“Uh, uh, uh,” Olivia challenged, her index finger sticking up and swinging a flat no from side to side as they walked, “I believe what you meant to say was that I am the tough target. No target has ever been this tough.” She liked to consider herself a hard cookie – one left out on the counter and absorbing every bit of air until she turned rock solid. Until no amounts of warm milk would soften her. The childish comparison felt quite…fitting. No one wanted to eat those cookies, just as no one stuck around for long after they realized just how fucked up her head really was. So omitting parts of herself, even to Gwen, had become the go-to tactic. Yes, she’d be a hard cookie – but at least the chocolate chips would makes someone stick around. And Olivia was, unfortunately, so tired of being lonely. So fed up with the emptiness in her home, in her heart. Maybe this desperation was what had her opening up, even mildly, to Gwen. What had her showing the chocolate and few almonds that still lingered here and there. Hidden. Frightened. The softest pasts of her were reserved for those she trusted – were reserved for Gwen, mostly. At any rate, no one deserved those portions, that sweetness, more than her friend. Her dearest friend ( even before the apocalypse ).
“Not yet. I was planning on asking you tonight but you went and ruined that surprise now, didn’t you?” She clicked her tongue, let a tsk slip past her. “What am I supposed to do? Nothing screams ‘I love you’ quite as much as a corpse. Honestly, I’m stumped.” Ollie’s eyes observed as Robo’s leash became shorter, and he was called back to calm down. She understood that – keeping the enthusiasm on a leash. She understood the importance of containment. All good things turned to chaos ( of course, Robo’s form of chaos would undoubtedly involve muddy paws at best but still ), and Olivia had placed leash on her own neck just to remind herself to stop – to remind herself that this temporary joy would be gone someday ( or at some time in the near future ). “Oh, no, the reason we don’t go on dates is because you eat all my french fries – how the hell am I supposed to function in the classroom without sustenance?” Ah – there her mouth went. First Ritvik, now this. Her leash certainly needed to be shortened even more. Ollie did what she did best – continued on without paying the passing comment much mind. Maybe Gwen wouldn’t notice. Maybe she’d simply be deaf to the words. She could only hope ( and her cynical head had never been any good at that ). “No one,” she replied dismissively “just a ghost.” Appropriate, considering the man had fucking vanished like one – okay, so maybe it was more than bitterness residing inside of her. "Ew, Gwen, I did not want to know details about your sex life and all the kinky shit you’re into.”
“Mmm, I don’t know.” She smiled smugly. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to build rapport with someone who is in four point restraints and trying to bite your face off.” After considering the relevance of the scenario, she chuckled. “Well, maybe that’s more of a universal experience now than it was back then.” Olivia was one tough nut to crack. Maybe that was part of Gwen’s fondness for her. Over the years, she’d never been able to hold onto many friendships. People were fascinating ... until they weren’t. Once Gwen had figured a person out, the appeal seemed to wear off. She’d still be the person to call when you needed help ( a ride to the airport, questions about spider bites, etc. ), but even others who’d felt that closeness with her over the span of a few months could feel the distance within her. It was an impossible position--eternal loneliness paired with tenacious solitude. There were few people who captivated her long enough to become permanent to her and, among those left, she had only Callum and Ollie.
After all this time, there was still a lot about Ollie that was a mystery. “Classroom?” She asked before thinking better of it, stopping herself from inquiring further. Sometimes an uncomfortable silence was requisite to get a person to open up. At the response, ‘no one,’ Gwen frowned but pressed no further. If Olivia wanted her ghosts to haunt hallowed grounds, Gwen wouldn’t force her to let them slink through iron bars, spreading ectoplasm in their wake. They’d known each other almost TWO YEARS now. She knew when to be patient with her friend and when to push.
“Oh, my god, Olivia.” She laughed. "You are fucking terrible.” The over emphasis and formality of her friend’s name was enough, Gwen hoped, to get her to take it easy on Callum for a few. Or at least “Be good and I’ll tell you my funniest foreign body story from the ER days.” Gwen smiled wryly, knowing full well she was baiting Ollie with the same sort of garbage articles people had shared on facebook like ‘you'll never guess what your favorite food says about your sex life’ or online quizzes that determined which pokemon you were most like. “And you won't guess what ended up where.” A playful dance of her eyebrows mimicked the humor in her tone as Gwen threw a smirk at the friend at her side. It was part of the fun of working in an ER; nobody had a better story and at least Olivia had a fucked up enough sense of humor that Gwen didn’t feel like she was VIOLATING her delicate constitution. Most survivors tended to laugh and joke about things they’d once found abhorrent, but the same folks would’ve scoffed if they’d overheard the raven haired nurse jokingly tell a coworker, covering her patients for lunch, not to let someone CODE before she got back. The ER was made for adrenaline junkies and, at least for most people, codes felt like you were DOING something. Transient abdominal pain in a patient who’d been in last week and was determined to be drug seeking? You could give them compassion, assistance, but you couldn’t fix their REAL problem in a four hour ER visit. NO, but with codes you could either fix them or you couldn’t. The act was a well-choreographed team dance and if you couldn’t save a life, well, they were dead by the they got to you and you’d done all you could.
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