maskormenacelogs | we're gonna do a B&E...

Entry tags:

we're gonna do a B&E...

WHO: Tess, Joel, Ellie, etc.
WHERE: Joel and Ellie's new house
WHEN: Friday the 28th, afternoon.
WHAT:B&E...
WARNINGS: Nah.

In the grand scheme of things, the crime of breaking and entering is fairly low on Tess’s rap sheet. In fact, the way she goes about it certainly seems to support a mentality where breaking into someone’s home is something unsurprising –– most people don’t break into houses as if they’re entering a coffee shop, but there she is, bag slung over one shoulder and sunglasses hiding her eyes.

But if there’s anything that distinguishes this B&E from any casual felony Tess might commit, it’s the fact that she’s never done it to someone important to her. She’d never done it to a partner.

“Nice house, Texas,” Tess says, under her breath, as if her partner were right there beside her. He isn’t –– he left fifteen minutes prior, and she knows that because she watched him leave from her rented car a little bit up the street. He hadn’t had a clue. He’s had no reason to look for her. If she knows him, then she’s still dead to him, no matter what Ellie's said and no matter he thinks he saw at the party the other night.

That’s a grim thought, but a realistic one, and Tess has long given up feeling hurt about little things like leaving people for dead. Otherwise, realism has nothing to do with it; a week ago, she'd decided to stay away from him. The next, she's back. At the end of the day, Joel is all she has here.

Keeping an eye on him makes her feel grounded.

She gets in through the garage courtesy a wire hanger bent into a hook that she’s used to grab the manual latch at the top center rail. If that hadn’t worked, maybe she would have broken a window or something, but the more inconspicuous, the better. The garage door inside isn’t locked, as expected, and then she’s in the house, just like she owns it.

Just inside the doorway, she’s greeted by a dog. For a heartbeat she’s afraid, using the door as a shield for her body, but the dog just stares at her with big brown eyes from down the hall. The dog stands stock-still, a stranger in her house but no Joel or Ellie to look to for answers. Tess breathes a sigh of relief.

“Hey, girl,” Tess says, sweet but not too friendly.

The dog approaches her with a low head and an almost sheepish look. Tess’s relief doubles: she’d heard they had a dog, but she’d expected a dog on a chain in the backyard. She’d expected something mean, something that would scare off even someone with a gun in-hand, not a housepet.

She offers a hand and lets the dog sniff it for a second, and then she takes the dog by the collar to lead it elsewhere. When the dog doesn’t budge, Tess pulls. The dog digs in its heels so its claws scrabble on the cheap linoleum, but it's all puppy and too sweet to put up any real fight.

Tess drags the dog right into the nearest bathroom and closes the door. It’s easy to ignore the confused whine from the other side, especially when she gets into business. She puts her hands on her hips and gives the place a quick, cursory look-around.

“Alright, Joel, let’s see what you’ve been up to,” Tess says, again to herself.

With a crack of her knuckles, she starts to comb out the place –– inventorying drawers, going through his closets to get an idea of what he might be wearing for work, going through Ellie’s room in case the kid has kept a diary or anything. Frustratingly enough, there isn’t much to find, though Ellie’s room at least yields a little more leads to follow up on. On top of having apparently moved recently, they seem to know well enough not to keep little personal trinkets behind. Tess can only be as annoyed as she is pleased that they’re keeping careful.

The biggest find is their case files, tucked away in Joel’s underwear drawer. Most of Ellie’s file is new, and most of Joel’s is familiar, save the surprising new powers –– ursine physiology and familiars. She has no idea what that means, but she takes a picture with her phone. She’ll check that later. Ellie has regeneration. Noted.

Then, when she’s satisfied that she has at least a decent picture of their lives at present, she gets a can of Coke out of the fridge and starts to make herself a quick sandwich to eat on the way "home."

Blame years of life around scavengers for that bit of recklessness.

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Joel had left home to go pick up Ellie from work. Since moving to the outskirts of the city, where there were less people and less noise and less traffic, getting into the city and to places like Ellie's work took considerably longer. Like always when Ellie finished her shifts, she had ice cream to share with him. Doesn't matter how many times Joel tries to tell Ellie that she's going to get herself fired if she keeps stealing ice cream, she does it anyway. And Joel honestly never complains too much. He isn't a fan of sweet things in general, though always makes an exception for ice cream.

And so, they hung around in his car across the road from her work, eating ice cream out of waffle cones while Ellie told him about her day and Joel listened on while watching people passing by the streets. The issue of Tess hasn't left his mind, and he found his thoughts drifting back to it for the hundredth time since Ellie had told him the other day that she'd seen Tess, and since he saw what looked like Tess at the registration event.

Looked like Tess. He's firmly tried to convince himself that it was just someone who looked like her.

A little later, once the ice creams were eaten, they headed off home. And now he's pulling into their street and he's about to turn into the driveway when he notices the garage door wide open.

He hits the brake a little too hard, out of alarm more than anything. The tires make a brief screech on the bitumen. His immediate thought goes to: did I forget to lock the garage? But no, that's impossible, because he specifically remembers closing it. Which means…

The thought makes him uneasy that someone has broken in. He's got some money stashed inside the house. Not a lot, not compared to what he's got stashed in the storage unit. But it's enough to raise suspicion should someone decide to make it known. Shit. Shit.

He shifts the car back into first and pulls into the driveway. He parks up and kills the engine. "Ellie," he tells her as he unbuckles his seatbelt and pops the car door open, "you stay here. Gonna go check the house. Think someone's broken in."

There's an odd sense of familiarity to all of this. At home, Ellie might have obeyed--they'd be with Callus instead of the car, maybe, but here? Not so much. She's already reaching to unbuckle her seatbelt. There's no reason to not be paranoid, not be too careful, and if Joel just forgot to close the garage she'll make fun of his old age later.

"What? No. I'm coming with." Lucy is in there. She has horrible visions of fur and blood smeared all over their living room, because that would be their luck. If anyone hurt her dog, she'd kill them without thinking. Her crap can be replaced.

Ellie gets out of the car and heads to Joel's side. She at least will still let him take the lead.

The dog starts howling from the bathroom.

Tess sighs.

She'd hoped to leave the place looking relatively untouched, but she decides she's going to leave the dog in the bathroom. It's reasonable enough that the dog got stuck in there by accident, she supposes. It went in and bumped the door closed on its own.

But the dog hears what Tess doesn't –– a car in the driveway.

"Ellie--" Joel begins arguing. But that's as far as it goes. He knows he's not going to win that argument, and more to the point, with the garage door wide open and cash stashed in their house - and Lucy... howling? - there's no time to argue. With little more than an indignant sigh, Joel climbs out of the car and slams the door. Besides, he knows Ellie can handle herself. And perhaps it's a good thing she covers him, just in case.

He's already reaching behind him to pull his pistol out from where it's tucked in the back of his waistband, obscured by his t-shirt. He pauses only to look down at Ellie as she joins his side.

"It's probably nothin'," or so he goddamn well hopes, "but... Just stay close, alright?"

Ellie doesn't carry around a pistol, but she always has her knife. It's gripped tightly in her hand by the time she hears Lucy howling. Fuck. Well, at least she's alive--and not being shot into silence. It just makes Ellie all the more eager to get in there and see what's up.

"C'mon, let's go."

The dog puts Tess on edge. She puts down her almost-finished sandwich and strides to the bathroom door, giving it a hard thump with her fist.

"Shut up," she snaps. When the dog keeps at it for a second longer, she thumps again. "Shut up!"

Silence.

"Jesus christ," she grumbles, heading back to the kitchen, but in doing so she can see out the window across the living room, and she can see a car in the driveway. She squints for a second to be sure it's Joel's, but there's no denying it.

Shit.

Edited 2014-11-30 23:34 (UTC)

Charging as quickly and quietly as he can for the door that leads into the house through the garage, he comes to a brief halt when he suddenly hears what sounds like someone thumping on something inside. A door or a wall perhaps. And a voice, presumably snapping at Lucy.

Well, that's all the confirmation Joel needs: someone has definitely broken in. And Lucy has suddenly gone silent. Joel's mind goes to the worst possible scenarios: the dog's throat has been slit, the dog has been gutted, the dog has had her neck snapped.

Switching the safety off on his pistol, he crouches down by the wall next to the door to listen (and Christ, he's getting old - his knees sure don't take too kindly to crouching these days), ignoring the thudding rush of anxiety spiking within him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, flashbacks of having to do this shit on a daily basis - listening out for danger, always having to be ready to defend himself, hunters and Clickers - are trying to flood through and overtake his thoughts. His palms are clammy as he takes his pistol in both hands, ready to cock and aim if need be.

He moves stealthily into the house and comes to a crouching stop against another wall. The kitchen is just beyond this room, and he hears footsteps venturing into it. Still no sound from Lucy, either.

Screw it. He stands up, quick and sudden, and charges into the kitchen, and the first thing he does upon seeing someone standing there with their back facing him, peering out towards the living room, is take aim and fire.

Edited 2014-12-01 00:20 (UTC)

Tess doesn't hear him.

As vigilant as she can be, she's never been as vigilant as Joel. The casual arrogance that has her entering his place in the first place is the same casual arrogance that prompts her to assume he's not stalking into his own home with a gun, to assume that he'll walk in and she'll either be waiting for him or she'll be sprinting through the backyard before he notices the open patio door.

But when footsteps come fast and sudden, she's only turning to look when she's shot.

Jesus Christ, why has she just been shot?

Tess is sure that if she were at her full strength, she'd take that bullet with enough gusto to at least return fire and kill her would-be killer, but as it is, she's down. She takes a bullet to the side and the whole house of cards comes down — she's reeling and every bit of her that's been stitched back together recently screams out in renewed agony. Her body can't do it, so in mere seconds her knees are buckling and she's heading for the floor for the second time in a month, though this time she at least lands on her knees. Her only action is subconscious as well: her gun out, aimed at her attacker in the doorway, finger on the trigger to fire but she doesn't. She hasn't even turned the goddamn safety off.

"Jesus, Texas," she says, dropping it again. Of course it's him, even if she assumed he never would, "Where's your aim? I could put two or three in you for not making that a killing shot."

She's trying to be funny, even if she sounds angry. (Who wouldn't be, having just been shot?) The irony of making it out her planned execution in the Capitol building only to be shot by her own partner by "accident" is astounding.

Ellie is right behind Joel, like always, following his lead and staying low out of pure habit. It's been months since they've done anything like this and still it comes to her like second nature. Listening, moving quickly, alert to every little sound in the house.

When Joel rushes into the kitchen she's a footstep behind, the sound of gunfire both startling and familiar.

Startling and familiar.

That's the sight that greets Ellie, when she looks around Joel to catch sight of their invader. Startling and familiar. Bleeding, on the floor, Tess with a bullet in her.

No way.

Ellie gasps and stumbles back, hand on the doorframe. Tess. Tess. It really had been her all along, and now--

"Oh, fuck. Fuck," Ellie gasps, panic causing her voice to squeak. Joel shot Tess. Tess is alive. But Joel shot her. Joel--

Jesus Christ.

That's what you get for breaking into Joel's house: if not a bullet, then something equally as brutal. He spent over twenty years of life having to fiercely defend what was his in order to survive, and that same instinct hasn't lessened any simply because he's been living in a better place for a few months. Not to mention the shady and dangerous business he's in.

Beyond taking down the intruder, it doesn't remotely hit him at first what's happened. He sees the person crumple to their knees and he sees them aim a gun at him. He tightens his grip on his pistol and takes aim for a headshot... and freezes. The menacing, hard look on his face morphs into a kind of numb stare, exactly like the deer-in-the-headlights look he'd had on his face the other night when he thought he saw Tess at the event.

His eyes widen. Slowly, blank with horror, his hands lower the pistol. His head starts to ring with a surreal burst of white noise, surprise and shock and terror and bewilderment flooding through him all at once. His arm automatically dashes out towards Ellie in instinctive protectiveness to urge her back.

He's just standing there, staring, one hand holding Ellie back as if to keep her safe from harm. Hasn't even occurred to him yet to rush to Tess' aid. He's too goddamned frozen with terror and alarm.

"Jesus," is all that tumbles out of his mouth, a horrified, bewildered mutter.

She sees the look of horror on his face, and worse, there's Ellie, too. Both of them are enough to snap her out of any anger and quick-witted comebacks, and suddenly being the center of attention brings her back to focus. And god does the pain really kick in there, and she drops her gun entirely, letting it clatter on the floor.

Tess covers the entrance point with her hand and somehow instinctively knows the bullet is in her stomach, having missed a number of more fragile organs as well as any major arteries. Later she will dully remember her latent superpowers, but for now she's more focused on just clutching the spot on her side where the entry wound is, the burn of it excruciating.

"Fuck!" she snarls.

"Joel," Ellie starts, grabbing his arm as if that will make him do something. She doesn't think of her own power because it's not something she thinks about often--powers are still things other people have. But they've got to do something because fuck if Tess is going to somehow die on their kitchen floor. What a sequel.

"What are we gonna do, we... we've gotta do something."

But she can't bring herself to push past him and try and help, feet rooted to the floor with fear.

Ellie grabbing his arm is what snaps Joel out of his stupor. He throws a distracted sidelong glance at her, his face pale and naked with a kind of fear that speaks volumes of him having no fucking clue how to handle this situation. Which isn't like Joel at all - Joel always knows what to do, especially in situations like someone getting shot. He's able to think his way logically through almost anything. It's a skill he's had to learn and adapt to years ago, thinking fast on his feet to stay alive.

But how the hell does he begin to handle a situation like this? He'd rather turn tail and leg it, fuck dealing with this situation and fuck Tess, who's supposed to be dead.

Ellie is right, though: they've got to do something.

He goes to take a step towards Tess - and then falters, like he's really not certain he wants to approach her. It still hasn't really sunk in that he's shot his partner yet, even with her snarling in pain like that. In the bathroom, Lucy has started howling and barking again, and is now scrabbling and scratching frantically on the door.

"You, uh. Go and, uh." Christ, he can't think. He lifts a hand to run it anxiously over his beard, and then motions towards the hallway. "Go and-- Go and calm Lucy, alright?"

Giving Ellie an excuse to flee. And then, he starts approaching Tess, pistol still in his hand with the safety off but held down at his side, watching her warily, his heart hammering in his throat. He comes to a stop in front of Tess and stares down at her. He honestly feels like he's going to be sick. He forces himself to swallow that urge back, though, and hesitantly crouches down. He goes to reach out to her but quickly draws his hand back like he's terrified of touching her.

Having been gritting her teeth and screwing her eyes shut to deal with the pain, Tess turns her head to look at him properly when he crouches down. As far as she's concerned, it's been two weeks –– long enough for feelings of guilt and loss to fester, certainly, but not long enough that she's no longer comfortable bossing him around when push comes to shove.

Now, with a bullet in her for the third time in two weeks, she's comfortable with the fact that had he stayed behind until she'd been shot down, she might have become a coward when facing death and begged him to stay then, too.

"Joel," she snaps when he withdraws his hand. "If you can put a bullet in me, you can help me out!"

She reaches out for him in return, putting one hand to his knee to give him a rather pathetic shove. Even that movement makes her cringe, and makes the hand on her ribs jerk from the wound for a brief second.

They stick together. That's been them for a long time, but Ellie finds herself eager to get away. This is not her territory. Tess is not her territory, even if she's responsible for her death--a common trend concerning the people from their world showing up.

She should stay with him, help him, help him help Tess, but she's got an out and she takes it, turning around and running to where Lucy's crying is loudest. The bathroom.

Joel flinches, actually flinches, at Tess reaching out and shoving him. Touching him. The shove is a pathetic one but it's still enough to make him have to catch his balance with his hand against the floor. Her cringing and hissing in pain draws his attention properly to the wound in her side. Blood is spreading under the spot where her hand is pressed against her ribs.

It then hits him in some faraway kind of aftershock: he shot Tess. He fucking shot Tess. Except that doesn't really properly sink in because his mind is still reeling over seeing her up close.

Numbly, he settles down onto his knees and makes a few aborted attempts at touching her before just bracing his hand against her shoulder to make her lie down. He quickly switches the safety on his pistol and reaches it behind him to tuck into his waistband, and then stretches his hands towards Tess to compress the wound. Something, anything to bide him some time to try and think what the hell to do.

Her blood is warm and slick under his palms. Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck. He suddenly feels sick again. From out of nowhere, the memory of kneeling by Sarah and frantically compressing the bullet wound dredges up in his mind. He swallows hard and tries to apply more pressure to it but then a moment later, he's recoiling from Tess, hands covered in blood, and pushing himself up to his feet in a scramble.

He presses the back of his hand against his mouth. He doesn't notice how much his fingers are trembling.

"I'm gonna..." he begins. He looks down, pushes a bloodied hand into his pocket to fumble out his communicator. "I... I-I know someone who can, uh. Who can help."

He's bringing up Jesse's name, bloodied thumbprints smearing across the screen. With his shaky hand still pressed against his mouth, he slaps the communicator against his ear.

Tess lets him ease her down, but not without a complaint. She certainly yells at the added shock of movement, every muscle up her side screaming in joint protest, and a certain fear of not getting up again slips in under the adrenaline. His pressure is harder than hers, too, and rightly so, but god if it doesn't hurt, even after he's let go again and pulled away.

Her mind is spinning –– she and Joel seldom deal with worse than bad lacerations, given that for most people, few people are worth a bullet. What was the last time she dealt with a bullet wound? Knives hit more arteries, but bullets go deeper, ricocheting around, leaving a halo of lesser traumas. This bullet has gone between two ribs, tearing off masses of flesh and organ that Tess can't name by feel alone. Why does it even come to mind? Tess almost gets a head rush from her hand clamped to her side, and while Joel tends to his phone call, she reaches up to grasp a dishtowel between her fingers, pulling it off the oven handle. She puts that to the wound instead.

God, he's panicking. She can see that even in her own rapid decline from adrenaline to panic. He's normally the brains, and if he's not up to keeping her dialed down, then what can she possibly do from his kitchen floor?

If it wouldn't hurt even more, she'd curl up into the fetal position just to tense herself up, steel herself against the agony.

Edited 2014-12-01 06:48 (UTC)

Jesse's there in less than five minutes, that stupid car he drives finally put to good use as he whips through the streets and comes to a screeching halt outside. The exhaust probably announces his arrival before he kills the engine, and a second later he's through the front door.

"Jesus," he hisses as he comes upon the scene. No questions about what this woman is doing here of all places, no time for that. She looks like she's lost a lot of blood already. He won't make her wait any longer.

As he steps forward, he begins stripping off his jacket and his shirt. "Gimme some room," he orders Joel, tossing his clothes aside. "And get me some bandages. I'm gonna need 'em in two seconds."

Ellie knows that car. She's dragged Lucy into the bedroom after making sure her dog was alright and shut the door behind her, reaching the kitchen moments after Jesse's arrived. Joel must have called him. Tess isn't looking so good. Fuck, Joel looks like he's lost blood with how freaked he looks, and Ellie is sure she doesn't look much better.

And then she remembers that she can heal, too. It's messy and sick but it has to be better than Jesse taking a bullet wound to the gut. But it's hard to find her voice in this situation. She's plastered to the door frame, green eyes glued on Tess.

"Wait--" But it's very likely she's not heard.

And then there's her alcohol benefactor, suddenly here after what feels like an eternity, and he's stripping off his shirt for some goddamn reason. Through the electric shock of pain addling her thought process, she manages to say something along the lines of "You're here?"

She's sure she must be a real scene, sprawled on the floor and going white as a sheet, still trying to make heads-or-tails of the situation despite her general incapacity to lead at that very second. There's Joel, and Jesse, and then Ellie's back, and she can hear the damn dog barking. Joel's off his rocker. Joel fucking shot her.

Tess manages to hiss out through gritted teeth: "Shitty aim, Joel."

Joel has seen Jesse go through this regeneration thing enough times now to know the drill; and for once, he doesn't argue with him. He strides off towards one of the cupboards in the kitchen to start frantically rummaging around for bandages. Good thing Joel is always thinking of survivalism, always plenty stocked up with medical supplies and bandages, just in case.

His hands are fumbling like crazy, though. There's blood now streaked on the cupboard doors and on the packets of bandages and medical kits he's shovelling out. Squatted down in front of the cupboard, he forces himself to take a deep, determinedly calming breath. He lets it out and then gathers up as many supplies as he can in his arms.

He passes Ellie and he orders, "Stay back." And then, he joins Jesse's side, crouching back down, letting the supplies scatter onto the floor in front of him ready to tend to Jesse just as Tess is telling him he's got shitty aim. It hits him all over again, still faraway and surreal: he shot Tess. He shot his fucking dead partner.

"Jesus, Tess." He runs a still shaky hand across his face, blood streaked across his forehead with nervous sweat. "Just-- be quiet," he growls at her.

Jesse's only peripherally aware of Ellie's presence. He hears what she says but immediately dismisses it as concern for his safety. "Don't look, Ellie," he calls back to her as he gets down on his knees.

Once he's in a good position - one that ensures he won't collapse right on top of Tess - he bends forward to put his hands on her. "I'd say it's nice to see you again," he murmurs to her with a crooked little smile, "but..." Well, it's never really awesome to have to take a bullet for someone.

He takes a deep breath, bracing himself, and then he does his thing. In the blink of an eye, he's the one bleeding instead.

Stay back. Don't look. Ellie does neither, seeing that shake in Joel's body, sensing his panic. So, okay, maybe she does make it a point to not look at Tess on the floor, not think about the last time she saw her dead on the floor. That's worse than seeing Jesse bleed.

She crouches and puts a hand on Joel's back.

"I got this. You--you get Tess, I'll--" Clean this mess up. She's already reaching for the bandages with a steady hand. "I'll help Jesse."

Blood is preferable to facing Tess. They haven't found the Fireflies. They haven't figured out a cure. Her death has been in vain and here they are living their lives.

The bullet clatters to the floor.

Tess isn't sure what she expected, but the sudden transition from shot to some sort of unshot is alarming, even if it's not painful. For a second, she's still tensed up and gritting her teeth and prepared to resist anyone putting their hands on her, and then it's all gone, leaving nothing but the aftershock. It feels like whiplash. Christ, what just happened?

Seeing Jesse bleeding has her mind racing to catch up.

"What the fuck just happened?" she says, even if the doesn't expect an answer right now. It's enough to just continue laying there in shock, staring at Jesse and the identical wound in his ribs.

Joel is already taking hold of Jesse's shoulders, ready to take his weight and ease him down onto the floor. He's ready to turn his back on Tess and focus solely on Jesse because that's a hell of a lot easier than dealing with Tess. Seems Ellie has the same idea, though: as he's making Jesse lie down, he feels Ellie's hand on his back, and he glances at her.

Problem is, someone is going to have to deal with Tess. Jesse sure isn't in any state to right now, and Ellie barely knows her. Which leaves just him. He shot her; he's going to have to deal with it somehow. Fuck.

Reluctant as hell, he just nods almost imperceptibly at Ellie and braces his hands on his knees to push himself to his feet. He's still shaky, still unnerved, still doesn't know what the fuck to think, but he also seems to have finally kicked into autopilot out of some kind of sense of self-preservation: he stoops down and seizes hold of Tess' upper arm to haul her to her feet. She should be fine to do so now Jesse has taken on the wound himself. He keeps his eyes averted from the bloodstain on her shirt, and refuses to meet her eyes because he still can't fucking process any of this, doesn't matter how much autopilot may have kicked in.

"C'mon, give the kid some space."

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