“A warrior fights for what they believe in. A warrior fights for his family.”
dear diary, today will be different / @hittcr
see, the thing is, she's not going to assume she's included in that. sure, she's got cousins out there. a whole slew of people, really. but she hasn't exactly, you know, sent an email or picked up the phone just yet to reach out.
(they don't know her. what if they get to know her and decide they don't want her because she's too much? that is what her ex-boyfriend had claimed shortly after breaking up with her and the words still rattle around in her head and in her heart, much to her own dismay.)
so for now, this team is the closest thing to a family she's got. because she'll die before she goes back to the triad industries detention facility. and if she can trust in anything, it's that this team would fight tooth and nail before they'd concede to letting her go back to that hellhole.
but then, the leverage team is an actual family. so of course they'd fight tooth and nail. they'd fight tooth and nail for just about anyone. floribeth is just someone that's hitched a proverbial ride, right? a pebble in their respective shoes.
"except i'm a pc warrior and not an actual warrior warrior." a soft sigh escapes her lips. "and isn't this the part where you follow that up with 'however, there's more than one way to fight, flori' and then tell me that i don't have to use my fists or go out into the field, ever, because other people - like you - got that covered?"
"that is to say, i'd break my hand if i ever tried to punch someone in the face and, also, i'm the wrong person if you want someone to be charmed. unless it's about everything people generally don't really care about, like eastern vampires, or hacking and the in depth way a computer works or the way the mind works, or food - i talk about food a lot; my dad was a psychologist but he also liked to cook and now i'm hoping there's gonna be kare-kare for dinner tonight - i don't think i'd be much of an asset out in the field."
her expertise starts and ends with research, puzzles, brain teasers and computers. regardless, floribeth falls back into the starting stance eliot taught her. because she might be terrible at hand to hand combat or, rather, combat of any kind that isn't virtual, but she's nothing if not a good student.
then she adds, mildly: "i also know what a real estate agent does for a living and what that looks like, 'cause that was my mom's job."
afterwards, floribeth stops talking - finally, blessed silence! - while she wordlessly indicates to eliot that she would like to go through the motions and the basics once more.
