stand_unshaken | IC Inbox

Yeah. I let her look, after we got paired. I had her file, seemed fair enough to let her have a look at my own past.

That makes you about two hundred percent nicer than the people she was used to at home, I bet.

[Joel would never if he bothered to keep such a thing. And never would Ellie, so Tess fucking stole it.]

I bet it did. I didn't want folk back home lookin', either, but she's different, ain't she?

[He takes a drink and shakes his head.] Gotta be honest with her. If I want her to be honest with me, I got to.

You make it sound easy.

[There's something pretty major she's keeping for Tess--thank god she's smart enough not to write that down in her journal. It'd fuck her up. Fuck Ellie up too, talking about it. Trying to explain.]

It ain't. I look like the kinda guy who regularly opens up about his feelings? [He shakes his head.]

Maybe I just understand parts of her that need understandin'.

Looks like Tess' luck didn't run out after all.

[Maybe this cowboy guy isn't Joel 2.0. He'd never say anything like that.]

[He turns to her, eyebrow raised.]

Now don't tell me that's a compliment.

[There's something close to a laugh under Ellie's breath.]

Maybe I'm just getting worried about coming off as more of a fucking asshole than Tess.

[She's just constantly stressed and teetering on the edge of a meltdown. It expresses itself in different ways.]

Hmm. [He turns back to his drink, swirls it a little just for the pleasure of seeing the liquid slosh around.]

You did earlier on. You let her get to you like that, you'd best hope for a nice inmate.

Yeah, well. Shit's complicated with Tess in a way that's not a warden-inmate relationship.

[She's not sure if it'd be more or less complicated in the fallout of telling the truth, but she's nooooot fucking going there.]

Yeah. But the warden-inmate relationship's pretty complicated, period.

Cooperation is key and all that bullshit.

Bullshit, but here it's pretty damn true. You're banking on 'em for something big, but it's their life on the line, too.

Maybe some of them will be less of a dick, with that in mind.

[TESS.]

Wouldn't count on it, kid.

Just the optimist in me, I guess.

[She has to have SOME hope people can change if she's going to get her deal.]

[He snorts and shakes his head.]

Oh, sure. Coming from your world, I bet you was raised an optimist.

I wasn't raised one, but... I was, I guess. Getting bitten and not turning into an infected does that.

[Since he knows that much anyway.]

Yeah? Did it give you hope? [It could have gone both ways. Seeing everyone around her get bitten and infected, being the only person not dying of it.]

For a little while.

[She shrugs a shoulder. It was the happiest she could ever recall being, even on the road, even facing danger every day. Her life would have meant something.

Even if that meant a much shorter life.]

Tess isn't the only one upset things didn't work out.

Of course she ain't. Everyone who knew about it must be...

[He trails off. Are there words big enough for that feeling?]

...dead, for the most part.

[She knows. Tommy. Abby.]

Yeah. That's the way it seems to go.

You been through a lot, kid.

Maybe. Tess isn't making it any fucking easier, that's for sure.

[Unfortunately, life here would be a lot easier if she wasn't around. Whatever insider info and experience she brings? Ellie feels like the stress and guilt aren't worth the exchange.

And just thinking that makes her feel like shit.]

And you ain't makin' it easier for her, neither.

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