and the bus and... Well. I just really hope that I didn't fuck over the whole world by nearly drowning and getting myself kidnapped," She said mildly. Even with the relatively relaxed tone, it was obvious that this had been praying on her mind for a while.

He didn't like that she had all that weight on her shoulders - that she'd taken on so much responsibility, immunity or not. She wasn't, in Joel's opinion, responsible for the whole world's survival. No matter what Marlene wanted to think. Wanting to help, that was one thing, but this sense that everything depended on one kid?

He shook his head faintly. "You didn't. You know the odds were always stacked against us. Gettin' kidnapped, well. That ain't your fault." He paused a moment, thinking. "You put some more gray in my hair, though. So don't do it again, okay?"

"Heh. Yeah. Trust me, not on my list of things I'd like to repeat," She said mildly. But she did feel better, a bit. Joel wasn't exactly the entirety of her world, but it was all that she had of it here. He was biased, of course, she knew he was. And naive, in a way, about what probably actually waited for them at the end of the line. And yet, it still reassured her, that at least one person from their world wouldn't blame her for this. Wouldn't blame her for disappearing.

Even if she blamed herself.

She sighed, and leaned more heavily into him.

"Giraffes? Definitely on my list. Kidnapping? Not so much. I think I'll pass on dinosaurs, too."

Maybe less naive and more in denial, but Joel was mostly just along for the ride from the beginning, anyway. And, perhaps, still a little disbelieving that a cure could happen in the first place. Sure, the kid was immune, he got that, but he still didn't see how that could translate into a cure for everyone.

Not that it mattered here. Ellie was, essentially, his whole world. Tommy had Maria, and their little group - they would be fine, with or without him. He had Ellie - Ellie needed him, and he needed her.

"Dinosaurs?" Joel had a sneaking suspicion she didn't mean the skeletons in the museum.

"... Yeah. Dinosaurs." She finally pulled back off his shoulder so she could look up at him. She didn't pull any further away, though.

"It's a long story. There's uh... there's a lot of long stories. Not really sure where I should start."

He fought his natural inclination to call bullshit on that - but he knew better than to think she would go pulling his leg in a place like this. His eyes met hers, and he nodded.

"'s all right. We got time. Whatever you feel like tellin'."

He knew sometimes she wanted to talk about things, more than he was often comfortable with. But he also knew the value of silence, of leaving some things unsaid. Sometimes, it was better to just leave things where they were. Like a burning building in an old resort town in Colorado.

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