worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

Except it is like that, isn't it? He looks vaguely confused. "Your goal here is to get your deal. Get your person back. To do that, I have to get better." Even if he's still not quite sure what "get better" means. Right now, he's focusing on tackling fear, memories, and choice-- with mixed success, considering items one and three include the library and he's not doing so great there.

And he does have a secondary motivation, now, since he spoke to Connor about it, but... it's not really much different from this one.

Ellie opens her mouth. Closes it, takes a breath, then tries again.

"We're friends. Right?"

Duh. She's trying to make a point.

He looks at her sidelong, not sure what that point might be. "Yes." That's why he wants to help her so bad, after all. If he didn't like her... well, maybe he'd still be trying, he knows that's what's expected of him. But maybe not as hard. He wouldn't feel as bad about not succeeding. Afraid, sure, but not guilty.

"Yeah. I'd want to help you even if I wasn't your warden. You know that, right? Like... I'm--yeah, I'm here to get Joel back, but I do want to help you just because you're my friend. I don't want you--I don't know--feeling bad, or pushing yourself way too hard because you're trying to get me to that end goal."

That's not the right motivation. She'd love to get there faster, and she'd encourage this if he wasn't her friend. Because she did go into this not considering the fact she'd actually care about her inmate on a personal level.

Oops.

"It's gotta be for you, too. And I know I said, more or less, that you'll have to push yourself, but... not to the point of a panic attack, and especially not alone, okay?"

She really, really doesn't like that someone had to come talk to her about it out of concern.

Doing it for himself is an alien concept, not something he can even halfway apply to this situation. And he's not even sure why she's upset. He can't imagine she feels guilty, that would be ridiculous. Nobody feels guilty about the things they do to him, and mostly they're just exasperated about the things he does to himself.

Sure, he doesn't want any of those things to happen to her, but that's not the same. She's a person. He's just-- it's what he's for.

"Okay," he says, warily, clearly not quite getting her point here. "I haven't hurt anyone. Not in a long time. Not even when I was panicking." Look, he... doesn't know what a panic attack is. The best he can guess is it means attacking someone while in a panic.

Edited 2021-03-10 07:21 (UTC)

Guilt ruins in her blood. She feels guilty that he's pushing himself perhaps too much and too soon, and can tell he's not getting it.

"B, I'm not worried about you hurting anyone else. I'm worried about you hurting yourself. And especially for me."

He stalls out momentarily in confusion. What counts as hurting himself. He really and honestly doesn't know and can't imagine what it could even be.

He rallies a beat later by focusing on the last bit. "Not just for you. If I stay dead. Steve probably dies, too. We were on that helicarrier together." And he's still having a hard time adjusting to the idea of it maybe being a different Steve Rogers than the one on board, but even if it is, he still can't just let him die.

Well, at least it's not just about bringing Joel back from the dead.

"Sooo... let's go over this. Why do you want to graduate?"

"To get you your deal, and to save Rogers." Simple enough, he thinks. What other reason even could there be?

Ellie frowns, fidgets. Okay. Not... great.

"What do you want for yourself, B?"

Uh.

He has to think a minute. There are things he wants. He knows this. It just takes him a minute, when asked directly by his warden, to bring them out. "More blankets, chocolate, my books, for Vesta to continue to let me pet her. Chess with Godric and exploring places with you and climbing on things with Steve."

They're simple things, but they are things he wants. He's allowed. It's okay. Even if he's maybe clamping down hard on panic for saying them all out loud in the middle of this conversation about graduating. None of those things have anything to do with graduating.

That's not what Ellie was expecting--it's more, in a way, but also less. She meant after graduating, the kind of life he wanted, but that's...

Wholesome. Ellie feels it right in her chest.

"We can definitely do more blankets and chocolate. Exploring, too. I didn't know you liked those things so much."

This is frankly the best he can do right now. He can't even properly imagine a life after graduating. He's goal-oriented, but not great a long-term planning.

He shrugs, a little awkward at the expression on her face. "Those things don't help with graduating. But they're still good things."

"No, but they're things you like. Things you want more of. You... want to go home one day, right? Have that stuff at home?"

She's never really asked, has she?

"Ellie." He manages a moment of eye contact, sounding almost apologetic. "Home is a bank vault and a. A Chair. A cryotank." Surely those things were in his file. "And even if I don't go back on my own. I'd be going back to people who want me back in there, and other people who will want to lock me up, and other people who will want to put me down. I don't have. Anywhere to go that I can have those things." Not unless he takes Steve up on going somewhere else, anyway.

He makes a point, and Ellie frowns. No winning there.

"I'd say come with me, but there's no chocolate at home." It's sort of a half-offer, half-joke, because he wouldn't have to worry about infected. He could take them, easily. He wouldn't have to be afraid of anything.

She has a terrible, vivid thought of him, killing Abby on Ellie's request, fairly certain he'd do it for her, but--

That's wrong. That would be using him, and Ellie's quiet for a moment too long before shaking her head.

"Guess that's a bridge to cross when we get there. No offense, but I'm not really eager to say goodbye to you, so."

A shrug.

"Just... you're doing good, B. No one needs you to push yourself too hard, I guess, is my point."

He's patient, though the eye contact doesn't last past her frown, gaze drifting aside, taking in her changing expressions without watching them directly. She can take a while to think if she needs to-- he sure does, more often than not. And that's a lot of thoughts she's apparently thinking.

What she winds up on makes him shrug again. "I'm not really sure how to go less than hard. But I'll try." Maybe... not deal with the library for a whole week. Maybe.

"Just... for the record? Going so hard you have a panic attack? Probably means you can back off a little. We're gonna have to work on finding some sort of middle ground."

But.

"It seems like you have a good number of people looking out for you, here. That's good, too."

He pauses, then says, "Okay." If it's something she wants, then it's something he'll do (or in this case, not do), but. "What is that. Exactly." Because he already told her he hadn't hurt anyone, so why is she worried about him attacking people? It must mean something else.

"... a panic attack?" Oh, boy. Well, this might help, if he knows what the fuck she's talking about.

"Uh. You know that feeling, when suddenly in your chest it's just tight, like someone's squeezing you but in a bad way? And your heart is pounding, and it's hard to breathe? You kinda feel like you might die, even if you know you're just like--sitting, or on the floor? That's a panic attack."

At least for her.

Oh. It's not exactly like how he gets them, but it's close enough that he can draw the parallel. "I. Get that a lot." A lot more than he actually shows-- the library is a special case where it's unfortunately obvious, because it involves getting the hell out of the library as part of the reaction to them. He's not entirely sure how to stop having them.

"It's scary, and--I know what it feels like, so I don't want you pushing yourself into that if it can be avoided."

But, knowing what it feels like also means she knows that sometimes it just creeps up on you. The library, though, seems to be a source they can pinpoint, and Ellie can name a few more things that set him off, too.

Yeah, there's plenty of things that trigger that kind of terror, admittedly. People have been really good at avoiding hitting them for the past couple months, though, as they find the mental landmines. He hesitates, then nods. It's not like further avoiding that state-- a panic attack, he makes sure to file the phrase away properly-- is unpleasant. It's just never something he thought about doing. It's just a normal part of being an asset. "Okay. I'll try. Not sure how I can get used to the library without. Risking them, though."

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