Your OTL Who: Ellie and Sin Where: Sin and Quinn's Super Mega Pop Culture Emporium When: Just after Ellie and Kat start dating What: Discussing dating Rating: PG Status: Closed; Complete
Ellie made her way inside Sin & Quinn's Super Mega Pop Culture Emporium, dressed in blue jeans, a purple tee and a blue bowling jacket that had grey sleeves and cuffs. Ellie... did not have the best sense of style, but she was always one to think of comfort over fashion anyway. She smiled broadly when she spotted Sin. "Hey there boss lady."
"Hey yourself, sweetie!" Sin replied with a bright, happy smile. Tight gray distressed jeans and a sleeveless Nirvana tee over a black sports bra was her outfit for the day, her hair a bright, almost neon shade of orange. "How's our newest employee doin'?"
"Pretty great," Ellie replied as she made her way over to Sin, shoving her hands into her back pockets. She loved working here. It felt like she learned something new every day. "How 'bout you?"
Sin walked over, tossing an arm around the younger girl's shoulders as she walked with her toward the music section. They'd begun importing classic vinyl LPs from the 70s and 80s, and were still trying to find a way to make it stick out as something to catch people's attention. "Honestly? I'm fantastic. Between us? Quinn told me she wants to finally get hitched. Like... soon."
Ellie grinned. "That's amazing! Yo, I'd better get an invite to the wedding," she joked, nudging Sin with her elbow as they walked along. Ellie looked at the LP's on display. As someone who arrived on Galador with a walkman in her backpack, Ellie had a clear and deep appreciation for music. But still. She didn't get LP's. They were just so big.
Sin reached over to turn the stereo system on, having already put an Anthrax CD in earlier. "Darn tootin' you will, kiddo. I totes adore you." She said, meaning it entirely. Ellie was so damn sweet and cute, she was like what you would get if you went on Amazon and ordered a 'Little Sister Starter Kit'.
Ellie grinned broadly, absently bobbing her head to the music. She was a fidgeter. Always had been, likely always would be. "How long've you guys been together?" She asked as she moved over to straighten some stock that looked askew.
"Off and on for almost ten years now." Sin grinned, obviously thrilled that it had ended up working out. "We had some rough patches at first. Fought a lot, broke up for a while... but somehow we always found each other." Or in Sin's case, went into a quiet, depressed state until they got back together.
"I guess that means you were meant to be," Ellie replied with a lopsided smile. "Was Quinn your first big love?" Ellie often wondered that about others, especially when she saw them with their partners. Were that always that happy, or did it take some work?
"Oh yeah. Undoubtedly, dude." Sin told her, taking a break and sitting on the floor next to the display. "Honestly, Quinn was how I both discovered and admitted my sexuality to myself. I'd dated a few guys. Even slept with one of them. But nothing felt special, you know? Then I met Quinn, and.... it was like my whole world got flipped on its head."
Ellie rearranged a few comics nearby. She yet to find Savage Starlight but it didn't mean that it didn't exist in this universe! "I think I kinda always knew. I guess it just... really takes that one person to make it real, y'know? Solid."
"I take it you found that person?" Sin asked her, always up for hearing a friend's One True Love story.
Ellie blinked like a deer caught in headlights. "I just... meant the whole being gay thing. I used to think about someone a lot and when I finally kissed her it was like 'whoa... fireworks', y'know?" Ellie paused and bobbed her head a few times. "Anytime you wanna stop me and tell me I'm talkin' outta my ass is fine, bee tee dubs."
"Sweetie, you can talk about anything you want. I mean that." Sin told her, realizing, in a way, how much Ellie reminded her of herself. Ok, a vastly more mature, less prone to fuckups version of herself. "I'm not just your boss you know. I'm your friend."
Ellie's maturity stemmed from the fact that she had to grow up to survive. And really... one fuckup was enough for her. "You're a cool friend to have," she decided, mentally closing the door on that part of the conversation. She didn't think she could talk about Riley without crying. "You think you and Quinn would ever have kids?"
"You know.... that's one thing we've never really talked about." Sin replied with a blink of realization. "I mean... me? I'd love it. I think I'd make a pretty sweet mom. Quinn would have to be Bad Cop though. I'd be Good Cop, who totally slips candy into the kid's lunch and lets it go out with it's friends even after Quinn said no."
Ellie chuckled. "I could actually picture that." She continued with her busy work. One good thing about hiring someone with all that energy is that she never stood still for a moment. "Although it's hard to imagine that you'd have a hellraiser on your hands."
"I'm not sure who we'd be safer having the kid take after..." Sin admitted with a cute little snort-giggle. "Either they end up a bratty spaz who trips over their own two feet until they're 18 or so, or they end up a smart-mouthed scrapper with dubious taste in lovers."
"Why not both?" Ellie asked with an amused smirk and a shrug. "I bet that any kid that you two have would be amazing." Ellie figured she'd make a good parent one day, but that was thinking well into the future. She still had time to be a kid herself. "Plus, I mean. This is a cool place to grow up."
"Oh, totes. I mean, they'd have us to teach them the important things in life." Oh god. Anyone who knew Sin? Would know they were about to hear a patented Sin Stone Ramble. "Like, Quinn would teach 'em all about being tough, not taking crap from anyone, and whoopin' people on Mario Kart and Smash Bros. Which is totally a good life skill to have, you know? Because those games never go outta style, and it's a total conversation starter. 'Oh hey, I can totally smack you down on this game' and then boom, instant friendship like in a movie or something. And I could teach them all about things to avoid saying or doing to disintegrate a relationship, since I did it to myself enough times to totes learn a lesson or two from it. I could also teach them to make some hella good waffles."
"Oh man. I love waffles." Because that was the important part to take away from the conversation, Ellie. Gosh! "And don't be so down on yourself. I happen to think that you're amazing and we hardly even know each other," she pointed out. If Ellie ever had a big sister... Sin was exactly how she'd imagined her.
"Heh. You're pretty cool, El." Sin told her, just having taken a shine to the girl from the first time she came into the store. "So c'mon. Throw me a frickin' bone here. Whole convo can't just be about me. Tell me what's going on in The Life of Ellie! Spill the tea. Or whatevs the kids are saying now."
"Spill the tea?" Ellie repeated with a surprised laugh. "Never heard that one before." She scratched her thumbnail over the scar on her right eyebrow, unable to hide the blush that immediately flushed her cheeks. "Okay, so. Promise not to judge, right?"
"Dude. I used to hang out with a kid who liked Nickelback. If I didn't judge there, I don't think you're gonna top that." Sin told her with hilarious honesty.
Ellie laughed. Being on Galador she'd heard a lot of music, so she got that reference! "Well... so. I was seeing Pen for a long time. Like, a long time, but... without meaning to I kinda sorta completely fell in love with my best friend," she rambled. How cute! "And we got to talking and it turns out she felt entirely the same way."
"Yeah, see, liking Nickelback? WAY worse than that." Sin told her with a light nod. "That's so cute... me and Quinn started out as friends too. So what's she like? Your girl, I mean. Not Quinn. I know what Quinn's like by now."
"I think we all know what Quinn's like by now," Ellie joked. Quinn had a very... loud personality sometimes. Ellie shuffled her feet cutely, blushing again. "Kind of amazing?" How did she put into words how amazing Kat was? "She's just... bonkers smart. Creative. Once she puts her mind to something nothing can stop her." She nibbled on her bottom lip. "So beautiful, too. She doesn't even know."
"Hoooooooboy. I know that sound by now." Sin teased, giving a sweetly goofy grin to her young employee/friend. "That is the sound of swoony love. And it's the best feeling in the world. Don't ever let it go. I got lucky... even after Quinn and I broke up for a while... the moment we got back together, that feeling was back."
Ellie smiled briefly, drumming her hands on her thighs. "I still feel like an ass about Pen, though. She was all in, you know?" She looked down and shuffled her feet. She hadn't spoken to Penelope since the break up. She didn't have the heart to after all the effort Penelope had put into the relationship. Not to mention the album that she'd been working on. Ellie sighed. "I mean, it's not exactly the best way to start a new relationship. Don't get me wrong. I love Kat. She's... I wake up every morning thinking about her. But I do think that we could've done things differently."
"Sweetie... breakups are never clean. Ever. If you'd have taken every possible precaution, you'd still hate how it ended." Sin told her, slowwwwwly raising an eyebrow in the same manner Quinn tended to. "I know of which I speak. When I got back together with Quinn, I had to break the heart of the person who kept trying to put me back together after Quinn and I broke up to begin with."
"Oh?" Ellie asked, shoving her hands into her back pockets in an effort to stop fidgeting so damn much. It wasn't the conversation that was bringing that out of her, though. That was just naturally how she was. "You mind telling me about it?"
"Not at all!" Sin replied, hopping up onto the counter, dangling her feet as they talked. "Basically? When we met, I hadn't really figured out who I was yet. I thought I was just a straight girl who hadn't found a guy that really got her going yet. Until I met Quinn, and felt every single part of me just ignite, you know? And it was a lot to process. It took me a long time to be comfortable with the realization that I was gayer than an Indigo Girls concert, you know? And then Quinn started suffering from bad depression, and I wasn't mature enough to know how to handle it... it was a perfect storm of CRAP, you know?"
Ellie nodded. "I'm following you." Sometimes she was worried that she was depressed, but to this day she didn't understand that it was actually a mix of survivor's guilt and PTSD. Maybe she'd talk to someone about it. Someday.
"So, we went like, a MAD long time without even being intimate or having The Sex or anything, and eventually I got tired of fighting all the time and bailed." Sin added, scrunching her face. "Worst mistake of my life. I was too young and immature to understand that love means fighting through the bad for the sake of getting back to the good. Instead I yeeted myself right outta the relationship. Soon enough, Quinn was dating Lia freakin' Larson, and I was seeing a cute little Dhampir named Alexis. If you don't know, a Dhampir is half-human, half-vampire. Like Blade, except they pay their taxes. Anyway. So, she was awesome. Cute, sexy, smart, loving... but the one thing she wasn't was the one thing I desperately needed. She wasn't Quinn."
Sin gave a little grin there, obviously knowing now that she and Quinn were meant to be. "So, after moping around like someone who spent a month straight listening to nothing but Cure albums, I ran into Quinn one night and one thing led to another.... and before you knew it I was breaking up with Alexis and me and Quinn were accidentally waking up the entire house."
"Just like that?" Ellie asked with raised eyebrows. "After all that time and all you'd been through, you still loved her?"
"Just like that." Sin told her, grinning a little. "We both tried being with other people... but we were meant to be. It's just a feeling you get, I think. This fluttery feeling in your stomach, like you're so full of love for that person that you think you might poop or something." OH GOD, SIN. "Even now, I wake up in the morning in a GREAT mood, just because I know I get to see Quinn."
"I always figured it felt like needing to throw up butterflies," Ellie replied. Clearly Sin was a good influence on her, since she was starting to open up about these things. "I get that. I guess that it helps that you sleep in the same bed. Instant gratification, you know?"
"Sounds like you got it bad." Sin laughed, sort of looking at Ellie like a little sister at times. "I'ma ask you something, and there's a reason for it - do you feel like this girl could really be that One True Love?"
Ellie's eyebrows shot up. "Uhhhh." Yep. Floundering there. "I don't know? How do you know something like that?" She asked softly, ashamed that she hadn't thought of matters of the heart like that. "I mean, I know that I think that she's amazing and I think about her all the time. Is that what you mean?"
"Basically, yeah." Sin told her, reaching over to ruffle her hair playfully. "Like... anytime you're not together, you find yourself wondering what she's doing, or what she's thinking, or when you'll see her again. It almost feels like you're addicted to them, in a way."
Ellie wrinkled her nose at the hair ruffling. Sin could be a brat. "Well, when you put it like that ... I mean, yeah. I guess she is."
"Yep. You, my cute young friend, have met your OTL." Part of her wanted to cheer, to be honest. She adored Ellie, and couldn't think of anyone she more wanted to see as happy as she and Quinn.
"Heh. Sooooo... You said that there was a reason why you'd ask. So, why'd you ask?" Ellie asked with raised eyebrows.
"Yeah. See... I don't see many people, especially lucky ones like you who're still super young, that find that One True Love. And now that I know you have? I wanna help." Sin knew how hard it was to get enough of Quinn, especially when they first got back together. She wanted to make it easier for Ellie than it was on her. "Anytime you crazy kids wanna get together and do something? Just gimme a day or two notice, and I'll make sure you're covered here, ok? I mean that. Don't let a job (especially one that pays as badly as we do) get in the way of love."
"I knew that you were a cool boss." Ellie smiled lopsidedly. She'd probably take Sin up on that sometime. She shuffled her feet again, still feeling awkward for discussing this. Still, she wanted to try to let more people in. "Is it normal to feel like you could lose yourself in someone else?"
"Dude. Yes." Sin laughed, shaking her head. She actually wanted to cuddle the poor kid right then, but she thought about the whole 'boundaries' thing. "And it can be healthy to do that. I mean, you don't want your entire existence to revolve around someone, that's just asking for trouble... but to lose yourself in someone? That's a feeling only us lucky ones get to do. If I'm having a bad time? Or I'm sad? I just think about Quinn and literally every single one of my problems stop mattering for a while."
Ellie let out a shaky breath. "Okay, so I'm not a complete psycho then. Good to know." She said this more to herself than to Sin though. "Hey, thanks for this, by the way."
"Dude. You're a young gay (or bi, I guess I didn't ask) girl growing up in a whole new world here. There's some things you just can't talk to the 'rents about, you know? And I told you: you're not just any old employee. I like you. If I coulda had a kid sister? I'da wanted her to be like you."
Ellie blushed. "Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty awesome." She poked her tongue out at Sin, feeling in a much lighter mood than when they started the conversation. "But yeah. I get that. You're totally a big sister to me."