faderift | closed.

Entry tags:

derrica,
ellie

closed.

WHO: Derrica + Ellie
WHAT: Patch job.
WHEN: August-ish.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Discussion of violence, will update as needed.

The Gallows is not a small place, but it manages to be insular. Things don't go unnoticed for long.

And so that is why they're here now, in Derrica's room, with her satchel open across the bed. She'd corralled Ellie, pressed her into sitting upon while Derrica drew a chair up in front of her. The shutters have been pushed open to let in the sea air, cooling the space.

Derrica hasn't asked what happened, not in so many words. There's a way to draw that out of Ellie, but she doesn't know how to say it. Not yet. So she's examining her with very gentle hands, careful as she takes in every bruise and scrape.

"I can ease most of this," she tells Ellie. "If you like."

Because that's important too: what Ellie wants, what she'd like Derrica to do. It's always important that someone makes the choice to ask for her magic, rather than the bandages and ointments in her satchel.

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Ellie lifts her head up to meet Derrica's eyes, listening to the sound of her voice as much as the words she's saying.

Every time they touch there's less hesitation. It's hardly noticeable before Ellie leans silently forward, bringing herself within reach with a small nod. Just a tip of her head.

Her face feels overwarm, already starting to swell. Her eyes itch, but she makes herself focus on her instead of everything else.

A nod in return, but even so, there's still a beat of hesitation before she cups Ellie's face in her hands. It's a deliberately loose clasp. Ellie can easily shake her off, at any point. Derrica's as attentive to the possibility that Ellie might need to break away as she is to Ellie's injuries.

"You couldn't tell exactly how bad the damage was," she says instead, her thumb moving carefully across Ellie's damp cheek. She's studying Ellie's face but not exactly studying Ellie's face; her attention has shifted to the injuries, halving her focus on Ellie's expression. "But even with the deepest gouges, cuts that you might think would have made them weaker or caused them to rot or fall in a storm..."

A trailing pause. Derrica draws a breath. A cool wash of sensation spreads outward from her palms. Her thumbs stroke again over Ellie's cheeks.

"They grew anyway," she says, a little winded. The sensation doesn't falter. Ellie's pain dulls by degrees, dialing down to nothing. "And the scars became just another part of them."

It takes years. This Derrica doesn't say. Ellie knows that, surely.

The clasp is loose, but cool, soft. Steadying. Her hands feel good on her feverish skin, though Ellie's chest feels tight.

It's been a long time since she was regularly touched. Touch in New Amsterdam meant being laid bare, meant minds and memories and emotions spilling over. Brushing up against Ellie's deluge of thought was regularly too much, even for the people that cared enough to brave it.

There is safety in the quiet, and the brush of Derrica's thumbs is so tender, the corners of Ellie's mouth twitch and draw tight as the pain ebbs slowly away. Gentled by touch and the sound of her voice. Ellie slowly breathes out, every ache and hurt easing like she's bleeding out poison. The relief is dizzying.

Ellie wonders just how long she's carried herself tightly, to accommodate old injuries, afraid to put her full weight anywhere.

"Dunno if it works like that with people," she mutters.

You think this is easy? comes the echo, and Ellie tries to shake it off, but the memory's so close to the surface.

Bruises fade. Bone knits back together. With the majority of the blood cleared from Ellie's face, it's almost as if nothing happened at all. The chilly flow of energy ebbs away, though Derrica's hands remain.

"It does. I promise."

All this pain that Ellie's carried hasn't broken her apart. There's strength in that, whether Ellie sees it or not.

There's quiet then. It's not that Derrica hadn't marked the way Ellie carried herself, but the shift between how she knows Ellie to hold her body and the way she relaxes now is so stark that it hurts to observe. Derrica had intended to reach down to her wrist, but she lingers, the light sweep of her thumbs continuing even though the spell has ended.

"It just takes time," she tells her, softer. More time than Derrica could say. She still feels the slice of grief every time she speaks of Dairsmuid, even after seven years have passed.

Even if Ellie can't believe it now, at least not in her case, the words are soothing. She wants to believe them when Derrica says them, especially because she knows that Derrica has hurt too.

Nobody who speaks this way, who tries so hard to be kind, has had it easy.

Ellie's eyes settle completely shut as Derrica strokes her cheeks, letting her breath out in a sigh of relief, her breathing slowing. There are some levels of pain that just become a part of you. Ellie hadn't realized just how much everything hurt until it doesn't.

She lifts both her hands, rough and scarred, and puts them on the back of Derrica's wrists, curling her fingers lightly over her skin, pressing gently with her thumbs. She just keeps them there, keeps the contact, eyes shut. Like she can draw out this moment of comfort before self-consciousness catches up with her, and she tries to deflect.

It's not as if Derrica hadn't had some inkling as to how deeply Ellie had been hurt. But it is painful to assess the depths of that hurt, grapple with the breadth of it as Ellie's eyes close.

There is nothing to do but hold on to her. Derrica thinks of several different things, considered and discarded as the unfaltering repetition of her thumbs across Ellie's cheeks.

"Do you want to stay?" Derrica asks, after some time. "I can give you something that isn't bloodstained, and you could stay if it will help."

The lack of pain and the coolness of the fading magic, combined with Derrica's hold, contrives to relax her. Ellie's eyes stay closed, and she stays like that, as long as Derrica will let her. She just concentrates on the smooth stroking of her thumbs on her cheeks.

It feeds something deep inside her that she usually ignores.

It takes a moment to parse what Derrica's saying, when she speaks. It's like waking from a deep sleep and trying to make sense of something new. She frowns, her brows knitting together.

"Stay?" she asks. "Like, sleep here?"

"Yes."

Clarification that's allowed to sit between them. Derrica's thumbs slow, but don't stop their movement. Her eyes follow the play of expression on Ellie's face, trying to parse her reaction.

"Only sleep," is clarification too, staving off any misconception of what this invitation is. "If it would help."

Maybe it wasn't something that would be soothing to Ellie. Derrica had always found it so, but Derrica was raised in communal spaces. Before she'd come to Kirkwall and Riftwatch, she had never slept in a room with a door she could close against everyone else. She'd shared beds and shared spaces with people, had always fallen asleep to the sound of others breathing and snoring and shifting in their beds. It was a comfort to her.

And it was such an easy thing to offer, easier still having seen how Ellie had leaned into her hands.

It's unfortunate that she's looking right at Ellie when she clarifies, because Ellie's cheeks noticeably pinken, easy to see under her freckles. She shuts her eyes for longer than a blink, willing away the thoughts -- it hadn't been like that, but there it is.

It's tempting to stay, and tempting to pull away, to gain back the hard-fought distance between herself and the world. She knows from experience that opening herself up to people inevitably hurts, but she's... tired. She's just so fucking tired.

Ellie had always slept better with other people, too. Better next to Joel, best next to Dina, with a small warm body curled between them, little hands thrown out to the sides.

For a split second the weight in her chest is crushing, but she makes herself nod through it.

"... sure," she whispers. "I'd like that."

It hadn't been like that. It might have been, if Derrica had the sense it wouldn't be more harm than good to offer Ellie anything else.

And Derrica really, truly, doesn't want to do Ellie any harm.

Her fingers stroke once, twice, three times more along Ellie's cheeks before she lifts away.

"I think we're nearly the same size," she tells Ellie, with a small smile. Give or take an inch, they're of height. It still takes Derrica a moment to extricate her wrists from Ellie's hands so she can lift the basin from her lap. "You can take whatever you like."

Some people fold their clothes and put them away. Derrica is not really one of those people. An effort is made, yes, but there are still items draped over chairs and hooked on pegs. When Derrica turns back from setting the basin back on the set of drawers against the wall, she looks at Ellie, her bloody clothes, and tips her head in momentary assessment.

"I have some light things. What are you comfortable in?"

Derrica has a talent for clarifying things without making them feel like a rejection. The warmth of her hands lingers on Ellie's cheeks after she pulls away, and Ellie makes herself open her eyes, and try to come back to the world.

She gets up from her bed, reaching to undo the cloak, loosen the tunic over the top of her clothes. She has things on under it, but it'll be best to get these off, so she doesn't mess up Derrica's room further.

"Anything that isn't a dress," she says with a wry smile. "Other than that I'm easy."

Though it has been rather frustrating to find things in her size that aren't dresses. Riftwatch thankfully has been better about it than the marketplace.

Oddly gratifying to hear that her instincts had been correct.

And it's fortunate that Derrica's tastes tend to run similarly. Dresses aren't practical for any part of her life now, apart from the occasional formal event that requires more than just the Diplomacy division. She pulls a few things from the drawers, then tugs a last item from beneath the scattering of clothes on the chair by the window.

"Here," she offers, presenting the assortment of tunics and leggings for Ellie's perusal. "These are soft enough to sleep in."

Speaking from experience, though generally Derrica has slept in them in situations such as camping or being stranded in inconvenient parts of Thedas. Surely the principal is the same.

Ellie reaches out to feel the cloth -- definitely more than soft enough. She's slept for weeks in the same clothes before, this is practically a luxury. The Gallows in general are.

"Perfect," she says, and gives Derrica a glance before she decides she's too tired to give a fuck, and reaches down to undo her boots, start working off the rest of her clothes.

(She keeps her underthings, though, for Derrica's sensibilities.)

... and the scars are everywhere. Burn marks, bullet holes, stab wounds. Plenty of evidence of stitches. A fresher one on her side covered with puckered, pinkened scarring, where something all but skewered her in the gut.

Her right arm shows evidence of being broken, and badly, and that's on top of the acid burn scars.

Derrica's healed it all, but these are old injuries.

"Thanks. For this."

Even in the few seconds it takes her to avert her eyes, the scars on Ellie's body make an impression. Maybe it's not enough of a look to see everything, or distinguish them into particular types of injuries, but it's enough to mark that Ellie's survived so much. The wounds are so extensive.

But she doesn't say anything. She's already asked Ellie to unearth something painful. It would be cruel to try and pull anything else from her.

"You're welcome," Derrica tells her, as she lifts her satchel from the floor. There's a strip of bandages to be wound back into a neat roll, and she occupies herself with that while Ellie changes. "But you don't need to thank me. I don't mind helping my friends."

A very deliberate addition, meant to make a point.

Ellie's used to these glances now; her scars weren't commonplace even back home, unless someone was older, or had come in from outside of Jackson. In New Amsterdam they'd set her apart. Here, in war-torn Thedas, it's much more common to see these things on soldiers.

But she still catches the look, and gives Derrica a wan smile. Nobody asked about her scars, or even her fingers here. And she doesn't think that it's because they're lacking in guts or curiosity.

She's slipped the tunic on over her head, and is drawing the leggings up her thin hips when the rest of what Derrica says hits. Sticks. She pauses halfway there, the breath caught in her throat before she makes herself finish, and smooth the fabric and straighten up. She grips the edge of the tunic, wisps of hair falling around her face, damp-edged and escaping the simple twist she'd put it up with.

"Me either," she says softly. Making a point back.

So many times, she's been a shitty friend. Just this once, she hopes she can make sure she doesn't fuck it up.

So they are in agreement. Derrica glows over it, small smile widening just a fraction before she crosses to a peg behind the door to retrieve her nightdress.

"Good."

As if to seal some arrangement.

When Derrica sheds her own tunic, there's mottled scarring along her right side. Even turned away from Ellie, the marks are visible still, until they vanish beneath the fall of loose fabric. Derrica shimmies from her trousers after, stepping out of them after they've pooled to the floor. When she returns to bed, she sits beside Ellie, tucks an ankle beneath her knee, and begins undoing the loops of braids her hair had been held up in.

"You can lay down, if you want. This won't take me very long."

Ellie nods, and takes her hair down, ruffling her fingers through it. It nearly reaches her shoulders now, cut straight in a place that's settling down into only memories.

As she settles on the bed she averts her eyes out of respect, but they draw back to Derrica's side, somber as she takes it in, trying to parse what could've made that mark. Ellie looks small without her gear, settled down with her head on the pillow, watching her.

The familiarity of it is bittersweet. She craves, it, but it still stings.

"... what happened here?" she asks, her voice soft and she indicates Derrica's now-covered side.

At the question, Derrica turns more fully to her. The drape of fabric in her lap becomes the resting place for each piece of jewelry she takes from her hair, rather than leaning to place them on the side table.

"I was a sailor before I came to Riftwatch."

Which had been meant to be the Inquisition, but she'd stayed anyway, even after realizing the group she'd found in Kirkwall had splintered away from the whole. It's for the better, she thinks. A slight smile crosses her face, and she amends, "I was a pirate. I think it'll make more sense, if you know that."

And the Commander knows anyway. It's the least of Derrica's secrets.

"You know how it is, when you're trying to fight someone bigger than you, yes?"

They're of the same height. It feels like a safe assumption that they have similar difficulties.

Same height, and Ellie's been fighting grown men since she was much younger, much shorter. She nods, though her attention dips back down to the covered scar.

"Somehow I didn't picture you for a pirate," Ellie answers, and despite the awfulness of the day, manages to scrape up a smile from somewhere for her. She looks desperately tired, but it softens her.

She knows she won't be able to sleep yet, so this helps.

"It wasn't what I thought I'd be either," Derrica reassures. She unravels one braid, draws her fingers through the wavy locks. The routine draws some of the heaviness out of those words.

Derrica wasn't supposed to have been a pirate.

"We were trying to take a ship," she tells Ellie, hands lifting back to begin unweaving another braid. "I was still new to fighting that way, and I wasn't positioning myself properly. I should have been further away."

A little shrug, one shoulder rising as she smiles.

"This man grabbed me. He was one of the largest men I've ever come across in my life. He threw me clean across the deck, so hard that I shattered the cargo I landed in."

Still new to fighting at all, Ellie thinks, though Derrica may have been more used to fighting with magic than in close quarters. She frowns slightly, listening, and winces when she fully explains.

"Shit," she breathes, remembering the breadth of the scar. That would have torn her up awfully, to leave behind a mark like that.

"... you weren't using your magic?"

"I was."

Her hands pause in her hair, then sweep carefully down through the loose tendrils before she returns to unwinding her braid. It doesn't occur to her that Ellie is asking the question in the sense that magic should have protected her.

"That's part of why he came up after me," Derrica explains, though this is something she understood much later. "It's the way you would approach any kind of fight, by wanting to handle the people who are posing the biggest threat as quickly as you can."

Should have protected her, should have enabled her to attack at range. But Ellie's expression turns more grim, and she breathes in, letting it all out in a slow sigh.

"Smart of him," she says, and realizes a heartbeat later that that probably sounds cold.

"Glad you're okay, though. That must've hurt like a bitch. How bad was it?"

Something Ellie might have the pleasure of learning about Derrica: she has never been so found of attacking at range when she could be swinging the blunt end of her staff into someone's kneecap.

But in the moment—

"Bad enough," Derrica says. One last plait, and she shifts her hands to it as she explains, "I was able to do something for it in the moment, but I couldn't expend too much energy when there was still so much happening. And then after..."

A second shrug.

"There were people worse off. I spent what I had left on them first."

Turning to look at Ellie, she smiles a little and confesses, "And I don't mind the scars."

Settling her head on the pillow, Ellie frowns at her. It's not like she can get after her for putting others before herself when it's so far in the past, but it does mean that she'll be more careful of her in future missions.

Survival often depends on making sure to properly see to one's hurts, and not downplaying them.

Still, she smiles back at the comment about the scars.

"I don't either," she answers. Which is probably a good thing, considering how many she has. She pulls up the side of her tunic, showing Derrica the one in nearly the same place. It's a stab wound, but messy, like Derrica's.

"Slavers."

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slap a bow onto this pls