I Hurry When I'm Home

[fungi_notpunny]

Who: Initially open, then closed to Ellie and Felicity in the temple.
Where: In the city, then Temple of Industry
When: After the various gods disappear, including the animal god. Toward the evening.
Warnings: Ellie has a lot of PTSD issues, and without gods of love or revelry she's in a pretty dark place.



1. Open

Ellie walks in the evening gloom, shoulders slumped and eyes clipping over everyone around her, occasionally turning around and looking behind her. She’s not exactly rushed, but she does seem wary. She tries to hold onto her personal space as best she can, avoiding people who come too close.

Some recognize her as a god, others don't. In this city, a hunting goddess isn't a popular one, and that's how Ellie likes it.

As she walks, Ellie vaguely tugs at the sleeve of her flannel. It's so fucking hot, even after the sun’s gone down. But she can't afford to roll up her shirt, no matter how hot she is.

“I hate this stupid place and its fucking nonsense seasons,” Ellie mutters to herself. It's not cold which is good, but there was no transition from the cold to the hot. It just suddenly, horribly happened.

2. Ellie and Felicity

Eventually, Ellie makes it to the temple of industry, and steps inside. She's sweaty and looks like a mess, clothes a bit mud-streaked and sticks and leaves clinging to her. The expression on her face isn't the friendliest, to say the least.

Still, when she approaches Felicity, she's a little more hesitant, looks a little less murderous. It's true that she hasn't spoken to Felicity in a few weeks, and Ellie’s generally been off the grid for… a while, now.

“Can--can I crash here tonight?” Ellie knows she’s being abrupt, but at least she's not angry. At least not yet.

Comments

[justanitgirl]

Since her initial post the wooden games of various types have piled up and now have their own shelving unit. There are shelves of blankets and pillows, and little rolled up mattresses sitting to the side. Tech has invaded industry and there are some fiberoptic cables decorating the room as well as a table with several of the computers sitting around it. This is what Felicity calls redecorating. When she sees Ellie her face lights up. Her voice is familiar, as is the slight shyness that it conveys. This is exactly the girl she could picture at the other end of their connections. The question that she asks isn't really weird, just unexpected. The blanket offer for people to stay is always in effect. Everyone is always welcome to stay in either of her temples. Besides, even with the lack of love, she is mostly unchanged. More logical and sometimes more cold, but there's more holding her kindness in check then just love. Home, the care, and love from it are still inside her in abundance. Standing, she moves to embrace Ellie in a tight hug. "Totally. Anytime you want." She'd even kick Oliver out of the bed so Ellie can have the bed all to herself.

[fungi_notpunny]

Unfortunately, where the love of home gives feelings of affection can drive others, Ellie's sense of home is wrapped up in a person she loves and resents in equal measure. Without the deep, familial love she feels for Joel, all that's left is anger and rage. This goes for most of the people in her life.

Ellie's life has been a cascade of being handed off from person to person, by death or abandonment. A soldier who she'd adored had ultimately picked his family over taking her in--she sort of gets it, but it still burns a hole in her stomach. Riley--Riley makes tears well up, and Ellie's' still so mad at her for dying, even though that doesn't make sense, but... if Riley hadn't been bitten, they would have been okay. They would have been, at least until Riley died in some other awful way.

Winston, even though she wasn't that close with him, just died of a fucking heart attack. Ellie finally started learning about Marlene and getting close to her over the three weeks she was kept there, and then she passed her off to Joel and Tess. Tess was the one who begged Joel to take her to the Fireflies--the only fucking militia group still trying to find a cure--just after Ellie been bitten. Sam and Henry, dead just after even Joel started warming up to them, telling stories about motorcycles around a campfire, at least until Sam turned and Henry shot Sam, then himself.

Joel's final bullshit, where they finally got to the fucking Fireflies, and he apparently decided that he didn't want to go through with finding a vaccine at the last second. He'd asked her, right before, and she told him she wanted to go through with it, then they could do whatever.

Then he fed her some bullshit about there being more immune people. Ellie doesn't know if that's true, but she was under anesthesia. Obviously they were going to do something with her, and he...stopped it. Ellie used to be a little afraid to think how, but now with all the love drained out of her, she can think about it. She can imagine how Joel probably killed every Firefly in that fucking place. She doesn't think they would have let her go, no matter what. She doesn't know why, but she can imagine it.

She saw the blood on Joel's clothes.

So no, Ellie doesn't have too many neutral relationships, and is too consumed with her own upset to really be stable. Still, she's doing better over the course of a couple of days.

That said.

Ellie shoves an elbow at Felicity's ribs before Felicity can really get her arms around Ellie, backing off. There's more anxiety and panic than rage behind the action, but it ends up being the same thing when Ellie opens her mouth.

"Don't touch me." It's not even that Felicity reminds Ellie of anything bad in of herself, Ellie just... doesn't do hugs from strangers. There are too many reasons to expect the worst from them. She's been grabbed suddenly too many times, held tight, strangled--

She's not interested in repeating the experience, even if Felicity smells cleaner than...most people Ellie's encountered in her life.

"I... Don't." I don't hug? Don't touch me? Ellie's not sure which it is, but it gets the point across.

At least she didn't stab Felicity on reflex. That would be bad.

[justanitgirl]

The reaction isn't something Felicity was expecting. To be elbowed like that, she wasn't a brick like everyone she knew. She was more squishy, and the elbow honestly stung through to her core. With a wince, she actually does back up, hand going to the area where she'd been elbowed.

Ellie had a strong hit.

"Noted." There's not much more she can think of to say on that. Oliver had said he wasn't a hugger, but that was different. The hugs between the two of them weren't exactly something she'd done on purpose, not at first. She, in and of herself was a hugging person. She hugged, her mother hugged, it was a genetic thing. And every time Oliver came back from something that she wasn't sure if he really would make it back from, she hugged. Sometimes practically clung to him, but hugged.

But Ellie wasn't Oliver or anyone on her team. Ellie was a young girl who looked like she'd been through hell and back. She looked older then she should have been. Still a kid, but there was something about her that seemed older.

"Anyone ever tell you you've got a very strong elbow?"

[fungi_notpunny]

Ellie deflates as she sees the actual look of hurt on Felicity's face. God, she's an idiot. People here aren't like back in her world, they aren't all trying to hurt her. Not that most people in Jackson are either, but not too many people do casual touch except the kids, who Ellie doesn't really get along with.

Maria's tolerable because she casually touches everyone. Joel is Joel, who's the only person she's even sort of comfortable being close to these days. Even that's complicated as hell.

"Sorry," Ellie mumbles contritely, shifting her weight. "Um, usually I'm--" Aiming to kill, she doesn't say. That's probably too much. Adults in Jackson freaked out when she mentioned killing people, even though they knew what the world was like. People here might be even more upset, because they're mostly like back in the old days. They think she should be worrying about her outfit matching instead of where her next meal will come from.

"Aiming for self defense," Ellie finally says. "Sorry. Are you okay?"

Ellie doesn't think she could have broken anything, but who knows.

Sorry it's so late

[justanitgirl]

"I've had worse." It's an attempt at reassurance. Not untrue, but reassurance all the same. Her body still hurts, centered around Ellie's punch, but she's not going to dwell on it. At least she's going to try not to. Ellie's a kid and it was reflex. She's seen it with the others. Don't rub salt in the wounds, just keep going. "You wanna play a game or something?" She moves from foot to foot, wanting to touch her, but trying to respect her space. A new concept for Felicity in personal space management. "I've got some tea around here that I stole from the hearth temple." By stole, she means that she was given it.