JOEL HAD SMACKED ELLIE ON THE BACK OF THE HEAD FOR HER SNIDE REMARK, and then picked up the pace to follow after the duo ahead of them, entering the large building to find it completely abandoned apart from the Zhenyas in the middle of it, rifling around through files and speaking to each other loudly.
'The hell are you two doing?' Joel demanded, wondering why he was the only one who understood the danger they might be in.
'Yeah, funny thing.' Ralph crossed his arms, loading up one of his jokes and staring at Joel with an irritated expression. 'A grumpy little ogre took my gun. So, now I am completely defenseless in this big, scary Firefly terrorist laboratory. Which, by the way, is totally fucking empty.'
'Yeah, maybe a grumpy little ogre wouldn't have to take your gun if you were an honest man, ya snake.' The incessant nagging was beginning to get to Ralph, and that combined with the flourish of his most prized pistol really bugged him. It showed on his face, and Joel cut his mocking short, but Ralph was still glaring at him as he held the sheet he was holding up to the sky, not even glancing at the paper.
'Packing list.' He said simply, holding it out towards Joel with a frown and looking up to the top floor when a rattle came from a distant room. They looked back down at the same time, staring at each other right in the eye before Joel looked away first and snatched the list from him.
He looked over it once, quickly, before he headed towards the stairs and nodded at Ralph to follow. Reluctantly, he did.
Two flights of stairs later, they had located the continuous sounds and were approaching the room that they were coming from with care. Joel was at the front of the group with Ralph close behind him, making sure that Lou and Ellie didn't get themselves killed by some unknown force while they were securing the area.
He pushed the door open with a bit of resistance and Ralph peered over his shoulder to find three monkeys clattering around with lab equipment. They scattered as Joel entered the room, fear disappearing in the blink of an eye. Ralph almost pushed past him trying to get a look at the animals before they scampered away. Joel had to cover a smile with a cough.
'What monkeys were those, Ralph?' Ellie asked with a grin, excited about seeing the creatures up close and personal, even if it was for only a moment.
'Scary ones.' He joked. He let his nerdiness get the best of him not even a second later. 'My best guess is some kind of baboon or chimpanzee. You can tell 'cause they have bright red butts.'
Lou giggled an excessive amount at that, laughing even more when Ralph explained that female baboons have red butts to make mating easier, and then Ellie began to start too. The two of them continued to chuckle as they spread out across the room, letting Ralph and Joel know what corners of the room had been overtaken by the smiling idiots, and forcing them to stand together at the only end of the room that wasn't being explored.
Joel looked at the big bulletin board ahead of them, a map of the country on it with various colored pins making up a trail to Salt Lake City, Utah. Next to it, a smaller pin with a note attached to it spelled St. Mary's. Joel looked at Ralph curiously.
'What?' Ralph whispered at him. 'They don't tell me anything. I kill the people, they give me the money, that's that, I swear to you! I'm not even one of them. I was doing to it survive - How many times do I have to tell you this?'
'However many times it takes you to not sound like an asshole when you're doing it.' Joel huffed, lowering his voice and stepping to the far side of Ralph to make room for Ellie and Lou. 'They're in Salt Lake City. Maybe getting ahead of the weather, or for better facilities? I dunno.'
YOU ARE READING
borderline - the last of us.
Fanfic'we're on the borderline, caught between the lines of pain and rapture.' in which ralph leaves his bedroom door unlocked, a nosey neighbour blackmails him, and now he's stuck backpacking across the country with his daughter and a strange little...
