INBOX;

[aintyourdad]

"This is Joel. Leave your message, I'll get back to ya when I can."

[ VIDEO | VOICE | ACTION | (text unavailable) ]

→ Ellie
→ Tess
→ Riley

Comments

[aintyourdad]

Seen her around. She's one of the good ones. You know, the hero-types.

[ They're a dime a dozen in this place, but still better than the evil ones who signed up with Yao. ]

[unsparing]

Hero-types. Got it. And this is what we're gonna be doing, playing the role of a hero-type for a date and it'll end on a trip to a garden.

You sure are the romantic type.

[aintyourdad]

However you wanna think of it.

[ He sighs. ]

I'm sorry this place is such shit, Tess.

[unsparing]

Where else am I going to go, Joel?

[aintyourdad]

I don't know.

[ That's why he's sorry. ]

[unsparing]

You don't need to apologize, this wasn't your doing. It's just how it is.

[aintyourdad]

Yeah. I know.

[ He feels bad, though. He feels bad for wanting her here with him, no matter how terrible this place is. He'd rather have her alive and in this hellhole than dead and... who knows where. ]

[unsparing]

We'll just... take it day by day.

[ It's the best they can do-- she can do. ]

[aintyourdad]

Yeah. We will.

[unsparing]

[ How does she tell him that were he to leave this place that she wouldn't know what to do? She'd managed during the time he had died but leaving here, that would be permanent. Or it would feel that way, until he came back weeks or months later. ]

...Joel.

[aintyourdad]

[ He's about to hang up when he hears her voice again, saying his name. Like she's not sure of something. ]

What?

[unsparing]

[ Why is it so difficult to put feelings into words? To simply tell him something, anything?

Tess has to take a quiet breath, scrub her hand down her face. Her voice is soft and half muffled against her hand when she speaks up again, a faint waver in her words.

It's a good thing this isn't video enabled. ]

I can't- I can't lose you. Alright? And I know that's not fair to say but I--

[ The last thing that's heard is the shuddering hitch in her breath before she forces herself to cut the connection, unable to keep going.

She can't. She'll say too much. ]