thearena | open;

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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She let out a soft snort. "Yeah. No. Not really, no. I have no idea how they do it, Joel, they just... make things. It's kind of weird that this arena is so... well, tame, compared." She went quiet for a second, her brows furrowing.

"... But the last arena started that way too, you know. Quiet. And then the things that eat you come, and the water rises, and the world just starts going a bit nuts."

Joel thought about that for a moment, letting it roll around in his mind like a dog gnawing on an old bone, trying to figure out the ins and outs of it.

He wondered - but didn't ask - if that was how she'd died in the last one. Eaten by a dinosaur. Christ.

"We'll have to keep our eyes and ears open, then," he finally said, because it was all he could think of to say. "And... maybe avoid that wax museum room." That was one of the creepier places he'd seen so far, anyway.

Ellie let out a gentle snort and nodded. "... Yeah. That place is just a bit fucked up, and I can totally imagine manikins suddenly coming to life and trying to kill us all, so- yeah."

She drew in a breath and let it out again before offering Joel a lopsided smile.

"Look I-- I think I need to do something to keep my mind off it, so I'm going to see what I can salvage in here. Why don't you get some shut-eye? I'll watch your back."

It wasn't that he didn't trust her - he did, pretty much completely. But after having just found her again, the thought of going to sleep and waking up only to find her gone again -

Like a cold cabin in Colorado, the last vestiges of fever wearing off, and she's gone, gone, he can't find her -

But he was exhausted, he had no idea how long it had been since he actually slept, and sometimes, he did just need to trust her. Let her do what she needed to do. So he nodded, though he looked somewhat hesitant.

"If you're sure you'll be all right."

"Yeah," She said, standing up and smoothing out her onesie.

"I'll be fine." She just needed some time to process him being there, and somehow talking to him wasn't completely helping.

"I'll wake you in a few hours, alright?"

He knew she would be. Logically, he knew it. She was smart, had good instincts, had all the skills she needed - some of which she'd learned from him. But when it came to Ellie, his brain and his heart were often at odds with each other.

Still, though, he was exhausted, quickly running out of steam, and he would need to sleep soon, no matter what.

"All right," he said, with a sigh, leaning back against the display case. If nothing else, he would sleep better knowing she was okay. As well as he ever did, anyway.

She watched him lean back before turning away, making her way over to the display cases that were still untouched and forcing her mind to think about doing something that was actually useful instead of just spiraling over the last few months and Joel's sudden appearance.

It didn't make sense to her, him being her, despite wishing for it. Despite wanting it. Had they brought him here for her...? Was it her fault he was here? (Did she really care if it was?)

Eventually, though, she managed to lose herself in her work - breaking up a bunch of rods to make a few more new arrows, scavenging some cloth for bandages and an axe that would come in handy later.

Joel, for his part, couldn't have cared less where he was, as long as he'd found Ellie. He wasn't, on the whole, a good sleeper, but over the years he'd developed the ability to sleep lightly, and in just about any set of conditions. This space was relatively cushy, compared to some of the places he'd been forced to sleep in, and compared with his physical and, frankly, emotional exhaustion, he was out like a light almost before he'd formed a complete thought.

She didn't really keep track of the time, keeping herself busy instead. But eventually the only sound was the gentle breath of Joel's sleeping body, of her own wrapped feet shifting with a gentle swish across the tiled floor. She'd stopped working at some point, staring out past the barricade, and then eventually she'd wandered back to watch Joel sleeping for a while.

Part of her wanted to poke him with the sharp edge of something, just to watch him jump, just to reassure herself that he was there and alive and himself.

After several long minutes she walked over and set herself down beside him. She just wanted to sit there, at first, but then she lowered herself to the floor, curling up at his side. She couldn't even stop herself, pressing her forehead gently into his shoulder and rest a hand on his chest...

And then she was off to sleep, without even thinking about it.

After so many years of potentially needing to be on the run at all hours of the day or night, dodging infected, soldiers, hunters, and whoever the fuck else, Joel had picked up the habit of sleeping in pretty short bursts. So it wasn't more than three or four hours before he woke again with a start.

It took him a moment to gain his bearings, but he was immediately aware of the warm weight against his shoulder, the hand on his chest. Right. Ellie. She was here, she was safe, with him, where she was supposed to be. Okay.

He shifted his arm around her - he would need to run another perimeter check soon, he knew, but for now - for now, he was going to take this. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head and settled in with a strange kind of content. They'd make this work.

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