( picture prompt meme )

[socketeer]

the picture prompt meme I — Comment with your character. II — Others will leave a picture (or two, or three...) III — Reply to them with a setting based on the picture. IV — Link to any pictures that are NSFW, please. V — Be aware that this meme will be image-heavy. Link to an image: <a href=IMAGEURL>TEXT</a> Embed image in your reply: <img src=IMAGEURL> Image width and height: <img src=IMAGEURL width=500> OR <img src=IMAGEURL height=INSERT>

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[funguy]

[ The rock Ellie kicks skitters into the shallow water, pulling Joel's eyes from the opposite shore, back to her. She looks a lot younger than her fifteen years all the sudden. The relationship between them, as strained as it had become, was still one of the only things that could stir up the parts of Joel that he had considered mostly dead. Protectiveness, fondness, annoyance, regret... not quite the same mixture of devotion that soaked his memories of Sarah, but it's similar enough.

After Salt Lake City, the long conversations stopped. He knew she didn't trust him, at least not like she had before... but she hadn't questioned him directly about any of his story, either. It didn't occur to Joel that her doubt in him, in his lies, might be the root of at least some of her problems in Jackson.

Instead he was caught up in the little thrum of hope he feels. This was the most Ellie had shared about her feelings with Joel in a long time. With a low groan he finally sits down in the sand, slowly stretching his long legs out in front as the aches and pains of his hard life made themselves known. ]

I didn't say it was easy, Ellie. [ Joel doesn't say it unkindly, more patient right now than he usually is. The peace between them feels fragile. ] But there's nothin' we can do. Boston's good as dead, darlin'. You saw the other quarantine zones, how they all ended. And there's always gonna be Infected out there. That don't mean we gotta be in the middle of it, though.

[ The lie he told Ellie all those months ago is at the tip of his tongue. There is no cure, there is no solution. Joel swallows it back, scared of finally having her call him out, and he shakes his head. ]

You can't wanna go back out there.

[backpacking]

[ They've certainly come a long way. She can still remember with ease how he'd butted heads with Tess about the "mission" in the beginning, how she'd clung to change like a drowning woman and he'd scoffed at the idea, so clearly wanting to return to the QZ and the life they'd built up together. As with all the people she'd seen die, she feels a twist of guilt in remembering Tess. ]

'Course I don't. [ Ellie mutters, not meeting his gaze. ] That's not it.

[ Shit, how could she want that? How could anyone? Even the hunters had had a little community going, fucked up though it was. People are meant to live in groups like this, working together to keep life going.

That objective knowledge isn't enough to banish the fear, the mistrust, the jagged edges to her person that she'd developed over the past year. ]

It's just - You don't really think all this can last, do you? [ It isn't a jab at the idea; her tone is a subtle plea for him to say "yes, I do; yes, it can." Even if he says as much, though... it's not like this is the first time he's lied to me. ]

I guess I'm just waiting. [ Ellie crosses her arms and leans forward, draping herself over bent knees. ] Waiting for things here to get messed up.

[ Again. ]