there ain't nothing in this world for free [OPEN]

[firefall]

Who| Riley and YOU
What| Obligatory open intro log
Where| District 9's suite, and then wandering the tower
When| TODAY
Warnings/Notes| Riley has a foul mouth. Also possible mentions of violence and zombies & her being expectant of her own worse-than-death fate whoops.


Despite her much more pressing concerns, the first thing Riley does when the soldiers (ignoring the creative invective she sets on them the whole way) leave her in the large room - cleaner and better furnished than any she's seen, that's for sure - is raid the fridge. Because fuck it, you know? She's dead to the world in a few hours to a couple days, if these assholes decided they just needed to bump in on an infected girl's last few moments of sanity then she's going to take or use all their good shit because she fucking can and it won't have any consequences she'll remember. She intends to have something good in the final hours she's spending as herself, and anyway the stuff they've stocked in here is way better than your ordinary unfortunate ever glimpses in their rations.

But once she's stuffed herself to the metaphorical gills and left the kitchen a mess, she's back to her real priorities - finding Ellie, or finding a way the hell out, hopefully both if she's got some luck left. She doesn't want to be in a populated area when the mushrooms start growing in her brain, she's out to protect the people, from her own shambling not-a-corpse if need be. Alternately, if the creepy military jerkwads intend to use her as a caught infected for experimentation, she will do her damnedest to deny them the utility of her mindless shell. She doesn't owe them shit.

She'd rather find Ellie, though. She doesn't want to be alone. Doesn't want to leave Ellie alone like this, either. And if they kidnapped Riley, they probably have her as well.

"Holy shit," she mutters to herself as she wanders the halls, trying to find some kind of exit. The whole place is so lit up it's a sheer fucking waste. They could be using this kind of electric power to actually help people live in a less shitty situation, and instead they're wasting it on some bigwig's personal playground. "Every time I think I can't be surprised by how shitty and self-serving the higher-ups are anymore, they gotta do something like this just to prove me wrong."

Comments

[firefall]

"Hey, fuck you!" Riley snarls, and she uses the motion of Joel's tug to whirl and slam her fist right into his jaw with her full weight. "We're both infected, asshole, so why don't you just fuck off and leave us to it, huh? It's none of your business, dickhead!"

Her other hand flails back until she can grab Ellie's wrist. She's not letting anyone take her away again, not when there's hardly any time left.

[aintyourdad]

She definitely knows how to deck a guy - the punch lands, knocking him back a little, but he's had far worse - been punched by people two, three times this kid's size.

He's much bigger, and he's been fighting to survive for twenty years.

He grabs the girl again, because no way - no fucking way is she, or anyone else, going to take Ellie away from him, ever again. His grip is on her arms, so she can't punch him again, and he swings her around to slam her back into the nearest wall with a snarl.

"No she's not," he enunciates every word angrily, aware that cameras are watching them all the time, aware that just putting a shiv into this girl's neck isn't an option - at least not yet. And also aware that if anyone finds out about Ellie's condition there could be big, big trouble.

"She's not, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna watch you rip her apart when you turn!"

[firefall]

Riley yelps, but it's hardly anything to the adrenaline. She's still clutching Ellie's wrist, jerking the other girl back with both of them. She uses her other hand to claw at his arm as she knees up hard into his groin.

"I got bit trying to keep infected off her, I fucking saw it happen, and I swear I will fucking bite you if you are that damn determined to go to hell with us!" she screams at him. "Let - fucking - GO!"

She emphasizes the last word with another well-placed knee.

[onlyimmune]

Everything is going too fast and a part of Ellie's mind - a cold, quiet part that sits separate from everything else notes calmly that she's dreamt this, before. That she's had this exact dream, where Riley turns up, and Joel stops and shoots her in the face--

She tears her wrist free, suddenly, pushing Riley off of her and then Joel, staggering away from them both.

"Shut the fuck up!" She screams at them both. "This isn't fucking real! Just shut the fuck up!"

Shut up and let her wake up already.

God, she felt sick.

[aintyourdad]

Joel sees it coming - the groin shot is amateur, but it can be effective when the other party isn't paying enough attention. Fortunately, he is, and he's able to twist away from it enough that it just gets a faint grunt out of him.

His arm comes up across her, pinning her back even more, like an immovable mountain pinning her to an anvil. Joel knows exactly how to do this so she can't bite him - he's done it so many times before it's second nature to him now.

"She got bit a year ago," he hisses at her, keeping his voice low, hoping no one else - none of the cameras are good enough to pick up what he's saying. "And if anyone finds out because you opened your goddamn mouth, they will kill her. Now I don't know who the hell you think you are, but if you come near her again, I will put a bullet in your brain as sure as I'm standin' here. Infected or not."

[onlyimmune]

That snaps her back to the present, and all the colour flushes back to her face at once, angry and red as she launches forward again to try and rip Joel's arms off of Riley.

"You won't fucking touch her!" She snaps, much too loudly. "You won't fucking touch her, Joel, let her go right fucking now or I swear to god I will never fucking speak to you again!"

[firefall]

Riley's choking, Joel's arm pressing into her throat so she can barely breathe, let alone talk. She claws at his arm desperately, trying to pinch or scratch at any tender spot she can find, and she's pretty used to having to find those spots, being as small as she is. She's scared, but more than that she's angry, so angry at everything, and she just wants to take Ellie and get the fuck out of here. She's so fucking tired.

"Where the fuck'd you find this asshole, Ellie?" she rasps out breathlessly. "Did your taste in friends get that shitty without me?"

[aintyourdad]

Whatever Riley is doing, it doesn't matter to Joel. What matters to him, is Ellie. It's Ellie's anger, the way she starts to try desperately to get him away from this girl, that stops him from going any further.

All at once, he lets go, backs up, out of her reach. His guard doesn't drop one inch - if she attempts to retaliate, he's fully prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend himself and Ellie.

His eyes never leave the strange girl's face, but when he speaks, he doesn't address her.

"Who the hell is this, Ellie?"

[onlyimmune]

She's being asked three questions at once and she has no fucking idea what she is feeling - grief, and rage, and despair, and relief, and a joy so sharp that it hurt.

"She's dead, okay?" She snapped at Joel. "Riley-- She-- you were dead," She said, her gaze turning to the girl, her voice starting to shake. "I was there, I-- You turned, and you died, and I didn't, and that's how I met Joel."

"You were dead," She repeated, much quieter this time.

[firefall]

None of this makes sense. None of it makes any fucking sense, but she's seen that look on Ellie, that look of being so fucking lost and hurt and she can't stand it. She doesn't even know how to process any of this.

"Ellie," she manages, staggering towards her, clutching at her shoulders. "Hey, hey, Ellie, shh, I got you. It's okay, we're okay, okay?"

She presses a moment's fleeting kiss over Ellie's lips in a clumsy attempt at reassurance. "I'm right here. So don't- don't look at me like that, okay? I don't know what just happened but I- I'm sorry, okay, god."

[aintyourdad]

Dead? Joel can barely register that. Ellie wouldn't lie to him about something like that, he knows that with the assurance of a man completely confident in his relationship with this girl.

But dead? She is quite clearly not dead.

His hands itch to yank her away again - what kind of fucking idiot is she? She knows she's infected, what's she doing touching Ellie?

"She's gonna turn," he says, still addressing Ellie, the sharp warning in his voice for her. "Whatever happened - she's infected now, you need to get away."

[onlyimmune]

The kiss is so soft and so sweet that it actually does manage to bring tears to her eyes - stinging on the edges, hanging in her eyelashes and refusing to fall. She pulls back out of Riley's grasp, but not violently - just slowly, as if dazed, so take a few more steps back.

"No, it's not okay. None of this is okay." She looks between them. "So what if she's infected?" She asks, her voice deathly quiet. "It's not like she can do shit to me."

[firefall]

Riley looks about ready to start crying too. She curls her arms over her own stomach, looking sad and small instead of holding herself defiantly tall and proud like before.

"I don't know what the fuck is even going on," she says, soft and exhausted. "Just- tie me up, whatever, but I don't wanna be alone, Ellie. I spent enough time away and I don't- I don't wanna do it anymore. We promised, right? We were gonna do this together."

[aintyourdad]

"Ellie." Christ. There are tears in her eyes, and Joel hates that. He hates this girl, whoever she is, for doing this to Ellie, and he hates himself a little, too, for contributing because they all know what has to happen here, and he's gonna have to be the one to point it out.

Because Ellie clearly loves this girl a whole goddamn lot. And Joel knows what that can do to a person, when the one they love gets bit. Turns. So does she. They've both witnessed it.

"Ellie, when she turns, it ain't gonna matter who you are. She'll try to kill you." Just like Sam did, he doesn't say, because she knows. She has to see reason, but not even Joel is cruel enough to bring that up. "Is that what you wanna have happen, here?"

He wants to wrap her up in his arms, make all this go away so she'll stop having that broken look in her eyes. Goddamn the Capitol. Goddamn this girl.

[onlyimmune]

"No one's going to make you leave," Ellie says, firmly, speaking to Riley but looking at Joel. "Because no one knows better than I fucking do, about what's going to happen."

Her voice caught, on that, turning the words ragged and rough as one of the tears finally dropped from her eyes, running an angry line down her face. Still looking at Joel, she reached out, took Riley's undamaged hand in hers, and gripped it tightly.

"I'm taking every fucking second I get."

[aintyourdad]

He wants to pull her away, wants to protect her from this and keep her safe and not force her to see. She's seen enough, back home and here, that he doesn't want her to have to see anymore if he can help it.

But he knows better than to try to keep her from something she's dead set on - knows how stubborn she can be, and something inside him is letting him know that she is not fucking around. This girl - whoever she is, whatever happened between the two of them - this girl's bond with Ellie is strong enough that he risks what he has with her, if he pushes things.

Joel likes to think that he doesn't begrudge Ellie her friends - the friends she's made here in the Capitol. She deserves to have friends, to find whatever happiness she can - she deserves to be a kid. And if he's being honest with himself, he knows none of the people she's met here poses any kind of threat to their relationship, to the trust and mutual reliance they've built up over all their months traveling together.

But this girl - from home, clearly, from before Ellie met him - this girl could definitely pose a threat. That is, if she wasn't about to fucking turn at any moment.

He remembers Tess, again, pushing him away, that empty feeling in his chest as she did so. He'd wanted to stay with her, go down with her, at the time. She hadn't allowed it, and for quite a while, he'd resented her for that. Resented her and Ellie both.

He takes a step back, away from the girls, hands up, almost like a gesture of defeat. His eyes are on Ellie, now, the way she clings to the girl, the tears on her face. "Be careful," he says, and it's less a warning, or a lecture, than a plea.

[onlyimmune]

Her hand stays firm on Riley's, and despite the tears she is solemn and calm. She keeps Joel's eye, and when she speaks the words are soft and sure.

"I've got this, Joel."

She'd done it before.

She turned, then, and without a word, pulled Riley back to the elevators, and down to her room.

[firefall]

Riley laces her fingers through Ellie's, and doesn't even bother flipping Joel off as Ellie leads her away.

She doesn't speak until Ellie leads her into a room - a nice room, comfy, luxurious even. She sits down on just about the nicest bed she's ever been on, her hand still in Ellie's.

"Ellie?" Her voice is hoarse, almost breaking. "The fuck's going on?"

[onlyimmune]

Once Riley was seated, Ellie finally let go. She didn't want to, not really, but she needed to process and she needed the space, as she turned and paced across the room. She ran her hand through her hair, going over it in her mind desperately, completely silent until she figured out the words.

"You died, Riley. Over a year ago. We both got bit, you died, and I... I didn't." She pulled up her sleeve, showing Riley the bite mark on her arm, healed, if horribly scarred.

"This place - They bring people from all over, from... from different times, different worlds, and they--" Her voice caught, a heavy lump in her throat before she fought through the words, "I guess they thought it was fucking funny, to bring back a ghost."

[firefall]

"Oh my god." Riley's eyes go wide when she sees the mark, the bite she saw herself just an hour ago, raw and bleeding, and now that same wound is healed over. It's not possible. But it's there anyway, and Ellie wouldn't lie to her, wouldn't give her false hope. "Oh my god, Ellie, you- you're immune. You lived, holy shit."

She smiles, wide and relieved, for all of a second. Then she realizes the other half of that equation, and it slides off her face. She gapes in sheer horror.

"Fuck. Oh fuck, Ellie, I'm sorry, I- I'm such a fucking moron. Oh my god." She rubs the open wound in her palm with her thumb, trying to distract herself from the pain of that thought with a more bearable pain. "Did I- did I hurt you? Shit."

[onlyimmune]

"I'm fine," Ellie says, a little too quickly. "Riley, look, I'm obviously fine. It wasn't -- it wasn't you, okay, and I knew it was coming."

And she did not want to talk about that, or remember it, or --

"It doesn't matter now, alright? You're here, and-- And it's different, here, they gave R something that kept him human, so I'm sure they can do something for you, and-- and we can start over, and no one needs to die and everything will be fine--"

[firefall]

"Shit. Fucking- shit." Riley rests her elbows on her knees and plops her face into her hands. "That blonde girl I was eating chicken with said something like that, but I thought it was just, you know, she'd been kept too far inside the Zone to get it or something - shit."

She heaves a mighty sniff, and rubs her eyes a little. They're red as she takes a hand from her face to punch the mattress, hard.

"A year." Her voice sounds distant. "A whole- a whole fucking year. You'd be 15 now then, huh? With all those infection tests in that stupid school, you didn't stay there, right? Marlene took care of you, she was always thinking about that. She did, right?"

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah. I turned fifteen before the last arena," She said quietly. No one had told her, yet, that her age kept resetting. "Marlene - she's the one who hired Joel. Well- Joel and Tess, I guess, but Tess didn't... didn't make it."

She looked down, glaring at the ground, holding herself back. "... Marlene had these doctors, working for the fireflies, trying to find a cure. And I thought - hey, maybe this can be for something, you know? Maybe all this fucked up shit, everything that happened to you--" She cut off, her voice breaking, and she couldn't raise her eyes. Instead, she rubbed her face with the back of her hand, angrily. "Anyway. Joel and I, we went clear across the country, to find them. Got all the way to the hospital where the doctors were, and I fell in some fucking river, and-- Well, I don't know. I woke up here, so."

[firefall]

"It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel," Riley mutters. "One of those depressing ones where the world is shit and everyone sucks. Getting grabbed up here, I mean, it's not like it wasn't that way back in Boston already. Still got the asshole soldiers, even, I could almost feel right at home if we weren't in a creepily luxurious sorta thing." It's not a very good attempt at a joke, but she has to say something like it, because what else can she even say?

"Ellie, I- shit, I'm sorry I punched that guy and kicked him in the balls, I mean, if he's your - friend, or whatever, it's not like I was around to look out for you anymore, right." She shrugs. "Everything's just fucking weird. And he's still an asshole. I just kinda freaked."

She dares to look up at Ellie, very hesitantly holding her arms open. She won't make her or anything, but- she could really use something right now, to anchor her. She's even more scared now. She's going to turn and she'll be utterly fucking alone.

[onlyimmune]

"He just didn't know," Ellie says, a little tired, "I didn't -- I never told him about how I got infected, and he never asked, so..."

She trails off as Riley opens her arms and her face falls, all pretense completely lost. After only a second of hesitation she's striding forward, reaching out and pulling Riley into a fierce, tight hug.