thecapitol | open;

Entry tags:

open;

Who| Joel and OPEN!
What| Joel's (not so) auspicious return to the Capitol. The arena messed him up pretty bad, and now he's got stuff to catch up on here.
Where| Various; see starters.
When| Week 6, possibly into week 7.
Warnings/Notes| Lots and lots of manpain. Probably some cussing, possibly discussion of child death and zombie violence.

[ 1: D8 suites; ]

Joel spends the better part of three days after his return in his room. He's got a stash of food, and he's used to not bathing for long periods of time. He can't bring himself to leave, regardless. Not after all that happened. Not after Sarah. He couldn't save her, again. He couldn't save Riley. He couldn't save Clem. Clem. Christ. And now Ellie's alone in that hellish place, and he can't face it.

He can't.

[ 2: D8 common area; ]

When he finally emerges from his room, bleary and sleep-deprived and thinner than before he went into the arena, Joel makes a beeline for the kitchen area. It's one of the things that he can always do to calm himself down here - cook. Fresh food, good food, is in abundance here, and Joel takes advantage of it. It's almost therapeutic for him.

Of course, there's no avoiding the multiple television screens that are always on in the common area, proclaiming the latest "news". A news report catches his eye, and for a while he's enraptured, unable to look away as the anchor details the plague, the quarantines - and an entire district, blown off the map.

Joel's face darkens, into a scowl, something tight and disgusted but not surprised, not horrified. If anything, it's all too familiar. No wonder it's so quiet around this place.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, and then goes back to his cooking.

[ 3: Training Center; ]

Eventually, by the end of the week, in need of something else to occupy him, Joel ventures to the training center. He doesn't think training really does him much good - his skills were all acquired through long practice. But it gives him occupation, and it can be a good idea to check out who else is around, and what they're doing

Size up the competition, so to speak.

[ 4: A coffee shop; ]

By the end of the week, with the quarantines lifted and the fear of disease essentially gone, the city is getting back to normal - well, normal by Capitol standards, anyway. It's strange, to see a place recovering from a disease. Joel's world never recovered. It just fell apart, completely.

But there's no point dwelling on it. If he does that, he'll just start to think about things better left alone. His old life. Sarah. Hell, even Ellie. At least getting out of the Tribute Center gets him away from all the screens for a while. He watches sometimes, to see if they're following Ellie at all, but just as often he can't, doesn't want to, doesn't see the point. So he finds a coffee shop, a secluded one, away from the big touristy areas. Good strong coffee is what he needs.

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This arena was terrible for Joel, too - it probably shows in the lingering tiredness around his eyes, the darkness of his expression, the scowl threatening to turn his mouth downward. The news he's gotten since he got back from it hasn't made things any better, for that matter. A pandemic, only just controlled. Some guy stupid enough to try and break the Capitol's barrier around the arena avoxed, and an entire district blown off the map.

The familiar voice gets his attention - he's got good hearing, almost preternaturally so, especially for a man his age. He gives Elsa a nod, and goes to get his coffee - as usual, strong and black - before joining her at the table.

He's glad, personally, that he never ran into her this arena.

"Hey," he says by way of greeting. "You been back long?"

Elsa can tell, when he joins her at the table, that he's tired. Boy, does she know that feeling. She frowns slightly at the state of him, wishing she could make things better- but that's how she's been feeling a lot lately. Wishing she could take people's suffering away, but being unable to do so.

She slides one of her croissants closer to him quietly, in case he's hungry.

"A fairly long while, yes," she says with a nod. "In a way, I almost miss the arena." At least in the arena, all you had to worry about was dying. Here, it seems like there's so much worse that could happen to you. "But at least the coffee is still good, that's a plus."

Joel nods. He was in the arena this time for a good long while, he thinks.

"I heard what happened out here. The arena wasn't much better, though." He's glad, at least, she wasn't around to get her head messed with. Hopefully. He picks at the croissant.

"My kid's still in there. It's a shitty place to leave a kid."

"Ellie?" she asks, remembering the time she'd met Ellie. They had spent a while talking about Joel, so she can only assume that it's her he means. "And you're right, it's..." She can't bring herself to curse, because she's a queen and she has manners. "A very awful place for someone you care about."

"Yeah, Ellie." She's the only one left of their little group, and the one he cares about the most.

"I hope she wins," he hears himself say quietly. "I hope she can get out of it, for good."

Elsa nods softly, taking a sip of her coffee. "I'll keep my fingers crossed for her," she adds after a moment. She would like to change the subject though, just so they don't dwell on bad things. "So have you been up to much since getting back?"

Have you been up to much. Oh, just a little sedition. Just finding out his partner is alive and still in Panem, and plotting to get her back.

Joel just shrugs though. "Not much. It was a tough arena." By which he means, he basically shut himself up in his room the first few days, it was so traumatic. "Took Clementine out for ice cream. She had it even worse."

"Did she?" Elsa's eyebrows furrow in concern. She doesn't know Clementine too well, but her heart goes out to children who have to suffer through this too. "I didn't watch the arena after I got back, I... don't like to." She knows it makes it harder for people, if they have to explain what happened to them, but she just can't bring herself to watch. "Is she better now?"

"She will be, I think," Joel says quietly. "She's tough. She feels guilty for things that she shouldn't be feelin' guilty for, but that's kids for you."

He's not going to go into detail. It's difficult to talk about and it would ruin both of their days, anyway.

Elsa nods, sensing that Joel probably doesn't want to talk about it. She remains silent for a moment, cursing the way their conversations always seem to teeter into awkward territory. She wonders if there's a way that she can turn this around...

Before she can stop herself, she looks back at him with renewed eagerness in her expression. "Do you wanna do something fun?"

She doesn't know what, because she hasn't gotten that far yet.

That is... a turn in the conversation. Joel blinks at her, confused and surprised. "Uh, like what?"

He really has no idea what she considers fun. Hell, he doesn't know what he considers fun. Except 'doing things with Ellie'.

"I don't know!" she says brightly. She can sense the confusion from him, but for the first time, she's determined to not let the conversation lapse or end on an awkward note. She look around, trying to think of something, before she spots a rack of pamphlets over by the door, advertising things to do in the Capitol. She stands and goes over to it, grabs one, and then moves to it back down.

"Let's see..." She opens it up, eyes scanning over it. "What sort of things do you like doing?" she asks, not looking up from the pamphlet.

"Um." He tries to think back, to when he had things like leisure time, and what he did with it. Camping, hiking, Sarah's soccer games, the music and movies she liked... the music he liked...

"Music?" he offers.

Elsa grins at the suggestion, finally feeling like they're getting somewhere. "Oh, then I know the perfect place!" she says, closing the pamphlet and stuffing it in one of her pockets. "Harley introduced it to me- karaoke!"

She's already heading to the door, quite sure Joel will follow.

Or... hoping, rather.

"I don't sing," he says immediately, almost defensively. But - weirdly - he also doesn't want to disappoint her. "Uh, but we could maybe go somewhere to listen, or somethin'."

"Don't be silly, everyone sings." Or at least everyone she's met has had pretty nice singing voices. "I'm sure you sound lovely." She holds the door open for him, waiting for him to step out.

"Not where I come from," Joel says firmly. He does not sing. "How about I just watch you?"

"But-" She stops herself, realizing that it's probably a futile argument for now and that they won't get anywhere. Maybe she can convince him later. "Oh, alright."

She carries on, in the direction of the karaoke bar.

"Don't worry about me, you just enjoy yourself," Joel says patiently. It's enough to help other people find distractions. He doesn't need it.

Or so he tells himself.

It's with a sigh that she allows the rest of the trip to the karaoke bar to be had in silence. She's trying to figure out if it's worth trying to get him to sing, or if she should just...

Well. Let it go.

When they're there and seated in a private little karaoke room, she finally breaks the silence. "So, what should we sing?"

She casually says 'we' instead of 'I' in the hopes that he won't notice.

"Nuh-uh," he says immediately - he was expecting something like it, so he latches onto that 'we' right away. "You go on. I wouldn't even know any of the songs, anyway. That'd be pointless. You have fun."

"They show the words on screen!" she says, just a little indignantly, as she gestures towards the screen in question. "So you don't even need to know the songs." Elsa knows it's a long shot actually getting him to participate, but she really just wants him to have fun, too.

"That don't mean anything if you don't know the tune, melody or beat," Joel points out. "There's a lot more to a song than knowin' the words."

He raises his eyebrows at her, and waves her away. "You go on. I'll be fine right here."

Of course he notices.

Elsa can't help the prickle of annoyance she feels, because she's trying very hard to make this work but she doesn't know how. She's used to people indulging her, so maybe in a way she's spoiled. But she likes Joel, so she's trying very hard, but she can only do so much when she keeps getting shut down.

So, unable to push the annoyance away, she says "No..." then she plops herself down in a nearby chair. "No, I want to do what you want to do, Joel. So... let's stare at wall. Whatever you like."

She'll regret this soon enough even if by most standards, she could be a lot worse.

He can tell she's annoyed. It only very slightly bothers him. Not enough to agree to actually singing, but enough to want to rectify it some other way, maybe. If he can.

So he scratches at his jaw and tries to think of something they might be able to do that won't cut him open and expose all the things he could never, ever expose to someone.

"Ever been to a comic book store?" he asks eventually.

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