When she was just a girl, she expected the world

[notathreat]

WHO: Abby, Ellie
WHAT: The conclusion of Cuntgate
WHEN: End of Bloomingtide
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: They haven't spoken since, y'know, this

Ellie's back from a mission. Sweaty. Tired. It's late, and all she really wants is to soak her feet. She's still too keyed up to properly go to bed.

Once the kettle's warm enough to take off the brazier, she pours the steamy water into a basin next to her bed. Pulls her boots off one by one. Eases her feet into the water and lays back on the sheets with a low groan.

"Fuck," she mutters under her breath. Deep breath in, let it all out.

A snuffly-nosed overgrown puppy lets himself in. Noses around her fingers until she moves her hand to scratch him behind the ears.

"Hey, buddy," she mutters, but doesn't get up to play or properly pet him. He licks at her fingers, whines softly, then fucks off for something much more interesting -- one of her boots.

"No, don't-" Ellie mutters as Wags scoops up one of her boots in his mouth, then takes off excitedly running down the hallway. Ellie stares after him, considering, then lets out a deep sigh and lets it go.

She's due for new boots soon, anyway.

Comments

[armd]

Abby, without knowledge of any crime committed, happens upon her dog working his teeth into the sole of a muddy boot. Ignoring her frustration, he plays keep away across the courtyard, darting left and right, only allowing her within arm's length before he tears off across the courtyard again.

She only gets it back off him because he has to pause for breath at some point. Little shit.

"Bad," she tells him half-heartedly, because he's got his tongue out and he's grinning from ear to ear proudly (he's too fucking cute, is the thing), "Bad dog– where'd you get this, huh? Show me."

Oh, he got it from somebody in the mage tower... damnit. Abby rubs the dog spit off it while they walk, and realises he's left behind teeth prints that won't buff out of leather. Oh well. They're kinda old anyway.

Wags lets himself back into one of the rooms (the door still ajar), and Abby raps her knuckles lightly on wood before she pokes her head around the frame, opening her mouth–

Her apology dies on her tongue.

Ellie is lying flat on her bed, resting after a hard day. She looks very small, lying so still. She seems more tired than relaxed.

Abby clears her throat, and drops the boot for her inside of the door, ignoring the squirm in her stomach. Doesn't dare make eye contact when she adds, gruffly, "Sorry. I'll– get you new ones. Wags, c'mon, leave her alone."

[notathreat]

Ellie's not quite asleep when someone opens the door, but she's drifting, slowly letting herself chill out and do something like relax. She's pulled off the cloak, the arm guards, dropped them gracelessly on the floor.

She registers the wuffly noises of Wags coming back in but doesn't turn her head.

"Other one's over there," she mutters to him, then blinks her eyes open at the knock. At Abby's voice.

Ah, shit.

She shifts up, onto one elbow. Her shoulders give a sharp ache. So does the back of her throat, leaving her nearly at a loss for words as Abby drops the boot back inside. It's- decent of her. And it doesn't give her time to think.

"Wait," she says, pushing herself up to a sitting position.

"... please. Can I- talk to you?"

[armd]

She dares another look when Ellie asks her to wait, and wonders if she looks about as surprised as she feels. Probably. She's never been that good at hiding her real feelings about anything. Owen used to tease her about that all the time. Called her an open book, Abbygail. S'funny, cuz you're always reading.

She rounds her lips over her teeth, presses down until it hurts, and even then she can't help the sarcasm that throws itself up like a shield.

"You didn't get enough in the other day?" It comes off a little too indignant. Perhaps hurt, underneath it all. She broods in the doorway, and Wags mills around the room at his leisure, sniffing.

Sticks his nose into Ellie's basin of warm water, causing Abby to lunge inside the door properly just to grab him by the collar, "Wagner–"

[notathreat]

Well, she deserved that. Ellie doesn't flinch, but she pauses as Abby broods in the doorway, waiting for her to walk away. She doesn't.

The two of them reorder themselves, hesitating on that edge while Ellie tries to find the words. She hears the hurt where she didn't before. It's something else to hold tight.

She opens her mouth, about to start, when a wet lapping noise interrupts them. They both dive for the dog to get him out of Ellie's gross post-mission foot bath, but end up with water on them for their trouble. One of Ellie's feet out and on the rug and all of them a little splashed.

"... yeah, okay. He can have that," Ellie mumbles, awkwardly. Pulls her other foot out.

The moment stretches between them, threatens to break and snap painfully, and instead Ellie grasps at the threads.

"I was an asshole," she says, simply. And like she's taken the top off of something pressurized, it leaks out.

"I got... too close, and I freaked out a little about us being too friendly, and I didn't know how to handle that, so I- was a dick."

Ellie rubs her hands together. This, suddenly, is easier to say.

"I'm sorry."

[armd]

The thirty seconds spent getting Wags out of the basin is helpful, in a way. Abby splutters, "You're gross," and it almost makes her burst into laughter just because she's so goddamn nervous, and has no idea what she wants from this conversation, what she hopes will happen–

How an inevitable fallout is going to make her feel, like they came so close to something (but what, exactly? Something she's still figuring out, piece by piece)–

She's crouched down with the dog, fingers hooked into his collar, when Ellie starts to speak.

"... Same," Abby says, once she's finished. It doesn't feel like the end of the world. She adds, just to make it clear, "I'm sorry too." For swearing at her, and signing off, and stewing in it on her own. "I– should have said something earlier but I was pissed off."

At her side, Wags wriggles hopefully, realises she isn't about to let go of him any time soon, and collapses onto his front paws with a dramatic huff of breath. Abby doesn't look down. She's watching Ellie, her brow furrowed. She says, quietly, "I don't want to fight with you."

For what that's worth.

[notathreat]

It's both painful and a relief that Abby accepts. Painful because Ellie doesn't want to like her. Relief because she doesn't want to fight with her either.

More and more, she's becoming aware of how easily they would have been friends, in some other reality, and that terrifies the piss out of her.

But River, and Mobius, and Derrica- they all said the same thing, even if they didn't use the same words. That Ellie's really angry at herself, not Abby. That being a decent person to Abby isn't a betrayal of Joel or Jesse or their memories.

But Abby got here long before her, she realizes. She's been here since that day at the bonfires, the both of them staring into the flames and groping for words.

"Why don't you?" she asks, quiet, serious, frank. She knows why she stopped. She doesn't know why Abby did.

[armd]

She doesn't have to think about it. Abby thinks the answer was there all along, waiting for her to find the courage to say it. "Because I'm tired of hating everything."

People, mostly, Ellie, though in all fairness Abby doesn't think she's properly hated Ellie for a long time now, months on months on months. There's a lump in her throat all of a sudden, an new sort of awfulness. She adds quietly, "I'm tired of being such a shitty person, all the time."

And if hating Ellie is what she's supposed to do, Abby supposes she's throwing in the towel. At least there's nobody from her old life left to judge her.

[notathreat]

It could've been in her own voice, for how deep it cuts. Ellie watches Abby's hands on Wags, feels a tug deep down in her chest, something threatening to crumble.

"Yeah."

She swallows, making the confession.

"Me too."

Silence settles like a blanket, like permission. Something they can sit with, now that it's named. They're both so tired. Tired of hurting, tired of being terrible. Tired of hurting each other, even. It's a relief, like prying out a splinter, even if it still leaves a stinging, bleeding hole where she cut it free.

It introduces something else, though. Something beyond what they inflicted on each other. Something Ellie doesn't know how to ask about, even though Abby is the one person who has her heart opened up on a platter, all the worst parts splayed out.

"What makes you shitty?"

It's blunt, but not cutting, not like it probably should be.

[armd]

Abby's eyes are hot just from listening, and when Ellie agrees with her, they water, and blur. It takes a slow, mindful breath to keep from doing something stupid.

"Um," she mutters, "Everything?"

What a cop out answer, huh. Abby knows she isn't a complete write-off because she has evidence to the contrary: a roommate to spend time with and friends who love her, and a dog who mostly listens and does what he's told. She isn't alone here by any stretch of the word, certainly not hated, but...

Sometimes she worries about what she might do when something happens. When she inevitably loses somebody she loves. She wonders if she's learned from everything that happened.

... Case in point, "I haven't done good things." Obviously. She doesn't need to explain the very worst of them to Ellie. "Even in the WLF I did whatever he asked me to do. I never said no." And now she's here in Forces, doing whatever Flint asks her to do, and wondering if it's more of the same.

(But Flint is not Isaac. Or at least she really, really hopes he is not like Isaac.)

[notathreat]

Ellie remembers the WLF. The wolves. The letters and scraps they found, the shreds of FEDRA and the beginnings of what was once a resistance, what turned into a new way to grasp for control.

They used to take in refugees. But she read the numbers sheets. The time for that stopped long ago.

The radios were clear on what happened. They'd seen the fires on the island from all the way back in the city.

There was no WLF anymore. Maybe no Seraphites, either.

"You were leaving," Ellie points out. It's not a question, but it sounds like one. She was leaving, with the kid. Lev. The one who wasn't safe where he was.

[armd]

Shrug. "I didn't plan to. He needed me more."

Well. The WLF never needed her. Isaac said that he did but that wasn't true. Hindsight has offered Abby a lot of clarity, and she's realised that they were using each other the entire time, because she wanted information about Joel, and he wanted bodies for his war. At the time it was an equal trade off.

Now, thinking about it makes her feel sick. Lev was hardly the first kid to fall into the jaws of the WLF after all, just the first kid that Abby actually bothered to give a shit about. There is so much blood on her hands.

"Why are you trying to justify it?" It's a little heated, maybe. It feels like she's been on the back foot for most of this conversation. Ellie hasn't been answering anything, so Abby asks her, "Why do you care?"

[notathreat]

Ellie presses the breath out of her lungs, scoots back on the mattress, until her back's against the stone of the wall. Sits there, trying to gather her thoughts.

It's insane, isn't it? Sitting here, talking honesty with the person she's tried so hard to kill? It's hard to make this Abby, the Abby that she knows, exist in front of her and in her memories at the same time. The reassurance from the others helped, but they never knew Abby and Ellie. Not back then.

Maybe that's what makes Abby so terrifying now.

She knew her back then.

"I'm not," she says, then examines that feeling. Is she? Why does she care?

Why does she care?

Ellie squeezes her knuckles in her lap, trying to sort through the tangled mess of thought, teasing out the edges. Finally, she lifts her gaze from Wags to Abby.

"Because," she whispers. She cracks her knuckles, and the sound is loud in the enclosed space. The brazier crackles a response.

"You're the only one who knows what it's like."

[armd]

When Ellie moves Abby does too, the two of them tapping out for moments to rearrange themselves, settle into the conversation they're having. It's a welcome release from some nervous tension. Abby sits down properly on the floor, pressing the small of her back against the wall and Ellie watches her, cat-like, from the bed. It's almost laughable how they press away from each other as best they can, leave so much space between. Wags flops down at her hip, head on his paws.

What Ellie says rings so, painfully true. Abby lets it hang in the silence for a moment, her hand rubbing up behind the dog's velvety ears.

"Yeah." She is the only one, and so is Ellie, to her. "I think about that a lot. You just... get it. I don't have to explain things to you."

It's a comfort she hasn't acknowledged until now. Saying it out loud, finally, gives her the courage to add, "We don't have to be friends. That's not what I want, not with you." No offence. "But we can be friendly. If... you want."

And she looks up. She looks, at Ellie.

[notathreat]

Ellie listens, staring at the patch of floor Wags is settled on. They keep finding each others' eyes, letting go again, all the space between them filled with all the horrible things that'll never go away.

When Abby looks up, she's there. Right there looking back at her, carrying everything in her chest.

It comes out of her in a little huff of sound, and she presses her lips together, so they won't tremble. She thinks of Joel, and the horrified, gutted look in his eyes when she told him what she'd done, in that brief window of time she'd had him back. She thinks of the dream built by herself and the Abby of a reality away, the both of them struggling to open a door, to turn the knob that needed the both of their strength to open, or they'd be drowned.

She thinks of Abby in that haunted place, standing in the doorway and watching the crystal-clear memories of her father. The last few hours before his fate was sealed.

She thinks of Abby on the cliffside, hugging it and breathing fast as Ellie leverages her weight to keep her from falling. Abby stitching her up by candlelight, Abby sitting next to a bonfire, asking the question that nobody, not once, had ever bothered to ask her before.

"Yeah," she whispers. And it feels like so much less than what's needed to carry the feeling of it.

"Okay."

[armd]

"... Okay," Abby echoes. It comes out in a sigh when she releases a breath she didn't even realise she was holding. She irons her palm over her knee, grounding herself, and Ellie looks at her, and she realises she's stopped being afraid of the smallest moments between them feeling significant because she isn't grasping for something to say, she's... sitting with this. She's absorbing the calm strangeness of being on the floor of Ellie's room in something along the lines of a comfortable silence.

Her hand rubs the dog's belly when he rolls lazily over, stretching out. She thinks she feels glad, that they could agree on this, together. Her and Ellie.

Eventually, Abby says, almost absentmindedly, "How many people came to talk to you after you said that, anyway."

Cuz the public fight definitely raised a few eyebrows on her end...

[notathreat]

Ellie makes a coughing noise in the back of her throat, something like a laugh, and reaches up to rub her ear. She can just guess how many came to Abby, wanting to know if she was all right, and also what the fuck.

"Three."

She bounces her foot, thoughtful, and looks up at Abby. It's easier than she thought, now that she's agreed start trying to unwind herself from this noose. She's still bound to get tangled up, but for now it's easier to breathe.

Kind of blows her mind. But she doesn't dislike it, this silence punctuated by thoughts and the rub of Abby's hand across a Mabari puppy's belly.

"How about you?"

[armd]

Mobius, River, Loki... Abby's nose scrunches in memory. Derrica. "Four."

And she didn't even get the worst word in. What gives, right. Her mouth hikes up at one corner ruefully, eyes on her pup. She's found the spot he likes scratched most and one of his legs is churning madly in midair, occasionally catching her in the arm. She doesn't mind.

"Couple of them thought we might attack each other, or something."

Even though she'd already told them about the truce. That's what she doesn't understand. Nobody will take her goddamn word for it, and she can't tell which of them can't be trusted. Her, or Ellie.

[notathreat]

"It's not a competition," Ellie mutters under her breath, her attention drawn to the way Wags is wriggling in ecstasy over there. Tension effectively broken. He's a good little guy.

"I don't think any of mine thought we were gonna attack each other, but."

She pauses on that, purses her lips together, forces the air slowly out of her lungs.

"You make good friends."

It's soft, a little awkward. Heartfelt. River is a keeper. More than she knows, or probably believes. She reaches up, rubs the side of her nose.

"River wanted to know why you were a... you know. Wouldn't really take no for an answer."

She can't say it without fighting a smile.

"And Mobius was... he was good."

There aren't any words to describe how much she'd needed that talk. Both of them.

[armd]

Abby stifles a laugh against the back of her hand, clearing her throat, and glances up just in time to catch a look on Ellie's face that's a little softer than what's usually there. It gives her a weird feeling, not necessarily unpleasant. Just weird. It will take a while for them to navigate this without some feeling of strangeness. Or maybe they won't ever learn; the thought doesn't bother her.

"Thanks?" Is that something you say thanks to? "She's- something else, huh. She came to talk to me after she spoke to you, she said-" She forgot she was supposed to hate you. Abby stops stretching her legs out. She draws them back in close, and doesn't finish her sentence, shrugging it off.

Doesn't matter.

"... I actually ended up talking to Loki about what happened." Now it's her turn to sound awkward. Her voice drops, soft. "S'kinda the first time I've said anything about it since I got here." And that felt good, even though it was hard.

[notathreat]

She said-?

Ellie frowns at her thoughtfully, seeing if she'll go on. She's disappointed when she doesn't. Wonders what River said about her, or if it was more about Abby. Nothing about Ellie's shit is a secret, though. Ellie's not built for hiding her feelings.

What Abby does say is a rush of mixed feelings. A year ago she'd have been horribly fucked up over the thought of anybody comforting Abby over it, considering what she did. Now-

Well. Ellie's not much better, is she? And they both have to live with it. Maybe this is part of figuring out how.

"Really? The first?"

[armd]

This is profoundly strange. She kind of can't believe she just said that, to Ellie. Of all people.

Abby goes, "Mmhmm," and shrugs a shoulder. She's loosened her grip tentatively on Wags' collar at long last and he's remaining idly at her side, being good. For once. She rumples his ears up in gratitude, and he huffs, his tail thumping against her thigh.

She doesn't like talking about it, and doubts Ellie is any different, so she veers off the subject, taking refuge in something less painful instead. "Been having to explain the infected a lot, too. There's no..." What's the word, "Normal way to say it. Y'know?"

[notathreat]

Ellie snorts aloud, like she's trying to swallow a laugh, ducking her head and lifting her shoulders. God, there really is no normal way to tell people about their world, about the infected.

"Do they give you that look? Like the 'oh-shit-I-didn't-think-it-was-THAT-bad-but-that-explains-so-much-about-you' look?"

There really is no normal way to react, either, but that's the one she always gets.

[armd]

"Literally every single time," she deadpans, thinking immediately of Benedict, "It's so weird. Not used to people acting like that about it."

It makes sense, but. At the same time, it just doesn't?? And what's the point in getting scared or concerned about it when the threat didn't follow her and Ellie here, anyway. Speaking of, she jokes, "I've almost stopped freaking out when I accidentally drop something on the ground in the middle of the night."

Sudden loud sounds, man...

[notathreat]

Ellie snorts aloud, this time not bothering to hold back the laugh.

"I dropped a soap caddy in the baths. My hand was on my knife so fucking fast."

It's nice to be able to laugh about this, instead of getting concerned looks.

"Do basements still freak you the hell out?"

[armd]

"Yeah," Abby says fervently, Wags perking up a little at all the excitement. "They're the fucking worst, they make my palms all sweaty." It's awful actually, she remembers having to grip her gun so fucking tight sometimes, just to keep from dropping it.

"Don't get me started on the spiral staircases." Sometimes they're just... you don't know what's lurking around the corner, you know?? And also the whole fucking thing is a corner