[ There's no good reason for Joel to feel good about any of this - not about where he is, or what's going on, or the looming specter of guilt, always so perilously close, for what he's unwillingly been made to leave behind. He hasn't, either, not for a moment he's been here.

Until, of course, now. The cotton candy is another uncomfortable (painful) pang of nostalgia - until it isn't. Until he stops caring so much about, really, anything except the beer in his hand and the loud, relaxing cadence of music he feels like he can only ever almost recognize, as he wanders the fairgrounds.

Eventually, he winds up at Pirate Pete's, though he isn't high enough to think of getting any ink (temp or otherwise), himself. No, he's more inclined to post up across from the whole affair, barely propped up on a ratty, overstuffed couch someone's dragged out of a trailer. He only glances over when someone sits down beside him, raising his beer toward the latest tattoo he's spectating. ]

You're just in time. Think this one's supposed to be some kind of... uh, flaming eagle playin' guitar?

(a) - [ Don't get scratched. Don't get bit. Words to live by, that he has, somehow, for two decades, now - only for that deeply ingrained mantra to fail him.

In Joel's defense, though, he never had to fight off a fucking werewolf. Definitely wasn't expecting one to pop out of a goddamn carnival ride.

He stumbles out the exit to the haunted house panting and clutching his arm, blood pouring hot between his fingers. Shit. The gash burns like nothing else, like venom seeping into his veins, and the lights and motion of the carnival blur as he huffs out a rough breath, shaking his head as if that'll clear it. He thinks he catches a glimpse of someone approaching, in the corner of his eye, and snarls a short, ] Get back. I'm—

[ Infected, but that's not right, is it? Close enough, though, maybe - and it's all he manages to grit out before his bones start to crack and his skin starts to split and then it's all nothing but howling pain. ]

(b) - [ He doesn't know exactly where he's been or what he's done, but maybe that's not such an unfamiliar feeling. Covered in blood (and other, unacknowledged things), wearing the tatters of his clothes, he staggers through the closely circled wagons, searching for the obvious solution to the one problem he can solve, in all this— But where are those damn showers? ]

( always open to wildcard options & further plotting, hmu at gravejuice or by pm if you'd like something else! )