featherbed | OPEN RP.

"Psh. I don't not like it here." Which is about the laziest sort of excuse she can give. Ellie divides the little scrap of mane into three sections, carefully folding it into a braid. "It's just kind of weird, y'know, after being all over the place or whatever. I mean holy shit, that one kid Chris seriously tried to talk to me about baseball for like an hour yesterday and I don't even like baseball."

Which is sort of petty of her, she knows; she likes baseball just fine. But it's a dumb thing to talk about for so long and she sometimes she just can't stand that stupid kid's face or the nasally sound of his voice and it reminds him of-- she doesn't even know. But it's like being in school and finding herself spacing out because--

"I mean what's the point, right?"

He gets it. More than she knows, he does. Every day it's a challenge to try and stomach another oddly casual conversation with Tommy, Maria, their neighbors-- hell, most anyone in this place that isn't out patrolling the perimeter. And there are times when it fits, feels like things aren't so twisted and fucked up out there. Moments when he can talk about fixing the shed out back and what kind of ply to use for it and not remember jamming scrap wood into moldy apartment drywall while Tess sorted out her business deals to the rhythm of his hammering.

Moments that tip even his thick head off to what a sad state it is that a fifteen year old girl is walking in his shoes.

But he switches it off. It's survival. It's an instinct that took them through hell and back, and when it comes down to it, in this world, it's better she has it.

"Yeah." He concedes, scratching beneath his jaw on the right side. "But they don't know any better, Ellie. It ain't their fault."

Her mouth goes flat, then crooked as she scowls down at her hands, her fingers in the horse's mane. She wants to hit something, but there's nothing to swing at. Bubbles sure doesn't deserve it and Joel--

Well.

"Yeah but that's bullshit though." And she's emphatic about it, snappish even. She forces herself to let go of the half-finished braid. "Like are you kidding me? We're just going to talk about baseball and like-- I mean who gives a fuck about presidents? It's just pretending that we're not" -- she throws her hands up. To his credit, Bubbles doesn't blink at the sudden movement -- "alone out here."

Joel doesn't budge when her composure slips. It's not from experience or the patience of old age; he can't recall a time in his life he ever would have.

That and she's not wrong. Which has him sucking in a breath through his nose, fingers buried to the nail beds in his scruff, eyes shifting off towards a darker corner of the barn rather than staying locked in with hers. Being alone? It's what they do. Fitting in with a crowd's the hard part.

"Look, I know you don't give a damn about baseball, but there's other stuff to talk about. The Johnsons are taking their boys out hunting the day after tomorrow and--"

And despite knowing what she's itching to bleed out, he can't bring himself to discuss it.

"'The Johnsons are taking their boys out hunting'," -- air quotes and all -- "do you even hear yourself, Joel? This isn't a joke or a fucking vacation." Her voice is pitched all high, catching sharp. She pushes the loose strands of hair back over her ears and her hands stick there: fingernails digging in at the base of her skull. 'Vacation.' She barely even knows what that word means.

"This is just a bunch of people thinking they're okay when they're not."

"Baby girl," he starts, rapidly losing his grasp on the situation or how to handle it. All he knows is she's panicking, and if it were Sarah--

Joel sets his hands over hers, massive palms eclipsing them completely as he curls his fingers around-- gently-- to pull her nails out of her skin, to tug her close enough to set his arms across the broadest point of her back. "Easy. It's alright. Nobody's gettin' in here. Nobody's gonna hurt you."

She braces. Her hands go all taut under Joel's and she sways back, not in, from his arms. For a second. And then she can't not let herself be reeled in, forehead jamming in against the barrel of his chest. She doesn't agree with it - that's not the fucking point - but she can't say no to the rest. Because it's a cold night and he's anything but. Because this is hard as shit and what he's selling is an easy kind of lie.

She's not scared of someone getting in. Of someone hurting her. She's scared of everything else - because she's fine. Who the shit's gonna get to her? But. "Yeah, but what about everyone else?"

Joel leans into the angle of her shoulders, pulls comfort from the feeling of the outline of her profile digging in against scars and gritty, sweat-soaked fabric. And it's that-- that near selfless sort of concern for dozens of people he's never even bothered to put names to-- he can't begin to understand.

"They had this place up and running long before we ever got here, Ellie." Both fact and truth; there's little to highlight the reality of it being nothing more than an excuse. Tommy's kids, hell, less than half the families in that town have enough fight in them to last more than a month on their own. Even less with the skills to make it matter.

"I mean what happens later? Is everyone supposed to just do this crap forever? It's just running in circles." And shit she can't even talk about this. There's no point to this place because maybe no one's getting in now, but someone'll get in eventually. Maybe not this year or in five years or maybe she'll be dead or whatever when it happens, but it's going to happen eventually. This place is going to get swallowed up. This place and everywhere else until there isn't anything left.

She shifts back sharply. Shrugs him off and angles her shoulders out from the weight of his arms. "Okay. It's fine," she says, jamming the heels of her hands against her eyes. Smooths her hair back. "I'm cool."

Something about the shrug of her shoulders against his arms as she draws back cuts his train of thought short, has him anxious for all of half a second like letting go--

"Don't reckon you know much about it, but before all this, that's all anyone ever did." Doesn't make it any less pointless; maybe that's why mid-life crisises were a thing.

She shifts, turning back to the horse so she can reach out and work the braid from out of his mane. If she leaves it there, he might rub it out. Get a bald patch or something. "That's sad." It's a bland, matter of fact kind of statement: dry, without much emotion attached to it. Because it is, but in a far off way she can't really empathize with like reading something in a history book. It might as well be fictional.

"Whatever. I'm not memorizing state capitols."

He scoffs. More of a laugh, though the corner of his mouth stays curled up for a second at best. Given the past twenty years, state capitols aren't really relevant anymore.

"Yeah alright. Pretty sure we can skip the history lessons," it's not a particularly humid night (and by now his heartbeat's slowing down to a normal, steady pace) but sweat's still pooling up in the hollow of his collarbone and along the edges of his scalp and beard, so Joel pauses long enough to mop at himself with his palm. Flat of his hand flicking off whatever traces of sweat it can catch. "But that ain't a free ride out of school altogether, Ellie."

"I read," she says defensively, stroking what she can reach of Bubbles's neck. "And math's not that hard - what else is there?" Really. What does he want her to do? Friggin' P.E. or art class or something? Like there's plenty she could do, but so much of it's a fucking waste of time. "Like if you can give me one good reason to go, fine. But so far all I've heard is 'you'll use it' when that kind of seems like bullshit. I could be out there helping you guys watch the perimeter or something."

That gets a grin out of him. Unintentional and slight, but he covers it with the back of his hand in a casual motion. He'd intended to suggest she run the perimeter with him instead; the fact that they've both got the same idea makes him more than a little proud.

"Okay."

She's ready to argue more - rarin' to do it honestly. That sort of thing seems to be a by-product of talking to adults, of being fifteen and frustrated and running in circles. Instead he says 'Okay,' like he means it and Ellie straightens slightly. She throws him an openly surprised look.

"What, seriously?"

"Still gotta do the rest," because she's still just a kid, because maybe he never went to college and didn't really get why it was all that necessary, but he sure as hell expected Sarah to. "but when you're done with it, we can go work the fence and get you some hands-on training."

He wipes off a few more lines of sweat before letting his hand drop back down to his hip. "Figure it might be a more practical education anyway."

Well that's the opposite of what she wanted. "Hold on, hold up." She throws up a hand and frowns. "How is that fair? That's just like-- school and work? What d'you think I am, a friggin' machine?"

So maybe with a little wheedling she can find some kind of comfortable middle ground. She hooks her arm over Bubble's lowered neck and tips her chin up. "How about this: no more shitty phys ed. And no more history. That evens out."

"You don't like sports?" Christ, he taught the girl everything there is to know about football and she doesn't even like tossing the damn thing around. He'd at least expected her to be into the rough-housing aspect of it all.

"Face it, I can pretty much kick the asses of all those other kids. You'd be doing them a favor." No that's a lie - she's actually phenomenally shitty at kicking things. But throwing balls and stuff, hitting things out of the air? She's pretty good at that part.

But that's not the point.

"Mmmm."

He doesn't like the idea of it. Not that he doesn't want her out there with him, not that he gets along with most of the others that walk the wall enough to have an assorted range of conversations without Ellie around that don't consist mostly of him absently saying 'yep' and shuffling along. It's just-- kids should be kids, you know.

He vaguely remembers Henry muttering something along those lines at some point.

"I don't know, Ellie--"

She makes a noise low in the back of her throat, loosing her arm from around the docile horse's neck. "Seriously, Joel? C'mon, you know I'm right. I'd be ten times more help out there on the fence with you guys than I would be back here--"

"Yeah but it ain't about that." He snaps back harder than he means to. A verbal way of putting his foot down about the way this conversation's headed. No anger, no frustration just--

"Baby girl you can do a hell of a lot better than any one of those people out on patrol right now but that don't mean you should." Joel thins his lips, fumbling for the right way to explain it. "When was the last time you actually fooled around with the other kids?"

The line of her eyes slides away from him, rooting itself in the corner of the stable, as he snaps back at her. Her mouth goes all lopsided and then thin when he calls her that.

And then she bites back (and part of her thinks maybe that's what this was about. What she'd been gunning for all along: get him to go all hard nosed so she has a reason to want to punch him for it). So, yeah. She can be defensive too alright because-- "Jesus, do you even listen? I just told you." She's suddenly angry. Angry because she sounds more pitched than she wants to be and that just makes it worse and-- "I don't want to play baseball or tell Chris Dowd to stop trying to fucking hold my hand for the seventeenth time when I could actually be doing something that matters."

Because it's all bullshit and she knows that, but at least if she's running the perimeter then-- people die all the time. That's just how it goes and she's aware of that. But having friends makes it harder or different and makes her feel more useless than she already does. She'd rather be good for something even if it's just scoping out some fuckers trying to stir shit than be good for nothing with a great soccer game.

"How long d'you think this is gonna last, huh?" That sharpness in her tone carries over to him, drops his voice down low as he leans in over his forward-most foot. Talking about what matters-- about places like this that are damn near extinct by now-- pushes him well beyond the limits of his patience. And she knows that. "How much longer do you think am I gonna last, Ellie, because I tell you what I have not got another twenty years in me for this shit."

"What makes you think I do?!"

It's the selfish thing to say when he's been standing here in the dark with her, sweat on his forehead and breath short from old hurts (she isn't stupid and she isn't blind). But she say it anyway because she knows it'll sting. Because maybe it's true - even saying it she doesn't know for sure. But what else is there? It's just this, day in and day out and she used to be okay with that but now she doesn't know if she's ever going the be okay with it.

There's a tangle of scar tissue on her forearm that someone told her meant something, but just look how that turned out.

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