CYOA Page 98
Sep. 13th, 2013 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12You have no desire to see any more infected than you absolutely have to. Joel is gracious when you tell him your decision, and you get the feeling he really didn't care much either way, like he said. Or maybe he wants to show you that no, he does not enjoy killing infected, thank you very much.
You don't see any the rest of the day. Which is probably just as much, if not more, about the fucking odds than about your ~brilliant~ decision. There shouldn't be that many infected out here, with towns so spread out and with all the patrols (by the military and by Jackson townsfolk) keeping this general area clear. Maybe not this specific area, but still. ...Except maybe they keep their immediate surroundings clear by pushing the undesirables, such as infected, into the outlying areas... like this! But so far, so good.
You and Joel find a nice little pest-free camper to spend the night in. Joel prefers these to houses because he says he sleeps better with the horses so close. He likes to picket them by the wall of his chosen bed, and crack a window so he can hear every little snort -- hell, given how freakishly amazing his hearing is, he can probably hear every time they swallow a blade of grass. (You wonder how the man ever manages to sleep, truly.) You know he likes having you close as well. Last night, you had a house -- and thus, multiple rooms -- bedrooms, even -- with beds in them -- all quite serviceable -- but he suggested that the two of you sleep in the same room. He was going to sleep on the floor, but you thought that was stupid when you could just move to a room with a double bed, and he was okay with that. You would prefer that house to this cramped little camper, but you're really not that picky.
Presently, you're sitting beside Joel, roasting nice large sausages over a merry little fire. Or, rather, he's eating his, and you're roasting yours a little more.
"You ever gonna eat that thing?" he teases. "I thought you liked 'em just a 'lil bit burnt."
"The whole outside of it needs to be black," you declare. Just because.
"Suit yourself." He seems amused.
You like amusing him. Amusing him and/or annoying him (annoying him is sometimes more fun, but amusing him feels even better). You're glad he talked you out of bringing those grill skewer things you have at home; your green stick works just as well, and makes it feel more like old times. The pot and the rack, though? Godsends. "This is fun," you tell him out of the blue. "I'm glad we did this. Aren't you?"
Joel takes his time chewing his current bite before answering. "I s'pose so. Now that the infected are all behind us, for the time bein'."
"Or to the side of us," you clarify. "But yeah, that doesn't sound as good as 'behind us', huh."
Joel chuckles. "Behind us, metaphorically-speakin'. It is nice havin' the one-on-one time."
You twirl the stick in your hand idly. "We have that every day, don't we?"
"No, not really. We're always... goin' somewhere or doin' somethin'." And you are around other people a lot. Or Joel takes third shift guard duty. He's right: you haven't had much quality time together recently.
"So we have to leave town to stop and smell the flowers?" you muse.
"The roses."
"Why do they have to be roses?"
"I don' know, I've just never heard it said with any other flower."
"...I guess cuz roses are the smelliest?"
He snorts. "Smelliest makes 'em sound bad."
"Smells can be good or bad! But I know what you mean. 'Smell' is bad, 'scent' is good." You snort, too. "I learned that at a very young age."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." You give him a look. "My name is Ellie. And kids are mean."
"...Oh. Gotcha." He gives you a sympathetic smile.
"You're lucky nothing rhymes with your name."
"What? Plenty of things rhyme with Joel. Roll... mole... goal... coal... soul..."
You roll your eyes. "Okayyyy but like... nothing bad. No one's gonna call you... Bowl Joel and feel like they're being-- oh wait! I got one! AssHOLE Joel."
Joel laughs. "That don't really have a good ring to it, though. It ain't a rhyme if the first part--"
"Yes it is! Only the 'hole' needs to rhyme," you say authoritatively.
"No, the... rhythm, or... the cadence of it is all wrong."
"Cadence?" you laugh. "What the fuck are you talking about? It rolls right off the tongue. Asshooooole Joel."
He just looks at you -- and it's hilarious. He doesn't even have to say anything to be funny!
"Okay, whatever," you give up. "I take it no one ever called you that."
"Oh, I've been called an asshole plenty of times. Some of those times by you, as a matter of fact."
You giggle a little. "Only when you're being one, of course. Okay, but no one would say it... as a nickname, like."
"Nope."
"Oh! I know why. Because they were all scared shitless of you, huh!"
Joel tosses his now-bare stick aside and slides down onto his side, leaning on his forearm. "I think I told you I was kind of a twerp in my school days."
"Ha! I still don't believe that." You're sure Joel's always been a bad-ass, and you don't know why he lies about it. You're also sure he was born with facial hair.
"You could've kicked my ass. Trust me."
You roll your eyes again. "Yeah -- only because you wouldn't hit me back. Doesn't count."
"Even if I did. You're a lot tougher than I was, kiddo."
"Whatever," you mutter good-naturedly. Tommy's told you some stories that seem to back up your claim, but to be fair, he's also painted Joel in a wimpy light a few times, too.
"I think you can eat that now," Joel suggests.
You withdraw the stick enough to inspect the goods. "Nope, there's still a couple not-black spots. See? Here... and here..." You're literally salivating by now, but that's part of the fun. You stick the stick (ha!) back in the fire.
Joel looks thoughtful. "You know, people say 'that smells delicious' an' it's a good thing. No one says 'that's a delicious scent.' But if you add the 'y' at the end, suddenly it's bad."
"Haha... you're still thinking about that?" Joel can be downright adorable sometimes. "Yeah, that's kinda weird, huh. But now I'm totally gonna say ~'oh what an amazing scent that--' "
Joel shushes you mid-sentence, and in the blink of an eye, transforms from casual and relaxed to tense and alert. He sits up slowly, his brow furrowed like he's concentrating.
"What?" You look around... and don't see anything (granted, it's pretty fucking dark out here now). But you know Joel either heard something or got one of his gut feelings. You listen hard.
Joel turns and flashes the light behind him. Your gaze follows the beam that's skipping across the trees, rapidly at first, then slowly... lingering in several places.
"What?" you ask again in a loud whisper. "I don't see anything."
He still doesn't reply. After another moment, he starts to get up. "Stay here. I'm--"
"Oh no you don't--" You grab his arm, grounding him. "What is it? What's out there?"
"I don' know," he says, keeping his voice low. "Feels like someone's watchin' us. But not from close enough that I can see 'em..." He shines the light around again.
"Did you hear something?"
"...I think so..."
"Well, I didn't. Maybe you're being paranoid?" You want it to be paranoia. You were just saying how fun this is! But Joel is the way he is for a reason... and he's usually right. "Maybe it's an animal?" That wouldn't be so bad. It lunges, you shoot... or you go inside, and it can't hurt you. The horses, though...
"Maybe it's just one guy. Checkin' us out... he sees all our shit... reckons he'd best wait for us to go to sleep before robbin' us."
"Like we used to do," you add quietly.
"We did what we had to do to survive," he reminds you, as he is wont to do any time you express so much as a morsel of guilt about shit like that. He even turns to look at you. "It was better that way. No one gets hurt then."
"Mostly," you mutter. There was one time you got caught; that had gotten ugly. Of all the nights (there must have been more than two hundred of them, in total) that you spent out on the road, though, most of them passed in peaceful solitude. "Who the fuck would be out here? We're in the middle of nowhere."
"Yes, but we're also... between two somewheres. People can show up any old place. They're prob'y wonderin' what we're doin' out--"
"Okay, okay, I don't need the lecture," you grumble. "Maybe it was the awesome smell or scent... or fragrance..."
"Aroma," Joel supplies. "That's a good word."
"Yeah. That." For a man of few words, Joel has more in his vocabulary than most people would expect. Probably thanks to his abandoned music career. Rhyming skills would come in handy there, too. ...and now you kind of want him to write a song titled "Asshole Joel." That would be AMAZING. But now is not the time...
"That, an' the fire in general. I thought it would be a good night to have one, but..."
"It is. Fuck this guy. So... what if we just pretend to go to sleep, but really we just wait for him to come over here and then... bam!"
Joel chuckles at that. "That ain't a bad idea. 'Course, if he loses his nerve, we'd be losin' sleep for nothin'. I still think it'd be better if I--"
"I am not letting you go out there by yourself. If you're going, I'm going with you."
"Leavin' all this unprotected. What if there's more than one an' he's just lookin' to draw us out?"
You consider that. "Huh. So you go after this one guy, and leave me here to fight off ten more by myself. Thanks a lot, Joel."
He frowns. "No, that ain't--"
"You just said there might be more than one. We don't know." He can't argue with that!
"You're right. You should come with me." He glances at you. "But if you'd rather lay a trap for him instead, when we go to sleep? That's fine by me."
You know better than to suggest that he ignore this unless (until?) an issue materializes. He would never be able to sleep!
If you and Joel go search the woods, turn to page 171.
If you lay the trap for the would-be robber, turn to page 175.
Carlos
Date: 2020-12-13 05:38 am (UTC)RE: Carlos
Date: 2020-12-13 02:10 pm (UTC)RE: Carlos
Date: 2020-12-20 06:14 am (UTC)RE: Carlos
Date: 2020-12-20 05:04 pm (UTC)