faderift | In between two fires; closed

Entry tags:

abby,
{ glimmer }

In between two fires; closed

WHO: Glimmer and Abby
WHAT: Glimmer checks on Abby after hearing about her fight with Ellie.
WHEN: After this thread
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Discussion of violence and torture, grief.

After her conversation with Ellie, Glimmer had had one thing on her mind--checking in on Abby. It felt strange, like she was standing on a bridge that was slowly and surely crumbling and she had to choose one side or the other to run to. She couldn't run though, because doing that would make the bridge crumble all the faster. The first place that Glimmer thinks to check is Abby's room. There's a soft knock on the door and then she calls out.

"Abby? Are you in there? It's Glimmer." Part of her is scared that Abby might simply hate her by association after this. It's a stupid anxiety to have. Abby had stopped the fight, Ellie had said it herself. It wasn't like Glimmer had been there or participated. All the same, she can't help but feel nervous.

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Luckily for Glimmer, Abby has been spending more time in her room than usual. Hiding has never worked for her in the past; there has to be something that she can sink her teeth into. She needs to stop wasting her time up here, hip to bedframe, the dog dozing between her legs as she reads. Going to the library every so often counts as an activity, right. Hey, maybe she'll read every book in the goddamn library.

The knock on her door dislodges Wagner. He sits up, ears pricked.

The sound of Glimmer's voice is unexpected, and gives Abby an instant cramp in her gut. Fuck. So when she impressed upon Ellie that they weren't going to tell anybody what happened, she should have stressed that really did mean anybody–

But she would have told Loki, if he were here.

"Gimme a sec-" She has to hook her fingers into the dog's collar before it opens, just to keep Glimmer from being jumped on and licked within an inch of her life. ... Kinda feels like Wags is compensating for the parts of Abby's personality that are missing, especially as of late.

Awkwardly, while holding the dog down on his haunches: "Hi." One eye is still bruised from the fight and fading slowly, going yellow-green at the edges.

"Hey--" Glimmer says as she steps into the room, a hand out to give Wagner a pet between the ears as she usually does and stops, her eyes fixed on Abby for a moment of surprise.

"Oh my God, Abby! Your eye--" She raises a hand like she wants to touch the other woman but pauses, her face a little pale.

"I... Are you doing okay?" She doesn't want to say Ellie told me you guys had a fight because that feels intensely awkward right now, but it's the truth.

Wagner is probably safe to release now that he's been given attention but true to form, he immediately springs up to place his front paws on Glimmer's legs. Abby wrenches him back down by the scruff and in the confusion, he manages to slip out of the door and bolt off to roam about the tower at his own pace. Fine by her. He's... mostly good. Recall could be better.

Glimmer, suddenly close, almost reaches out to touch her.

"'M fine," she grunts, waving her off. Her fingertips find a nook of the bruise, daubed between her eye and the curve of her nose. She presses there. It still hurts.

Glimmer doesn't need to explain herself when this happens every single time, like clockwork. She isn't angry when she asks, "What'd she tell you," just tired. A little distant, as she glances back at her bed and sits at the edge, motioning for Glimmer to do the same.

Glimmer moves to sit at the edge of the bed at Abby's insistence. It's the only thing she can really do right now and it aches a little, feeling like she can't actually do anything.

"...You guys fought. That she held a knife on--on a kid. To get you to fight her back in your world," Glimmer says in a quiet voice. Her chest feels tight with grief, anger, feelings she can't identify. She's angry at Ellie for not telling her before. Angry that someone she loves did something so awful.

Abby grimaces in memory and touches her braid, drawing it over her shoulder almost protectively. Uncharasterically fidgety, she finds a spot on her knuckles to pick at with her jagged thumbnail, working at the skin. She split them on Ellie's jaw, and now the evidence is gone, worked smooth by magic and elfroot salve. Like the dream it happened, she remembers every second, but nobody else can tell by looking. There's safety in that, and devastation.

"Yeah," she says eventually, "She did." A breath, and she looks past Glimmer. "I kinda– lost it. She wouldn't stop talking and I wanted her to shut up."

Not an excuse, obviously.

Edited 2022-09-13 17:46 (UTC)

Glimmer hesitates, reaches out to gently touch against the hand Abby is picking at, offering touch and contact and comfort if Abby will take it. She doesn't know all the details, but she doesn't have to.

"I... Yeah. I can understand that," she says.

"...I yelled at her. About this whole thing. It's stupid. I know. I wasn't even there I just--" Glimmer clamps down. She doesn't know what else to say, but she's here, isn't she?

"I just want you to know, like... I'm here. If you want company or something."

Glimmer's fingertips brush the knuckle she's trying to break open with her nail and Abby halts immediately, unmoving. After a breath, she relents, and unclenches the fist under the safety of her palm. It helps.

"You yelled at her, but you're coming here to sit with me?" It's not sarcasm, but there's an edge of something scathing in her tone, her eyes narrowing, frame hardening along every straight line.

"I'm not some kind of victim, you know." Words spat out now, half-chewed, "If you're only here to pity me, get out."

"Oh, fuck you, Abby." Glimmer snaps back, half-recoiling as if she's touched a hot stove. She's tired as it is and red-eyed from all the crying she's already done. She's not in the mood for this shit.

"Fuck you! I came here because you're my friend, and I wanted to check on you. I thought we were friends, anyway!" Glimmer continues.

"What the fuck do either of you want from me?! All I've done is try to be kind and both of you act like I'm some kind of freak, like I want something from you. Like I'm trying to sneak something past you by daring to have empathy." She jerks up to her feet, hands clenching into tight fists.

"Do you want me to say 'yeah, Ellie was totally justified to hold a knife on a kid and I'm here to tell you that she should've put you in the ground' or something?! Am I supposed to just pretend I don't know any of this shit, like I don't see the both of you licking your fucking wounds?" She wants to grab Abby at the collar and shake her until some of the good sense that has to exist in her head rattles loose. Hot, angry tears are threatening to spill out of her eyes again. Fuck this, fuck all of this. She should just leave the pair of them to each other but somehow she can't seem to make herself do that.

Abby opens her mouth but whatever she has to say doesn't make it out before Glimmer steamrolls over the top of her, indignance and hurt etched into every jerky movement; all she can do is stare. Nobody has ever really stood up to her like this before. Even Owen, who drew lines in the sand but let Abby cross them over and over again. All she had to do was look him in the eye and remind him of that night in the hospital and any defense he had against her crumbled. She wasn't a good person then. She's a better person now, and still making the same mistakes.

Glimmer, standing, isn't very tall, but her presence fills the room. Abby stares at her, and delicately bites her own palms with her fingernails, pressing inward.

The silence rings for a solid thirty seconds.

"I don't want you to say that," she starts, and then pauses, jaw clenched in worry. She notices, but doesn't relax it, "You're right." She's being an asshole. She's wound herself up so tight she can't let go and that's who she is, but she'd really like to be another way. She'd like, for once, to be easier to bear.

"I'm sorry." She touches the spot Glimmer leapt from, and allows a held breath to leave her body in a little rush. "I want to talk about what happened, with a friend. If you don't mind listening."

Glimmer feels exhausted. It's not just the lack of sleep--she'd felt for a long time like she was trying to balance the two women she's spoken with today and it had felt like maybe that awkward balancing act was finally getting somewhere. Maybe she could stop feeling like she was betraying one when she was friendly with the other. Then this whole mess had happened. Which she should have expected. Memories, dreams, the things in their past... it was going to rear its head again, no matter what. Slowly, she sinks back down onto the spot she'd just vacated, some of the anger draining out of her as quickly as it had arrived.

She's too tired to hang on to it.

"Okay," she says and reaches out for Abby's hand again. Squeezes.

"I just... I want to help." That's all she ever wants, really.

"Yeah," Abby croaks, clearing her throat. Glimmer's palm curls over the back of her hand, and Abby leans slightly, enough for their arms to press together. It's comforting. She's so busy holding the people who care about her at arm's length that she forgets how much she likes this kind of touch.

"I dunno." She sighs, a big one. Feels like she's been doing that a lot lately. Her voice is thick when she continues, "It's so weird. All of this shit happened to me months ago, but I only just remembered it. And nobody fucking knows it happened unless I tell them about it."

And talking is so hard. Everything has been sitting like a lump in her stomach, cold and hard and unmoving, and she's sad, and sick of it.

Glimmer leans into Abby a little more, resting her head against the other's arm in a motion that she hopes is comforting. It's almost a relief, to be past that initial wall--to have Abby accept that Glimmer is here and real and wants nothing more than to be kind.

"And you don't know how to talk about it? Or if you even want to talk about it?" Glimmer asks, voice soft. "I know how that feels."

She's quiet for a moment.

"How do you explain that kind of thing to someone?"

"Exactly."

Abby slumps in place, staring ahead. Glimmer's head is a warm, comforting weight on her shoulder, and slowly, her eyes grow hot, start to blur. She used to be so much better at holding everything back. Maybe she's finally reached the limit of what she can handle.

"I don't know how to explain it." She lifts a hand and wipes underneath of her eyes, thumb dragging across her face. People will look at her differently. They'll feel sorry for her. She'd rather hide up here and be a morose, alone idiot than have that happen, but-

She gestures at herself, toward her heart. Sniffs wetly. "Hurts not to say anything. I dunno."

"Sometimes all we can do is let it out," Glimmer says and reaches up to gently brush a few hairs away from Abby's face. Fingers soft.

"If there's stuff you need to say, that you need someone to listen to--I'll listen. And nothing you tell me will ever go to anyone else, ever. It's between you and me," she finishes with a soft murmur. Her free hand fishes into a pocket and offers up a handkerchief to Abby.

"I'm glad you stopped her." I'm glad you stopped, she can't quite make herself say yet.

That Glimmer actually hands her a handkerchief for the tears gets a little sound out of Abby despite it all. She's only ever seen people do that in books. She takes it, smooths it out on her knee.

"I had to stop her," she says dully, staring at the edges of the fabric, and where her calloused thumb touches it, "Something broke." A gesture, at her neck, "Her collarbone."

... To clarify, "I wasn't trying to kill her." It sounds stupid the moment it's out of her mouth, but it feels important to let Glimmer know that? Her and Ellie know the difference, but to an outsider, all it can ever look is bad.

It's not something Glimmer is used to doing, but since New Amsterdam, where disposable paper products were few and far between, and here in Thedas where that's even more so she's gotten in the habit of carrying a handkerchief around for all the little things it's useful for.

"I know," Glimmer says in a soft voice. "I don't think you would. I'm just sorry either of you got hurt at all." She nudges her head a little more firmly against Abby's shoulder, hoping that the presence is in some way comforting.

"...What are you going to do now?" About Ellie. The two of them. The trust that Ellie had been so distraught to realize had been thrown away after months of work and hardship.

Abby shrugs the shoulder that Glimmer isn't leaning on, thumb rubbing in against the corner of her eye to collect another tear before it can fall. "Dunno."

She has to find a way to live with it. Not like she hasn't done that before, knows the motions already– it's just that she's so tired of having to do it, of being vulnerable and sore-hearted, homesick for somebody who isn't here.

About Ellie: "I told her to leave me alone." And Abby hopes that she does, but still feels hollow remembering Ellie's response, an echo of what she said on the beach to her retreating back. Just go. Just go. She drops her head onto Glimmer's, and closes her eyes for a moment, listening to the sound of their breath. Thinking.

Eventually she says, "I was really hoping I'd have a dream like that, because I wanted to know what was happening back home. It felt like I was missing out. You know?" She laughs. It sounds like a sob, "I wish I hadn't."

"I know what you mean," Glimmer says softly. "All I want is to know what's going on at home. I've been gone for... for years now and I'm scared about what's happening to everyone. But... I'm kind of scared to know, too. Maybe it's better not to know, if it's something terrible." She wraps an arm around Abby and squeezes her, tight.

"I think she knows she fucked up. Like--she fucked up a long time ago, but I think she gets it. And that doesn't mean... like. You have to accept if she says she's sorry or have to like her or anything." Glimmer is quiet again for along moment. She wishes Bow were here. Bow seemed to know what to say and how to say it, how to help people when they were struggling. Glimmer always feels clumsy. She can barely manage her own feelings and here she is trying to help her friends.

"No matter what happens, though... I'm gonna be here to help out."

"Yeah," Abby says, choked up and tight. It's a heavy trade off. Getting that glimpse into what life was like with Lev on the boat was wonderful, and something that she needed, even if it only made her miss him more (a knife in the side where he once was). She wishes, selfishly, that it had stopped before the Rattlers took them away.

At least it didn't stop before they got away, even though that final altercation with Ellie is something she wishes she didn't now know about either.

Speaking of. She sighs, "I know. I don't want to talk about her." There isn't any room for her to exist alongside everything else that's happened. Ellie needs to go away, and stay away. For how long, Abby doesn't know. She is playing this by ear, and if she ruins whatever her and Ellie were working toward in the process? Too bad. She can't bring herself to care about it. "But thanks. Really."

Lest Glimmer think she is shutting her out too. She needs her people more than ever. She says, voice dropping low, "It's not good, Glimmer." Is she sure she wants to hear?

"Then let's not talk about her," Glimmer says in a firm voice, though her tone is gentle. It's hard to balance that--to sound comforting and in control at the same time. She doesn't know how her mother managed it sometimes, the way things had been. Glimmer exhales softly.

"It didn't sound good," Glimmer agrees. "And... if you don't want to talk about it you don't have to go into the details. I... I mean, I've seen bad stuff. It's not like..." There's a pause and the words simply don't seem to exist in her mouth. Or in her head.

"I don't know. I just--it's not good, but sometimes being the only person holding onto not good stuff wears you down more than talking about it, I guess?"

The only person holding on. God, she's felt like that for a long time, for years and years now, exhausted and heavy-limbed.

"We were looking for the Fireflies," she says, starting before she can think twice about it, "And it took months to get a lead that didn't take us right to a dead end. I actually talked to a guy over a radio who knew my dad's name." Glimmer will understand the significance of that, all the hope and promise of community, and a safe place to go to. People to rejoin that might remember her. Abby's expression shutters. "But it was a trap. Or- bad timing, I don't know, but they were waiting for us when we tried to leave. Not the Fireflies, a group of slavers that ran the whole fucking area."

She irons her palms over her knees once. Twice, three times, nervous motions. It's still so fresh, close to the surface. Voice buckling, she blurts out, "If I knew we were in their territory I wouldn't have- I never would have put him in danger like that."

Glimmer listens, because it's the only thing she can really do. She will become a receptacle for the burdens on Abby's soul and do what she can to try and soothe this hurt as best she can. She won't fool herself into thinking that she can mend it.

"It sounds like you never would have put him in danger if you could help it. Ever." But the world Abby and Ellie come from is one so fraught with danger that it can't be helped at times.

"You having bad timing doesn't make it your fault. It sounds like you did everything you could," she murmurs.

Maybe, deep down, Abby understands that it wasn't her fault. She certainly wouldn't have chosen for things to go in the direction that they did, and Glimmer's right. She did everything that she could. The words burst up out of her anyway, ugly, distressed. "But it wasn't enough." Because she can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop going over what happened in her mind again and again, trying to figure out where the fuck she went wrong.

"Every single adult in his life did him wrong." His mom. His own fucking mom, the elders in his tribe, that creep who wanted to take him for a wife, every single person who set about to kill him for running.

She sucks down a breath but it won't go in enough, shoots out twice as fast no matter how hard she heaves in, "I wanted to help him, I wanted to- find some place he could feel safe, for once, and I fucked it up!"

He trusted her, and she got in his life, and screwed him over.

Just like Mel said she would.

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In between two fires; closed

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for some reason i thought this thread was done but i came back to read it and oops

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