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[dog_eat_dog]

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[vaccination]

Whoa.

[Ellie's seen faded versions of these while digging through homes for supplies, but never so vivid and bright, and she's never had reason to really look at them.]

Well, I gotta try pepperoni. Stuffed crust? Shit...

[She doesn't even know what that is, but it sounds good.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Stuffed with cheese to boot.

[A grin as she leans over to point at a Hawaiian pizza.]

We should find out if you’re a pineapple-on-pizza kind of girl.

[vaccination]

Hot fruit?

[Ellie's already grimacing.]

On... cheese? With tomato sauce...?

[dog_eat_dog]

Have you tried pineapple? It's tart, it's not like any other fruit. You can try it.

[Tess is already checking the number for the place and dialing the pizza place. They're going to order one of everything anyway.]

[vaccination]

Nope. No pineapple trees or whatever in Jackson.

[Do pineapples grow on trees? Ellie has no idea. She flips over one of the menus.]

Strawberry cheesecake? From a pizza place? Fuck yeah. Order that, too.

[dog_eat_dog]

[That gets a laugh.]

I meant here, smartass.

[Strawberry cheesecake she can definitely go for too. She puts the phone to her ear.]

Hey. Can I get delivery to 491 Webster street...? Sure. A large Hawaiian pizza, a large pepperoni, a large meat lovers, honey garlic chicken wings, a couple bottles of black cherry soda, a strawberry cheesecake and...

[Squints.]

Cheesy garlic bread.

[vaccination]

[Ellie snorts.]

Not that I know of. After the first or second week of everything hurting me, I've been more careful.

[Except now. This doesn't really count though, right? Either way, Ellie watches Tess place the call with open curiosity. Just like TV.]

That sounds like a lot.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess wraps up the call and hangs up, putting the phone down between them.]

You'd know. And you'll know soon, anyway.

[It's strange, sitting in a living room like this. Tess reaches for the remote and turns it on, flipping channels. That feels a little foggy, remembering which channels were which, but she settles on some fucking MTV reality TV show like Teen Mom and leaves the volume low so it's just background noise.]

It's enough food to feed like ten people. We don't have to eat it all, just... worth trying a bit of a bunch of different things.

[vaccination]

[The TV is distracting. All Ellie's seen of actual TV shows are random box sets of random shit, or the occasional parts of sets. When most of the things you can find aren't found in their entirety for one reason or another, it doesn't make you eager to watch them.]

I'm surprised people don't camp out in here.

[dog_eat_dog]

Well, half of us are inmates, and most wardens don't seem to have much they need to escape to. [Shrugs] So that just leaves the outdoorsy types. Arthur does literally go camping in here sometimes.

[vaccination]

Guess that's his idea of a vacation, huh.

[Ellie picks up one of the magazines from the coffee table and flips to a random article and photo spread. "Simply sexy make up." Stupid.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Mmhmm. Certainly not mine, though. Being out in the countryside makes me jumpy as fuck.

[She glances aside at the magazine. Miley Cyrus and her latex two-piece at the panned 2013 VMAs. One Direction premiere tickets. 856 Beauty and Fashion Ideas: never get tagged in the same outfit twice!]

All that must seem unreal to you.

[vaccination]

[She misses the countryside. Or, really, she misses Dina and JJ, but Tess is really the only person here who knows about them and Ellie isn't very much inclined to share that much about her personal life with anyone else.]

Before Jackson it was unimaginable. But I didn't really see a lot of... movies and magazines, and no one really spoke to me about this stuff. [She shrugs, magazine moving with it.] There was more... stuff, there. You could choose what clothes you liked because soldiers weren't just throwing whatever at you, and people shared their movie and music collections. Books and magazines, too. But this shit does still read like fiction.

[Everything was so much more relaxed.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Yeah. Your room certainly had a lot more than we ever had in the QZ.

[Things get burned for warmth. Thrown away in some struggle to move on. Confiscated. Broken from overuse.]

You're lucky, in a way. You didn't have to learn to live without all this. It doesn't seem like something worth missing, but it's really just that life was easy enough that you had time to worry about how you looked in a bikini.

[The doorbell rings, and Tess gets to her feet.]

[vaccination]

[Getting her into a swimsuit that was one piece was a feat. A bikini? Ellie would be running for the hills. Turning in her seat, she peers over the back of the sofa as Tess disappears into the hall.

Damn, that was fast. Couldn't be that quick in real life.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Certainly not. Tess greets the creepy Enclosure-generated delivery man, going through the routine: passing around the debit card terminal, paying out, tips, the little fumble to take a whole stack of pizzas with a couple smaller boxes on top and a bag of sodas. She nudges the door closed with her foot.

It smells fucking heavenly and the cardboard is hot against her hands, but that just puts her in a better mood. She heads off to the kitchen.]

You know, a lot of these places used to have guarantees that it'd be there in thirty minutes or it'd be free.

[vaccination]

[It smells so good Ellie's mouth is immediately watering. It puts a pep in her step as she gets up to follow Tess into the kitchen.]

That sounds stressful as fuck. Speeding pizza delivery drivers.

[She's not even looking at Tess. Just the boxes.]

Man, that smells amazing.

[dog_eat_dog]

They get paid based on how fast they can deliver. My older brother did it for a while. Made pretty decent cash.

[She unstacks all the boxes on the counter and then goes to the cupboard for plates. She slides one down the countertop to Ellie. ]

Trust me, if it tastes even half as good as it smells, then it's still going to be amazing.

[vaccination]

[Ellie pops open one box. Pineapple, she assumes, with the little golden things on it.]

So this one is the controversial one?

[dog_eat_dog]

Yup. Never has there been a more intense battle over pizza.

[She's taking two slices of it immediately.]

[vaccination]

[Ellie only takes one. But she's planning on one of each, as well as cheesecake and soda. She's not sure if she can barf up fake food... and doesn't really want to find out in front of Tess.]

I heard people would use ranch dressing with pizza?

[Joel told her. Sarah would slather it on most things, if she wasn't using ketchup.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess is taking a big bite when Ellie says that, and she grins around her mouthful and sets her slice down just to go to the fridge and root around inside. She finds a bottle of ranch and a bottle of caesar and brings them back.]

Yeah, you dip the crust in different sauces. I should have ordered some, but this'll do.

[vaccination]

[Taking the ranch, she squeezes out way too much onto her plate, but whatever. Fake food. No reason to feel bad about waste. Then, she takes a bite of the pineapple pizza, trying not to end up with toppings all over her shirt as the cheese slips and slides over the sauce. A smaller bite would have been a better idea, but with new foods, she's not much better than a toddler.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess chuckles, watching Ellie mess around as she cracks open her soda.]

Easy. Don't choke.

[vaccination]

Isshot.

[But good! Ellie, a pineapple on pizza fan. Go figure. She chews, swallows, and reaches for a soda. She can feel sauce on the corner of her mouth, and uses her sleeve to wipe it, ignoring the napkins included with the meal.]

This good?