(Closed) Even when I try, you don't believe it

[armd]

WHO: Worst girls (Abby, Ellie) & guests
WHAT: Shit going down September
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: the Gallows. Fitting!
NOTES: Oh no. CW for eventual violence, & discussion of past violence, murder, slavery, child abuse, torture, stalking. Will update as we go along too

The nightmare is an entirely different beast, unlike anything she's had before. Abby doesn't even remember getting to her bed and falling asleep; why would she? Nothing about tonight was abnormal, until now.

She finds herself dreaming, unusually lucid, and completely aware of the cool night air and thick pain pulsing in her thigh and shoulder, blood a hotter wet contrasted to the rain. A trickle of understanding: she's walking back from the theater? Lev is ahead of her, bow in his hands, drawn. Ready. He's wearing her jacket, and he turns to look over his shoulder as if he heard her think his name. It's so good to see him again she could cry and maybe she is, just a little, but it's hard to tell in the rain.

The memories start off slow, catching her up, taking them back to the aquarium and then further, to the next day, a week out–

The time on the boat could go even slower. Abby wants to savour going down the coast with the kid in tow, the two of them bruised silent for days before they relax into the routine of handling the sails; Albany isn't long enough. There's Lev, fishing off the side of the boat. Abby, writing letters in the cabin, curled up on her side. Together they comb through Florence, Port Orford, Ferndale, heading south, hunting Fireflies, months of travel covered in a night of sleep. He teaches her how to whistle like a Seraphite with two fingers in her mouth, and Abby wakes him the morning dolphins pull up alongside them in Santa Rosa; it no longer feels like they're running from ghosts.

Every lead they get runs to a dead end. It's hard to shake the feeling that they're going the right way anyway– or maybe Abby didn't notice the way Lev looked at her then and does now. He rolls with every disappointment, and her enduring hope; he doesn't care if they find any Fireflies, or not. He's fine with the way that things are so long as they're together.

A disappointment in Anaheim leads them to 2425 Constance, Santa Barbara, and she wishes that part would go much faster.

Wagner notices that Abby has begun twitching and whimpering in her sleep: he does his best to wake her but can't, even when he jumps on to the bed to drape over her legs like a sack of anxious potatoes. Abby doesn't notice, dead to everything else but the dream as it turns on its heel to attack her. Perhaps it's lucky River isn't around when she claws her way up and out with an airless sob, a crying heave for breath. Seconds ago she'd been drowning in the ocean. She was fighting for air, through blood slick fingers and hands.

Her own scrabble at herself, palming her body and throat. Still here, still intact. She can feel the spot where her braid caught between the back of her neck and her pillow but everything slots into place with little relief–

She cries.

It's only her in the room and a whining dog (who knows something is wrong but not what). She's got a fistful of her own hair and she knows where she is, but the pattern of cage bars has burned onto the undersides of her eyelids, claustrophobia crawling up and down her spine. She can almost feel Lev asleep and fitful, tucked into her side (Wags, his weight leaning into her, wet nose burying into the crook of her arm in an attempt to soothe). By the time he was cut down from the pillars and fell into her arms, he weighed next to nothing. Abby was no better; their bones were hollow. She runs her hands slowly up herself, a stomach no longer concave, and skin no longer blistered.

They were the same size as each other. The fight was almost fair.

Ellie.

Abby flinches from the memory of her, and irons both hands up over her face, peering through her fingers. She shivers around the urge to dry heave. Is she imagining the tang of salt water in the back of her throat?

She's moving before she realises. She's pulling clothes on, keeping the protesting dog inside with her leg as she opens and shuts the door to go out. She has to accept that she knows her well enough by now to check her usual haunts: the tower to the griffon keep, closest, Abby's first guess: empty. It's too late for the library or the stables to have many people left in them, good. She can't risk running into anybody else, not volatile like she is, a loaded gun.

She doesn't know what she wants. They are past talking. Or rather: she thought that they already spoke about this, and cleared whatever air they could. She certainly didn't think that finding out Ellie withheld information from her would hurt like this: sharp, and knife-like, jammed into her ribs.

All she wants to know is why.

Comments

[armd]

Abby nods. She watches Edgard scoop up the kitten into his big hands. He's a different person when there are animals around, all he cares about are them. They like him just as much, considering the way the kitten curls up on his palm.

"Is that what you do when you're sad?" They've talked about this before, sort of. Not willingly, but she may as well ask. "Come down here and hang out with animals?"

[muckspout]

Edgard petting the kitten with his spare hand, starts to nod yes, and then scrunches up his face thinking.

"Think I just prefer animals. But, yes."

He doesn't say that he's sad most of the time, so it's hard to know how he would behave if he wasn't that way.

"Are the kittens helping?" It doesn't really look like the kittens are helping, but Edgard isn't going to say that.

[armd]

He doesn't really need to say it.

Abby laughs, but it sounds a little choked up. Her eyes have gone hot. She's so horrified by the thought of crying in front of Edgard that she becomes utterly still, blinking slowly to keep it from happening.

"No," she manages, after she's sure that her voice won't stick, but that's all she can say without losing it.

[muckspout]

Edgard intakes a breath. Abby nearly crying alarms him more than anything else, he tries hard not to react though.

"Kittens definitely not helping." He puts the kitten down on the floor, having disappointed him.

"Bad job, kittens." He says quietly. and then--

"Can I help?"

[armd]

Abby laughs again, breathy and upset- she swipes at her eyes lightning fast to collect the tears that dare to leak out. Her chest feels so tight. "It's not their fault."

They're trying their best, sort of. The milk is more interesting than Abby is.

Okay. Give her a moment to fucking pull it together- she sits up straight, gives herself a little shake. And actually, "Yeah. Can you help me think of names for all of them?" She's remembering that animal heist he was in with her and Astarion, and how weird his names for all of the animals were. What Edgard can do to help right now is make her laugh, and he's good at that.

[muckspout]

Edgard grins. Now this, he can help with!

"Already named that one." He says pointing to the one he set down a moment ago. "Dolomieu. He's the boss."

He picks up a small white one.

"This one is very sweet, but" He shields his mouth from the cat and stage whispers, "a bit stupid. So, we should name her Mathilde after a woman who asked me to marry her once."

He laughs loudly at his own joke.

[armd]

Abby makes a funny, high pitched noise and repeats, "Dolomieu," but she is wise enough not to laugh at the suggestion. In Edgard's eyes this whole naming thing is serious business, right?

Until he says that. Then she busts up.

"Wait, wait," through chuckles, "Go back. When did somebody ask you to marry her??"

[muckspout]

Edgard grins. He's happy he's made Abby smile. But, he waves his arm at her question. He probably wouldn't offer up this story if it didn't seem to cheer her up.

"Years ago. Was a different man. Well, boy really. She lived on a farm near where I grew up. Made sense in a way."

He grimaces with some amusement.

"Except for the part where I wasn't really interested."

[armd]

"Yeah," Abby concludes, "That part is kind of important." Being interested, wanting somebody that much, god, what the fuck does that even feel like. She gives Mathilde a little chuck under the chin in consideration.

Bleuguhgh talking about relationship stuff. With Edgard! That's a weird thought.

Instead, she points at a kitten staggering away in a post-milk drunk haze and says, "Atticus."

[muckspout]

Edgard scrunches up his face as his orlesian accent attempts to pronounce the all too many consonants in

"Atticus?? What sort of name is that? What did that kitten do to you?"

He grins despite himself.

[armd]

Abby is grinning too. At the pronunciation, mind. Wowzers.

"It's the name of a character from a book I liked. Atticus Finch," she explains, watching the kitten clambering about, "from To Kill a Mockingbird."

Obviously!

[muckspout]

A book! Edgard nods in approval.

"Cats are very good at killing birds. A good choice for a name."

An idea occurs to him and he grins wickedly.

"We should name one of them Flint. Which one, you think?"

He giggles at his own idea.

[armd]

Abby points at the one with the milk sodden face. The kitten is blinking blearily around, whiskers sopping. It seems lost.

"That one."

[muckspout]

Edgard laughs loudly. He doubles over and puts his hand on Abby's shoulder leaning into her as he laughs.

"Yes." He gasps. "perfect!"

[armd]

His laughter's contagious. Edgard's scent becomes over-powering when he leans in like that but she cracks a grin anyways, cuz it's kinda nice to be touched and treated like a friend.

She sorta giggles. "Don't tell him I said that."

[muckspout]

Edgard looks at her wide eyed and shakes his head to indicate he would never!

"Think I want you dead?"

He erupts into laughter again.

[armd]

She splutters, and shoves him off so she can scoop up the unfortunate little kitten in her hands. "Okay, that's-"

It's mean. It's mean, hang on. She wipes his little face off very carefully with the end of her sleeve.