faderift | (closed) These violent delights have violent ends

Entry tags:

abby,
ellie

(closed) These violent delights have violent ends

WHO: Abby & Ellie
WHAT: Two girls one mission
WHEN: they least expect it (October)
WHERE: Wounded Coast
NOTES: Violence, mention of old trauma and past violence/torture/murder

The Wounded Coast is colder than she thought it would be. There's a southerly blowing up off the top of the water that sets Abby's horse stamping in place, shifting restlessly when she tethers him up near the sparse tree-line. She presses her palm gratefully against his cheek, and offers him a bruised apple from her pocket; the later is the real treat. She leaves him munching, and descends down the track to the beach to get a better scope of the area, hands dropping to her hips as she breathes in.

Scouting wants people out to mark new enemy supply lines up the coast, and thinks they could run into a bit of hassle along the way. It's why she's here and working with somebody out of her usual division: she's the muscle, as per usual. She doesn't mind. Means she gets to do a bit of exploring by herself while she's at it, and it's nice to be away from the Gallows, out in the salt air.

Abby just hopes she hasn't been paired with somebody quiet, or boring, god fucking forbid. Guess she'll have to wait and see.

She's waiting on them to arrive, after managing to worm her way out of getting on the back of a griffon. Yeah it would have been faster, but some how Abby doesn't think it'd work out so good for her. She's trying to make a good first impression here. Sorry, Lev. She'll get back to facing her fears... later. Promise.

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Ellie still has trouble sleeping, most nights.

Most of the time she takes refuge with the telescope, but tonight it's too cloudy to see much. On nights like this she looks at books, but concentrating is rough. Instead of seeking out the healers she'd doctored her latest hurts herself, and the lingering soreness has set in. While she usually can't be assed to take an in-depth bath -- she hates feeling sweaty and usually just washes off quickly -- it's getting colder out, and nobody'll be away at this hour.

So Ellie takes a book and a candle to fool herself into thinking she'll read, plunks herself into the baths after a quick scrub, and promptly dozes off against the side, with her head pillowed on her elbow, hair dripping down over her freckled, scarred skin.

She hears someone enter, briefly annoyed with the intrusion, but it doesn't rouse her to concern. Her knife's just inches away, under her towel, so she's not particularly concerned with an assassination attempt. She tries to keep her eyes shut and fails, now that there's someone there.

With a small grumble she straightens up, reaching up to rub her hand over her eyes, chest-deep in the warm water, and fixes a glance on the woman in the candlelight.

A stranger, or so she thinks; she doesn't remember anyone with hair like that. So she gives a soft yawn, leans her neck back against the lip of the pool and shuts her eyes again.

"You just get in?" she murmurs, her voice a little thick from almost-sleep.

With wet hands, she pushes her hair back from her face. It's thick and takes a long time for her to dry it properly, but it's due a wash, and squeezing her towel through it while she sits up in bed is an easy, repetitive motion that requires very little thought. That's good, it's what she needs. There's been a lot on her mind lately.

She dips underneath of the water completely after a slow inhale, and resurfaces gently just as the other person finally chooses to address her.

The water in her ears muffles an already soft voice. Abby might not have placed it if she hadn't looked again, her eyes finally adjusting to the low, flickering light. Ellie's never had cause to speak to her so freely.

She's got her eyes closed. Her head tipped back against the raised edge. The heat of the water makes her freckles stand out on her face and throat.

Abby's stomach turns over in unpleasant realisation and– worse than that– wild embarrassment and discomfort. Her hands jump to her hair, gathering, pulling it wetly over one shoulder; it's hideously intimate for Ellie to see her like this, though she hasn't noticed yet. She'll probably look when she receives no answer, only the slow sounds of Abby retreating further into the water to her shoulders, her gaze wary.

"Couldn't sleep," she murmurs, voice equally quiet.

The soft splashing of water echoes in the chamber, warm, steamy, sleepy. That supreme quiet of the night, otherwise. It feels like they occupy a third space, between dreaming and waking, and Ellie keeps her eyes shut, mainly because it feels like too much work to open them.

"Yeah, same," Ellie murmurs back, takes a deep breath and lets it out as a slow sigh, disrupting the steam. It whorls, first fast and then slow as drops of water make their way down her skin like slow tears.

"This place feels haunted at night," she mutters, trails off. Soft, awkward. "Not in the ghost way, exactly? But in the... I dunno how to explain it. Like it's remembering."

It feels like a vaguely stupid thing to say, though, so she falls silent.

"Not good, not bad, just... something was here, and it's not anymore."

First, she wonders if she should leave.

Second, she thinks that she shouldn't have to. That she'd make it worse if she did; and isn't it a mark of her patience, that she can sit here and listen to Ellie speak and bear it, even though she's uncomfortable? Ellie hasn't opened her eyes yet. She's still talking to somebody else, and not Abby.

Abby wants her to know. She wants her to understand the entirety of the situation, and on a greater level: she doesn't want to sit here and talk with her about ghosts. All she wants to do is wash her hair and get out.

"Yeah," she says, voice clipped at a normal volume, normal cadence. She ducks underneath the surface for a second time, tangling her fingers through her hair a few times before she sits up, and reaches for her soap, blinking water out of her eyes.

A delightful find at the marketplace: pine. Some things get to stay the same.

It takes a couple of seconds to hit.

When it does it's a slow trickling horror of vulnerability. Ellie's breath catches in her throat, and she opens her eyes just as Abby goes under. She doesn't remember reaching for it but her knife's in her hand, her breathing coming fast and loud as she looks at the bubbles rising up to the surface.

Ellie scoots back about a foot, her knuckles scraping along the lip of the bath, hair dripping down over her face as she grits her teeth, staring at Abby furiously.

"Why didn't you fucking say something?"

"What was I supposed to fucking say? I didn't recognise you."

This situation is remarkably different from the first time they met. Ellie has a knife this time too, but if she wouldn't let her drop off the side of that cliff 'by accident', she isn't about to stab Abby to death in the communal baths either. Her hair is wet, very dark in the dim light, and plastered to the sides of her face. It makes her look like a drowned rat. Abby isn't scared of her.

She glares right back, then turns to grant herself as much privacy as she can while she works soap into her hair. Ellie can talk to her back and shoulders while she does it, a broad expanse of heavily scarred and freckled skin (not unlike her own).

"I'll be five minutes."

It doesn't have to be a big deal if they don't make it one.

"Fucksake," Ellie mutters under her breath, feeling deeply embarrassed and fucking stupid, too- why had Abby let her talk like that? Why hadn't she said something to begin with? She'd clearly recognized Ellie before Ellie had caught on-

Ellie sets her knife down with a faint clatter as Abby goes under the water again, and Ellie thinks dark thoughts about pushing her under and keeping her there. It's a little too close to home to actually make her feel better, and she swallows back a deep, sick feeling, sinking down into the water up to her chin and crossing her arms over her breasts.

Not that she thinks Abby will look.

It's somewhat eased when Abby turns around to start soaping up her hair, and Ellie grits her teeth together, unable to really- drag her eyes away from the back of her shoulders, the arch of her arms. It bothers her when Abby's afraid of her. It bothers her when she isn't, blatantly turning her back on her like this to soap it up.

The silence is killing her, and she's still on her back foot emotionally. She sinks down further into the water, until the ripples are covering her chin, splashing lightly over her bottom lip.

"Why do you keep it that long?" she asks, suddenly.

Somebody could grab it. It has to be a pain in the ass to take care of, even here.

This would typically be a soothing process. If circumstances were different Abby would have sat and taken her time to work both hands through her hair, sectioning it out. It spends a lot of time braided and she sleeps with it in because she can't be fucking bothered doing anything else, so it's nice whenever she can make time for this to happen.

Now, she's hyper aware of Ellie looking at her. She's trying to go as quickly as possible. Perhaps the worst part is the silence, it doesn't lend itself to any particular atmosphere. She can't tell if Ellie is angry, or tired, or ignoring her. She's just quiet, and very still in the water. Something waiting to strike...

with a question. It surprises Abby, and she stops with her hands stuck through her hair, halfway down.

Is that important for the mission? She could say it meanly, make Ellie curse her out and drop it. Instead, she counters with a question of her own.

"You don't think it sends a message?"

Because yeah, it is a pain in the ass to take care of, and somebody could grab it, and yet the braid remains. It grows longer every year.

Ellie hadn't been at all sure that Abby would answer, especially given Ellie's history of shutting her down. It's a shock when she actually does- and more than that, the question.

It's an oblique way of asking what Ellie thinks. And what's fucked up is that Abby's right.

It does send a message, one that Ellie, who grew up in the same world, understands intimately. Hardly anyone wears their hair long, let alone in a style so easily grabbed. It's a pain in the ass to maintain long hair; it means you have the time, the resources, and the safety to do it.

To have it in a braid like that, with the way that Abby fights up close, is practically a dare. An invitation.

Fuck around and find out.

It was part of what made her appearance, in the end, so very shocking. Ellie had looked for the braid even before she looked for her.

Ellie scrapes her blunted fingernail along the stone lip of the bath, watching Abby's back with eyes that aren't seeing her, and feels... not sorry, but a strange emptiness. Knowing what she goes back to. What's going to be taken from her.

It doesn't feel right.

Ellie doesn't know what to make of that, and is silent for far too long.

Once again a drudging silence stretches out between them, only broken up here and there by the soft splash of water, and Abby scrunching soap down into her hair. She doesn't expect Ellie to accept or understand her answer. It's her business, nobody else's; Lev would get it, she thinks ruefully, and sinks back into the water right to her chin. Lev understands that hair can mean nothing, and something. The soap makes the water go white around her.

Smells good. Pine needles, and salt. She wishes she could relax. She'd really like to rest her forehead against the cool edge of the bath and let her thoughts dissolve in the bath water but it's impossible with Ellie lurking just out of the corner of her eye.

She isn't being judgmental, she's clearly thinking, worrying something in her mind. Abby doesn't like the way that it makes her feel. She both wants to know what's on her mind and doesn't ever want to be privy to exactly what Ellie thinks of her, something that surely runs deeper and more nuanced than simple hatred. Dark curiousity unsatisfied, she sets about working the soap out, back still turned.

"What happened to your hand?"

She doesn't say it to intentionally push back. They're asking invasive questions, and it's her turn.

The question's a nasty jolt, because it confirms that Abby's been thinking about it. Under the water, Ellie grips the stumps of her fingers, staring into the middle distance.

It makes it easier, knowing Abby's not looking at her. Has her back turned to her while she asks this. It's... it almost feels like a type of twisted respect.

And it's for the same reason that Ellie decides to answer.

"Your teeth."

She says it simply, almost thoughtfully. Like it was a storm, an act of nature. Something that neither of them could fully control. It happened.

It's a confirmation, too -- of a future that Abby has, a future that's this Ellie's past. Facts that Abby's blind to, and something that made Ellie stop short of killing her here in Thedas. Her reasons.

Ellie wonders sometimes if she could articulate the reasons, but is almost afraid to try.

Abby doesn't say anything. She doesn't look around, but she does mouth the words to herself as if double-checking them: your teeth. What the fuck?

The longer she chews on it, the more it aligns unpleasantly with odd moments she's had with Ellie previously... all the silent, strange stares centered on the small of Abby's back, the guarded expressions. What comes to mind immediately is the coves, of course. Ellie's faraway look, her curious words.

I've had worse.

Yeah. You have.

Ellie knows something about the two of them that Abby doesn't, and that cold realisation upends over the top of her head like a bucket of ice water. She shivers. Her fingers are on her lower lip, barely brushing against her bite. Her hair has fanned out behind her in the bath.

"What are you talking about."

If it's about her, she deserves to know. What the fuck is she going to do if Ellie refuses to explain herself? Abby supposes she'll deal with it as it comes, but she already feels worn through and ready to snap.

The press of air out of her lungs seems to take an age.

It's not a question of whether Abby has a right to the information, and it never crosses Ellie's mind to just... not tell her. Now that she's asked.

But there is something about explaining what happened that feels worse than cruel. It feels monstrous. It feels like that girl's blood in the seawater, like a blaring red light beating in time with her heartbeat, like screams ringing in her ears and shaking hands.

"... I came after you again. In Santa Barbara."

Ellie keeps her eyes shut when she adds, "No. You're not dead."

Abby's expression splinters out of sight, confusion at war with terrible understanding bordering on relief. They made it out to Santa Barbara? All that way, her, and Lev? It had been his idea to go back to the aquarium and take Owen's boat. He made her stop and sit down when her legs started to give out an hour from the theatre. He stitched her cheek with careful hands. He said they should leave. Go far away.

But Ellie hadn't mentioned Lev by name or otherwise. The question momentarily catches in Abby's throat and drags painfully on the way out, the words all scratchy.

"Was the kid with me?"

Her mind is racing. She's trying to put together the few pieces she's been given, but Ellie has the entire picture. That makes her nervous. Hopeless.

She just couldn't let it go, even after everything that happened. After everything they did to each other, and everyone around them. She tried one more time.

"Yeah."

It's barely a whisper, and there's a distant screaming in her ears. The water feels too cool, with the phantom taste of salt. Her skin aches.

She thinks about the sound he made, when she pressed her switchblade to his throat. The way his eyes rolled because he didn't have the strength to open them. She'd thrown up seawater, later. Just thinking about it.

All the things she's done, and that still feels like the very worst.

"What's his name?" she asks, softly. She can hear the echoes along with her voice

What's your name?

She'd promised, after all.

If I see the kid, I'll point him your way.

"Lev."

It doesn't ever occur to Abby to withhold the information. There's no cause for her to have to protect any part of him now that she's here, and he's there. She misses him. The ache is almost physical, and makes her eyes burn for a moment. She didn't even know him for that long. It just really felt like he got her. They understood each other.

Abby thinks she needs to know that he made it. That she could carve out a slice of happiness for him, whatever the cost, even though she owed him so much more.

She thumbs at the corners of her eyes.

"Um," she starts, low and bruised. "Did I kill you?"

Is it strange, that she can't imagine herself doing it?

Ellie catches the motion, the duck of her head, the flex of her shoulder. The slightly quick breath. It feels too intimate, something she shouldn't have seen, and it tightens the back of her throat.

Abby, being human.

She loves him, Ellie knows that much. That look in her eyes, the way she'd staggered but never once thought of putting him down. She loves him, and Ellie understands it now.

Understands how Joel could love her that much.

The question hurts, catches in her chest. Abby sounds- sounds like she hopes the answer is no.

Swallowing hard, Ellie shakes her head.

"No," she whispers. Her voice soft.

"We let each other go."

Abby sniffs, and the sound is obviously waterlogged. It jars her into action a little too late, hands sifting through her wet hair to mask the sound of her upset with splashing water.

She feels very... full. Yeah. That's the best way to describe what's bubbling in her. It threatens to spill over even as she stoppers it up tight inside her heart. She can't process this in front of Ellie, even though this is the kindest they've ever been to each other. Even now Abby might leave the baths and go to sleep and think she dreamed this later.

"... Good."

She really means that. For what it's worth, she's glad that she didn't kill Ellie. It would have ruined her otherwise. She would have let it.

She has no idea what to think about that. Really, it's the worst sort of betrayal to have hunted him down after he took one, and to have left her after she took so many. It's like something has gone wrong with her.

Abby exhales, wobby and final, and wipes her eyes again.

"M'done." A brusque warning, before she plants her palms on the stone, and pushes herself up, and out of the water. Back to Ellie. It's going to be difficult to look at her for a while after this.

Good, she says, like it means something to her that Ellie is alive, more than an end to the fighting. It sits heavily in Ellie's chest, horrible. It makes her want to scream, and sob, or do anything to physically reject the oblique kindness.

Fuck you, she wants to say, you ruined me, you ruined everything, so I was supposed to ruin you.

It's not forgiveness but it feels too much like it, and Ellie wraps her arms around herself, like she can hold it all in -- naked, in far too many ways.

Uncomfortable with how much she's seen.

With the knowing.

Knowing that maybe, it was that Abby ruined herself far before Ellie ever tried.

She makes a low sound in response, her eyes following her shadowed back before she holds her breath, slips down underneath the warm surface of the water, and watches the rush of silvery bubbles as they escape her mouth.

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(closed) These violent delights have violent ends

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