She lowers her fishing pole by a few degrees and abruptly stops whistling - not that she stays quiet. "What seriously? I've got to stay quiet too? Euugh. People seriously chose to do this before everything went to shit?"
"Well I don't expect you to understand exactly why--" There's a tug at his line this time, but he barely seems to notice, holding the tension in the reel and letting the end jerk wildly back and forth. "but I imagine you'll have a better guess once we get these fish over the fire."
She can't really argue with that line of reasoning - if she's being honest, living off the wild with Joel has made for some pretty good eating. Hell of a lot better than the stuff bought with ration cards or traded otherwise. Meat, real fresh meat, is as much a novelty as fresh air, green trees and campfires as opposed to electricity.
"Hold up now, he's a fighter." Which he feels through the low thrum of the line going taught against aluminum and plastic. Sharp and strong and-- if his memory isn't too far off-- big enough to be a damn good meal for the pair of them.
"Can't take a fighter down by bull rushing him and hoping for the best."
His reel doesn't budge, isn't rolled back. He leaves it where it is to go slack and pull, over and over again till the tugging starts to slow.
"What if it breaks the line or something?" She's pitched forward slightly, her own fishing pole forgotten in favor of staring out toward his bobber and how it ducks under the surface of the water in jerks and starts. "C'mon, he's totally gonna get away!"
He ignores her suggestion, fixated as he is on minding the water and what's beneath it. When he finally works the crank it's a slow, steady process: reel and wait, rinse, repeat. It'll pay off in the end, and the way he figures, it sets a good example for her.
"Alright, here we go." The bobber's close, near the edge of the boat, barely ducking low with the barest glint of silver beneath it catching in the sunlight. One last heavy yank of resistance and the line goes slack enough for him to pull back and find--
Honestly, she's as convinced as he is - she watched the steady pull of the line coming in like a hawk, breath baited. "Come on, come on," she whispers as it gets steadily closer, abandoning her pole to grip the edge of the boat and lean over timidly to get a closer look and--
She swings a punch and catches Joel's shoulder-- "What'd I fucking tell you?" --and the boat rocks, making her sway back and scrabble at the bench, swearing mildly.
'Hmph' is all she gets out of him, though it's softened by the way she claws at the bench: she can be right all she likes, he ain't the one afraid of a boat.
Hook's still intact, though. Sinker, bobber, line all check out. Whatever it was, that fish was a smart son of a bitch to play the long game, too. Suppose he can't fault it that.
Joel loosens his grip on the pole, lifts his chin up enough to dodge the sun's blinding glare and tosses another lengthy cast out over a different stretch of lake. Truth be told, he's got no clue about the fish in this area-- whether they'd be biting so soon after winter, how big on average they are, whether the fish they're yanking up are native or introduced-- but he's never been the type to admit that in the first place. Joel knows what he's doing, and anyone that's argued against it (except maybe for Tess) gets a thorough, stubborn brush off.
She may or may not mutter "Sore loser," under her breath as she rummages around for her fishing rod, but she's cheerful enough about it as she gently tugs on her line and settles back in for the long haul. Joel may always be right, but heaven help him because she's got one hell of a nose for bullshit.
He's quiet for a while after that. Stubbornness ebbs off quickly till it's all just focus and fixation on the task at hand. Nothing bites, nothing ripples. Maybe their numbers died off and what's left are a measly few stragglers - too few to pick up in the span of a couple of hours.
"Nah." She tugs gently back on the line, blinking out across the water toward her bobber. The surface of the lake is dazzling from the rising sun, light glinting up and flashing across the hull of the boat and into her eyes. "It's sort of relaxing I guess."
But then a beat and: "But give it a while and I might get hungry enough to turn on you."
She wins a chuckle with that one. "Okay," he breathes out on the tail end of it, flicks the end of his rod to adjust where the line's resting. "Okay, ten more minutes and we'll close up."
He's got a can of corn in the base of his pack that he snatched up a week or so ago. Suppose it'll do if they can't pull anything else in. Damn if he wasn't hoping for another catch, though.
That gets a low growling "Uuugh," from her, but it's mostly just pulling his leg. Or the sound of her stomach maybe. Either way, Ellie spends the next ten minutes idly tugging her line and watching the bobber shift across the surface of the lake, gently propelled by the occasional flick of wind or underwater eddy.
And she may not have a watch, but neither does he (not one that's worth anything anyway) and between the two of them she thinks she's got a pretty good handle on how much time has passed. So eventually she starts reeling in her line. The hook and bobber come flicking out of the water and she struggles a few moments to catch the line as it sways gently back and forth. Once wrangled, she stuffs the fishing pole down in the bottom of the boat - pats the tackle box reassuringly. "Alright little buddy, time to meet your maker."
You know, if it hasn't already. Jeez they could've thrown some water in there at least or something.
And Joel's reluctantly reeling in his line as he says it, packing up and picking up the oar without bothering to add anything else. Quiet as he rows back, clambers out to hold it steady."C'mon. Get a fire started and I'll show you how to clean it."
Once they reach shore, she's confident enough: slides over the side into the ankle deep water and sloshes her way up the gravely shore. "Sure thing," she says, trotting off to a nearby stand of trees. She's quick about collecting a few likely looking branches, stuffing her pockets with leaves before returning to the shoreline. She carves a small circle out of the gravel and, with the air of someone who's done the same thing a hundred times, builds a small fire in the little dent in the ground.
The result is a passable fire, likely just enough to cook over. Just the smell of burning leaves and wood makes her stomach growl - Pavlovian response or whatever.
There's no cleaning station; the house is a rotted mess and nothing outside looks any better save for the inside of the boat. Joel grabs the inner edge and uses leverage to haul it up over the rocky shoreline while Ellie sets everything up. By the time she's done, he's dunked the deceased fish in the water to wet its scales and laid it out over the second benchtop.
"That's good enough, Ellie. Do me a favor and bring the knife with you."
She dusts her hands off on the front of her jeans as she rises. Pulling her knife out in an easy, practiced motion, she ambles over to him and passes it over before perching herself near his elbow to watch. She can imagine what's coming - cleaning fish can't be that different from sorting out the useful parts of a rabbit or bird or whatever -, but she's still curious.
"Scales first." The knife's turned over, angled on its side as he flicks it up under the edge of the scales. It's been a while, so at first it slips along the slick surface before eventually jamming up and popping off a mess of translucent, confetti-like flakes. After a moment-- when 1/3 of the fish's topside's been done-- Joel slides the blade down into his palm and holds it out towards her.
"Man that's sick." Kind of cool, but morbid as hell. She's not shy about taking the knife when he offers it though, not hesitant about jamming the edge of the blade in under the layer of scales. She's clumsy at it - it isn't like skinning an animal - and digs a little bit into the bulk of the fish at first before she eases up on the angle of knife and adjusts her grip. It takes what feels like a longass time, but eventually she does work off most of the scales. Her hands feels slimy and tacky from it.
Not bad. Joel nods in approval, scoots in and gently lifts the knife away from her grip, setting his palm flat over the side of the fish.
"The rest is about what you got in there already." And to make that point, he slides the blade up the underside of its belly, pulling the loose, bright purple insides out with his fingers and scooting them off to the side. Usual routine.
Head's cut off, fillets sorted and trimmed, scraps saved with the rest while he tries to figure out how in the hell he's going to pull out the pin bones. It's an obvious, pensive, finger-drumming pause.
It's amazing how quickly an animal can turn into meat. Which is a simple, stupid kind of thing to think about - because of course, right? - but still comes to mind once Joel has it trimmed down into fillets. The thin square cuts are so totally abstract from the flopping fish at the bottom of the rusty tackle box that she'd been feeling sorry for earlier.
"So we eat it now, right? C'mon, you're killing me here."
"I need tweezers." Joel says, indirect and absent like she hasn't spoken a word. There could be a pair inside; they haven't scavenged the entire plot just yet, given that it was late when they crept in, scanned the perimeter, set up camp and nodded off.
"What? What for? Can't you just use your fingernails or something?" She puts her thumb and forefinger together, eyebrows raised. "Seriously, how'd people do this shit before tweezers were a thing? Pretty sure they've been eating fish for longer than that."
Joel purses his lips. Shrugs. Hell if he knows. Fingers like his couldn't tug out pinbones this tiny if there was a shotgun pressed to his forehead. Ellie on the other hand-- yeah, she might have a chance.
"You wanna give it a shot, be my guest. Should be lining the edge of the filet - see if you can't dig in there with your hands, otherwise we'll be choking on 'em later."
"Alright, alright. Get out of the way." She pushes up her sleeves, wipes her hands off on her jeans (not like they're terribly clean, but whatever) and then sets her hands along the weird, slippery texture of the fish filet in search of the bones. "Ow," she grumbles as the tip of one pokes her fingers, though after some haranguing and generally butchering the surface of the meat, she manages to pick the bone out.
It's slow going and she can't guarantee that she gets them all, but eventually she sets back on her heels and shakes the juice off her hands. "I think that's as good as it gets."
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"--shit, you got one! Quick Joel, pull it in!"
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"Can't take a fighter down by bull rushing him and hoping for the best."
His reel doesn't budge, isn't rolled back. He leaves it where it is to go slack and pull, over and over again till the tugging starts to slow.
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"Alright, here we go." The bobber's close, near the edge of the boat, barely ducking low with the barest glint of silver beneath it catching in the sunlight. One last heavy yank of resistance and the line goes slack enough for him to pull back and find--
Nothing.
Well, shit. She might've been right after all.
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She swings a punch and catches Joel's shoulder-- "What'd I fucking tell you?" --and the boat rocks, making her sway back and scrabble at the bench, swearing mildly.
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Hook's still intact, though. Sinker, bobber, line all check out. Whatever it was, that fish was a smart son of a bitch to play the long game, too. Suppose he can't fault it that.
Joel loosens his grip on the pole, lifts his chin up enough to dodge the sun's blinding glare and tosses another lengthy cast out over a different stretch of lake. Truth be told, he's got no clue about the fish in this area-- whether they'd be biting so soon after winter, how big on average they are, whether the fish they're yanking up are native or introduced-- but he's never been the type to admit that in the first place. Joel knows what he's doing, and anyone that's argued against it (except maybe for Tess) gets a thorough, stubborn brush off.
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"Not so bad out here, is it?"
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But then a beat and: "But give it a while and I might get hungry enough to turn on you."
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He's got a can of corn in the base of his pack that he snatched up a week or so ago. Suppose it'll do if they can't pull anything else in. Damn if he wasn't hoping for another catch, though.
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And she may not have a watch, but neither does he (not one that's worth anything anyway) and between the two of them she thinks she's got a pretty good handle on how much time has passed. So eventually she starts reeling in her line. The hook and bobber come flicking out of the water and she struggles a few moments to catch the line as it sways gently back and forth. Once wrangled, she stuffs the fishing pole down in the bottom of the boat - pats the tackle box reassuringly. "Alright little buddy, time to meet your maker."
You know, if it hasn't already. Jeez they could've thrown some water in there at least or something.
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And Joel's reluctantly reeling in his line as he says it, packing up and picking up the oar without bothering to add anything else. Quiet as he rows back, clambers out to hold it steady."C'mon. Get a fire started and I'll show you how to clean it."
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The result is a passable fire, likely just enough to cook over. Just the smell of burning leaves and wood makes her stomach growl - Pavlovian response or whatever.
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There's no cleaning station; the house is a rotted mess and nothing outside looks any better save for the inside of the boat. Joel grabs the inner edge and uses leverage to haul it up over the rocky shoreline while Ellie sets everything up. By the time she's done, he's dunked the deceased fish in the water to wet its scales and laid it out over the second benchtop.
"That's good enough, Ellie. Do me a favor and bring the knife with you."
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"Your turn, kiddo."
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"Alright. Gross. Now what?"
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"The rest is about what you got in there already." And to make that point, he slides the blade up the underside of its belly, pulling the loose, bright purple insides out with his fingers and scooting them off to the side. Usual routine.
Head's cut off, fillets sorted and trimmed, scraps saved with the rest while he tries to figure out how in the hell he's going to pull out the pin bones. It's an obvious, pensive, finger-drumming pause.
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"So we eat it now, right? C'mon, you're killing me here."
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Should've thought of this shit sooner.
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"You wanna give it a shot, be my guest. Should be lining the edge of the filet - see if you can't dig in there with your hands, otherwise we'll be choking on 'em later."
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It's slow going and she can't guarantee that she gets them all, but eventually she sets back on her heels and shakes the juice off her hands. "I think that's as good as it gets."
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