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Ellie lined up her shot, took aim with lever-action rifle and fired.
She missed by miles. The only consequence of her shot was scaring off all her would-be targets.
And if there were any left rats left nearby that hadn’t fled at the sound of Ellie’s misfired BB, Riley’s laughter was sure to finish the job of clearing the area of any viable targets.
Ellie groaned. She was not at all excited for the reaction she’d get once Riley spoke, but for the minute she half-enjoyed seeing Riley so relaxed. Her friend’s laugh was loud and rich. One of those all-consuming laughs where you think of nothing else until a shortage of breath forces you to try and calm down. She could almost tolerate being laughed at when the reward was seeing Riley look so lovely.
Almost tolerate.
“Hey!
Dude! it was my first shot, don’t be such a dick!”
Riley continued laughing. In fact, Ellie’s moody frown as she protested only set her back off again. With Ellie, it was just too easy. Anybody else would have meant it about their first shot, would have not given a fuck, and wouldn’t have been half as amusing. But Ellie couldn’t stand not being able to do things first try, and her pout and protests were just too much.
Besides, better to laugh than think about how cute your best friend is when she pouts, right?
Gasping for breath between laughs, she tried not stare at those pouting lips, and really tried not to think about how soft they looked.
A playful shove to the side helped with that.
“Dude! It wasn’t that fuckin’ funny! Would you quit it already?!”
Angry Ellie was even cuter, funnier and poutier. But she was also liable to come roaring into a situation with her switchblade, and Riley really needed to breathe, so she tried to stop laughing.
“Okay, okay, grouchy.
Like you wouldn’t do the exact same thing to me, given the chance. You’d probably be doing a victory dance at me if I missed a shot.
Not that I’d ever fail half as spectacularly as you can, Williams.”
“Shut up! You didn’t even fucking show me how to use a rifle. Pfft, that didn’t even count as a shot, that was practice!”
Ellie would protest this all day given the chance.
“Alright, okay, if you need to tell yourself it didn’t count, then sure, you tell yourself that, Williams.”
“I’m not ‘telling myself that’,” Ellie insisted, with air quotes and a mock impersonation voice, “it’s the fucking truth!”
Riley chuckled again. Despite herself, she really was getting attached to her new friend. Probably not a quality they look for in a Firefly, so she reckoned she ought to be careful. After all...
“Whatever, dude, but I’m still saying it: if that’s your level of ‘skill’,” — Riley mimicked Ellie’s air quotes right back at her — “we can cross ‘ditching the QZ for a life of hunting alone’ off of the future options list. I don’t wanna starve because my hunting partner can’t even manage to scrounge up a roasted rat.”
“Oh what, and you’re so great at this?”
“Yeah, I am actually.
Come on, let’s go find wherever it is you scared those rats away to and I’ll prove it. Might even teach you how to shoot that thing properly...if you can stop being a dick for long enough.”
—
Military school sucked ass, but one of the few perks was enough regular food (soldier’s privileges and all that) that they didn’t actually need — let alone want — to eat the rats that Riley (and Ellie, eventually) has shot. Cutting back through a “forbidden” side of Boston, they managed a pretty awesome trade for their rats. Ellie was psyched about it, while Riley enjoyed the look of joy the she didn’t often see in Ellie’s eyes.
Ellie swore she’d be a much more natural talent with the next new gun she tried. Yeah, Riley was gonna get soaked! (Well, that was the plan at least...)