vaccination | (no subject)

She lets him have his minute, lets the snippy remarks go, lets him make his own effort to cover himself up again. She rearranges the covers atop him, just so they're not crooked and too heavy in some places and not in others, and returns to the head of the bed. If he wants to be upright, she'll at least take the pressure off by figuring out how to lift the head of the hospital bed. It takes a moment; there is no luxurious electric-pneumatic-whatever systems, but it gets the job done.

"Ellie's fine. A bit of manhandling, pulled shoulders, but most of it is just worrying over you."

She allows herself a long, tired breath out.

"You're getting that second shot with her. That has to count for something, hmm?"

“Oh yeah, it’s a real second shot.” There’s that bitterness again, welling up just like his tears. He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes, one at a time, but when his arm lowers again to his lap, the wetness in his eyes has abated, but not the awful, hopelessness filling him. “Holdin’ this gun to her head, how long do you think I can guilt her into stickin’ around for?”

Joel rubs his hand over his mouth, not proud of himself for thinking it, angry at himself for saying it. Of course he’d be happy for a week, a month, the rest of his life: however long Ellie wanted to hang around for was more than he’d thought he’d ever get again.

But he can’t help but dwell on the timing of it all. How unsteady the ground had been since he’d fetched her from St. Mary’s the second time, and then the world had been further upended when she’d said she wanted to forgive him, and now he’d have to navigate everything with this fucking it up –

“I’m sorry.” Joel breathes it out quick, harsh. He reaches out for Tess as she stands up from messing with the hospital bed contraption and grabs for her wrist. “I know I’m an asshole.”

Tess's face falls listening to him talk like that, and when he reaches for her wrist, she lets him have it. She even scoots right in, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed, facing him. A baser part of her wants to lean into his chest and hold him, but he's barely vertical, even assisted. She reels it in.

"Joel, it was a complicated week even before this," Tess says, firmly. "You wanna be mad about it, then be mad, get it out."

There's an unspoken to me there. Ellie doesn't need that on her plate, but Tess can take it. World champion at mediating their tiffs and the fallout of their relationship. She gives in and reaches to stroke the side of his face, soothing.

"But the girl wanted to try even before this, alright?"

Edited 2020-07-21 03:33 (UTC)

He’s too tired for mad. He’s too tired for anything but holding onto Tess, catching her close. Looking at her and feeling tremendously off balance, there’s a complicated sort of gratefulness that fills him to have her there. The steadiest part of his life, like always, but he's so ashamed to be seen like this. Scared of it. He can only hope she’ll extend that offer to listen for later, and that she’ll let him storm and rage after the shock has run its course.

“If you say so,” he relents, but he’s not sure he means it. Joel wants it to be true, but there have been other moments between him and Ellie during the past couple years where he’d gotten so foolishly hopeful, then had to endure that searing loss all over again.

But he rests a moment with her cheek in her hand, letting the pain medicine and nausea and everything else sort of whirl into that white noise again. A lot of thinking going on behind that far-away stare, and judging by the stony quality of his deepening frown… none of it good.

"I do say so."

Tess sighs with an unexpected relief when he holds onto her. After all this time she shouldn't be surprised to see him vulnerable, but she's spent four days wound into the tightest efficiency she could manage, packing all her feelings away for another time. The surprise is, perhaps, for the blooming realization that he is alive, and the worst is over, and now they're left with the crushing fear that the road ahead is much, much longer than four days.

She rocks against him, careful to not put any actual weight on him. She could outright cradle him if she could get away with it. She settles for continuing to stroke his cheek, ruffling the fuzzy edges of his beard.

"You should rest," she remarks, but she doesn't pull away. Ellie's not back yet, anyway, but she will be soon.

He ought to feel better – and he does, sort of. It’s a relief not to have Tess looking right at him. He can tip his chin up, keep his glassy eyes on the ceiling and pretend they’re home. That it’s just another Beaver Cleaver morning in Jackson.

It’s a shallow sort of pretending, but his heartbeat stops thudding so hard as all the excitement recedes. “Yeah, boss? I’ve been restin’ for four days.” He sighed. “And I wanna talk to the doc.”

But hell if she isn’t right again: his headache is glowing so bright that he’d welcome another week of sleep, so long as he woke back up on the other end of it.

A knock at the door is Ellie returning with the doctor, though she lingers behind at the door for a moment. She's not sure where to be. At the bedside? Out in the hall? Part of her wants to run, and keep running until she's straight out of Jackson.

Maybe she'd stop once she reached Washington.

The other part of her--the greater part, fortunately--wants to hold onto Joel and never let go.

It just leads to her in an awkward middle, and she decides to go back to her previous spot on the opposite side of the bed as Tess. She figures Joel doesn't want her anywhere near the missing leg. Sitting, she listens intently as the doctor greets Joel and begins to ask him how he's feeling. Good luck with that one, doc.

Tess eases herself away when the knock comes to the door, and she's mostly got both feet square on the floor by time the doctor comes in. She jokes with the doctor immediately with that easy little edge –– "Now that he's awake, he can have the real fun painkillers, right?" She keeps a hand by Joel, fingers trailing over his shoulder where he can reach her.

And as the doctor talks, she makes eye contact with Ellie, serious but concerned. You okay?

He’s just woke up, and it’s all still a blur. Of the group, the doctor seems to be the steadiest – not so personally invested. Joel is glad to have Tess next to him, her hand skimming against his shoulder as first a penlight moves in and out of his field of view. The doctor comes way too close and tips Joel’s head back, listens to his heart, and starts to pick his brain.

What’s your name, what year is it, who’s the president, ha ha ha isn’t everything normal, isn’t everything fine. Joel’s glad that Tess is there to cut some of the tension, because he mostly just lets it brew as the doctor talks and talks some more. Lots more questions. Joel lies to a few – estimated pain level, which gets a shrug and a fine, and what he remembers, which gets a mumbled not much.

He just doesn’t want to hash it out in front of Ellie. He's glad to have her there, but it's... hard, being seen like this. Joel looks over and catches her and Tess in the middle of some sort of silent conversation. They’d gotten good at them over the years. Usually it’s tolerable, but in the moment he feels another flare of temper.

“When do I go home?”

“There are more tests, and then we’ll need to keep an eye out for infection –”

“Just askin’ for a timetable, doc,” Joel says, short. Not particularly kind or grateful to the woman who saved his life.

Dr. Nyugen quirks a smile though, and nods kindly. She’s good at her job. “The tests will decide the timetable.”

Edited (forgot my subject ) 2020-07-23 03:19 (UTC)

She's not okay and she knows it. She hoped she'd stop replaying the memory of opening that door and seeing Joel in his own blood, prone on the floor, but him waking up hasn't helped even if it's not been long. But there's no room to try and find the words for what she feels bubbling up in her chest, so she merely nods to Tess, and then turns her attention to the doctor. She watches her like a hawk, silent until the end.

It's the first time she's really looked at Joel since coming back from getting the doctor.

"We gotta move things, anyway. Jesse's going to bring some of your stuff downstairs so you don't have to deal with that," Ellie says, as if it were all temporary. It won't be. And he'll know it, too. The stairs will forever be a challenge in this new life. "I asked him if we could borrow this cool sound system he has. Thought it'd be fun to watch some dumb explosions with that."

Tess sees the impending problems, and she juggles her attention between it all: Joel getting frustrated, the doctor not particularly sensitive to his brand of pain, Ellie no doubt spiraling. The house is already planned out, officially the domain of Ellie and her friends, while Tess has tasked herself with preparing for the recovery. The physio. The exercises. The practice. Learning to fall safely. All the little things Joel might be overwhelmed by on his own. It all adds up.

"Ellie," Tess says, firmly. "We'll talk about moving the house around later."

Don’t touch my shit is on the tip of Joel’s tongue, and he bites it back only because Ellie is the one he’d be snapping at. Keep that boy out of my house hollers out from somewhere way in the background, but he’s not supposed to be all riled up about Ellie and Jesse anymore – it was that dark haired girl, Dina.

God, everything was a choppy mess in his head. Memories not falling where they ought to. Maybe something he should mention to the doctor, considering she was standing there and all, but Joel didn’t know how to do that sort of thing in front of Tess and Ellie.

Dr. Nyugen sensed that. Joel wasn’t really sure he wanted to be alone with the woman just yet, either.

He sort of missed being unconscious, frankly.

“It’s alright,” he says to Tess, gently chasing her off of Ellie before they can get sore at each other. It hasn’t escaped Joel how Ellie hasn’t quite looked at him square since she’d returned, and his own eyes keep skipping over her too. Nervous, uncertain. To the doctor, who has suddenly become the safest person to talk to, he asks, “Sound system won’t make my leg worse'n it is.”

Should have stayed in the fucking hall. Joel's not the only one biting back words--Ellie's teeth dig into the inside of her lips as she presses them tightly together. She can taste the copper where her split lip has just only began to heal. There's a surge of anger that tinges her cheeks pink, and a nasty word or two begging to get out, but without that?

She doesn't know what to say, and apparently what she thinks will help--trying to give him something to look forward to--doesn't. Maybe being here isn't a help, either. She doesn't even hear what Joel says as the blood rushes between her ears.

There's an easy out. Someone needs to tell Tommy that Joel is awake. But she wants to be selfish and stay, just this once. Stay and not walk away like she did at the hospital, like she did the night of the dance.

She decides to sit in silence, eyes resting on her knees as she tells herself to just keep quiet.

The doctor, at least, is patient, if not clinical. She's seen so much of this before –– if not amputations or head injuries, then at least wounded people trying to navigate injury.

"No, the sound system won't make the leg worse. Moving from the clinic to home might not be good for your head, though, especially if there are complications."

Tess just purses her lips, and though she's not particularly happy to be quiet, she's had enough conversations with the doctor that she has a good idea of the risks.

"It'll take a few more days to run tests, and figure out how to manage your pain and prepare you to be on your feet again, then we can reassess."

Well, Tess figures, that gives them time to figure out the house.

Joel quiets with Tess and Ellie as the doctor lays out facts, which makes it three stubborn voices all chiming in to tell him he’s staying right where he is. Even if he’d had both legs, getting around all of them would’ve been damn near impossible.

And complications isn’t a particularly welcome thought, either.

“Alright.” He relents, but it’s so obviously reluctant.

Finishing details are quick. It’s plain to see how he’s begun to sag, to crumple in a bit, even propped up as he is. Dr. Nyugen imparts a few more reassurances – and Joel has an uneasy feeling that there may have been question if he’d wake up at all when she says for the third time how glad everyone will be to hear he’s awake. He’s polite enough to thank her on her way out, but it’s… listless. Tired.

“It’s late, ain’t it?” Gearing up to kick them out – if they’ll let him.

As the doctor talks, Ellie thinks about the loud crack of that golf club. Metal against bone. Skull. It makes her feel sick to her stomach, but the sound of the door closing brings her back to reality just in time to hear Joel speak.

She's hardly left his side since the attack, and she's not planning to now that he's alive. So she says to herself, over the part that wants to escape this room. Her tongue presses to the cuts in her mouth and she shifts in her seat, getting more comfortable, though it's the last thing she's felt of late.

"Sleep. I'll be right here, in case you need something." She looks to Tess, waiting to see if she'll argue with her on it.

Tess doesn't figure she's spent more than a couple hours at home at a time since this started, nipping in just to pick things up, shower, change her clothes, pick up the casseroles already appearing on the porch. She meets Ellie's eye and knows the kid's ready to argue with her regardless of what Joel wants. What's good for him is another matter, though.

She squeezes Joel's shoulder and then moves to the head of the bed to lay it down again.

"If you want some time alone, big guy, I'll drag this one home," she says to Joel, but her eyes flick over his head to Ellie. "Be back first thing in the morning, bring you a fresh shirt. We're both settled here otherwise."

If he's sleeping, he won't know the difference if either of them stay.

It’s not worth the argument. It rarely was, with either of them.

Joel feels the bed lay back with more of that nausea, and he closes his eyes through it. He’s pretty sure his pride won’t survive being sick in front of them on top of everything else.

It abates again, and when Joel opens his eyes again, he feels the overhead light bore more bright pain into his brain. Fuck, he does want to sleep. He's hurt and tired, his face is still all fucked up and he's down a damn limb, but he’s… fine. Alive and awake, apparently two things that hadn’t been a sure thing until about an hour ago.

“Nah.” He speaks quietly enough not to carry. She’s right there, in easy reach, and Joel lifts his hand up to brush his knuckles against Tess’ bicep. “Thanks, babe.”

Tess can pretend he means for the fresh shirt, if she’s got to.

“I’ll send her home in a bit. You both look beat as I feel.” That, he says loudly enough to be heard.

But first... Joel turns his head to look at Ellie all sprawled out in her uncomfortable looking chair, the stubborn way she's set herself in it. He squints and frowns, then points to the pitcher of water and glass waiting on the side table. “Wouldja mind, Ellie?”

It's a dirty trick to put the decision on Joel, and Ellie doesn't eye Tess very kindly when she does that. She knows how they all tick. If Joel wanted her to go, she'd go. She'd do anything he'd ask.

Which is why she practically jumps to her feet. Her bruised ribs don't appreciate her eagerness to be helpful but she ignores them as she has been.

"Couldn't have asked when you were upright, huh?"

It's a gentle tease. It's about all she can muster. She only opens her mouth at all to distract from the way her hands shake as she carefully pours water into the glass. Luckily, there's a bendy straw to go with it. Good thing those things take hundreds of years to decompose.

"Here," she says, standing beside the bed and holding the glass so that he can easily drink from the straw. No way did he think she was not going to do that, right? "Not too fast."

Tess nods and stoops to press a kiss to Joel's cheek, a little any time that goes back years and should go on a great many more.

It's easy to shrugs off Ellie's look; none of them are running on perfect judgement, and with the way things have been between the kid and Joel the past few years, she doesn't trust that Ellie's not going to go off half-cocked. Almost anyone would, given the circumstances, but Ellie's got fire even on a good day.

"I'll see you soon, then," she says. Give these two some time. "I'll leave the porch light on, Ellie."

She'll be up anyway, still be getting things done for her family.

Edited 2020-07-25 02:53 (UTC)

Joel’s got good timing, even when his head is all… swimmy. It’s almost instinct, by now – juggling Ellie and Tess the way that Ellie and Tess juggled Joel. God, but sometimes it was like a damn circus, but he’d meant what he’d said to Ellie.

No way he would have done it any other way.

“’S not my fault. These damn drugs make me feel like I’ve got mush for brains.”

Tess retreats while Joel is being all but taunted by the dumb little crooked straw, and he gives Ellie a grumpy look over it. His hand feels unsteady as hell even trying to lift it above his shoulder, so he relents. It’s worth it – four days of dry, sticky mouth washed away. He only coughs a little after draining half the glass, waves Ellie off before she can fuss.

“How you doin’? You takin’ anything for all of –” he sort of lifts his hand off the blankets, gestures vaguely at Ellie, but his eyes are on her busted cheek and other visible scrapes, “that?”

Soon, Tess says. Even if Joel manages to chase her out of the room, she'll camp in the hall. Tess can yell at her for it later.

She frowns--more at the comment about mush for brains than the coughing, because in the dark of that room she thought she was looking at his brains splattered on the floor--and gingerly sits on the edge of the bed, facing him. No fussing. She leans over to put the glass down within reach on the bedside table, and lies even as her ribs protest again.

"I'm fine." She didn't want anything for the pain. She didn't want anything to make her drowsy, in case something happened. It's why she's been afraid to sleep or even rest her eyes for long.

"All that matters now is that you get better, okay? So we can go home."

He’s stupid glad when she sits on the edge of the bed. Foolish to read into it, but he’s been left frozen out for a year and it’s like fucking springtime to have Ellie not looking at him with anger or apathy. Joel softens up, smiles a little.

“You are goin’ home. And don’t give me any crap about it, kiddo. It’s a big house to wake up in alone, and Tess needs you there. Think all this might have knocked her off her game.” Joel sighed. “Do it myself, but apparently I am stayin’ here until the doc relents… or you help me stage a breakout.”

His eyebrows lift, and he gives her one of those familiar looks – half joke, half double-dog-dare-ya, but fond all the way through.

Both he and Tess know how to pull her strings. She hates it, but she can't even really say shit when he's smiling at her and calling her kiddo and alive. Fucking joking around. It feels like everything is going to be okay, and Ellie blinks rapidly, not wanting to bawl again like a child.

It's there in her voice when she speaks, that struggle not to cry.

"I'll go when you get to sleep," Ellie relents. Just like that. "But I'll be back first thing in the morning. You've gotta at least try to be a good patient. I'll break you out when the doctor says I can."

“Yeah, yeah. Best behavior,” Joel relents. Just like that.

He means it, just like Ellie… And like Ellie, it might also end up a lie. His reputation as stubborn has been hard-earned, after all.

He can hear those bitten back tears in her agreement. If he weren’t so tired, so stoned, he’d be weepy too. Joel’s smile flickers away, and he’s back to frowning, trying to read her clearly when all his thoughts feel like they’ve been wrapped in gauze.

“You were there, weren’t you?”

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internet is being fucky ;__;

noooo RIP

yeah idek dudes no discord tonight I'M SORRY <3

don't worry!! <3 you'll come back to us

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i gave up on discord but i'm with you in spirit!!!!!!!!

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feel free to skip tess for a bit! getcha daddy-daughter time

thanks ma <3

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