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[................................................wow. This just sort of turned hilarious actually. That kid would totally give Ellie a run for her money with attitude.]

Short kid with white hair and blue eyes? The one who acts like a loner? Ellie, he can take care of himself.

So can Clementine, but that doesn't mean she needs to follow me into Strike Team bullshit!

[Ellie is not getting the implications here. Not yet.]

So is this a bad time to say I think he's cool, I'm friends with him, aaaaaaand I'm trying to get him on the Strike Team?

What the fuck Riley?

He's like ten. Have you missed the fact that we die all the time out here? You and me, we know this place.

Are you completely out of your mind?!

Um...he's thirteen. And an assassin and has been killing people forever.

Besides, he was handling things just fine. He'd be good for the team.

Awesome. Let's just recruit Alice too, while we're at it.

[She sounds like Joel, and doesn't even realize it.]

What the fuck? She isn't even in the same league.

[She's so annoyed now.]

You're being a dick. He has the ability to take care of himself and to help people and you just want to babysit him instead. He can handle shit fine on his own, Ellie.

I don't want to babysit him, I just want him to stay alive.

Getting on the Strike Team is like signing your own death warrant. It's not like home, we didn't get a choice back then, I-

I should have known you wouldn't understand.

Edited 2014-08-13 07:35 (UTC)

Wait a fucking second.

I don't understand? I fucking get it. You don't want someone else to die and you've seen a lot of death. You think I haven't watched people I love die? Or killed myself? Fuck, both of us have died too. It's going to fucking happen and he knows that too.

Don't tell me I don't understand, Ellie.

[Oh she's pissed now.]

But that doesn't give you the right to just save the universe when some people have told you to back off. Killua is a cool guy and he could probably save your ass. And don't give me that bullshit about him being a kid because we're kids too.

[Instantly, Ellie goes silent, because even she knows that she's gone too far. And like always, Riley nails it, but she's always been terrible at keeping her mouth shut.]

The last thing I want is anybody else trying to save my ass.

Well too fucking bad because you'll have to get people to stop giving a shit about you first or giving a shit about people in general. If you get to save people then they can save your ungrateful ass too.

[She glares at her.]

You sound like Joel and Marlene when they talk to me.

[Fuck holding back.]

What is your right to tell him he can't help when he has the ability to do it?

[She's so frustrated right now, she wants to yell at her, and this isn't even in person. They haven't fought like this in a long time, but it makes her remember all over again just how infuriating Riley can be when she's being stubborn.

The worst part is, Ellie is starting to realize that she's right, too.]

He doesn't have to.

[You didn't have to.]

No one fucking has to. Some people just want to, okay? Because thinking about other people happens.

[She actually points at Ellie's face on the screen.]

New rule. If no one is allowed to risk anything to save you then you can sit on your ass and watch when other people need you. If you wanna help them then show them some fucking respect and let them do the same for you when you need them.

[Riley won't even have to look at her eyes to know that she's made her point. Ellie goes very quiet, resting her bracelet on her lap. Her face is flushed, her freckles standing out.

Why is she fighting this so hard? She's never been the "hero" type, needing to save any stranger that comes along. Killua is a stranger, one of the many faceless people she's fighting to keep safe in this city. She's never even felt this much of a pull to protect the people in her own world. Being the cure is an abstract obligation.

She fights like hell, not because she wants to, but because she can't do any less. Even when she saw the fighting in her city, she never up and joined the Fireflies. It wasn't her battle. None of this was her battle until she got bitten, and then, suddenly, the world fell into her lap.

Riley was the one who changed her, who made her feel that she should fight, should make her own destiny, should make something of the two hands and the brain she'd been given to do something worth it.

Bringing the cure to the Fireflies, fighting in this war... she's doing it because she cares about making something better than this. Why shouldn't Killua, too? Who is she to say he shouldn't?

... and even so, there is that small, selfish part of her. The part that needs other people to be safe. Not so that they'll keep their lives, have futures... but because Ellie is so very lonely, and so very tired of death, and she's becoming more like Joel than she's ever realized.]

I just-

Fuck, Riley.

I told you. I get it. That doesn't give us the right to be dicks and say that we should have the right to fight then say other people shouldn't. He's not even a terrible person and he needs some fucking friends.

[Riley huffs a bit.]

Maybe you should get to know him and what he can do before you just tell him to sit on his ass while you save him.

[Ellie pulls a small face, reaching up to rub at her eyes and nose.]

I'll shut up about him being on the Strike Team, but he's kind of a dick.

So? You're a dick. I'm a dick. He's a dick. We're a pack of dicks.

That's what I'm saying.

I think I'm hitting my dick limit.

Yeah well. That's why you're a lesbian.

[She's irritated but she can still joke.]

[... and it gets Ellie to laugh. Riley is getting all the points this evening. Until she gets unsure.]

Am I? A lesbian?

Fine. You're Rileysexual. You're into anyone who is adorable, dark, and fucking annoying while the best person to ever fucking exist.

[Yeah. So there.]

That's scary specific.

[But fairly accurate.]

And true.

What does that make you?

Ellesbian?

[No. She's pissed. She won't smile.

She won't.

...fuck. Stop curling lips.]

Maybe...

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