vaccination | TLV

"I'll remember that." He's not actually sure if he knows how to do that, unless it's just compliments when deserved? But he'll remember. More importantly, though: "That shouldn't be too hard to turn into a piano song. Just need to put the notes to the right keys. Can you play it again? In pieces?"

If there's anything Ellie can say she's good at, it's surviving and guitar.

"Yeah, sure," she says, and slowly plays the first few notes for him.

"Do you think you played music before?"

Before the whole stasis sleep stuff.

"No." He finds the first note, then works out the next two based on how close they are in sound. Three steps up-- no, three and a half-- repeat, repeat, then a descending scale for two more notes. "I have. Muscle memory. Skills remain when context does not. Remembered sewing." And HYDRA never would have made him repair his own gear. That would require being out of the ice for anything other than missions. "So I'd know how to play if I ever did it before."

"Huh. Cool," Ellie says, watching him play. "Guess you fixed your own clothes before, then."

He repeats the sequence, to make sure it sounds right. "With a needle and thread in the right color. Yes, I could. Though I can't knit. I remember that, too." He considers a moment, then asks, "Are needles allowed for inmates? Or are they too sharp, like weapons?"

"If you can have utensils, you should be able to have a needle." Anything is a weapon if you try hard enough, is Ellie's motto. Maybe not the Admiral's.

Ellie gives him a few more notes.

"Okay." He picks out those notes, one at a time, taking a moment and a couple tries for the last. "Then. I might need one. And thread." He hesitates, uncertain. Asking is hard, in general, but now he's unsure about the chain of command. "You're not my warden now. Should I ask Misty?"

"Yeah, just to be sure. I don't see why she wouldn't let you have it if it's allowed," Ellie tells him. "She seems nice."

She does seem nice. In a weirdly authoritative way. "Told me. No more maintenance. Then made me a whole store in the Enclosure to destroy when I cried about it."

He slowly but neatly puts the two sets of notes together, playing through the whole phrase.

"You were upset about no more maintenance?"

She pauses on going on with the tune. That's news to her.

"No. Yes. I don't know." There'd been a lot of things he felt in that moment, and it's hard to pick them apart. He frowns at the keys a little, and runs through the musical phrase he has again, still slow and careful, like he's focusing on that to keep from getting upset, now. "Sometimes tears just happen. And I don't really know why. It's like the punching thing. Except the only thing it hurts is my face."

When he puts it like that, he'd rather cry than punch things. Now if only he could nudge his stupid emotional reactions that way all the time.

"That's depressingly relatable," Ellie mutters, a thought she'd usually keep to herself, but she's been open already with him. He knows she's not a ball of sunshine.

"But crying is good, sometimes. Gotta let that shit out even if you don't know why."

He looks at her sidelong. Relatable? Him? Sounds fake. But he has to ask: "You don't always know why you cry, either?"

She shrugs. "Not always. I mean, beyond a vague shitty feeling that's either anger or sadness."

"Yeah, that. Like that." That's weirdly relieving. It's not like he ought to have the same emotional reactions as a teenager (young woman, he really doesn't know exactly how old she is), or even a person in general, but it's still kind of comforting that someone else feels the same thing.

He runs through the melody he has so far once more, and now his fingers know it, so it flows easily, like hers did on the guitar. It's only a couple of measures, but it sounds nice. "It's hard to put the right name on something. Sometimes."

He's quick. Not too surprising, so Ellie starts on the next part of the song, but slowly.

"Not everything needs a name." Dina would try to make her talk. Talk about Joel, talk about how she feels, but she couldn't find the words.

He's better, now, at knowing which notes are what. He has the key worked out, though he doesn't know the word for it. So it's easier to match this set with the notes on the piano, and he plays it near-perfectly after she does it. Repeats it once with a minor correction.

That gives him a little more brainpower left over for the statement. "If it doesn't need a name. Is that easier or harder to manage it." He'd rather not fuss about putting names to feelings. He has no context for things, no idea what angry versus afraid versus jealous versus annoyed are actually supposed to feel like. But then how does he untangle the punching-crying thing?

From the top, then. Ellie plays the beginning of the song to what they just did now, slow and steady.

"I don't think putting a name to it really helps," she says with a shrug. "And sometimes, you just... gotta cry. Get that shit out."

As soon as he catches on what she's doing, he starts playing along with her, matching his notes to hers, a little duet. "Godric said." He has to stop, not wanting to let his feelings get in the way of following along with the music, but when they reach the end of the part he's learned he continues, "Said knowing what exactly I was afraid of. Would help not being afraid of it. Or at least not smashing things that aren't actually the thing."

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