paradisa | First Shot

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tess

First Shot

[Everything changes with the bat of an eye.

While she registers the change immediately, it takes a moment to truly sink in. Tess finds herself in what could only be a dream –– she hasn't seen a bedroom so immaculate and new and utterly inviting outside of old magazines in decades, and she's certainly never slept in one. She's never even stayed in a hotel this nice, never had her own place with such crisp, perfect white linens. The very act of being in a well-kept bedroom is jarring and discomforting and panic-inducing.

The only thing that keeps her from outright panicking is the fact that she still has her handgun in her hands, her arms outstretched to point it at some invisible intruders, her finger laid against the side of the gun, ready to move to the trigger at a heartbeat's notice––

Seconds ago, there had been bullets, and Joel and Ellie's retreating footsteps––

There's an assortment of things on the dresser, a hairbrush that had likely never even approached anyone's scalp, a comb with all its teeth, a jewelry box that looks freshly polished––

There had been a throbbing in her chest and collarbone and neck, and––

No, no, the throbbing is still there, the collar of her shirt half-stuck to the mess that is her throat, and Tess could (and can) feel it almost thrumming under her skin, almost moving––

Tess backs up into a wall, her support hand leaving the base of the gun in favour of splaying against the immaculate paint. Purple. The walls are rich, warm purple, without so much as a hairline crack, and Tess is pressing the grime of her skin and clothes against it. She feels like she needs to apologize, even when there is no one around to apologize to.

She's alone here, almost. Alone as any host is.

She's not sure if she can "feel" the infection crawling under her skin because she knows it's working its way towards her brain so that it might kill her, or if there really are cordyceps tendrils spawning in her veins, winding through her muscle tissue and up her neck to her skull. Have they reached her brain yet? Will it hurt when they do?

Of course it's going to hurt, she tells herself, almost angrily. But Joel and Ellie are gone, and oh thank god, Joel is gone, Joel doesn't have to see this, and there are no soldiers to shoot her like a fucking rabid dog, and it's just her and the gun and this immaculate not-quite-afterlife hotel room.

It was easy to maintain her composure when she had work to do and Joel to protect –– she couldn't let him see her die or turn or suffer, she had her pride and her obligations to her goddamn partner –– but now she's alone and she is going to become a monster if she doesn't put herself out of her own misery.

Tess fits the barrel of the gun to her chin.

Don't be such a fucking coward, Tess.

She pulls it away, takes a hard breath, and closes her eyes for a beat.

It's only been a few hours. You've got hours. Maybe twelve hours, or twenty-four, or maybe even forty-eight––

When she opens her eyes, they settle immediately on the window across from "her" bedroom wall. More importantly, they settle on what appears to be a distant city basking under a summer sun, and for an instant she thinks of being a teenager again, when she dreamed of backpacking across Europe. There were lots of pictures of little French cities all over the Internet, back then, cities that could still feel like quaint little towns despite their sprawl.

For a moment, she just stares in silence, and then she says:]

Couldn't pick a nicer fucking place to die, huh...

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[It's been a long time since she even came close to putting herself under the Fireflies banner, and a longer time still since she said it proudly. She's far from an idealistic teenager, but adulthood had hit her too fast, too hard. Unlike Joel's childhood slowly burning away as he raised Tommy himself, Tess had gotten a rude awakening at nineteen and there was no chance to go back, even if she liked to think about it sometimes.

She used to think about it a lot, especially in those days where it seemed infection was a passing crisis, something that would eventually fizzle out without much fanfare. Like the war in Afghanistan, or the obsession with global warming, or the latest indigenous "superfood" fad. Infection was supposed to go away.

And sure, she had thought about it less and less over the years, but it was always at the back of her mind, haunting her. She knew her teenaged self would loathe what she had become, someone who profited off of all the suffering and even smiled from time to time doing it.

Joel didn't understand that. Joel had never fallen in with the Fireflies, and sometimes Tess imagined him too pessimistic to ever consider the future. Too ground up by suffering to strive for a life all that far beyond it. Too in love with his own demons –– god knows Tess loathes hers.

Is there even a case to make?]

Why isn't a chance better than nothing at all?

[No, he'd never fallen in with that crowd. That had been the cause of some of his biggest fights with Tommy over the years and now it was showing up again, in the form of Tess coming back from the dead just so he could disappoint her and crush her hopes. And then shoot her.

Just keep moving. He was glad they were walking again. It helps. Not much, but it helps. Joel sighs hard at her question. She's right, after all. He would rather stick close to a dark place that he knows than venture out into a new one that's unfamiliar to him.]

Don't you think it's fucked up to put all that on a fourteen year old girl?

[God, it sounds weird coming out of his mouth. Saying this to his partner, one of the few people who knew everything he was capable of. Tess was probably gonna look at him like he'd grown an extra head for that one. It's more than just an ethical musing, though-- there's real bite to that counter-question, real anger and frustration. It was what he'd been thinking about when he'd asked Ellie if she wanted to just turn around and forget the whole thing.]

And for what? A chance for the Fireflies to screw around and try to play hero? They were so damn destroyed after just a year that one person finished them off.

[True that he was a very decent murderer when he wanted to be, but still.]

Edited 2013-09-07 09:36 (UTC)

[All the Fireflies, all gone. Tess looks at Joel not like he's grown a second head but rather as if he's lost his only head. There's a kind of whiplash in going from Joel wanting nothing to do with Ellie to this kind of determined, fatherly protectiveness. Putting the weight of the world on a fourteen year old girl? Fuck, hadn't she been pinned under that since the moment Marlene decided to send her to the eastern branch of the Fireflies?

Tess squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, trying to process this.]

And did you give Ellie a choice in that, either? She didn't fuss about you putting a bullet in Marlene?

[Assuming Marlene was still alive at that point, anyhow. She hadn't been in the best of shape when Tess had crossed districts to the gun cache with her.]

I told you, Ellie was out.

[Clipped and defensive. Here's where he becomes less certain. There's a part of Joel that knows she would've struggled with giving up her life and might've chosen to do so, but she was saddled with so much survivor's guilt that he's not sure that's fair either. Real easy to guilt a teenager whose lost everyone and everything into being your sacrificial lamb.

What he'd done was on him. Irrationally, he didn't want it to even touch her. He just wanted it to go away.]

She doesn't know about any of this.

[I lied to her face.]

[Details, details.]

So she would have gone in her sleep and never known the difference.

[Tess tries to make that sound less accusatory than it comes out, but there's really no way of avoiding that. Joel had still stripped Ellie of a choice, regardless of what it would have been, but how would she even know the difference? Tess stopped entertaining the thought of any higher power a long time ago, and as far as she's concerned, dead people don't know the difference.

Other than me, she supposes. Here she is, in Paradisa, alive when she's not supposed to be.

Tess changes her mind on a dime right there.]

... Providing she didn't end up here, anyhow. Never mind. But you can't have it both ways, Joel, get angry that they didn't give her a choice and then do the same fucking thing.

She wasn't gonna have a choice no matter what, now was she?

[Yeah, he's rationalizing now. Whatever. He's good at it.]

Marlene sure fuckin' wasn't gonna wait around for us to talk it out.

Why not? What was the big rush? It's not like there was a deadline.

[That Tess knew of, anyway.]

I believe her exact words were, "there is no other choice here."

[And hell, he's sure that she really believed that, but Joel makes it clear with his tone that she didn't make negotiations an option for them. And she didn't. He can at least be confident in that much.]

She was gonna kill her and kill me too if I so much as tried anything. I had to make my own choices.

Edited 2013-09-07 22:44 (UTC)

[Tess feels herself argued into a corner. Every part of her itches to find something and fling it in his face and make him answer to why he couldn't carry out Tess' one last stupid dying request –– she doesn't want to think that everything she did for him didn't matter, that their entire partnership was going to go unrecognized. She's hardly put together right now, a mess of scrapes and wounds with salty tears stinging in that one goddamn cut under her eye, and considering everything in the past day she's even starting to doubt herself.

Tess knows she's strung-out on exhaustion when that shit starts happening. Tess doesn't start to doubt herself without a good fuck-up on her record and a fifth of vodka in her system.

God, she wants to kick his ass, but if her voice can't stand up to his self-righteousness, what else could?]

That's fucking bullshit. So much fucking bullshit, Joel.

[She's not sure if she's arguing or sympathizing.]

But hey, at least your secret can die with me.

[He's good at bullshit. He doesn't care, not about the Fireflies losing their opportunity to play pretend or the fact that he has to tell tales to himself in order to sleep at night, but he does care about disappointing Tess. He does care that it hurts her that he would make different choices in the end than she would expect.

But why did she expect otherwise? Why did she see so much in him that wasn't there? He was just her partner, not someone who could liberate her from the debt she owed on her second life. It wasn't on him or Ellie to live up to her expectations just because she was feeling guilty about the choices she'd made as a survivor. But that was too harsh for this moment, Joel decides as he spares her a side-glance, his brow furrowing up.]

Listen, whatever happened between you and me is separate from what went on in that fucking hospital. [Now he sounds old, his voice dropping to a low and stubborn pitch.] I know you think I'm a big damn disappointment right now, but I never made myself out to be more than I was to you.

[Tess frowns. She thinks about how maybe this just feels so agonizing because it's right when the wounds are fresh and raw, that maybe it wouldn't hurt as much if she had time to better hear him out and come to terms with it. But right now he's just piling things on her while she's already one foot in the grave, and it makes her want to break his jaw.]

I fucking know that. You don't think I fucking know that? If it was the other way around, and me getting ready to put you down, I'd be telling myself that just because something's there doesn't mean I owe you the rest of my goddamn life. We never made promises like that, Joel. We knew we'd have to deal with this shit eventually.

[She pauses to wipe at her face again. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK.]

But right now I don't want this. Any of it. Right now, I want to finish the job and collect that big cache of merchandise and go the fuck home. But I don't get to do that, so instead I'm gonna be pissed at you, alright?

Fine.

[Then don't ask twice, three times. Take the hint the first time and don't corner me with it, he thinks, but he doesn't say it. God, neither of them had any respect for the end, bickering back and forth like this no matter how many times they experienced it. He was getting ready to shoot this woman, someone he considered dear to him, and this was how their last conversation went? Was this all there was to a lengthy version of the first take?

His own sour and petty tone manages to piss him off. Joel tightens his hands into fists. She keeps crying and he wishes-- he doesn't know, he's not sure what to do. He wishes he could bring her something nice at the end of her life, something comforting, but the truth about the one thing she wanted is anything but. All he has is an empty hand and an inability to do anything other than what Tess asks of him in the short term.

He just lets that one word sit between them and waits. They'll be nearing the outside by now. He takes another careful look at her, for any signs that her infection is spreading.

He doesn't ask, just looks.]

[She lets that silence hang for a moment before meeting his eyes. Her own eyes are glassy and tired and bloodshot, but the rest of her face is steeled.

She knows exactly what he's asking.

Tess doesn't break eye contact, she just pulls the collar of her shirt aside again to show the ugly mass of infected tissue, unchanged from before but still angry throbbing red. She's never even seen it herself — not with it tucked along her neck — but she can imagine.]

So?

Edited 2013-09-08 04:36 (UTC)

[Not as shocking as it was the first time, but Joel still feels his stomach turn. Incredible, considering what he was used to. He searches the wound up and down with his gaze, examining it carefully without breaking his stride. His eyes shutter.]

... looks the same.

[He doesn't dare speak of the possibilities, lest she start turning on him right now and his last words to her end up being maybe magic castles are real.

But didn't infections start to spread within the hour?]

[Tess looks down at her own shoulder, or what she can actually see of it, at least. The bite is in her blind sight so she isn't even going to try to crane her neck to see it, but she can see the bubbles and polyps growing and fanning into the surrounding area. There's a fat mushroom-like ridge coming over her collarbone, towards her breast, and that one hurts the most when she moves to run a finger along it.]

It hasn't been that long. It's probably just... having trouble working past the bone or muscle or something.

[She would call herself on the ludicrousness of that statement if she wasn't so focused on the mental imagery of it.]

I don't know.

Shit. Don't touch it.

[Both instinctive and a little afraid, that instruction. As if she could make it angrier looking than it is if she fiddles with it.]

It's been long enough we should see some change.

[She withdraws her hand, frowning.]

Does it matter if it hasn't grown? It's still there.

[Tess doesn't know if she's been snappier and shorter of temper because of the cordyceps winding its way through her body or because of stress alone. Or both, maybe.]

It matters.

[There's no way she's in the mood for this, but maybe this has something to do with their new environment after all. He'd been here a little longer than her and he'd seen some weird shit.]

What if it never moves on to the next stage?

Now who's the optimist?

[That one's less biting, more tired. Tess shakes her head.]

I really don't see what you're suggesting as an alternative, Joel. Even if it doesn't get worse, it's going to be in my blood, in my saliva, everything. And I'm supposed to just leave this nasty thing on my shoulder and wait for the day where I accidentally pass it to you? To anyone else around here? I don't fucking think so.

[He's not sure if he's suggesting anything yet. She makes a good argument for going forward with the same plan and he silently ticks through their options with a troubled expression.

They don't have many, he agrees. The thing was they knew so little about where they were and how things worked, and now the bite wasn't changing.]

Might be somethin' like Ellie's immunity.

[Optimist.]

[Tess isn't sure why she's arguing this. She has no desire to be shot by him, or shot at all, but if that's what it takes to avoid becoming a goddamn monster, she can accept it. She'll even do it herself, if she needs to.

She tears her gaze away from the dense, lovely woods beyond the castle grounds. Tersely:]

Ellie's bite does not look like this, Joel. If you're getting cold feet...

No.

[Just one word, just as clipped. There was no goddamn way he was turning and running in the last minute. He doesn't like the look of the woods at night, honestly - he's still expecting the place to be infested with clickers or runners at some turn. Or something worse. Anxious paranoia aside, Joel pauses because the moment deserves it.

He meets her eyes with just a shade of something wounded, buried deep underneath layers of calm determination.]

But we're gonna wait till we see a change.

[Oh, she sees that hurt, and she holds his gaze until she has to look away. It fucking sucks to die, it sucks worse to drag it out, but at least you only have to die once, and after that, nothing matters. You have to be alive to feel hurt, or regret, or loss, or any of those miserable human emotions. She won't be alive. Joel will, and now he has to do it all again.

Only this time, he has to watch.]

Alright, Texas. Alright.

[She's left her backpack with Ellie, so she pulls her hand flashlight off her belt and turns it on. The trees cast long shadows with their already towering trunks, and Tess feels small.]

How deep do you want to go?

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