thecapitol | (no subject)

Entry tags:

✘ joel,
✘ tess

(no subject)

Who| Joel and Tess
What| Joel is concerned that Tess has a death wish. He might be a blamey asshole but he needs to talk her out of this!
Where| D3 suite
When| sometime after Cyrus Reagan's post.
Warnings/Notes| Possible talk of suicide/death.

Tess is back. This fact alone should be enough to improve his mood, but since being back, since being here, Tess just keeps saying terrible things. Right there on that Cyrus guy's post, while Joel tried to keep her from saying something to get herself into trouble, she said right to his face that she'd rather have stayed dead than be alive here.

That she'd rather turn than go through this.

And Joel has known Tess for a long time. He knows that sometimes - she lashes out, says stupid, overdramatic shit just to get a rise out of him. But he also knows how Tess feels about the infection - how they all feel about it. A lot of people say they would rather die than turn. Tess actually did it.

He may not be the greatest at showing it, but Joel will be damned if he sees her die again - permanently. He is not going to let that happen, goddammit, whether she likes it or not. So that's why he's in the D3 suite again, knocking insistently at her bedroom door.

"Tess, it's me. Let me in," he says gruffly. He needs to get her out of this - somehow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not that she's any better but - sometimes Tess thinks that Joel has the worst timing ever. She's not sure what she had expected to happen after he'd gotten a hold of her over the network and getting into that small argument over the subject and then technically hanging up on her. Tess had taken an hour or so to pace her bedroom to mull over what Joel had said to her, as well as the entire message altogether with Reagan and the recent events, before going out into the kitchen to find something to snack on and take back to her room, shutting herself away yet again.

Out of the three blueberry muffins Tess had grabbed, two and a half were enough while the other one and a half sat untouched on the small plate on top of her bed next to her, a notebook open on her lap with random scribbled out notes. The sudden knocking cuts through her thoughts and concentration, hand pausing in her note jotting.

Tess is about to ignore it and carry on when she hears that gruff voice calling partly muffled through the door. "For fuck's sake," she mutters to herself, glowering across the room at her door as if he'll see it and leave.

Not likely.

Notebook in hand she's at the door and opening it, not enough for him to step in but it's enough for her to fix him with that glower through the part that's the width of a hand wide. "I'm not in the mood right now." So make it snappy.

He's about to say something again - along the lines of open the door goddammit, and/or I'm not leaving until you let me in. Something like that - but then the door opens a crack, and there she is. He feels - annoyed, yes. He also feels relieved, that she's here and capable of looking like this at him.

He's aware that he's standing outside her room, where passersby might overhear, though, so he keeps his voice low when he addresses her. "And I'm not in the mood to hear you tell me you want to be dead, so why don't you tell me what you want from me and cut the crap?" he mutters. Why in god's name would she ever say a thing like that? What would ever make her think she could come back from the dead only to tell him she'd rather go back to being dead? There is no universe in which that is okay.

"Because the dead are supposed to stay dead, Joel!" she hisses back, the handle biting into her palm. What part of that doesn't he understand? No one is ever supposed to come back from the dead, it's unnatural. It's shit you only hear about in video games and fantasy and sci-fi movies or stories.

"And this isn't about you, stop making it out to be like it is."

Joel scowls at her, the frown lines on his face deeper than ever. He's aged a lot even since they last saw each other in Boston. A year can change everything.

"You think I don't know that?" he hisses right back. "I've died twice, and I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it's true. Worse than that, I've had to see Ellie die twice, too. But I'm still here, so I'm still gonna keep fighting. What're you gonna do, Tess? Tell them you should be dead and roll over and wait for it to happen again? Permanently?"

"For fuck's sakes, Joel," she growls at him and then pulls open the door - more like jerks it open. There's enough room for him step in if he wants to continue this discussion more in private.

Thank you, he might almost say if he was the type to say thanks, ever. He takes the opportunity to step inside, because if there's one thing they can agree on, it's that this discussion needs to take place as privately as possible.

It's no one's business but theirs.

"Well?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. "You got an answer for me, or do I have to follow you around 24/7 to make sure you don't get yourself killed on purpose?"

Tess gets the door shut on a tightly controlled snap before she turns to face him. "At this point, I might as fucking well broadcast that to get my goddamn point across. And this isn't about getting myself killed on purpose, Joel. You can't kill something or someone that's already dead."

She's not going to pull her shirt aside and show him the side of her neck to emphasize the point. Instead Tess goes to move past him, taking them away from the door in case anyone's out there trying to listen in.

"You are not dead," he grits out, furiously. "You are not goddamn dead, and I'm not gonna let you throw your life away here, either! What happened to you? What happened to the fighter? Did they take that away from you?"

"What happened?" she snorts out in a question of disbelief, turning to face him once she's put space between them. "What happened is I got bit, Joel. That's what fucking happened. You think repeatedly dying is going to make someone fight harder? It's like we're in some fucking video game here with unlimited lives and the option to get angry and determined and motivated after every death to beat the asshole boss in the castle at the end of it all."

But is that really the game anyone wants to play? Not her.

"I can't, Joel. I can't."

"Well I goddamn can!" Joel shouts. "I'll get us both out of this, all three of us, you and me and Ellie. Fuck them, fuck their arena deaths, we're gonna petition out, and if that don't work, we'll find another way!"

The fact that he's cussing so hard is a good sign of his agitation. Joel cusses some, but fuck is a pretty rare addition to his vocabulary. "I am not gonna lose you again, dammit!"

Tess doesn't know what to say to that, stunned into silence when he tells her he's not going to lose her again, when he cusses so angrily. Was it that bad the first time? she wants to ask but stands there and stares at him.

"And if there is no other way?" she asks after she's found her voice, the question quiet, her tone a little lost, the hard edge of the fight not all there anymore. "Say there's no other way. At all. What then, Joel?"

He just looks at her, baffled. What is she going on about, anyway? "Tess. As long as we're breathin', there's a way out. The hell is wrong with you?"

He takes a step forward, approaching her. He would think she'd be ecstatic to be alive again, even in this situation, and burning to find a way out so she can start over again. He grabs her upper arm, firm but gentle, frowning deeply at her. "You're alive, Tess. I was thinkin' you'd fight to stay that way."

Reflex had her nearly stepping back when he stepped forward, until he had her arm in his grasp, his fingers warm and firm against her skin through the thin shirt. Tess looks up at him to meet that frown, thinking about how much he doesn't understand, that he just wants her alive and sticking to his side like the old days back in Boston.

"I'm infected," she repeats very slowly, emphasizing the word in the hopes that he'll get it. "You saw what happened - I could turn at any moment. You think I'd want to fight to stay alive so that can happen? So I can hurt you?"

Doesn't he understand? Why can't he get that? It's one of her worst nightmares since she's been here.

"No," he says again, firmly, refusing to budge. "You don't get it, Tess. If you are still infected, it's only because they think it'll be more entertaining in the arena. But they can cure it. They did with Riley, they did with R. They've got a cure."

"-what?" She can't believe what she's hearing, so much that her voice trembles. But she's angry now, all over again, and it shows as she abruptly yanks her arm free and steps back from him. How dare he say that.

"There is no cure, there hasn't been for the past twenty fucking years so don't you stand there and tell me there's a cure when I'm the only one who has to suffer with this.

"Don't you fucking dare, Joel," her voice breaks slightly under both the restrained fury and skepticism, the pain she has to go through knowing what's in her blood and bit by bit attaching itself to her brain.

Doesn't he get that this is why she's not fighting their captors alongside him? That she's giving up? She goes into that arena the way she is and that's it, everyone will know

Joel's fists clench and unclench, reflexively. "There is a cure here," he says, his voice low and insistent. "And you're not the only one here that's dealin' with this. Ellie's got a friend here. Riley. They got bit at the same time and Riley died. Now she's here, just like you, and she was infected, just like you, but I - I think they cured her. They can do that. They can keep you infected, but keep you from turnin', as long as they want, and they can goddamn cure you if they want."

There really is a cure...? Tess closes her eyes as she feels the world almost slide out from under her, taking a breath to try and keep it stable. "You think? You think they cured her?"

Her eyes open and she's staring at him like he's out of his mind for telling her one thing and then telling her another. "It's either they have the cure or they don't, there can't be any middle ground here, Joel."

Tess takes another step back and slowly drops herself down to the edge of her bed, elbows propped on her knees as she drops her head into her hands. "This isn't about what we want at all, it's about what they want. They pull the strings; they pull the infected string and that's it, I turn. I turn and I can bite you, I can bite anyone. And then what? The arena is a goddamn reenactment of 2013."

She can already envision it and it chills the very marrow in her bones, makes her want to hide behind her hands and cry. And Tess doesn't cry so easily.

"Yeah, but they can cure it," Joel says firmly. "The fact that you haven't turned yet is a goddamn miracle, Tess, they brought you back from the dead. You think they can't cure this thing if they want? Or if someone makes them?"

Come on, Tess, get out of this funk. Fight.

Everything she's been saying, how she's been acting, it goes completely against her character and everything she's fought for. Survival, existing. This is a side of her that Joel has never seen, the side where she's given up and struggling to hold onto the last bit of her sanity. Even to the very death, she had fought back.

He really was right to ask what the hell was wrong with her.

"What?" Tess lifts her head to look at him, brow furrowed. She straightens up on the bed, hands gripping the edges next to her. What is he saying? "What are you trying to say? They run everything. There are peacekeepers around every corner. No one can make them do anything."

Joel just gives her a Look. A Look that says come on, Tess, no one is all-powerful.

"They're people," he says firmly. "Smart, and powerful, but still just people. Just like the military back home."

And they made a living on getting around the military back home.

"Back home was different!" she retorts suddenly, rising from the bed. "We had connections. We knew people. We knew everything there was to know, and everyone. I had almost ten years of knowing before you showed up. Here -" Tess sweeps out an arm to the room. "Here we have nothing and know nothing."

They had the tunnels back home, the manpower to be posted as look outs and use as messengers to keep on top of military activity as well as Firefly activity. They had so many resources back home and were without the extra danger of being so easily detected with monitored networks and cameras being everywhere.

Joel watches her carefully, very aware of the fact that even in here, in private, they're probably being monitored. But that's the thing - she just got here, she knows nothing.

Joel? Joel has been here for months. He knows things. He knows people. He's got a feel for the rhythms of this place. He's watched, kept his head down, and learned things.

"Do you trust me?" he asks her quietly, not a change of subject.

The fact that he's answering her with that question, a deep and seriously meaningful question, shuts her up good. She ends up staring at him again and forces herself to step in towards him. She doesn't reach out to touch him, even if he's within arm's reach, staring up at him and searching his lined and weathered face, looking - really looking - at the man she's known for the past decade.

"Don't," Tess speaks just as quietly, warning him. She grits her teeth and the muscle in her angular jaw flexes under the skin, eyes not leaving his.

"Don't what?" Joel asks, frowning. "It's a simple question. I need to know if you trust me. Or has that changed, too?"

The flats of her palms meet his chest harshly as she shoves him back, the exact way she had in Boston. Fuck you is what that says. "Don't you even say that-!"

Seriously Joel, fuck you.