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
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."