I ship Riley and Ellie so hard. I can't even.
Ellie sat up with a jolt. Her hands immediately went to the back of her head. It was throbbing with pain.
"Fuck!"
Her eyes blinked as her memory slowly returned.
"Where the fuck am I?" She thought as she looked around the small room she was now in. The first thing she noticed were the bars. She thought she was in a cage. The small damp cell was dark and the ceiling was leaking. The water droplets were being caught in a small dinged up silver bucket on the floor next to the cot with old dirty sheets she was sitting on. She climbed out of the bed and made her way to the wall of bars. She looked out through them and notice someone was just outside her prison.
"Hey!" Ellie yelled to alert the man.
"You're up." Said the guard casually.
"What? You thought I was fucking dead?" Ellie asked with a sting to her words.
"I was told you'd be out longer." Said the guard, glancing at Ellie before returning his gaze back out in front of him.
"Where the hell am I?" Ellie asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Firefly Boston HQ."
"That helps." The redhead said sarcastically.
"Look, that thing on your arm is the real deal, we can't be letting an infected go walking around our place just like that." The Firefly said as he pulled off his hat and whipped the sweat from his brow with his arm. "Sure is a hot one." He commented.
"Don't change the subject!" Ellie snapped. "Where's Riley?"
"She's with-" He stopped. "I was given orders. I can't talk about it."
"But you know." Ellie said, now trying to persuade her way to the answers she craved. "You could just-"
"Look kid." He started. "I'd love to let you know what's going on. But I have orders." He paused. "I'm sorry."
Ellie stood there for a moment then sighed before turning around and heading back to the filthy bed. "Thanks for nothing." She said as she shook her head defeatedly.
She climbed up onto the bed and pulled her knees up to her chin. She stared at the water bucket, watching the droplets fall and splash over and over again as her mind wandered back to the events of the previous days.
"Ellie." Riley said. "Ellie, your arm."
Ellie looked down and examined her arm.
A bite.
"No." She said in shock as she dropped her blood covered knife to the floor. "No no no no no..." She said in a panic as she whipped the dripping blood from her bite.
She looked over at Riley, the tears already forming in her eyes, only to be greeted by Riley's own hand with a bite mark as well.
Riley sighed defeatedly as she looked at her hand.
Ellie looked up, panicked and scared. She felt the anger begin to build up, she was mad at herself for not being able to climb up the scaffolding and causing not only herself to be bitten but also Riley, her best friend. She saw a pipe just across the room and went over and picked it up. The pipe was long and rusty and it turned Ellie's hands a slight orange color upon contact, but she didn't care. She didn't care about anything as she walked over to Riley and raised it high above her head, bringing it down on the table of flower pots just behind her friend. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" She screamed as she smashed the pots to pieces. Once most were broken, she used the last of her energy to fling the old pipe to the side and fell to the floor next to her friend exhausted and out of breath.
"There's some more stuff over there you can break." Riley said with a shrug. She kept her eyes cast downward at the ground. She was scared, more scared than ever before.
Ellie wipped her eyes, smeering the infected's blood across her face. "What are we gunna go?" She asked, her voice sound hopeless as she tried to choke back her sobs.
"The way I see it, we got two options." The older girl said as she took her gun out. "Option one. We take the easy way out." Riley motioned to her pistol. She then looked over at Ellie, looking for a reaction, when there wasn't one she looked back at her gun. "It's quick and painless." Still no reaction from Ellie. Riley then sat the gun out in front of her. "I'm not a fan of option one."
Ellie sat there looking out in front of her, listening intently to the older girl speak. Her fingers trailed over her bloody bite.
"Two. We fight."
"Fight for what?" Ellie asked, her voice almost seemed surprised at Riley's option two. "We're gunna turn into one of those things."
"There are a million ways we should've died before today." Riley shrugged. "And a million ways we can die before tomorrow."
There was a pause as Ellie took in all that Riley had been saying.
"But we fight... for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it's two minutes... Or two days... We don't give that up." Riley turned to find Ellie staring straight at her. "I don't want to give that up." Ellie looked away, staring back at her feet.
"My vote... Let's just wait it out." Riley looked back at Ellie and Ellie whipped more tears from her eyes. "You know we can.. be all poetic and just lose our minds together."
They sat in silence before Ellie spoke up.
"What's option three?"
Riley looked away defeatedly and sighed. She then looked over at Ellie and waited until their eyes met. "I'm sorry."
Ellie looked away, her somber expression was evident as she whipped more blood across her face well trying to dry her tears.
Riley looked at the younger girl, her eyes lingering on the redhead's lips for longer than she dared to admit before she sighed and gripped Ellie's arm. "C'mon." She said as she lifted herself off the floor. "Let's get outta here."
Ellie sat there, staring off into space. Letting the events of the day set in. It was too much. She couldn't handle it. Although the end of her life was approaching, she felt lucky. She was with her best friend. The only person on this Earth she truly cared about.
Riley extended her hand to Ellie and the younger girl took hold. Riley lifted the redhead to her feet and the two began their silent walk back to their stuff they had left behind in their sprint from the infected. The long hallways that were lined with shipping crates and old boxes seemed dark and gloomy, even though the mall lights were still shinning bright.
They soon entered the room where Ellie's walkman and the glass display case where they had shared their first kiss was.
"Aw fuck." Ellie said as she ran over and picked up the pieces of her now broken walkman.
Riley looked over Ellie's shoulder and saw the younger girl's most prized possession in pieces on the floor. "I think.. an infected must have attacked it. A clicker maybe?" Riley said, feeling guilty because it was her who turned the music on.
Ellie looked at it, disappointedly. She tried to piece it back together even though she knew it was beyond any repair she could do herself.
"I bet we can find something better around here." Riley suggested, her voice dripping with guilt as she looked around the old store hopping to spot a walkman display or something of the sort.
"It's fine." Ellie said with a sigh. "It.. doesn't really matter now." The younger girl gave up messing with her broken music player and left it in pieces on the floor. "Let's go get our bags. I'm starving." She lied as she took off for the next room.
Riley looked down at the pieces of walkman on the floor and quickly scooped them up before following Ellie back into the other room. She saw her sitting down with their bags. She sighed and went over to an empty table.
"She needs time." Riley thought to herself as she sat down and dumped the broken music player pieces onto the table and went about trying to fix it.
Time passed slowly. Ellie sat on the floor with her legs out stretched in front of her while she looked down at the toes of her sneakers. Her mind was racing and she was exhausted. She allowed herself to close her eyes for a few minutes, but a nightmare of falling off a high building woke her back up instantly. "Fuck." Ellie muttered to herself after she realized it was a dream.
She stretched a little and let her arms fall to her sides, but as they did her right hand fell onto something hard. She looked over and saw the waterguns. She then began to scan the room for Riley. She was worried, until she saw her sitting with her back facing her at a small table. Ellie looked at Riley for a moment as her feelings for the older girl welled up in her heart causing her chest to tighten. She replayed the kiss in her mind and that stupid smile came back to her face.
Ellie looked back at the waterguns next to her and smirked.
Thanks for reading. By the way, I want to write a collaborative fic with this ship. Maybe in an AU or something. If you're interested, please message me and we'll talk. :)
As usual, reviews are greatly appreciated.
I hope you guys are liking this, the next chapter should be pretty cute. I think.. I don't really know. I haven't written it yet... XD
