exsiliumlogs | adventure without risk is disneyland [closed]

( She's gotten most the goop off. Collette's not sure if that's much of a help, since she's left freezing, but small favors say it feels nicer to be a little cleaner.

Freezing or otherwise.

Low light hides how red and puffy her eyes really are. Collette clears her throat, still sounding unsteady. She tries, at least. )

Um, maybe not yet. I will be, though.

( As okay as okay really got, for them. It's still something comforting to look forward too, less of a daunting task, to continue on being okay when she's not holding back all of what she feels. Right now, most of what Collette feels is drained. )

You?

( She has a jumper bundled in her hand, and she's kneeling down next to Coll, unbunching it, shaking it out and holding it out. Ellie is already wrapped up, she's fine.

Do you need an olive branch, after something like this? The jumper is like an olive green, so maybe it can kind of work. )

Yeah. You will.

( Having faith in that is essential. She needs to believe they'll be okay, whatever that means. )

Been worse. ( A beat. And, rushed: ) It was my choice, you know? Don't add that into the pile of things making you feel shit.

( Ellie is not subtle. )

( Collette takes the jumper with a softer thank you, pulling it on and using the dry fabric to rub at her disgusting face. She's cleaned up spider bits and gore in favor of dirtying herself up with her own fluids.

Ewwwww.

Her head jerks back, honestly surprised by what Ellie says. )

Wh-- I wouldn't! I mean, it's not. I'm glad Nash was there, that's all. If he hadn't... if Steph hadn't, with Caesar...

( She doesn't know how to phrase what it is eating at her. Ellie's part of it, but she can't even recapture that initial anger from earlier in the day.

She's too damn happy Ellie is here to be blunt and offer her clothes and make stupid or smart decisions to want to revisit how she'd felt over a blatantly irresponsible one (in her mind). )

But they did. And you did. Which was dumb ( she says thickly, needing to swallow again ) 'cause stealing my thing that I do is so not the smart plan.

Then you would have seen me back in the city. ( Death does mean much here, and she'd always had half a death wish, while the other half of her fought tooth and nail for her life.

That's not all there is to this, and she grits her teeth, glancing away as she abandons kneeling to sit and be a little more comfortable. ) You need a better thing that you do, then. I'm sick of seeing my friends get hurt, you shouldn't make it a routine.

( Soft, rather than as harsh and bitten out as her words can be, but there's a current of anger and other messy emotions beneath the surface. ) It's not a decent strategy.

That's not a solution! ( She says it fiercely, voice cracking midway through the word solution. It's the opposite of a solution. ) It's not okay for you to die just becaues the Inititive is some kind of creepy, possessive, desperate army of mad scientists ! You say you're sick of seeing your friends get hurt, El, well I am too!

( And she finds herself starting to wail, tears picking back up as she doesn't know what else to do, how to shape the words to make Ellie see why it bothers Collette, too. )

And no, it's not the best, but it's the one we had, and the one I'm any good at! I get torn up, but -- but it's okay, when it's with the others -- and they're not, you're not... I can't protect you guys! I don't know how to, and I can't help when you get hurt and then you do and it's with venom and all I can think is maybe I can turn into one of these freaky spiders so we can figure out an antivenom because anything large enough to make them putty is too big to keep hidden from the bad guys!

It's good enough. ( Hissed back, because she doesn't care if Collette is going to cry, or be hurt, because she has to get this through her head. ) Robyn was prepared to blow herself up so the rest of us could get away. Do you understand that? She didn't heal up, and she didn't have some-- resurrection technology. She jumped, and there was no net, and she knew-- she did that!

( She's only really told Steph about Robyn. Not anyone else.

It's hard to watch, to realise that in fractions of seconds your friend will be gone, and to run out of time. Robyn had been the one who sympathised with the invaders, tried to understand. Robyn was the one who didn't want to kill, because human life was sacred. She was the one who believed suicide was a mortal sin, and how did self sacrifice line up with that? Was it the same, was it different? Did Robyn have time to muddle through that and find some peace before the grenade blew? Ellie not holding onto Collette, but her voice is raw, even if she's speaking softly. It's a force of habit, when she's out in the wild. You forget how to yell because it's too dangerous. )

Do you understand that? She did it on purpose, and she saved all of us. She didn't regenerate. None of that, she just did it. The least I can do it protect people when I can, even if it's cheaper, so get that through your head. I don't need you protecting me.

( Ellie Linton can't even die right. )

Edited (wow a thousand edits no seriously will the typos ever end i love you for your patience) 2013-05-02 05:49 (UTC)

Don't say that! Don't you dare say that like it doesn't mean something scary, Ellie, don't you dare!

( Collette's switching gears, from sad and confused to sad and angry and scared. What Ellie's saying isn't right. She reaches out to her, hesitating before grabbing on. She doesn't want Ellie to respond badly to being touched, so she turns her hand palm-up. Asking for Ellie to give something of herself over, but not touching, not yet.

Looking at with puffy red eyes? Yes. Collette's attention is securely on Ellie's face.

She doesn't need to be told what it feels like to accept an inevitable death that has a chance of saving everything else you love. She doesn't need to guess what it feels like to make that deliberate choice to run head first into your own demise, unable to do anything else because that distraction, that sacrifice, might buy you the world. All she can wonder at is if the dread and acceptance of those decisions comes any quicker for being sudden, or if the hours leading into it make it better and worse.

Worse, because you can't say goodbyes, because you don't want to believe the worst is going to happen. Better, because you might have a chance to hit acceptance knowing what you did could have a greater meaning. What's a whole world, in light of a handful of handicapped lives?

She wants to cry; she wants to laugh; she wants to grab on to Ellie and hold her there and make her understand, but she knows that doesn't work. She doesn't know what will penetrate with Ellie. Bluntness? )

You need me, and I need you, and each person here needs each other because that's what teams do. We protect each other! It's not a thing only one person does. We might not do it all in the same way, but we're all here for each other, or else why the heck are any of us bothering at all?

( She needs a team again. Breathing in shakily, she ignores the break in her voice to continue speaking. )

People do some crazy things because we think it's what we have to do. You didn't have to throw yourself in front of that thing. I don't care if we have resurrection whatever, having a -- having a death wish, that's dumb! Dumber than dumb! It's gross! Do you think it's going to do anything except maybe let you stop thinking for a little bit that you're a failure for the people you couldn't save, or the things you can't stop? It doesn't. You think about them all the time and it gets twisted and heavy in your stomach and your chest gets tight and sometimes you can't breathe, and it's all still there. I don't want you dying on me. I don't care if they bring you back, it doesn't mean you didn't die! It doesn't mean you don't remember that you messed up, or you did what you could, or whatever your last thoughts were before the long dark tunnel or whatever it is you see when you die right then when they bring you back. It's not okay!

( Her voice hikes higher, though she keeps it in a whisper much as Ellie has, emulating without realizing. It's a tactic the Animorphs had needed ot use between morphs, right before a battle, and it's keying Collette up in a whole variety of conflicting ways. )

Your life isn't cheap! You're not cheap. Doing things different doesn't mean doing them worse than everyone else. And I couldn't -- I couldn't even --

( Her voice cracks. )

I couldn't do a thing for you when you were lying there bleeding and venomed or whatever it is spiders do to you and thinking what am I going to do if she really does die? I don't want to lose you too!

( The last makes less sense -- lose Ellie too, along with... who? Missing Transports? People from home? She hasn't indicated what it might be. Collette's crying again, frustrated and scared and balling the hand she wasn't offering Ellie up in the fabric of the jumper. Hold it together. Hold it together, Collette. )

( Her mouth is half open to bark out her own retaliation, accusations cutting her words to ribbons, but Collette just keeps going, and every word has some fresh impact, strikes her chest as forces out the air, so that she's struggling to breath, let alone form words.

Collette blunt to a new level, doesn't she? The smiley, happy ones, the one that has some optimistic solution for everything. It was worse when they took you to task, because you never saw it coming, You thought it would always be light and easy, with them. She feels dazed, and ill, like she might vomit.

It doesn't mean you didn't die. )

Envenomed, ( she corrects, absently, because there's nothing else she can think of to say. ) When a spider bites you, you're envenomed, I think. It also means, uh, infused with hostility or bitterness.

( Flatly. Trying to work out the emotions and the words and everything else to respond to what Collette is saying just feels too hard, beyond her. Clicking into this is so much easier.

But it's not all there can be, any more. That part of her belonged to Before the War, didn't it? The Ellie that was a top English student, captained the netball team, snuck off during play rehearsals. She couldn't just grab onto that Ellie any more and use her to a shield, because she was already shot to pieces, and there was no kind of resurrection tech that could bring her back.

For a little while, she just sits there, lets the echoes of Collette's words lap over her, even if she can't quite make herself settle her gaze so that it meets Collette, more just looking at her hands. )

You get it, too? That feeling like there's no air, anymore?

( Collette only blinks at the correction in terminology. Envenomed is sometihng to file away, probably to be forgotten until the next time they all ran into supersized venomous spiders. Whenever that'd be.

Next Tuesday?

In the silence that falls between them, Collette also sits still. She finally lets her hand touch Ellie, anything neutral in reach, to see how her friend will react.

Her own reply is slow in coming. When Collette does find it in her to be honest, to continue to be honest, it's with a small smile and a glance down to Ellie's hands. )

Yeah. I do.

( She tugs on Ellie's arm, pulling her closer, if Ellie will come. )

It's part of why I keep swimming here, you know? I have to breathe for that. So I don't get so freaked out. You keep breathing 'cause you know how to, and it passes.

( She tugs again, more insistent. Collette takes measures of comfort in physical contact. But right now, more than anything, she wants some reassurance about Ellie being there, and not being lost in dark places where she thinks like she was talking. If Ellie doesn't actively resist, Collette will pull her into a hug, awkward and unprefaced by anything more than the last words she'd said.

They need to be okay. Scared, and regretful, and whatever else they are too, but they need to be okay. )

( There's no reaction. No shrugging away of the contact, at least, but she might lean into it a little, just without thinking, relieved by it. That she was still a thing that could be touched, that was not entirely repellent. People might be angry with her, furious, but they still wanted contact. She hadn't imposed some exile on herself by virtue of being Ellie, or this not-Ellie, this broken thing that used to be Ellie Linton.

She nods, about the swimming. ) Makes sense.

( So soft that she's not certain she said it aloud, and she hardly cares, because Collette is tugging at her and it's a relief to just fall into a hug. It's never really a loose hug, gentle. As soon as that immediate warmth of another body is there she's gripping onto Collette hard, arms wrapping around her and dragging her closer, because she needs something, someone to hold onto so badly. And normally it would be Steph, these days it's always Steph that she latches onto and Steph that reminds her to breathe, Steph who sees her at her worst, but it was Collette that she hurt this time and she's not sure she can look at Steph, because she's the trained vigilante and Ellie's some teenager that rides her luck and gives in to her temper. It has to be Collette, because Collette was the one that took a sledgehammer to the mess of her logic, this time.

It's strange having friends that you can just hug, again. It never felt okay to just hug Homer, and physical affection was so complicated with Lee, and she could barely look at Kevin anymore because Corrie had been the only thing they ever had in common, and their tenuous friendship died with her. Robyn and Corrie were dead, and she wasn't sure Fi could deal with her, all the time. )

I'm sorry.

( It really is nice, even when you don't know what to do once you're hugging someone. Collette closes her eyes, keeping her breathing steady through an effort of will. What's she supposed to say, to sorry? She's not the comforter, not really, and she's not all that inspiring most the time either. )

You bet your butt you are.

( She sticks to something simple, her tone leaning more toward humor with how soft it is than more lecturing. )

Don't scare me like that, okay?

( She's said that to too many people in the last week. At least this time, it's from being scared for them. )

I don't know what to do when you get hurt, either.

( All said softly, all while hugging back as tightly as Ellie clings to her. She tries a variant of what her mother used to do, using one hand to stroke down Ellie's hair and upper back. )

Okay. I won't.

( That doesn't feel like enough, like she understands it well enough, so she clears the roughness out of her throat as best she can (not entirely successful). ) Promise.

( Collette's younger than her, isn't she? Not by much, a year, but this seems all wrong and mixed up. She'd always felt so superior to the kids in younger years, before the war, and even that was scrambled, now, because she was clinging to someone younger than her and trying not to make any embarrassing sounds. )

You have to be careful too, all right?

As careful as I ever am!

( She means that as a jest of sorts, though she amends her statement with a quieter, more firm: )

I'll try.

( She will try. She's not going to make claims preemptively on her success rate, that's all. )

( She's not sure that's careful enough, if she's being honest, and that is her tendency. Ellie eases back from the hug, and there's more than a healthy dose of doubt and worry. )

You lot are gonna give me gray hairs.

( Look who's talking. )

Yeah, well, I bet someone has some hair-dye.

( She grins, even if it's still a little wobbly. )

What if I just go grey gracefully? Accept it. It could make me look really distinguished.

( Okay, she's going to nudge Coll's chin a little. )

We're going to be okay. All of us. Even Sleepyhead.

( Poor Caesar, but maybe there is some levity to be had, some positivity. )

You idiots really get under my skin.

( And she means it in a good way, even if she sounds halfway to being as moody as she always is. )

( Collette snorts, shaking her head after the nudge. )

Distinguished is for old men. You'd look stately.

( A nonsense answer, but one that precedes the smile with more strength and surety behind it. )

Of course we are! Just no more giving me heart attacks, okay? I've got a future to look out for!

( She swallows her own smile when she registers what she's said; laughs a little, giggles, really, and nudges Ellie. Girl with not future but this one. Yeah... she does have a future of some sort to look out for. )

Sounds like something you should get checked out by a doctor, El, careful there.

Isn't stately what people say about the Queen? So, I'd be an old lady surrounded by corgis?

( if nonsense is what we're going for... )

I thought heart attacks were meant to be good cardio.

( Remember that genius plan, Coll? Because that may be a new Ellie excuse from now on. Although, she is going to be rolling her eyes, sitting back on her heels for about half a second before flopping down next to Collette. )

I'll ask Leonard about it when I get home and see what he thinks. Odds are he just levels a glare at me for a bit and then pours himself some scotch.

Corgis are friendly little guys... short, friendly little guys! Life could be worse.

( Now that, she tries to make sound stately. Collette ruins it all as she snorts soon after. )

Yeah, when running from the crazy stuff, not sitting there going "what can I do? What can I do?" Give me a good old bear-bull-python any day!

( Leonard... Ah! )

Leonard... Leo! He was supposed to help me weigh my eagle a while back.

adventure without risk is disneyland [closed]

oh hell yes penguin time

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cw: suicide

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