CLOSED | She said, "Where'd you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?"

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie & Jude, Various
WHAT: Various closed prompts in one convenient place!
WHEN: (Spanning) Fantasy September
WHERE: Gallows, Kirkwall, Arlathan Forest
NOTES: Gonna have some fallout/followup threads from this log re: Abby's canon update! Mind the warnings. Graphic injuries. Spicy/sexual content. Hookah use. More TBD.

Comments

[sparklequeen]

Glimmer turns away for a moment and covers her face. She hates being angry sometimes because her instinct is to cry and it makes her feel so weak, crying when she's angry but she can't stop it.

"God. I love you so much it hurts, Ellie. You're--you're one of my best friends and I would fucking take an arrow for you but this isn't her fault. You did this, the whole thing!" She feels exhausted. Maybe this is the wrong thing to say, maybe she's ruining her relationship with Ellie but it needs to be said.

"You didn't have to chase her down the first time or the second time or do any of it. And she didn't have to come after Joel. You two are so fucking alike," she had said the same thing to Abby, months and months ago. Maybe it would land on Ellie and make her think for a minute. She doesn't know.

Glimmer just hopes she hasn't burned one of the only bridges she has left.

[notathreat]

Ellie rocks back as if punched, left breathless, and before she knows it she's on her feet. Not to bare her teeth, but to get the fuck out of here, or find someplace quiet to break a lot of fucking furniture, like she did when she got bitten-

Anything but stand here and listen to all the things she's been screaming in her own head since forever, terrified to say aloud because then she'll have to find out if other people think it, too.

Because they do, and Glimmer's handily confirmed it for her. She'd thought she was better than she used to be. She thought she'd been trying to change, but-

Well. Maybe not as much as she'd thought.

Ellie grabs up her bag in one hand and just- stands there, her knuckles white on the top loop, trembling. The fact that this needed to be said doesn't make it easy to hear.

"You got anything else to say?" she asks, and her voice sounds even, but like it comes from far away.

[sparklequeen]

"No. I--" Glimmer hesitates and chokes down a sound of frustration as Ellie gets to her feet. To leave. Everything hurts.

"Just... just take care of yourself. I love you, Ellie," Glimmer says in a soft, miserable voice.

[notathreat]

Ellie stands there for a moment in stasis, caught between one breath and the next. It hurts, and it hurts, and it's always going to hurt. And maybe some part of her will always be deep in the dark.

But reaches for her, her bruised fingertips cautiously finding Glimmer's palm, curling around it to hold.

And maybe a part of her is in that farmhouse, watching Dina's back and how she holds herself in like she's going to spill all over the floor, and she can't do that again-

And deep down, Ellie hasn't yet realized just how much she's learned, just how much she's changed, even if other things never will.

Her lips find Glimmer's forehead.

"I'm sorry," she whispers against feverish skin. "I fucked up."

[sparklequeen]

Glimmer wasn't expecting Ellie to turn back. As long as she's known Ellie, she's always... run away. Conversations that were awkward or fraught or just unpleasant were things that they avoided. This wasn't the sort of thing she was used to.

But God is she ever grateful. Her fingers curl against Ellie's hand and her grip tightens, tears still gleaming in her eyes as she feels lips against her skin.

"Yeah, you fuckin' did," she murmurs, sniffing as she tries to fight back the gross congestion that seems to come with tears.

"But that doesn't make you irredeemable or inherently bad or anything, you know that right?"

[notathreat]

Ellie's eyes flutter shut, and she grips back, hard enough to stop the tremors. The both of them are trying, here. Her chest hurts. Her skin hurts.

"Yeah?" she whispers, though it feels rotten. It's a good thought, but it's not something Ellie can fully believe about herself. Not quite yet. Not when she keeps on fucking up exactly the same, over and over.

One step forward, two steps back.

And even if she's not an inherently bad person, it doesn't mean that she feels any better about what she did.

[sparklequeen]

"You made a bad choice," Glimmer says, trying to sound reassuring after the pent up anger and leaked free of her.

"That doesn't make you bad forever. I..." She squeezes Ellie's hand tight and leans over to rest her head against the other's shoulder, trying to convey comfort through her touch if nothing else.

"And you're still stuck with me."

[notathreat]

It hurts, but it's a twinge more than anything. Still holding her hand, Ellie curls her other arm around Glimmer's back, presses her cheek against her hair.

"Good," she whispers, her voice a little tight.

She doesn't even fuss about Glimmer being sweet.

"Thank you."

[sparklequeen]

"I'm sorry," Glimmer says. "There's... so much going on for you and I wish it wasn't so hard." She nudges into Ellie, taking comfort in the other's presence.

"I wish you hadn't been in a place where you felt like you had to do that."

[notathreat]

"I wasn't right," Ellie admits, the words coming from far away. "It's not- a fucking excuse or anything, I just- I wasn't. For a long time after Joel died. And everything I did made it worse, not better."

Everything. Literally fucking everything. There were good moments, good things that happened to her, things that didn't belong to her, like Dina and JJ-

And the second she thinks that, she wants to break down again, but can't. Because they were hers, but she was the one who gave them up. All because she couldn't see any other choice. All because she was afraid of what she'd become, and afraid that they would see it, too. That they'd leave, or worse, that they'd stay. That they'd suffer for it, because they loved her.

"New Amsterdam was good. And here's even better. It's not bad most of the time. But for a second, I was back there. Like nothing had changed. Like I hadn't changed. And I didn't even realize it until Abby fucking stopped me."

[sparklequeen]

"Yeah. I get it. After I lost my mom..." She hadn't been exactly 'right' either. She'd been angry and griefstricken, had wanted to do something, anything to try and make things feel normal again. She twines her fingers into Ellie's a bit more firmly, as if to anchor the two of them to the present.

"The only thing you can do is work on getting better. Like... It won't always be bad, but sometimes it won't be good, either. I still... I still have nights where I wake up thinking I'm still in Horde Prime's cell and all I can do is sit there in the dark and cry it out until I go back to sleep. It doesn't go away, but I think we get better at handling it," she says in a soft voice.

"I think it's a good thing she stopped you--and I think it's good that you're in a place where you recognize you needed to be stopped."

[notathreat]

It doesn't go away, Glimmer says, but I think we get better at handling it.

It feels like something they've said before. Both of them, or either of them. About loss, about hurting. About the first time they killed someone. About grieving.

But Glimmer's words touch something, a realization that leaves something strange in her chest. She had stopped. Abby had stopped her, and she'd let her. They'd bandaged each other up, and still...

"I trust her," she says suddenly, and plainly. It rings out in the room like a confession.

And that's the heart of this. All of this. Ellie trusts her. And Abby trusted her back. And now she doesn't.

[sparklequeen]

Glimmer is quiet. Hearing Ellie say that feels... heavy. Not in a bad way. She can remember when they had discussed Abby before, on the gryphon together. The way that Ellie had been so skittish and uncertain about Abby. To have come to this place where Ellie says that she trusts Abby and to feel that the trust between them that had taken so much work from the two of them was now gone...

It's an awful feeling. She leans over and wraps her arms around Ellie in a tight hug. Holds her, because she isn't sure what else to do.

"I don't know if it's going to be okay," she admits in a low voice. "But I'm here for you, no matter what."

[notathreat]

The hug hurts, but Ellie contains it, leaning into it and breathing through the ache. It's not something she wants to give up.

And because she really does need it. Ellie lets her head drop until it's pillowed in Glimmer's shoulder and lets her breathing slow. Lets her chest loosen.

[sparklequeen]

Glimmer holds onto Ellie for a long, long time. Lets the two of them sit there in a mutual silence. She tilts her head and presses a kiss against Ellie's temple, soft and affectionate and warm.

"You'll get through this, Ellie. I know you will."

[notathreat]

Ellie keeps her eyes shut. He throat won't open the first few tries, but she finally manages to unstick it.

"Thanks for not giving up on me."