video @ellie

[pundemic]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Each of those words has a separate amount of emphasis. Ellie is holding her hands up and gesturing like she's trying to make an invisible margarita or something. Anyone who's ever been around teens should recognize the fact it's teenagerese for some form of frustration.]

I'm bored out of my fucking mind. Anybody want to go exploring? Monster hunting?

[Basically: her AU was that she never lost Riley, that it was the two of them that went across America in search of the Fireflies. She never met Joel at all, and her feelings about that whole mess are so mixed she's even willing to go shopping just to take her mind off it.]

Comments

[pundemic]

[She ignores that tone entirely because she can. Instead:]

Whoa, seriously?

[She grew up in a military prep school, 'major' sounds like a big deal and also not a rank you'd ever find on someone so... short. But at the comment about his brother, she feels at least bad enough to look faintly apologetic.]

Sorry. Must be rough.

[alchemyfreak]

Yeah, I was kind of a specialist in the military on my home world. It's an automatic rank of Major, if you pass the entry exam.

[He doesn't really know how to explain Fullmetal, especially considering he's trying to keep the whole automail thing quiet, so he's hoping she's not asking about that part.]

It's been a few years... Being jerked around from one portal to the next, you get kind of used to being alone.

[pundemic]

[Not the weirdest thing she's ever heard out of a military organization, so whatever. It doesn't even occur to her to ask about the other name - just sounds like some kind of jibberish callsign to her.]

So wait-- you've been other places like this one?

[alchemyfreak]

This is my third.

[Yes, he is smirking - because at this point he's very used to this question. No one batted an eye at Lang about him being in Purg before, but here? Here, everyone wanted to know about it when he brought it up.]

[pundemic]

[Fuck, she can't even imagine.]

Don't you want to go home?

[alchemyfreak]

[At that he does sober up some, shrugging as if it was no big deal, but his tone is softer.]

I'm not really sure that's an option for me, anymore.

[He doesn't sound upset, just... resigned to the fact.]

[pundemic]

[She makes a face.]

Well, that fucking sucks.

[I mean, she's from a literal zombie apocalypse but she still wants to go back. Some day. Eventually.]

[alchemyfreak]

Yeah...

[He sort of smirks again, no sense dwelling on what he can't change. He wasn't about to try to explain it all to her though, even if this portal could send him back- supposedly it would just send him back where he was last, and that wasn't home.

Even if he somehow wound up there again, what did he have to look forward to, though? Dying a whole bunch and winding up trapped in some other world, anyway. In a sense it almost.... didn't make a difference. At least here he could use his alchemy and help people, at least here people didn't tell him his world was a fantasy.

One reassuring fake smile coming right up.]

It's been a few years though, so I'm used to it.

[pundemic]

[Riiiight, she buys that smile. Totally. 100 percent.

She just sort of arches an eyebrow at him.]

Shitty thing to have to get used to.

[A beat.]

For what it's worth, I hope you can go back some day. You know. One stranger to another.

[alchemyfreak]

It's not the worst.

[He doesn't really think about the implications behind that response before it's out there, but there it is. Yeah, he's gotten used to a lot of things much worse than "can't get back home" according to his book.]

Thanks... Since this place supposedly isn't keeping us against our will I hope everyone gets back, some day. Everyone that wants to, anyway.

[He's more aware than he'd care to admit that sometimes that just wasn't an option. Coming to these places post death wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibilities and this one seemed to specialize on that topic.

On the plus side, that smile is actually sincere.]

[pundemic]

[Dat altruism tho. Usually it's something Ellie is instantly suspicious of - people who talk about good intentions rarely have them at their heart, but. What the hell, she'll give this guy the benefit of the doubt. This place is drawing that out of her more and more these days.]

Do you?

[alchemyfreak]

Of course, why wouldn't I?

[He's assuming she means 'do you really hope that' and not 'do you want to go home'.]