First he's getting ganged up on, and now he's the only one doing any of the actual painting? Color him surprised.
From where he's crouched, sliding the roller through the paint spilled across the baking sheet, Joel gives them both a look: Ellie, briefly, for lollygagging around with her mug and brush, more interested in the conversation than getting started; Tess, the longer and more incredulous of his expressions, half-flabbergasted and half-insulted. And some third piece of the puzzle, like he suddenly does not know her at all.
"It was way better," he agrees with Ellie, getting up on knees that, okay, are ancient and make a little popping sound as he stands, but Joel ignores it, prepared to set his roller against the wall if no one else is. He says to Ellie, over his shoulder, "She's outta her mind." And then, for good measure, to Tess, "You're outta your mind."
In the war between teen romance and space, Ellie will pick space every goddamn time, no matter how horrible the acting, so it is not in Tess's strategic interest to propose a marathon to compare. She will, however, die on this hill, as there are few opinions she won't mercilessly defend.
"Didn't take you for a kids' movie kinda guy, Texas," she says, with a smile.
To Ellie:
"It's barely about space, anyway. It's just people talking about trade routes and aliens keeping people as slaves."
It has been twenty years, but is she wrong? She has not even considered it.
Space is great. Romance in space is acceptable, but not ideal. Ellie grimaces, looking between Joel and Tess and wondering if this is how people painted bedrooms back in the day. One guy with the knowledge, the other two just sort of here for back up and moral support and keeping conversation going. Oh, and paint fumes.
"Is this what people argued on the internet about?"
Asked as if she really has any idea. It's such an abstract concept to her, but she's heard people reminisce about the time before enough to know that it was a thing.
"Ooh, maybe you two would have met online and gotten mad at one another and not even know until now."
Talking about Sarah like she was an actual person and not a landmine to be avoided has gotten easier, day by day, but the muscle is still tight with atrophy, rusty from disuse. So instead of dignifying Tess's response with one of his own laying out an explanation as to why he knows the specific plot points of a twenty-year-old film detailing a werewolf romance where no one ends up gutted - honestly, that would have made the movie worth watching - Joel just drops a pointed look over his shoulder, making a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh, and goes back to rolling Cowgirl Blue up and down the wall in front of him. The roller makes a familiar, almost soothing sound as it goes, and he counts Ellie's preference for space themed anything as a point in his favor.
He doesn't remember everything about Star Wars - Tommy probably would, though - but he is fairly certain those details weren't part of the story in any meaningful way. Mostly he just remembers the laser swords and the explosions. As a teenager, that had been particularly entertaining, less so as an adult. Just as the internet had never grabbed him beyond printing out directions to Sarah's away games or checking the four emails he got occasionally. The computer they had was mostly used for homework and drafting invoices, not arguing with someone about the finer points of a galaxy far, far away.
Ellie probably would have used and abused it for that exact purpose, though.
"I don't think so," Joel replies, leaning down to get a little more paint on his roller. At least his wall is coming along. "Somethin' tells me Tess ain't the type of person to get her kicks arguin' with someone from behind a screen." From what he knows, that doesn't sound like what Tess from twenty years ago really got up to, besides.
Oh, Ellie absolutely would have been one of those housebound NEETs, up until the small hours of the morning on the family computer, embroiled in some arcane forum discussion. Tess is positive about that, and it's a tragedy to her: Ellie could do so much better than those pockmarked, greasy-haired anime nerds, you know?
Tess finds a place on the window bench, mug and brush in hand, to start doing the trim around the window, but she grins as she goes.
"We would have met at some shitty dive bar and we would've knocked heads over something and then I would've followed him out the door anyway," she remarks. "What do you know about the internet, anyway?"
Ellie watches Joel curiously. He knows how this painting shit should be done, and so she figures she should follow his lead with her dinky little paintbrush, but she's sort of at a loss as to where to start. You just slap that shit on and go? Her eyes drift to Tess, where there's a little more care involved.
Okay, whatever. Painbrush to a random part of the wall, here they go. Ellie doesn't really care that she's getting paint flecks on her clothing (and hair) from the first stroke.
"Lots of stuff. Old folk talk about it all the time," she says, purposely trying to get a rise out of one of them. "You could download music."
And listen to it, Ellie presumes.
"Guess that was a good idea until all your music disappeared when shit went down."
If Ellie took any more care beyond what was necessary to slap that shit on and go, it would be a surprise. Half-turned to address Tess, Joel watches the teenager next to him splat the paintbrush against the wall with a finesse that only she could achieve. It leaves a blotchy smear of blue that drags with every stroke she makes, the individual strands of the brush stamped into the overlap of pink and green. Resolved to either go over her work with the roller so as not to give himself an aneurysm every time he walks into the room once the paint has dried or to swap her, he doesn't correct her just yet.
That comment about old folks doesn't go unnoticed, but Joel chooses not to lump himself into that particular category. He's not sure he ever even figured out how to download music off of the internet, though he does wonder if there are any iPods they could blow Ellie's mind with lying in wait somewhere in one of the surrounding towns. "Not all of it," he replies, tapping index and middle finger against his temple. "All the good stuff's still in here." The good stuff that he and Tess would have knocked heads over in a dive bar, no doubt.
A splatter of blue catches his eye, and Joel reaches over to pinch out a particularly bright glob of paint from the twist of Ellie's hair in her ponytail. Doing so is probably pointless, given how it had gotten there in the first place, but Joel can't stop himself from doing it all the same, wiping his fingers on his shirt.
Eyes on the trim, Tess runs a long line of blue along the edge of the windowsill, the stiff edge of the paintbrush leaving a relatively clean snail trail. Whoever had painted this last had not been quite so careful –– this close, she can see the waver of the strokes, the jagged edges where painter's tape hadn't quite stuck well enough.
"An earworm's never as good as the real thing, though."
She runs her brush off the corner. There's a humour in her voice that feels smug, but her smile is a little fond, watching him fuss over Ellie's ponytail.
"Plenty of bad stuff up there, too. Not that you'll ever get him to admit it."
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dog_eat_dog) wrote2023-04-20 08:45 pm
no subject
From where he's crouched, sliding the roller through the paint spilled across the baking sheet, Joel gives them both a look: Ellie, briefly, for lollygagging around with her mug and brush, more interested in the conversation than getting started; Tess, the longer and more incredulous of his expressions, half-flabbergasted and half-insulted. And some third piece of the puzzle, like he suddenly does not know her at all.
"It was way better," he agrees with Ellie, getting up on knees that, okay, are ancient and make a little popping sound as he stands, but Joel ignores it, prepared to set his roller against the wall if no one else is. He says to Ellie, over his shoulder, "She's outta her mind." And then, for good measure, to Tess, "You're outta your mind."
no subject
"Didn't take you for a kids' movie kinda guy, Texas," she says, with a smile.
To Ellie:
"It's barely about space, anyway. It's just people talking about trade routes and aliens keeping people as slaves."
It has been twenty years, but is she wrong? She has not even considered it.
no subject
"Is this what people argued on the internet about?"
Asked as if she really has any idea. It's such an abstract concept to her, but she's heard people reminisce about the time before enough to know that it was a thing.
"Ooh, maybe you two would have met online and gotten mad at one another and not even know until now."
Unlikely, but not impossible.
no subject
He doesn't remember everything about Star Wars - Tommy probably would, though - but he is fairly certain those details weren't part of the story in any meaningful way. Mostly he just remembers the laser swords and the explosions. As a teenager, that had been particularly entertaining, less so as an adult. Just as the internet had never grabbed him beyond printing out directions to Sarah's away games or checking the four emails he got occasionally. The computer they had was mostly used for homework and drafting invoices, not arguing with someone about the finer points of a galaxy far, far away.
Ellie probably would have used and abused it for that exact purpose, though.
"I don't think so," Joel replies, leaning down to get a little more paint on his roller. At least his wall is coming along. "Somethin' tells me Tess ain't the type of person to get her kicks arguin' with someone from behind a screen." From what he knows, that doesn't sound like what Tess from twenty years ago really got up to, besides.
no subject
Tess finds a place on the window bench, mug and brush in hand, to start doing the trim around the window, but she grins as she goes.
"We would have met at some shitty dive bar and we would've knocked heads over something and then I would've followed him out the door anyway," she remarks. "What do you know about the internet, anyway?"
no subject
Okay, whatever. Painbrush to a random part of the wall, here they go. Ellie doesn't really care that she's getting paint flecks on her clothing (and hair) from the first stroke.
"Lots of stuff. Old folk talk about it all the time," she says, purposely trying to get a rise out of one of them. "You could download music."
And listen to it, Ellie presumes.
"Guess that was a good idea until all your music disappeared when shit went down."
no subject
That comment about old folks doesn't go unnoticed, but Joel chooses not to lump himself into that particular category. He's not sure he ever even figured out how to download music off of the internet, though he does wonder if there are any iPods they could blow Ellie's mind with lying in wait somewhere in one of the surrounding towns. "Not all of it," he replies, tapping index and middle finger against his temple. "All the good stuff's still in here." The good stuff that he and Tess would have knocked heads over in a dive bar, no doubt.
A splatter of blue catches his eye, and Joel reaches over to pinch out a particularly bright glob of paint from the twist of Ellie's hair in her ponytail. Doing so is probably pointless, given how it had gotten there in the first place, but Joel can't stop himself from doing it all the same, wiping his fingers on his shirt.
crawls out of the grave
"An earworm's never as good as the real thing, though."
She runs her brush off the corner. There's a humour in her voice that feels smug, but her smile is a little fond, watching him fuss over Ellie's ponytail.
"Plenty of bad stuff up there, too. Not that you'll ever get him to admit it."