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WHO: Joel & Ellie; Joel & Rick; Joel & Walt; Joel & Abduxel; Joel & Kotetsu; Joel & Jesse; Joel, Ellie & Jesse; Joel & OPEN??
WHERE: Various
WHEN: End of July - through to end of August
WHAT: A clusterfuck?? No idea how to summarise this lmao.
WARNINGS: Swearing, possible violence. Will edit if necessary!

XAVIER SCHOOL FOR IMPORTS ( for rick, walt & kotetsu; closed with one prompt open-ended enough to be OPEN )

→ FOR RICK; closed | backdated to before Ellie's canon update; after this.
[ It's a little after 2pm. Joel has just finished up work for the day around the school: usually he knocks off around 3pm but all the jobs he had planned to do are done. Not a whole lot to do during the school break, with the school being so quiet and mostly empty.

Carl had asked Joel over the network to talk to his dad, survivor to survivor, something Joel wasn't particularly keen to do, still isn't particularly keen to do, but he kind of likes Carl. Grown pretty fond of the kid, actually. And so, he heads up to the third floor, stops outside room 330 and hesitates a moment before rapping on the door with his knuckle. Not too loud, because he knows only too well how much a sudden knock on the door can make a person jump when you come from the kind of worlds Joel and Carl come from. Then he takes a step back, brings his arms up to cross them over his chest and waits.

When, or if, Rick answers the door, he'll see a tall, burly guy standing there, all broad shoulders and scruffy beard and a hard look on his face, dressed in a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and jeans that are dusted with sawdust from working in the workshop. ]

→ FOR KOTETSU; this can also be an OPEN POST, so feel free to tag in! | backdated to before Ellie's canon update
[ Really, trying to install long shelving is a job for two people. So far, Joel has installed the brackets and the frame without a problem; it's the actual shelving itself that's been proving difficult. Or maybe he's just having a shit day, because nothing seems to be going right.

Trying to balance a long and heavy plank of wood along the frame, Joel has a few screws held pinched between his lips, teeth gritted in concentration, a drill in one hand. The plank itself isn't heavy, not to Joel, who has super strength power; it's gravity he's working against here, and he's on a ladder, about to start drilling the top shelf when the plank of wood over balances and goes clattering to the ground with a series of deafening thumps. His dog, Lucy, who's accompanied him today on his odd jobs around the school and is dozing on the floor near the door, bolts upright, startled.

At the same time, Joel swears in angry exasperation: ] Goddammit! Jesus Christ-! [ which comes out loud but somewhat muffled due to the screws he's still got pinched between his lips. ]

→ FOR WALT; closed | current timeline
C'mon, girl. In.

[ Clutching a heavy bag of cement under his arm (which weighs nothing to Joel, thanks to his super strength power) and an old bucket of cementing tools in his other hand, his old jeans and old t-shirt covered in flecks of old paint and cement dust, Joel shoulders the doors to the school open and jerks his head with a brief whistle for Lucy, his dog, to go on in ahead of him.

He wearily follows in after her, a sullen and dreary look on his tired face. He wonders if Ellie will be home. Probably not. She hasn't been home much at all since she disappeared for those few days. He's been trying to keep himself busy around the school, trying to take his mind off it all, but her distance hangs heavier and heavier over him with each passing day. With luck, she's with Jesse. Not that Joel is particularly happy about her preferring to be with Jesse than him, but he at least knows she'll be safe with him.

Lucy suddenly growling pulls Joel out of his morose thoughts and he looks over her a little surprised, then sees what - or rather, who - she's growling at. That Walt guy. Lucy is standing there staring at Walt, teeth bared slightly, a low and menacing growl rumbling in her throat. ]

Lucy. Quit that. [Said in a deep and gruff commanding voice, which has Lucy looking quickly at him with mild guilt, before turning her attention back on Walt. She reluctantly backs down, sitting, but keeps her eyes trained on him.

Meanwhile, Joel glances back to Walt, whom he eyes with expressionless mistrust. ] Sorry 'bout that. She ain't real fond of strangers.

[ He's not really that sorry. ]

OUT IN HEROPA ( for ellie; closed )

→ FOR ELLIE | following directly from this.
[ It's a pretty low-key Italian restaurant: cheap seats, dim lighting, the wood panelling in the old place seeming to sag a little with age. It's a quiet place, though, not crowded or busy, and it's just as well because Joel is pretty on edge.

He's trying not to be. He's trying, for all intents and purposes, to act like everything is normal, everything is fine. Maybe he's been trying too hard: with how distant Ellie has been with him, how much she's been spending time away from home, preferring to hang out with Jesse than spend time with him, Joel feels like Ellie is slowly slipping away from him. It scares the hell out of him. He doesn't know what to do or how to address it, either, other than to desperately hope that if he pretends everything is normal, then everything will return back to normal.

Seated opposite Ellie at the small, cramped booth, Joel forks up a spiel of spaghetti and glances up at Ellie with his eyes. So far, conversation has been stilted and awkward, Joel trying to fill in the silence with scattered attempts at conversation, which is unusual for him. Joel is never one for trying to fill in the silence, usually. ]

So, uh. [ Twirling the spaghetti around and around on his fork, eyes looking back down to his plate. ] What've you been gettin' up to with Jesse? Been hangin' around him a lot lately.

PARK NEAR XAVIER SCHOOL ( for abduxel; can also be OPEN )

N.B. this is also open-ended enough to be OPEN, so feel free to tag in!
[ Something Joel does routinely, every day, is go for a run. It's not for leisurely exercise so much as to stay fit - he knows how fast and sudden things can go to shit in a civilised society, and the quickest way to wind up dead is not being able to outrun danger.

He's in grey sweatpants, a ratty dark blue t-shirt and sneakers, and running alongside him is his dog, Lucy. Seems Lucy has been keeping him company more than Ellie has been lately. Joel feels like he barely sees Ellie anymore, with how much she's not home. He's caught between desperately wanting to bridge the growing rift between them and wanting to keep himself busy in effort to not think about why this growing rift is happening.

He's run nearly five miles. As he approaches the park, he slows to a stumbling stop and leans over to brace his hands on his knees, breathing hard, a coppery taste of breathlessness in his mouth and sweat dripping off his face. His shirt clings damply to his back and chest, and there are dark pit stains under his arms.

Seeing Lucy go bounding off into the park with a loud and excitable bark, Joel looks up quickly from where he's hunched over. Damn dog has a real thing for chasing pigeons and squirrels, and there are a whole flock of pigeons just up ahead, squabbling about near a park bench fighting over leftover crumbs and food someone had left behind from lunch, but there's a person just nearby that Lucy seems to be heading straight for. Christ almighty. She's a friendly dog and all but she can be real damn intimidating, especially around strangers.

Joel straightens up and immediately launches into a run, exhausted as he is, and calls out a breathlessly annoyed: ]

Lucy, goddammit!

BEACH HOUSE IN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION ( for ellie & jesse )

→ FOR ELLIE & JESSE (closed)
[ Joel slides a cup of strong coffee across the kitchen counter to Jesse (even though caffeine likely has no effect on Jesse) while taking a sip of coffee from his own mug. It's pretty damn early; not even seven o'clock in the morning yet. Just before six, while the morning was still pale, Joel had shaken Jesse rudely awake and told him to get his ass downstairs, help him finish getting things ready for Ellie's birthday. Right now, Joel is frying up a large batch of pancakes, one of Ellie's favourites; he turns back to the skillet and flips one of the pancakes over with the spatula as he sets his coffee down next to the plate of pancakes he's already cooked.

At the back of the beach house is a large room with French doors that open up onto a large porch overlooking the ocean. Balloons and birthday paraphernalia has been strung up along the rafters, and in the middle of the room is a huge square shaped thing that is covered with a large sheet. Ellie's birthday present, which Joel and Jesse have been working on all week, flat-packed and stowed in the back of the large van Joel had rented to drive them to the beach house and put together in the middle of the night with the use of wrenches and a lot of quietly muttered and sometimes hissed orders from Joel to Jesse.

The whole time, Joel has been particularly preoccupied. Moody, not very talkative, silently troubled by something, and it isn't just because preparing a surprise birthday for Ellie is reminding him of the times he would arrange and set up birthday parties for Sarah. Ellie being so distant with him: it's been eating away at him more and more with each passing day. He's been snappier at Jesse since they arrived at the beach house, impatient with him, getting easily pissed off with him, but refusing to say what's really on his mind. ]

She's gonna be up real soon. [ Glancing over his shoulder at Jesse and what he's doing as last minute preparation before Ellie wakes up. ] How're you goin' over there with all that?

→ FOR JESSE (closed)
[ It's late now, well past midnight. Out on the porch overlooking the ocean, Joel is slouched on one of the padded deck chairs, a bottle of beer clutched on his thigh and his other elbow propped on the armrest with his head propped against his hand. It's a warm and clear night; the bright almost full moon shimmers a dim, milky light down on the dark water. It's supposed to be peaceful, and it is, but… For some reason, his mind keeps wandering to thoughts about back home, about travelling across America with Ellie in search of the Fireflies.

Joel clears his throat quietly, lifts his beer to his lips for a quick sip, and heaves a long sigh as he sets the bottle back down on his thigh. God, he's tired. So goddamn tired. ]

Sound of the ocean out there reminds me of… me and Ellie. Windin' up washed up on a riverbank, in Pittsburgh. [ Washed up isn't quite accurate but he doesn't want to talk about Henry and Sam. ] It was the middle of the night. Bunch of Hunters were tryin' to kill us. We wound up on this collapsed bridge, had no choice but to jump off into the river.

[ He pauses and looks like he wants to say more, then just gives a small shake of his head as he lifts his beer back to his mouth for another sip. ]

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[A bit slowly, as if he actually thinks Joel means this literally:] Ellie. I'm talking about how I know Ellie. Isn't that what you're talking about, too?

[ Impatiently, and perhaps sounding a little alarmed: ] Jesus Christ, I know who Ellie is. I'm askin' you what the hell happened.

[He visibly flinches again when Joel says Jesus Christ, although it's much less dramatic than the first time, as he had his guard up.

Maybe, he thinks, he just looks really sensitive to Joel's anger. He decides on a quick whim to play that angle, rather than be a smart-ass in return. Tartly,]

You could ask politely.

[ Yeah, like Joel is gonna be polite to this asshole after just hearing Ellie almost tried to shoot up the locals or whatever the fuck happened. ]

You tryin'a piss me off? What the hell happened?

I hardly need to try, apparently. [He says it flippantly, looking at his own fingernails. He looks back up at Joel:] Who are you, anyway? You think I owe you information? Maybe Ellie doesn't want you to know what happened, or else I suppose she might have told you.

[ Maybe Joel is already close to punching this guy because he's been so wound up about Ellie being so distant with him. Or maybe the guy flippantly looking at his fingernails like he's bored infuriates him. Maybe both? ]

She's my goddamn kid.

[Abduxel has that effect on people, really, so it's perhaps just a perfect union of two not-so-well-adjusted personalities...

He looks Joel in the face thoughtfully.]

You don't really look like her. Oh, have I gotten her in trouble, now?

[ Joel's jaw tightens. Thanks for unintentionally making him suddenly think of Sarah with that 'you really don't look like her' comment. ]

Answer the goddamn question!

[Very curtly,]

No.

I swear to god, buddy, don't mess with me.

[ Looking dangerously pissed off now. ]

[He tenses, and then stands up from his seat, facing Joel.]

I'm just enjoying a nice day at the park, buddy. [He's smiling, but it isn't a happy smile; it's a slimy asshole smile.] What about you, Dad? Where were you when she was growing up, I wonder?

[ Through all of this, Lucy has shrunk back with her tail wagging apprehensively, seeming to pick up on the ugly tension building in Joel.

And Joel, well. For just a split second, he stares at this asshole like he can't believe what he just heard. And then his face twists from really fucking annoyed to ugly fury, and he balls his hand up into a tight fist and takes an almighty and brutal swing right at the asshole's face. If this fucker doesn't dodge out of the way in time, it's a punch that will most assuredly send him flying across the park. ]

Edited (html wah) 2015-08-18 01:22 (UTC)

[He wasn't expecting that. There's a crack and a crunch as Joel's fist meets his face and fractures something in there, and he rather dramatically goes flailing over the bench, which interrupts his trajectory and has him landing in an undignified and painful heap on the other side.

He groans to himself as he starts to lift himself up off the ground slowly, bringing a hand to his own face to touch the blood there, which runs out from his nose. He can taste some in his mouth, too, where he's bitten into his own cheek; he spits it out on the ground, looking up at Joel from his crouched position. Still on his hands and knees, he raises his slightly bloodied hand, palm-out, in a stop gesture.]

Hey, hey, man, look, I saved your kid, if that's really who you are. Lay off.

[ Lucy had cowered at the sudden violence; tail between her legs, she'd scurried off around the side of the bench, away from Joel and Abduxel.

Meanwhile, Joel charges around the bench, face still twisted up, and heads straight for the guy now sprawled on the ground. He utterly ignores what the guy says, just lunges down to grab him roughly by the scruff of his fucking tailored shirt and hauls his ass off the ground like he's a rag doll. Throws him back down on the ground, hard, with a grunt and lunges back over him with his fist balled up again ready to slam another brutal punch right against his cheekbone. ]

[Abduxel starts scrambling away sideways, desperately, as Joel advances on him, yelling what sounds at first like expletives but is some strange, guttural, abrasive tongue. He squeezes his eyes shut to hide from Joel that they've turned pitch black as he cast the blood-magic; someone observant and calm might notice that the blood flowing from his nose stops, and it dries dark where it lays across his face and hand, as if cooked. He struggles hard to push away from Joel and rip his hands off, with closed eyes, still yelling his incantation, as the man hauls him from the ground as if he weighs nothing; he's very strong compared to a normal man, unnaturally so, but still not a match in this fight. He barks the last word of his spell just before Joel throws him against the ground, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him prone for the next punch, if Joel follows through.

And at that moment, several metres behind Abduxel in Joel's line of sight, stands Ellie, completely convincing - to Joel and Joel alone. No one else, including Lucy, is privy to her apparent presence. The illusion of Ellie looks appalled by the violence, frowning with those big, sad, angry eyes at Joel and she says:] What the hell are you doing to him?!

Edited (what is html) 2015-08-18 02:03 (UTC)

[ Joel sure does follow through. His skinned knuckles slam into the guy's cheekbone with a sickening crunch and he's bringing his fist back up to rail another blow to his face when he suddenly hears--

Joel's head snaps up. The way she's looking at him, it's not usually a look Ellie gives him whenever he's beating someone to death, although there were times back in their world where he sometimes heard Ellie whisper, Holy shit, Joel in a softly stunned voice when he'd killed someone in a particularly brutal way. Not that he ever let himself dwell on it because survival was survival, no matter how brutal and savage. But right now, with how tense and stilted things have been between Ellie and himself recently...

He darts his attention back down on the asshole sprawled on the ground, grits his teeth with his hand still balled up like he's ready to punch him... and then abruptly stands tall and takes a step back, sweaty and breathing hard and casting an off-guard look over at Ellie. ]

[Abduxel cries out as the impact makes his head snap to the side, and his cheekbone crack; the illusion of Ellie just stands there staring at Joel, blinking, with that same damaged expression. He hadn't had much time to cast; if he wants her to do other things, he has to cast more; and so while Joel's punch hurt like a bitch and has him reeling, his head pounding, at least it liberated more blood for him to work with when he gets his wits back together.

But for a long moment, "Ellie" just stares. Abduxel slowly, painfully gets back onto all fours, a hand on his face, looking distressed, spitting more blood out on the ground.

His mind races through molasses as his ears ring and he starts to crawl away, feeling some awful twinge in his ribs. He could tell Joel the truth, he could get the fuck out of dodge, he could stab him in the calf... one way or another, he slips a knife from his sleeve while Joel's distracted, but initiating more violence with this hidden hulk strikes him as unwise.

He mumbles another spell under his breath, as quietly as he can manage.

The illusion of Ellie then says, emphatically,] He saved me.

[ It's weird the way Ellie is just staring at him. He can't work out what the expression on her face is supposed to be. It's almost... glassy-eyed? Trance-like? Or maybe he just imagined it because suddenly she's speaking again, claiming that the asshole down on the ground, muttering whatever the fuck he's muttering to himself (Joel isn't paying attention to what the guy is muttering; he's more focused on Ellie), saved her.

Lifting a hand up to his face, Joel quickly wipes away the sweat trickling down his forehead while still catching his breath. A brief but skeptically curious frown quirks on his brow. ]

Saved you from what? [ A glance down at the asshole huddled on his hands and knees on the ground and then his eyes cut back to Ellie. He wants to demand to know what the hell the guy is talking about, with the whole thing about Ellie apparently attempting to shoot the locals, but-- Screw it. Questions can come later. He steps forward towards Ellie, a hand reaching out with intent to grasp her by the arm. ]

C'mon, we're gettin' outta here.

[Oh, no.

The moment Joel goes to touch "Ellie," Abduxel scrambles to his feet and starts to run.

When Joel first touches her arm, the first split second seems normal, other than her completely unchanging posture. But then all sensation of touching her ebbs away, and the part of the illusion that Joel contacted with skin seems to simply chip out of reality; his hand will sink through like she's made only of a dense fog, and close on itself into a fist. "Ellie" still stands there, blinking at Joel, expression unchanged as if he hadn't even approached her, only now the part of her arm that he tried to grasp is invisible, her arm ending a couple of inches above his hand. If he touches her elsewhere, the same thing will happen. She doesn't have anything to say about it.

Abduxel, meanwhile, is just trying to get the fuck out of dodge.]

[ It's the most surreal, fucking terrifying thing Joel has experienced in this messed up place, and Joel has experienced some pretty fucking messed up shit since arriving in Heropa. His immediate reaction is bewilderment at his hand seeming to go through Ellie's arm, followed straight away by a numb sense of horror, and then shock. He watches her arm disappear into thin air like a wisp of smoke, which has him snatching his hand away from her and taking a startled step back.

She's still staring at him, though. It's almost fucking eerie the way she's staring at him.

Joel glances wildly between the asshole now scrambling away from him, and Ellie, back to the asshole, back to Ellie, and then-- ]

The hell've you done to her? [ Which comes out in a numb mutter while he's staring at Ellie, but then his attention is back on the guy again, and he says in a louder, more frantic tone: ] The hell've you done to her?!

[Abduxel puts some respectable distance between himself and Joel before he pulls any more tricks. When he looks over his shoulder back at the man, the whites of his eyes are completely covered over black, as he issues one more magical command.

In case this first impression wasn't bad enough.

He doesn't stop, though. He might not be able to physically fight Joel, but he can hurt him in other ways.

Ellie looks Joel in the eye apparently sentiently, and says almost pleadingly:] Dad?

[ Joel is about to go running after the guy, his jaw tense and tight. He's ready to beat the living shit out of him, when--

His eyes snap back to Ellie. He stares at her, wary and dumbfounded. What the fuck. What the fuck. Ellie has never called him that, has never even alluded to thinking of him as her dad, has only ever called him Joel. Oh, but then something uneasy twists in the base of his chest. He doesn't know where to look and so his eyes snap over to the guy and, Jesus Christ, what in the goddamn hell has happened to his eyes?

Something ugly and painful and angry suddenly erupts inside him, and with his jaw clenching tight again and something dangerous flashing in his eyes, Joel launches into a run straight towards the guy. ]

[When exactly did this all go wrong? What did he do to deserve this? He supposes he should have known Ellie's dad, of all people, would be trigger-happy and insane.

Abduxel is typically inhumanly fast. However, right now, he's got a broken nose and cracked cheekbone, and he suspects at least one broken rib; each sharp, gasping breath he takes brings a white-hot spear of pain into his chest and ribs. He has to limp a little as he winces every time that side of his body is flexed. He's running much faster than someone so injured has any realistic right to, but objectively, Joel still gains on him easily as he runs desperately from the park, hopping down off the curb to run recklessly across a street.

He considers shapeshifting. He could hide more easily. He doubts he could effectively fly in this state, though, so it would have to be on foot.

He needs to buy time, and so he brings the blade in his hand across his own palm, sending a small spray of blood.

The armless Ellie illusion is suddenly standing several feet in front of Joel, so that he'd collide with her if he didn't stop or avoid her. She yells:] Stop!

[If he does hit her, the impact will be palpable like any real (if soft and light) barrier, before every point of contact fades into smoke and vanishes.]

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