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“I, like.. Like Will. You, like, know that right?”
They’re sitting in rarified air when the words slip out, breaking silence that has become more and more common over the past few days. It’s getting harder to breathe, and the reality of their situation is settling in - A reality that makes the words even more startling to Elliott, who looks up from tracing the notches on the stock of her rifle with a blank expression.
“What?”
Stephanie averts her gaze, reaching up to twirl those bright red locks around a finger as she clears her throat. When she finds the nerve to look back at the other girl, there’s less scorn than she’d expected, so she presses on. “I, like... Like him. A lot, you know? Like you’d like a boyfriend, like I’d like to be his girlfriend?”
Elliott is just staring at her. After a long moment, she glances down to her rifle, then back again.
“...Okay?” she intones at last, sounding unsure if it’s the correct response- Only to be met with a melodramatic sigh, the redheaded girl falling back onto the bedroom floor and staring up at the ceiling.
“You’re so boring,” Stephanie bemoans then, and Elliott blinks as she peers down at her from her position on the edge of the bed. “Don’t you even like, care? I thought you liked Will.”
“I do,” Elliott replies, without hesitation, and watches Stephanie’s eyes roll. The redheaded girl hauls herself up with minimal effort, and Elliott has to respect that, because it’s something she can understand- Core strength is a real, tangible thing that’s worth taking note of. Stephanie had near tossed her across the room with hers the first time they sparred, and Elliott hasn’t forgotten. Those green eyes are boring into her, trying to figure her out as the Topsoiler sits watching, like Elliott is some specimen.
Elliott doesn’t want to stare back, but it feels inappropriate to go back to her rifle under such scrutiny. So she does stare, looking more uncomfortable by the moment, until finally Stephanie breaks the silence.
“So then why aren’t you mad? Don’t you know how this is all supposed to, like… Work?”
“...No,” Elliott admits, just as confused as last time, and Steph lets out a long sigh.
“You’re meant to be, like, furious with me. That’s how it always goes in movies.”
“Well this isn’t a movie,” Elliott snaps, suddenly, and Steph blinks. There’s more silence; The half-Styx girl is suddenly acutely aware of the labor behind each breath, and she swallows, shaking her head and exhaling slowly as she looks to her friend. She supposes that’s what they are- Friends. It’s new. She’s still learning. “Sorry. It’s just- There’s so much going on that isn’t that. We’re running out of…”
She trails off. Steph rubs her throat and nods, giving a light shrug as she looks away. Elliott sets her rifle aside quietly.
“Do you… Want me to pick a fight about Will? Would it make you feel better?”
“No,” the other girl replies glumly, shoulders slouching as she looks at Elliott forlornly. “I’m thinking about everything too, you know. I’m not, like, stupid. I know we’re running out of air, or whatever, and we’ve probably only got a few days left, or something.”
It’s more like or something - Elliott doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her, shifting uncomfortably on the edge of the bed and unsure what to offer in response. “Sorry,” she settles on at last, because it’s a neutral ground that’s never failed her, and Stephanie huffs out a precious breath.
“I’m just trying to like, feel more normal I guess? Didn’t really think I was going to end up dying at, like, sixteen.”
Elliott's never had the luxury of that assumption, but she doesn't say that either. Stephanie isn’t done anyway, it seems, still going.
“...And I’m pretty sure I almost got Will to do it with me yesterday. Like, you know… It. But Sparks was there- And he was so out of it. And he like, started talking about how, like...”
Elliott hadn’t been paying much attention, but Stephanie’s voice is cracking now. When she glances up from where she’s awkwardly put her hands in her lap, the Topsoiler sniffs, staring into her own lap as she continues to babble.
“...He was saying how if we really end up like, running out of air, we should all crawl into one of the reservoirs instead. Because apparently it’s like, nicer to drown? Like, it’s easier, and it hurts less than suffocating, but like-”
Stephanie’s voice rises in pitch, and Elliott lets her get a few more frantic words out before she slides off the edge of the bed, landing across from her with a little huff as her backside hits the hardwood flooring less gracefully than she’d intended.
“Hey,” she says, and Stephanie wipes at her eyes, sniffing again as she stops her rambling, peering up at her. “Don’t think about that stuff. It doesn’t matter. Whatever happens is going to happen, right? We’ll either be okay, or…”
The redhead hiccups down a little sob as Elliott trails off, taking a deep breath but finding little relief. She swallows once, twice, and Elliott does the same, glancing down.
“I should probably like, be at school right now,” she whispers at last, and the words bring a tearful smile of amusement to her lips as she wallows in circumstance. “If we were above ground, I mean.”
“Yeah, me too, probably,” Elliott says after a moment, and is rewarded by a breathy giggle. She has no idea what Topsoil school is like- She hardly knows what had passed for it in the Colony, fleeing when she was too young to do much studying of anything. But her words seem to be soothing the other girl, so she continues, picking at a thread on the hem of her pants as she crosses her legs and peers at Steph. “...What’s it like? School?”
Stephanie sniffs again, sighing softly and wiping away the last of the tears in her eyes as she looks at Elliott, trying to decide how to answer. “It sucks,” she says at last, before dissolving into a tearful laugh, and Elliott laughs along, though she’s not really sure why. “All anyone wants to do is talk about boys, or like, new shoes, and I like those, but…”
“But?”
“But I guess I know there are more important things now. Not that like, spotting for you while you blow the caps off Limiters with that rifle is much better, but at least it’s different.” Stephanie purses her lips then, letting out a soft sigh and wringing her hands. They sit in silence for a while, until Elliott sees Stephanie’s bottom lip wobble again.
She thinks fast.
“When you say talking about boys, what do you… Mean? What’s there to talk about?”
Stephanie looks at her like an alien, and it’s Elliott’s turn to give a breathy, uncertain laugh. She reaches up to run a hand through her dark, short cropped hair, rubbing at the buzzcut near her neck and feeling her face heat up.
“There’s plenty,” Stephanie says at last, with all the determination of a Styx preacher at the pulpit. “But like, a lot of it is really just gossip, I guess. Like if they kiss well. Or how big their… Nevermind.”
Elliott lifts a brow. She can see Steph’s face burn a bit, but doesn’t comment, letting the girl keep talking.
“...Is Will a good kisser?” she asks as she recovers from the verbal blunder Elliott hadn’t even understood, and Elliott shrugs, shaking her head.
“I don’t know. I’ve never kissed him. I mean, I have, on the cheek plenty, but it’s always felt like… There’s more important things to worry about. All the time,” she admits, and rubs her own thigh thoughtfully with an open palm as though deep in thought for a moment. “What about you? Have you? You said…”
“Nope,” Stephanie sighs, shaking her head. “We got, like… Interrupted, you know? But almost. He was cute. He kept trying to like, avoid me, but then he changed his mind I guess. I think he likes you too, and he didn’t want to be disloyal or whatever. Which is dumb, since you guys apparently aren’t even like, a thing.” She makes a vague gesture with her hands, peering at Elliott. “I’ve kissed boys. I was just hoping I might get to kiss one more, before I like, suffocate or whatever.”
Elliott makes a humming noise, shifting uncomfortably and pressing her back up against the frame of her bed. It’s aching again, but she’s almost used to it now. “I’ve never kissed a boy,” she admits, and then pauses. “I’ve never kissed anybody.”
“What?”
Steph’s squawk makes her ears twinge, and Elliott grinds her teeth at the sound to muscle through it, shrugging. It doesn’t feel like that big of a deal to her- But the other is starting to make her reconsider that, and she peers at Stephanie sideways as the girl looks at her.
“That’s like, so sad. I mean, you like boys, right?”
“Obviously,” the halfbreed snaps, embarrassed under the scrutiny, and Stephanie rolls her eyes.
“Well like, what about girls?”
Elliott makes a face, rubbing at her thigh again and trying not to look as uncertain or confused as she feels. This is all turning out to be a bit more than she’d bargained for, and Stephanie’s words set something fluttering anxiously in her belly. “I mean… Is that even an option?”
“Duh!”
The halfbreed jumps at the outburst, staring at Stephanie, who reigns in her excitement after a moment, if it can even be called that. Perhaps in the most literal sense of the word- She’s just overeager to share her world, Elliott thinks, in what might be her last few days on it.
“People are gay, or whatever,” she says after a moment, before peering at the ceiling. “I think I’d quite like to be a lesbian. Except I’d probably marry a man? I don’t know.”
Elliott purses her lips, trying to figure out what’s being said and having very little success. “You’re not making any sense,” she says at last, rubbing at her thigh again. Steph sighs and looks at her, scooting forward a bit.
“Right, so it’s like this. I’m starting to think you guys like, didn’t see a lot of action in the Deeps or whatever-”
Elliott opens her mouth to begin to protest that she’s seen plenty of action- But Stephanie shushes her before she can voice the misconception, barreling on.
“-but up here, some boys like boys more than they like girls, and some girls like girls more than they like boys. I don’t get it, but it’s like whatever, because boys are pretty great. So I guess more for me and you, right?”
“Right,” Elliott says, though she’s not entirely sure what she’s agreeing to, still trying to wrap her head around Stephanie’s rambling.
“But I’ve also like, never kissed a girl. So I guess I’m never going to know what all the fuss is about, since we’re sort of bollocksed down here.”
Silence falls between the two again, with Elliott deep in contemplation and Steph tracing invisible patterns on the hardwood floor between them. Something rattles deep below, and a low mechanic whirring peaks before the lights shudder off, plunging the room into darkness. Elliott tenses, but Stephanie seems unbothered, letting out a sigh.
“That’ll be Sweeney and the backup generator. He said something last night, about like- Trying to reroute power to only the rooms we need. To conserve it, or whatever, but…”
“But we won’t need it,” Elliott sighs in the inky dark, but her eyes have already adjusted- Steph is nothing more than a gray silhouette in front of her, and she’s relaxed now that she knows the outage is nothing more sinister than their already grim situation. She thinks about the last time the power had cut- Thinks about Chester’s parents.
“Hey,” Stephanie says, just as suddenly as the lights had gone out, and Elliott’s eyes flick up to her. “I was thinking. We could like… Kiss. If you wanted.”
There is silence between them again, and Elliott’s stomach twists. Something like nerves, but not quite, and she feels her mouth go dry. “Oh,” she says, and sees Stephanie’s shoulders hike up, embarrassed.
“We don’t like, have to, I was just thinking-”
“Alright,” Elliott says, and sees Steph’s lashes flutter on a blink in the dim light.
“Alright?”
“Yeah,” she says again, with a light shrug and those butterflies still tickling her stomach. “It’s whatever, right? You can show me how it’s done, since I’ve never bothered.”
Stephanie huffs softly as she scoots closer. “You like, really don’t think it’s that big a deal? You really don’t even care if you freaking... Die without kissing someone?”
“Well I care now,” Elliott says, reaching out to brush some of Steph’s hair away from her face like she's done with Will so many times. It just seems right. The girl bats her hand away, but gently, and Elliott lifts a brow. “I can’t let you beat me.”
“Oh, shut up,” Steph says, and surges forward to press a quick, barely there peck to Elliott’s lips to make her do exactly that.
They sit there quietly, in the aftermath, both staring into their laps flustered beyond measure.
“That it?” Elliott asks, and Stephanie shakes her head, clearing her throat.
“No,” she says after a moment.
“Oh,” Elliott says, clearing her throat in the silence and reaching up to rub between her shoulders to relieve some of the tension there.
“But… How about tomorrow I show you the rest? If we like… Wake up, that is.”
“That… Sounds good to me. I’ll be here,” the half-Styx girl replies, only to jolt as the power surges back on. Sweeney must have stopped his meddling, or worked out a solution, and as she’s bathed in the glow of the fluorescents, she realizes Steph can see her, bright blush and all. She clears her throat, nervous under the girl’s scrutiny, but the redhead isn’t much better. Her freckles are almost obscured by the flush of her face, and Steph leaps to her feet.
“Right! Well, I’m going to go check on Chester.”
Elliott’s mind hasn’t stopped whirring. She nods, clearing her throat, and as Steph bolts out the door, she hauls herself back up onto her bed, glancing at the rifle by her dresser. Really, she’d thought she’d had enough to think about. Now this.
She brushes her fingertips along her lips, warm and a bit chapped and still tingling, and thinks she’d barely felt Steph’s at all. But if they survive until tomorrow, then... Then what?
Compared to the thought of suffocating in her sleep, Stephanie has given her something better, if not confusing, to think about as she lays there.
So, before she sleeps, she does.
Again. And again.
And hopes to wake, for curiosity's sake.