the day my baby left me; semi-open???

[aintyourdad]

Who| Joel and uhhh... close CR??? idk you know who you are.
What| Ellie's gone. This is gonna be bad.
Where| The Tribute Tower, Joel's room in D8.
When| After the mini-arena.
Warnings/Notes| Possible mentions of torture and/or abuse. Feel free to have your character run into him while he's searching for Ellie, or have them drop by his room later.

Joel expected worse treatment than he got, honestly. He knows what he did at the Reaping was stupid, and he expected to pay for it more harshly than what actually transpired. They made him watch things, mostly. First it was Capitol propaganda, which was annoying but not particularly noteworthy.

Then they made him watch the mini-arena. And it's not that he's not used to seeing violence, even violence against children. He is, but that doesn't make it right, or good, or something he enjoys. By the time it's over, he's exhausted, and hungry, and all he wants is to find Ellie and keep her close, remind himself she's here, that as long as he has her, everything is okay.

When she isn't in her room, he doesn't think too much of it. She's not in his room, either. She probably didn't know when he would be released, hell, he didn't know either. But he should be able to find her pretty quick - she rarely strays far, and never for very long.

He searches for an hour, two hours, three hours, hitting up all her usual hangouts. Nothing. At some point, he realizes there's a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his palms are starting to feel clammy. Where is Ellie? The bile starts rising in his throat as the day gets later, curfew starts to approach, and she is still nowhere to be found.

Is this his real punishment? Did they take her away from him because of that little scene he made? Is that why they went so light on him while they held him? The more clear it becomes that Ellie is gone, the more detached he starts to feel. It's like his anchor is gone, and now he's adrift, and now what? It's like winter all over again, waking up to find her gone, except this time? He's completely powerless. He's not injured, and yet there is nothing he can do. Nothing. No one he can beat it out of, no place he can go to find her and bring her back.

Finally, defeated and unable to figure out what else to do, he returns to his room, locking the door behind him. Part of him wants to destroy something, smash something against a wall, throw a tantrum. It wouldn't do any good, though, and there isn't really anything in his room to smash. Only a couple of things Ellie gave him, things he would never destroy.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he puts his head in his hands. She's gone.

Comments

[earthborn]

It is the duty of an officer to look after their men. This means more than just using their skills, and lives, with prudence and an even hand, but also that of their families. It means making sure the unit is healthy, and every part of it is as sound as it can be made. Even if the officer in question didn't give one solitary damn about the emotional state of his soldiers, it was in their best interests to maintain the men in the same way they maintained their equipment.

It only took one broken seal to make a hardsuit into a coffin. It only took one grain of sand to tip the scales in your favor, however slightly.

Shepard cared a great deal about the state of her men-- more than just the soldiers, of everyone she considered hers. She cared about Joel, and for his sake Ellie, and for Ellie's own sake as well. She cared enough to keep an eye out, and when the fun had ended and she'd muscled past the hangover, she too had gone looking.

That Joel was back, was obvious, but there was no talking to him. He might as well be overturning the furniture to look for the girl. Shepard knew without having to talk to him what had happened. Instead, she'd talked to the avoxxes, pulled aside a stylist's understudy, and eventually consulted the betting pool. Ellie was gone.

It was the duty of an officer to inform her men of the reality of the situation, to say it out loud, to make it real. It wasn't easy, or fun, and it tended to make people hate you almost as much as you hated yourself. But it was Shepard's job, and she took a cold comfort in the familiarity of that weight on her shoulders. It was so rare, in this place, to have purpose, that even the ones with teeth were worth savoring.

"Joel," She knocked on the doorjamb--he'd left it open. This was the way it was done; arms behind your back, easy stance, parade rest, "I need to talk. There's something I have to tell you."

That was a break from the script, which read there's something that you should know. He already knew, but she had to say it.

[aintyourdad]

It's really only just starting to sink in - the fact that he hasn't found her, that she's not gonna come running at him like she always does when they find each other again after an arena. Her room is empty, she's nowhere to be found.

He must've forgotten to lock the door behind him in his distress, because all of a sudden someone is pushing inside, and it's not the one person he wants to see. Shepard's words fall into the hollow pit of his stomach and he glances up at her, his face a mask of anger and pain.

"What?" he snaps.

[earthborn]

She accepts it with only a half-breath of hesitation, because Joel is not a soldier, and she cannot expect that kind of discipline from him. She cannot expect him to turn only inward, to cope with any grace.

Shepard lets the question breathe, then breathes in herself.

"I checked the records. They update the betting odds when they change the tribute roster," He knew. She knew that. They both did, but...Well, she never did know when to stop pushing, "Ellie is gone."

[aintyourdad]

Hearing someone say it is like getting a sack of bricks dropped on his head. And if she expects him to be grateful, she's got another thing coming.

"So what, you showed up here to tell me what I already knew? Go find someone else to deliver bad news to if you like it so much," he growls, turning with every intention of shutting the door in her face.

[earthborn]

Joel has a foot of reach on her, easily, but she's faster, and she's stronger, and when he reaches for the door she catches it before he can and holds it open without once looking away.

"I will," It's pretty calm, all things considered. She is not ashamed, and she is not afraid of him or his grief, "You don't have to worry about informing Tess or anyone else if you don't want to. Do you?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

It had been a long few days, and after the latest arena and all its awfulness, Mindy was not looking forward to seeing her friends killed off all over again. Once she saw Ellie go, she knew it'd be a matter of time before she came back, so of course she waited.

But it seemed like every hour she knocked on her friend's door, she wasn't answering. There was a nagging feeling in her she disregarded, because its was that stupid apprehension she always had whenever one of these things went down. It hadn't helped that Riley had gone from her district in the last arena, and now she was sans a good friend: where was her best friend?

She killed time: she went to the arcade, she went back to her suite and worked on the punching bag, she ran an obstacle course. All the while, she was thinking of the last talk she and Sandy had, and how it had turned indifferent. It was occurring to her that aside from Clementine, Aang and Ellie, she didn't really have a whole lot of friends close to her age. It hadn't seemed to matter before, but more people were starting to die permanently, and no matter how she tried to distract herself, that feeling of restlessness came back. Now, after a long time, she WANTED to do something with someone close to her age, she didn't care what it was.

Mindy was back at the girl's door, knocking, and made an impatient noise when she got nowhere. Damn it, was she at Joel's? She knew the guy liked his space (she could relate) but she would feel better when she saw her friend and they could go to the arcade or swim or something.

She walked up to D8 and knocked on the door.

[aintyourdad]

He's lost in his grief, staring blankly at the projection of a forest scene that he prefers, when he hears a knock on the door, and all he can think is Ellie. She's back, she's here, she's not gone after all...

Joel stumbles to his feet, crossing the room hastily to get the door open, the momentary relief just about to bring words to his lips, something like where the hell have you been? What took you? I've been worried sick.

But the words never come, because it's not Ellie at his door, and his face closes up again, that lead settling back down in the pit of his stomach. Mindy. Of course it would be her. As though purposely to mock him, and logically he knows it's not intentional - she's probably looking for Ellie, too, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to slam the door in her face, tell her to get the hell out of his sight because he never wants to see her again because all she is to him is Ellie's friend, and Ellie is gone.

He scowls down at her, though, prepared to send her away with his next breath. "What do you want?" he asks, his voice hard and cold and broadcasting the fact that she is unwelcome.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Jesus Joel," Mindy said, making a face. "I didn't even DO anything to get you this pissed off yet, what the hell?"

Sure, it was bound to happen anyway, since they tended to rub each other the wrong way literally every time they met, but nothing she'd done, in her mind, was reason enough to be an asshole about it. Yet, anyway.

"Look, I'm just trying to find Ellie. She hasn't answered her door or anything, and since you guys are so tight I figure she's with you, I dunno, recounting tales of fucked up zombies or whatever. Where else would she be?"

The question was rhetorical of course: she wouldn't BE anywhere else.

[aintyourdad]

She didn't have to do anything. Just existing in this place where Ellie isn't is enough to get him wanting to go off into a red rage. Why is she still here and Ellie is gone?

"She's not here," Joel says, his voice low and gruff with that grief that's starting to overtake him, that sinking realization. "She's not anywhere." As though to get his point across.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Her blood pumped in her ears. Mindy had had enough fights where everything froze, and she had mere seconds before the world erupted around her. Those situations were life and death, yet Mindy thrived on them. Once you were in that moment, that dread had to go, and you had to take everything that would make you run away and shove it down. Cold, hard facts swirled around your head: kill or be killed, shit or get off the pot, and you moved. That was it. No feelings involved there, except knowing death was coming, and it better be for them and not you.

But this? Mindy didn't know how to handle this. She'd been tortured, she'd seen Guy carted off with a heavy heart and had even seen Ellie go down in the rink, living with the frustration she hadn't saved her then. But there was a lining always: she recovered. Guy came back (for a little while, and at least she tried to help him) and Ellie had lived another Arena.

Only to be gone. Forever.

Mindy shifted her stance a moment, then barreled hard into Joel, not bothering with reason. She needed to see for himself. He could be lying. Let him be lying. Let him be just being an overprotective prick not wanting Ellie to hang around with bad influences that got themselves tortured. She could take that and be pissed with him.

"No. You're lying. She has to be here!"

Futile. Fuck it. Aggression helped. Stupid, blind lying to her own self helped. ANYTHING helped but this shitty awful garbagey reality that took away her friends from her.

"Ellie? Ellie! ELLIE!"

So stupid. She wasn't a fucking princess being locked in a castle. She was goddamn Ellie, she could do whatever she wanted.

[schnapp]

Beth bakes because there's something about it that feels almost normal. This is the Capitol - there's a good chance she could get something better than anything she could make with a single press of a button. Every other shop seems to display lavish cakes, more food than she would ever know what to do with. But there's something about mixing the flour and kneading the dough that makes her feel a little better about all of this, even if it's just for a moment.

Makes her feel better about everything that had happened in the arena. Almost dying, watching other kids die. It's been hours now, and there's still a bandage wrapped around her arm and a scratch across her face that hasn't healed up just yet, but Beth says nothing about it. She bakes cookies as a way of coping, because it's either this or getting drunk.

We all got jobs to do, we don't get to be upset.

This is something you do with your mama, though. And your sister, on Sunday afternoons. Your brother walking in and trying to steal a couple of cookies while he can. These memories keep Beth warm, but they don't help the fact that she wants to cry and that's not allowed. She's grateful when she's done, piling the still-warm cookies in a container before heading up the elevators. Paying a visit to everyone she knows in a place like this, anyone who ever showed her a bit of kindness. Clem and Luke and Nill and Joel. Reminding herself, again and again, that good people exist.

After what she saw in the arena, it's hard to believe.

She makes her way up through the floors until she's in front of his door. Knocking once, twice.

"Hello?"

[aintyourdad]

Joel is not a man given to excess drinking. Before the outbreak, he'd been far too busy with work, with Sarah, to even think about drinking much beyond the occasional beer with Tommy. And since the outbreak, well. Even if alcohol was plentiful, there were any number of reasons why it was stupid to get drunk, no matter how great the temptation.

At this point, though, Joel finds himself not caring too much about that. A few hours ago, he'd had an avox bring him a bottle of whiskey, and since then, he's been drinking pretty steadily. He hasn't slept, he hasn't eaten much of anything, either. He's just staring at the wall, drinking straight from the bottle.

When he hears the knock on the door, his mouth twists into a grimace. Chances are, it's Shepard, or Tess, maybe Mindy or someone else he has equally little interest in seeing.

He doesn't want to see anyone, except the one person who isn't here anymore.

"For the last time," he growls, reaching for the door to push it open, "I'm not gonna -"

At that point, he stops short, his gaze falling on the blonde girl in front of him. Shit. His haggard expression takes on a look of surprise, almost fear, before he recalls who this is. Right. Beth. The girl who looks shockingly like a slightly-older Sarah.

"You need somethin'?" he asks, his voice gruff but not angry, or threatening. The barbs are gone, leaving nothing but a tired, sad old man.

[schnapp]

He smells like a distillery. It's the first thing she notices when he opens the door. It's not something she's going to judge him for, especially when she knows that it's something people do when they need to deal. It's what she needed to do, right after the prison fell. He smells like a distillery and he looks at her like she's some kind of ghost, and it's probably a very bad time.

"No," she replies, holding up the container of cookies. Chocolate chip. If nothing else, she knows that it's probably good to eat something if you're drinking as much as he probably is. "Just wanted to know if you wanted any."

She's coping remarkably well for someone who just got out of a death arena, but it's mostly just an act. Fake it until you make it, right? Or however that saying happens to go.

[aintyourdad]

Cookies and whiskey. If Joel was in a better place mentally, he might almost laugh at the idea. Does she even know? He doubts it. He doubts very much that she even met Ellie - she hasn't been here long, and unless she's paid very close attention to the television coverage before, during and after the mini-arena, chances are, she doesn't know the reason for Joel's sudden downward spiral.

Maybe it's better this way. Maybe talking to someone who doesn't know will be better. Better at least, than the sympathetic and well-meaning looks he's bound to get from a lot of other people.

After a moment, he steps back to let her in. "Made 'em yourself?" he asks quietly.

[schnapp]

"Right. They're my mama's old recipe, so I can vouch for them," she answers, with a thin sort of smile. In a way, it's nice. Remembering her mom in a way that doesn't involve her desiccated corpse reaching for her. Remembering who she actually was. It's really nice to be able to do that, and it's something Beth clings to even though it hurts to think about. Because the alternative is forgetting about her, and that doesn't seem like much of an option to her.

She steps inside once he offers it to her, taking in the near-empty bottle of alcohol and no glasses. Which probably means he's been drinking from the bottle.

[oopsright]

Curfew has begun to approach and that’s the least of Tess’ worries. Joel is still her partner. Their ups and downs since she’d shown up here, her own problems, they don’t matter in the face of finding him and trying to help in this particular situation where the girl is concerned. He might want nothing to do with her after the incident at the wedding but Tess doesn’t care, she needs to know that he’s all right, particularly after the fight he’d apparently put up with the peacekeepers and ended up in jail until the mini-arena had finished.

He’s her partner; she won’t abandon him nor will she allow him to push her away.

Sure it had infuriated her to hear second-hand that he was in jail while she was at that ludicrous slumber party. It had pissed her off and left her disappointed in him, the fact that he could give her crap if she didn’t watch what she said on the network, telling her to always keep her head down and her mouth shut – and then what does he go and do? He ends up a hypocrite and throws a public fit that lands his ass behind bars.

Tess had spent the last bit of her time at the slumber party stewing over drinks after her time with Shepard in that closet and after she’d found out.

Right now risking curfew is a dangerous offense. She’s without a night pass and she could get herself thrown in jail for this. The risk might be worth it or it will have been for nothing, the fact that she’s made her way to his suite on the eighth floor with a thermos of coffee and wrapped sandwiches in a bag to check on him. Tess tries the door after she gives one quick and short rap of her knuckles against it near the doorknob. No point in waiting around outside where anyone can come across her and slap her with a go directly to jail, do not pass GO card; she gives the handle a turn, relieved that it’s unlocked, and she slips inside as quickly and quietly as possible.

How many minutes shy is she of curfew?

Who cares?

And who cares if she is the last person Joel wants to see right now. Here she is, standing inside his room, door shutting behind her gently.

[aintyourdad]

The bottle of whiskey is getting close to empty by now, sitting on the bedside table as Joel stares out at the forest scene some more. His world is a hellhole, so it probably says something about this place that right now? He would give just about anything to be back in Wyoming with Ellie. At Tommy's place. Jesus, they should've just stayed there. Where it was safe. Where Ellie would be safe.

A sound behind him gets him to jump up hastily, grabbing for anything he can find as a weapon - until he realizes who it is.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, setting the whiskey bottle back down and running a hand over his face. "What are you doin' here?" He'd nearly forgotten about Tess over the past couple of days, honestly. Or maybe he'd wanted to forget about her. Everything about her is just too complicated, and now he doesn't even have Ellie to keep him grounded, to keep his head on straight. He glances away from Tess, he has nothing to say to her, or anyone.

[oopsright]

The effect of the forest scene along his one wall is meant to have a calming one. She has a similar one down in her own suite, one she keeps on most nights so she's not entirely alone in the dark of her room where terrible things tend to go bump in the shadows. Tess isn't sure if this was what he was hoping to achieve while he sat there with his bottle of whiskey.

"Easy, big guy," she tries to sound soothing as she raises her hands (bag included) to show a sign of surrender, and that she's not here to fight. That she hadn't meant to frighten him. He puts the bottle back down and Tess hesitates for a few seconds before finally stepping forward.

"Checking on you." She shouldn't have to say why. She can smell it and see it on him from where she's standing, what Ellie's disappearance has done, and Tess can't help but wonder what he had done when she had stayed behind to die.

Had he drunk a near full bottle of whiskey all on his own? Something to ask for another time.

[aintyourdad]

Another quick glance over her person, and Joel turns his back on her to resume his perch on the edge of the bed. "You've checked," he says flatly. Now get out, he almost adds, but stops himself. He doesn't really have the energy right now. He doesn't have the energy for much of anything, honestly.

What is he even supposed to do, with Ellie gone?

[oopsright]

"I'm not finished," she huffs and moves closer to where he's perched. She sets the bag down on the nightstand next to the whiskey and pulls out the thermos. It's shaken and uncapped, ready for whenever he wants to pour himself a cup.

Tess snaps up the whiskey and gets out the wrapped sandwiches. She doesn't know if he's eaten but they're also there for when he wants to eat.

Whatever is left of the alcohol, Tess is going to finish it. He's clearly had enough, and if he wants to fight about that then she'll fight him.

"She'll be back," Tess says after some silence, sitting at the foot of his bed, turning to face him with the glow of the screens washing over the side of his expression.

[smarterthanthem]

To say Clementine was alarmed to learn that Joel had gotten himself arrested by the peacekeepers after the reaping was an understatement. Bruised and battered she might still be from the arena but the tight coil of fear that springs to life in her chest for him is worse than any of that, far worse because who knows what they've done to Joel, how they've hurt him. What if they'd branded him like they had the other prisoners, tortured him even?!

That's why Clem comes knocking on Joel's door, ignorant of just how bad things have really turned out to be in the wake of the children's arena.

"Joel?" she calls out cautiously after her knuckles have rapped lightly against the wood, "Are you there?"

[aintyourdad]

It just figures that Clem would show up. Jesus Christ, as though there weren't already a million reminders of Ellie around, just looking at another kid all he can think is why is she here and Ellie isn't?

They didn't torture him. They did something far, far worse.

He opens the door, eventually, the empty bottle of whiskey stashed away out of sight but still smelling himself like a distillery.

"You alright?" he asks gruffly. If she needs something, if she needs help...

[smarterthanthem]

"Uh, hey." Clementine says, blinking a little in the wake of his gruff tone. "I was going to ask you that. I heard what happened."

On the outside she looks alright. The skin on her face is sore in places from the slime, there's some bruises that can be seen and if she was walking right now she'd show signs of a limp but that's all. She's come out of a mini-arena relatively unscathed a second time by some fortune, the same sort of fortune that kept her alive through a zombie apocalypse when everyone else fell around her.

When she breathes she picks up an unfamiliar smell about him, causing her nose to wrinkle.

[aintyourdad]

"I'm fine."

He's not. He's about as far from fine as it's possible to be, without bleeding out all over everything. But when she says that she heard what happened, he assumes she's talking about Ellie being gone. Even if she wasn't, it's not something he wants to talk about. It's not something he wants to say aloud. Admitting it will just make it more real, and he doesn't need that.

He picks up a tray, offers it to her. Cookies. Beth gave them to him, he hasn't touched them.

[smarterthanthem]

"Are you sure?"

She doesn't mean to pry but it's Joel and, like so many survivors she's known, he has a tendency to brush off anything that's wrong, push it down and assure everyone he's fine even if he's really not. Clementine knows that pattern, especially when she's often guilty of it as well.

When he offers her the cookies she reflexively takes one with a thankful nod but doesn't immediately bite into it.

"I remember what they did to everybody after the jailbreak." and while kicking off at a Peacekeeper isn't on the same lines as trying to free murder-suspects from prison she remembers how easily Peacekeeper's are to turn to violence on tributes nowadays.