Chapter Text
SUNDAY NIGHT
Joel pillowed his temple on one fist, calmly assessing Ellie’s patient handiwork.
“Gettin’ a little sloppy with the cuticles there, girl.”
She sat back with nail polish bottle and brush, expression admonishing, then bent again over his other, splayed hand.
“Would you relax? This is art. I’m making art.”
“So did Jackson Pollock, and that’s what it’s fixing to look like.”
“Jackson who?”
“He was a… I got a book in the upstairs hall, I’ll show you later.”
“Pink is definitely your color, though.”
He eased back in the kitchen chair as much as he could without disturbing her canvas.
“Like I don’t already know that.”
They both startled at the thunder of a fist on the front door. Ellie re-capped the nail polish and went to answer it, pointing at him accusingly as she went.
“Don’t smudge.”
He blew on his nails. “I’m not smudgin’.”
She hesitated at the sight of Tommy on the front porch and -- by the look on his face -- Tommy noticed the hesitation. She stood back, giving him enough room to squeeze past.
“Hey Tommy.”
“Ellie.” He thudded his boots on the mat before coming in, then leaned past Ellie to fix on Joel at the kitchen table. “Joel.”
“Hey, Tommy.”
“A word?”
“Well, you’re gonna have to come in here if you want to have one.” He held up a hand to illustrate. “Gettin’ my nails did.”
Tommy obliged, pinching out of his gloves and shoving them into a pocket. His eyes tracked Ellie as she came around the table and reclaimed her seat, putting her brush back to work on the unfinished hand.
“Can we, uh… have a minute alone?” He asked. Joel looked to Ellie, who didn’t even pick up her head.
“Can’t stop now,” she said. “The coats will be all uneven.”
Joel’s eyes upturned to him, and he shrugged. Nothing to be done about it, then. “Coat’s’ll be uneven. Might as well just have out with it.”
Tommy ground out a sigh, pacing the short length of the kitchen and back again.
“Eve and Erik stopped by ‘bout an hour ago--”
“That’s the medic couple?”
“The very one. Seems they had some concerns about their friend Merrill. They hadn’t seen him since midday yesterday. Didn’t leave a note, none of his things were missing. Asked for my help tracking him down. I sent a couple of patrol teams out to do a quick sweep of the perimeter, but… thought I’d stop here, myself.”
Joel squinted at the table, then shared the look with Ellie.
“Merrill. Merrill. That’s the… that’s the new guy, right?”
“The gross one,” Ellie mumbled in agreement, dipping and painting, dipping and painting. She picked up his hand and blew softly on his nails.
Tommy’s jaw shifted, teeth gritting together.
“Don’t suppose you know anything his whereabouts, Joel?”
“Can’t say as I would. Hell, I been housebound since Friday night. Sick as a dog.”
“Couldn’t even get out of bed,” Ellie volunteered calmly. As further evidence, she looked up and met Tommy’s eyes. “I was gonna go find you for help, this morning, but his fever finally broke.”
Tommy turned from them both, making another agitated, back-and-forth circuit of the kitchen. When he got back to the table he leaned hard on one hand, obstructing Ellie and Joel’s view of each other.
"I won't tolerate you bringing this shit to my doorstep, Joel. You know that. That's not coming from Maria, that's coming from me. This place we've built, this community we've built, it’s supposed to be better than that."
They stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Joel made a fist, bumping it softly against the outside of his brother’s arm.
"We're of a like mind, Tommy. You and I only want what's best for what we care about."
Tommy knew his brother well enough to know he wasn’t going to get more out of him than that. And the more he dug, the more Joel would dig in. So far Ellie was the only person he’d ever met that could get anywhere with him by being a bigger and more infuriating pest.
He stood back, loosing a long sigh, and jammed his hands back into his gloves. He looked at Ellie as she calmly shook up the nail polish and started on Joel’s other hand.
“And how are you feeling, young miss? Couldn’t help but notice you seemed pretty out of sorts, lately.”
“Feeling much better now,” she said. He studied her -- or tried to -- but she was already fixing Joel’s fingers into the appropriate splay on the tabletop.
Tommy grunted. “Yeah. That seems to be going around.”
He turned to go, then faced them both briefly from the threshold, lacing his fingers together to tighten his gloves.
“Joel,” he said. His brother half-twisted in his seat, and as they met eyes Tommy made a stroking gesture at his sideburn. “Got a little something, brother.”
Joel took his hand back from Ellie, swiping just above the line of his beard, and inspected the dried smudge of tacky black-red left on his fingertips. Ellie reached out without a word, using the edge of her work towel to wipe it clean.
“Hm,” Joel turned his back on him again, watching the little swipe of pink paint on his nails. “Must’ve cut myself trimming up my beard.”
“Must have,” Tommy sighed, and turned to go.