Joel wasn't happy about taking a detour. Sure, he'd relented when Ellie had snapped at him about wanting a break, but he had relented with utmost reluctance, heaving a quiet but heavy sigh like the mere thought of acknowledging that Ellie needed a distraction was enough to make him uncomfortable right to his bones. If he was honest with himself, he needed a break, too - his feet were killing him, blistered and sore and tired, and his legs ached numbly from hours of walking. But a detour meant cutting into time they could be using to make tracks: the more they kept moving during daylight hours, the more distance they covered.
He said nothing when Ellie exclaimed triumphantly at finding the old, rotted out game parlour. He came to a brief stop in his tracks as Ellie went on ahead of him, his shoulders sagging, something heavy and uneasy weighing down somewhere deep in the pit of his chest. Pushing it aside with another quiet sigh, he continued after her, rubble and debris and broken glass crunching under his feet as he stepped through the sagging doorway.
"Hm," was all Joel answered gruffly. What was the name of the game she was looking for? Demon Knives? Or Angel… Something? Jesus, why did it matter so much, anyway? As Ellie glanced up towards the ceiling, Joel instinctively did the same - and stared for just a moment, at the glow-in-the-dark stars and constellations dotted all around the chipped, flaking ceiling.
He quickly looked away. Shoving aside the sudden memory of sticking those very same glow-in-the-dark stars all over Sarah's ceiling flooding into his mind, he started down an aisle of video game machines, almost all of them leaning against each other like dead soldiers. House Of The Dead, old racing games with steering wheels still intact, Mortal Kombat games, shooting games, an air hockey table with a thick layer of dust spread across it…
"Hey, uh," he called out hesitantly, his eyes landing on a machine that looked similar to the one Ellie had wistfully made a fuss over back in Bill's town. Angel Knives was emblazoned across the sides. He stepped to the side to peer down along the aisle at Ellie, a finger pointing in towards the machine. "Think I found it."
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He said nothing when Ellie exclaimed triumphantly at finding the old, rotted out game parlour. He came to a brief stop in his tracks as Ellie went on ahead of him, his shoulders sagging, something heavy and uneasy weighing down somewhere deep in the pit of his chest. Pushing it aside with another quiet sigh, he continued after her, rubble and debris and broken glass crunching under his feet as he stepped through the sagging doorway.
"Hm," was all Joel answered gruffly. What was the name of the game she was looking for? Demon Knives? Or Angel… Something? Jesus, why did it matter so much, anyway? As Ellie glanced up towards the ceiling, Joel instinctively did the same - and stared for just a moment, at the glow-in-the-dark stars and constellations dotted all around the chipped, flaking ceiling.
He quickly looked away. Shoving aside the sudden memory of sticking those very same glow-in-the-dark stars all over Sarah's ceiling flooding into his mind, he started down an aisle of video game machines, almost all of them leaning against each other like dead soldiers. House Of The Dead, old racing games with steering wheels still intact, Mortal Kombat games, shooting games, an air hockey table with a thick layer of dust spread across it…
"Hey, uh," he called out hesitantly, his eyes landing on a machine that looked similar to the one Ellie had wistfully made a fuss over back in Bill's town. Angel Knives was emblazoned across the sides. He stepped to the side to peer down along the aisle at Ellie, a finger pointing in towards the machine. "Think I found it."