video

[shivving]

public

[ When Joel's face appears on the screen, he's not screaming. He's not stalking the room in rage or setting the library on fire.

He is calm. Eerily so. He glares unblinking into the camera, brow furrowed, silent just long enough to become unsettling.

He has the look of a man who hasn't slept in the last twenty-four hours. ]

I know it's probably the mansion what took Ellie. That more'n likely, none of you had anything to do with it.

If I find out otherwise, I will kill whoever's responsible.

[ end feed. ]


private to tess

Tess.

Comments

[nascensibility]

[Evelyn frowns at him for a moment because she doesn't understand the phrase, but would be hard-pressed not to understand the tone. Presumably the third degree is some reference to interrogation techniques, but she hardly thinks that this is the verbal equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.]

...I have a son. Had...I suppose, since I'm- [Dead.] -he was taken from me.

[Her fingers trip up over the locket around her neck, fidgeting with the chain.]

I know what waiting feels like, that it feels impossible. I'm just sorry I can't give you any more reassurance.

[shivving]

[ He goes still as soon as she says the word son, and if Evie had hoped to make some kind of connection, to express her empathy or help him feel less alone, she'd gone about it in entirely the wrong way.

Not that there's a right way, in this case.

Rather than opening up, Joel shuts down altogether. His face becomes a stony mask, betraying nothing, and after Evie makes her confession, there's a long, uncomfortable silence before he finally says, ]

Is that all?

[ His voice is just as cold and indifferent as his expression. There's no sympathy for her there, no acknowledgement of her own pain or her expressed desire to help, to reassure him.

He doesn't want reassurance, and he doesn't have time for any pain but his own. ]

[nascensibility]

[Evelyn never expected commiseration, never expected pity - and why would she, when the intention behind sharing this information was to make him aware that what he is feeling is valid? It is an offering she never expected to extend, not when she can count on one hand the number of times she has spoken about her son in the last year, but the situation feels so agonisingly familiar that not saying something would be doing a disservice to the both of them.

She misjudged.

His expression is chillingly apathetic, disinterested, bored, and just as swiftly Evelyn's openness and candour are swallowed by the same pragmatism he saw her wear in the oasis.]

I hope she returns. If not for her own sake, then for yours.

[shivving]

[ Whether anyone would ever believe it or not, Joel honestly hadn't been trying to be a jackass. He actually respects Evie, maybe even likes her, and he knows she's trying to help - despite the fact that he'd never given her much reason to so much as give him the time of day.

Now he's fucked up again. He knows it as soon as the words leave his mouth and he sees the change in her expression, warmth and concern vanished behind a mask as airtight as his. The realization doesn't stem from any kind of personal awareness of what he'd done or instant regret of his thoughtlessness so much as it is merely that her own reaction is so obvious, so impossible to deny. He'd hurt her, though she does an admirable job of hiding it.

But it's not quite enough to drive him to apologize, dissociated from his own emotions as he is. What Evie interprets as apathy and boredom is in fact a wall that Joel's been building up for decades, his way of protecting himself from his own grief. He can hardly string three words together right now. He couldn't begin to take back what he'd said.

Instead he nods haltingly, grunting out something that may be an acknowledgement before - with relief - turning off the camera and withdrawing into desperate solitude. ]