In between two fires; closed

[sparklequeen]

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.

Comments

[sparklequeen]

"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.

[armd]

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.

[sparklequeen]

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.

[armd]

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."

[sparklequeen]

"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."

[armd]

"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?

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

[sparklequeen]

"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?"

[armd]

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."

[sparklequeen]

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.

[armd]

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.