faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ WAKING AND SLUMBERING

Entry tags:

MOD PLOT ↠ WAKING AND SLUMBERING

WHO: Everyone, give or take
WHAT: Nightmares, abominations, Satinalia, and sand.
WHEN: Firstfall 1, throughout the month
WHERE: The Silent Plains
NOTES: OOC post. Use content warnings in your subject lines as needed.

The fall of Starkhaven and death of Sebastian Vael rallied the Exalted March to push into Tevinter territory and, invigorated by vengeance, raze the border city of Trevis. Since then, the March has moved past Caiman Brea (which surrendered) before stalling out at the edge of the Silent Plains to the east of the captured cities. It's been bogged down partly by the usual combination of time, weariness, and politics—mostly some squabbling over Nevarran forces diverting to try to retake Perendale and whether the Orlesian forces will be heading after to try to free it themselves–but also by a plague of nightmares that's decimating morale and causing an alarming number of mages to erupt into demonic violence. (Not that many, but any number is alarming given the devastation an abomination can cause.) In an attempt to move safely out of range of escape attempts while they regroup and address these issues, the March has pushed east and made camp at a small oasis just within the edge of the desert, which shields them from approach but also presents its own challenges.

It's not a particularly pleasant region in which to be stalled. There's water, courtesy of the spindly tributary of the Minanter that Trevis, Caiman Brea, and Nessum all survive upon; there's low, scrubby plant life, stunted olive and palm trees and dry patchy grasses. And that's about it. Even this meager vegetation fades away rapidly into desert—first dark bedrock bared by incessant winds, just a thin layer of dusty sand whipped back and forth across it. The road is little more than a faint line of wear across the stone, but the ruins of a dwarven trade outpost spike up alongside it like dark fingers, and it's here that Riftwatch will meet its guides, a pair of Orlesian siblings from the Western Approach and their pack of camels.

The exchange of mounts may seem like overkill at first given how close the camp is, but the sand grows rapidly deeper as you go east, rising up suddenly into dunes tall enough to hide a dragon (more on that later). The camp isn't more than an hour or so into the desert but there is no road here, the Orlesians, or possibly the camels themselves, navigating by instinct and landmarks alone. One rides at the head of the train and the other at the back, chivvying stragglers and dragging a camel hair broom to assist the wind in wiping away their tracks. The sun is brutal, beating down on heads and backs as they ride east in the afternoon, its glare off the pale golden sands in their eyes, the haze of heat rising off them playing tricks on the mind. They may glimpse the false oasis of a mirage several times before the real thing abruptly appears: they ride over a dune like any other and there at its base is the camp, arrayed around a crescent-shaped pool edged with palms. They arrive at sunset, just in time to enjoy a half hour or so of pleasant breezes and brilliant skies before the sun drops behind the sands and the temperature plummets.

I. CAMP

There's no need for Riftwatch to make its own camp. The Exalted March has a cluster of empty tents waiting for them when they arrive. They're barracks-sized, made to house upwards of a dozen people, outfitted with rows of narrow cots and wooden floors made of planks lashed together with rope. Riftwatch is assigned three of them for sleeping and a fourth for setting up tables and work spaces, arranged like spokes around the hub of a large fire pit. Riftwatch is invited to share in whatever grey-brown slop comes out of the nearest enormous pot each night, but if anyone is enterprising enough to hunt or forage, they might come up with something to roast or stew on their own.

The tents' arrangement affords Riftwatch a very small amount of privacy, but they're otherwise in the middle of the Exalted March's expansive sea of tents, unable to exit in any direction without rubbing elbows with the soldiers. Mostly humans, though there are suface dwarves and city elves among them, the latter largely support staff, though a few have taken to fighting alongside the soldiers they serve over the last few years. All are at least culturally Andrastian, but they're otherwise fairly varied. Around a single fire you might find a zealous Nevarran who hopes to help vanquish Tevinter and bring the Chant to the dark souls of its wayward people, a Tantervalian who barely knows their Apotheosis from their Threnodies but is here for vengeance for their lost city and friends, a barely-adult Orlesian villager who signed on because it sounded more rewarding than mucking out stables, and a spitting mercenary who's only following the Chantry's money.

What they all have most in common, right now, is exhaustion–the kind that comes with frayed nerves, trouble thinking clearly, and an unusually high probability of starting to shout or cry over minor inconveniences. While the Free Marches dealt with nightmares for months without most people becoming so affected, on Riftwatch's first night in the camp, they'll find the nightmares are worse than what they ever experienced in the Gallows: vivid, specific, twisted, and difficult to shake when they wake up panicked in the middle of the night. Anyone who wanders out of the tent into the cold dark will find at least a few soldiers from nearby tents have done the same, stalking around like sleep-deprived undead or sitting and staring into the fires with vacant expressions.

In recent weeks, this steady stream of nightmares has had a predictable side-effect: a small outbreak of abominations among the mage army that had been accompanying the Exalted March, several with death tolls in the teens before they were killed or driven away by the Divine's loyal Templars. As a precaution, the mage army has since sent all mages too young to have been harrowed and any who were identified as vulnerable back to Orlais, with the rest residing instead to the west of the main camp rather than integrated within it. Templars camped along the rim of the main camp to provide a barrier should there be any further incidents.

Riftwatch's mages aren't subject to this division–a condition of their help–but they'll find the camp a less friendly environment than they may have grown used to in recent years, as many of the soldiers either survived a recent mage-borne horror or know at least one person who died in the outbreak and are understandably wary of having more mages in their midst, and strangers at that.

II. SATINALIA

Riftwatch's arrival comes the day before Satinalia. That it's neither the ideal setting nor the ideal mood for a celebration is apparent as soon as they set foot in the camp. But Captain Thevot Gaffey joins Riftwatch at their camp fire early on the first morning looking frayed and cold and glassy-eyed with exhaustion or perhaps just misery, and he drops some heavy hints that he and some of the other brass would be extremely grateful if Riftwatch contributed some of its better-rested energy to helping the soldiers have a nice evening, especially as the expected shipment of less gruel-y food has failed to materialize.

So consider this task number one: assisting the minority of Exalted Marchers who are straining to keep everyone else's spirits up in conjuring a good time out of nearly nothing. Organize games and dances, convince officers to give up bottles from their personal stashes, share whatever Riftwatch brought, or lean into the mood and try to lead a few soldiers into a more relaxing card game or fireside storytelling session. Anything to try to convince a bunch of cranky, overtired, frightened soldiers that things aren't really so bad at least for a few hours.

III. FIELD WORK

Of course the primary reason Riftwatch has been brought to the Silent Plains is to solve the problem of the nightmares. But there's a long list of other problems that the Exalted Marchers could use their help with while they're in the area, especially with their own forces so run-down at the moment.

While they stay in camp they'll be expected to pitch in with the mundane tasks that keep a camp running: helping tend the camels and other mounts, repairing equipment, re-staking tents, hauling water, tending to ill and injured and such, so long as it does not interfere with Riftwatch's primary assignment of resolving the nightmare issue. As soon as they've settled in, they'll all be assigned to assist with hunting parties and patrols, circling the perimeter to keep watch for any suspicious movement or dangerous wildlife. The camp has encountered the usual desert fauna: hyenas and quillbacks that prowl the river's edge, gurns and phoenixes among the sands. Each poses their dangers, but can provide needed supplies as well, and the March isn't in a position to be picky. Supply runs by camel or mule to the few near-ish settlements, either on the outskirts of the desert or other oases, are in much demand, but the journeys have to be discreet and round-about; as new faces, Riftwatch may be asked to help with these as well.

A few weeks ago, a party encountered a group of dragonlings and dispatched them, only to find scouts ambushed by a full-sized dragon the next day, bellowing fire and sprays of sand powerful enough to strip flesh. It has attacked several supply deliveries and hunting parties since, and there have been reports of sightings nearing the camp. Anyone venturing out into the dunes will be warned to be on their guard. Qualified members of Riftwatch may be recruited to travel along to help protect these groups and to help hunt the dragon down. There are plenty of smaller dragonlings with weaker sand-breathing powers prowling the area, and there may be more than one encounter with the dragon before it is killed.

Patrols and hunting parties will also be asked to keep a lookout for signs of elven surveillance, and, if Riftwatch is amenable, to make an effort to find the elves that have been watching the camp and make contact with them to discover their allegiances, which at first were presumed to be neutral until a supply caravan was attacked last week. (Anyone may be tasked with the search for the elves' encampment, but to make contact please sign up.)

While a few of the recent spate of abominations were killed in the camp, a small number escaped into the desert and need to be tracked down before they cause further harm. (If they can be. Abominations roaming the countryside for years without being caught is not an unheard of phenomenon, and the risk that they eventually make it to a village or trade caravan is too high to leave them to the whims of the desert.) Riftwatch is enlisted to join in the hunt, either in groups of their own or as part of larger parties of Exalted Marchers, mages, and Templars trying to follow the abominations' trail through the desert.

It's not an easy task, in a landscape where sand is quickly blown over most evidence of something passing through a given area. Finding them is so much more difficult than fighting them that even people who are not exactly equipped for combat against a powerful magic-wielding demonic being may be enlisted to help anyway if they have skills useful for tracking. With some aerial scouting from griffons, tips from passing travelers, and the discovery of a few small massacres where the abominations have run into merchants or scouting parties or wild animals and left scorched or bloody scenes in their wake, it will be possible to track some of them down in the desert–and then to take them down, as that's the only known cure.

Everyone traveling through the desert will also have to contend with the natural dangers of the environment: navigation is difficult and getting lost easy; water must be carefully rationed away from camp; and sandstorms may spring up with little warning, though most blow through in a matter of minutes. Most, but not all. Midway through their stay a storm rises on the horizon, large and dark enough to give them about an hour's warning before it arrives, just enough to batten down the hatches—if they're near any. The storm whips enough sand into the air to blot out the sun in mid-afternoon, flinging it about with blinding ferocity for the rest of the day and into the night, forcing the camp to take stock and dig out from some new drifts come morning.

IV. A COMPLICATION

Every mission or patrol that takes Riftwatch into the desert comes with an added problem: venture any further north than the main camp, and people begin to find that their nightmares aren't waiting for them to fall asleep anymore. After a mile, images and sounds begin bleeding into the world, at first distant blink-and-you-miss-it brief, just a mirage, maybe, then closer and lingering as parties move further afield. Though they're pulled from your nightmares, they aren't private hallucinations; whole groups see the same visions at once. A hoard of darkspawn crests a dune and rushes a party with weapons that pass through them harmlessly. Enormous spiders click their mandibles in the dark. People you hoped to never see again walk amongst the party for a mile or more at a time, looking solid and sounding real but leaving no footprints behind them.

The visions vanish on their own after a while, or sooner if silenced by a Templar or dispelled by a mage, and none of them can hurt anyone–not here, not yet. But they keep coming, and they keep growing stronger the further north anyone goes in search of rogue abominations or dinner, or, obviously, the source of the nightmares. Those traveling alongside members of the Exalted March, a good number of them superstitious and all of less used to this sort of nonsense, will have the added task of keeping them calm. At least the first time or two before they, too, get used to it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is worse than Clarisse even realized. She can almost always get a little smile or a laugh out of Ellie by saying some dumb shit like that, even if it's fake. The way Ellie reacts now, crumpling but making sure not to touch her, is breaking her fucking heart.

Clarisse gives a quick glance at the surrounding camp. There are people around, not getting involved, but aware of what's happening. Looking at them. She's already preemptively pissed off at them all, ready to fight with anybody who tries to show up with advice or bullshit platitudes, but that's not going to help Ellie, either. Her temper isn't going to make this better.

She turns back to Ellie. "Babe," she says, and now her voice isn't so much calm and coaxing as it is beginning to sound freaked out, "please, talk to me."

It's not a word she uses much if she can help it. Even around Ellie, it makes her feel... bad. But this is different. She's starting to get scared in a way she's not used to, desperate for Ellie to come out of whatever this is and be okay.

Normally Ellie is private with her hurts, powering through them more often than not, meeting her pain with anger rather than tears.

Whatever's cracked her, it's hard to get a lid on.

Ellie focuses on Clarisse's face, her voice, struggling to maintain that connection. She hitches herself to this little piece of reality and finds her way back in the please.

It sickens her, hearing it out loud instead of just in her head. She's not sure how to begin to explain why.

(Can she avoid explaining? Can she lie? Can she tell Clarisse she can't talk about this one? This, when she tells her everything?)

Ellie catches her bloodied lip in her teeth and bites down with a sickened shudder. She leans her forehead into Clarisse's shoulder, tears immediately soaking her shirt, though she doesn't hold on with her hands.

She still can't bring herself to touch her.

"Later," she whispers.

Even though Ellie won't reach for her, it's still a relief when she slumps against Clarisse's shoulder. Even though she's still crying, and Clarisse doesn't know what to do except hold her while the tears soak through the fabric of her shirt.

It's movement in a better direction than the one they were headed in a few seconds ago. She'll take it.

"Okay," she says softly, slipping her arms around Ellie to keep her close. Later. She can deal with later. "Just tell me what you need, El."

Even if it's to sit unmoving like this for an hour, or two hours, or all night. Even if at the end of it Ellie stands up and decides she never wants to talk about this again. As long as she's okay.

Ellie goes silent as Clarisse wraps her arms around her. It grounds her, helps hold her down to one place and moment so she won't shake apart.

"Just you," she whispers, forcing it out. The tears are still coming, but- she's climbing out of it.

She's in Thedas, not Seattle. Clarisse is alive and unhurt and afraid for her, not of her. The moment she thinks it, she's able to free her arms from the iron hold she had on them and wrap them around Clarisse instead. Comfort for the both of them.

Ellie can hear Clarisse's heart hammering, pressed to her as she is, and she concentrates on that. Makes herself take deep breaths.

It helps. It forces her to calm the fuck down. Her mind is still a tangled mess, but at least her body doesn't think it's fucking dying anymore.

The shame trickles in a second later, the bastard. Like it always does. Though she knows Clarisse would never judge her for cracking and breaking down like this, she still hates the fact that she has to deal with it.

But that track of thinking will hurl her straight downward, and she's exhausted enough as it is. They both are.

The tears ebb, and Ellie reaches up to wipe at her face, sniffing and knuckling her eyes clear. She doesn't look up. Eye contact is still a little too much. But finally, she begins to relax into Clarisse's hold.

This is usually where she tries to crack a joke. Or curse, and indulge in a little frustration, before checking on Clarisse. Talking it out.

This time, there's just the exhausted, haunted silence.

The minutes pass by slowly, silent apart from the occasional pop of the fire, a murmured voice from the darkness as someone passes on the way to their tent. Clarisse can feel Ellie gathering herself little by little. Breathing in deep, eventually reaching up to wipe tears off her cheeks.

She doesn't look at Clarisse, and she doesn't speak, but she loses a little bit of the awful tension she's been carrying. It's a little bit of comfort. Not much.

Clarisse runs her palm over Ellie's back in slow circles. She tips her head back and looks up at the stars. They're vivid out here in the desert, but they look cold and very far away.

"Do you know anything about Atalanta?" she asks finally. Doesn't wait for an answer before she continues on. If Ellie wants, she can just listen to the sound of her voice, or tune it out entirely, and if she gets tired of it, she can always tell Clarisse to shut up.

"She was this Greek princess. When she was born, her dad, the king of Arcadia, was so pissed that she was a girl that he took her out into the woods and left her on a rock to die. But instead she got adopted by this bear who raised her to be incredibly strong and badass. After a while she was discovered by some hunters in the woods, and they took her back to their village, where she grew up. But she stayed totally badass and strong, so the people gave her the name Atalanta, which means equal in weight. Like, you know, it was Ancient Greece so they couldn't say she was stronger than the men. The best they could do was say she was equal to them." Clarisse huffs softly. "Still, though. Everybody knew the real truth even if they didn't say it out loud."

She goes on, rambling about the slaying of the Kalydonian Boar, and how Atalanta's dad the king took her back in (because he wanted to marry her off and get rich), and the gross dudes who all wanted Atalanta's hand in marriage (but she made them each go up against her in a footrace where she easily caught up to them and killed them off without even breaking a sweat). It's a good story, and it's long enough that she can just sort of... end it, without needing to get to the part where Hippomenes tricks her with the apples.

It's not really about the details, anyway. She's just trying to be a distraction. A white noise machine out here in the middle of nowhere, while Ellie tries to pull herself back together.

The circular rub against Ellie's upper back helps more than anything the stroke away the lingering tension, and Ellie finds her breathing evening out still more as Clarisse holds her close.

She feels her lift her head, tilt it back to look up at the stars, and Ellie chances shifting enough to look.

From this angle she can mostly see just the shadow she makes against the glow of firelight and stars. So, so many stars. Her lips move as she speaks, resting parted as she pauses during her speech, or licks them where they're dry.

Ellie catches scraps of details, like they're breadcrumbs in the wilderness. She follows them slowly back to this place where Clarisse has her clasped in her arms, is telling her the legends of a world apart.

Finally, she reaches up to lay the palm of her hand on Clarisse's cheek, so she'll look down at her. She leans up to kiss her, and it tastes a little salty and damp.

"I'm okay," she reassures her, even though it's obvious to the both of them that she's really not. But at least she's okay enough to look at her. Speak to her. "It was just a bad one."

The kiss is brief, salty from Ellie's tears, but at least it's something normal. Familiar. After it's over, Clarisse presses her forehead to Ellie's and closes her eyes for a few seconds, like she can pretend they're somewhere else if she just doesn't look.

She feels wrung out, exhausted, and still not exactly comforted by Ellie's weak insistence that she's okay. She can only imagine how Ellie feels. And it isn't even over. They've got more nights here before they can go home again. The thought of it hangs over her like a blade, sharp and ready to fall. The same thing happening again tomorrow or the next night, only this time they're in separate tents and Clarisse doesn't even know what's happening.

"Yeah," she agrees, "you're okay," even though she knows—they both know—that they're full of shit. She breathes in the smell of her, even though right now that's mostly smoke and dirt, and it helps. A little.

"I've never seen you like that," she murmurs, opening her eyes again and looking at Ellie's face. "You scared me."

Ellie sniffs once, cupping Clarisse's cheek as she leans her forehead into hers. Ellie lets herself breathe in the warmth, the familiarity, the safety.

They both know they're full of shit. That they're not really safe. None of them are really safe. But Clarisse is the closest thing Ellie's got, and the reverse is the same, too.

Which is why this dream so utterly fucked her up. It feels especially cruel, digging claws into something as simple and familiar as Clarisse holding her.

Deliberately, Ellie runs her thumb along her jaw, following that memorized path. You scared me, Clarisse says, and Ellie feels herself welling up again, the aching horror pooling like it might leak out of her and rot everything it touches.

"I'm sorry," Ellie whispers, rubbing her thumb rhythmically, mindlessly against her skin. She wants to overwrite it. She has to overwrite it.

Later, she said, but the more she thinks about it the more she knows she can't leave Clarisse to twist in the wind. (Justified. Right?)

"I had a dream," she says, her voice pitched barely higher than a whisper, enunciating carefully in that detached way she gets when she recalls awful things, "that I was hurting you. To make you talk. I didn't know it was you."

The way Ellie starts running her thumb along Clarisse's jaw should be a soothing comfort, but it isn't. She's doing it almost the way you'd rub at a stone in your pocket, worrying it until your skin starts to chafe.

Clarisse doesn't stop her, but she does reach up to put her own hand over top of Ellie's.

What she tells her is vague, but Clarisse knows enough. She's had dreams that disgusted her upon waking, that made her feel horrible and horrifying. She doesn't torture people in her dreams, but she gets them killed just the same.

"Oh, Ellie," she whispers. "It wasn't real."

But just saying it makes her squirm, because that's not strictly true. At least not in a way she thinks Ellie is going to accept.

Ellie makes her hand be still when Clarisse catches it, giving up control and letting herself be held. That feels safer for the moment.

Her stomach flips over at her answer.

No, it's not strictly true. It was real, once. Once, Ellie had tortured a woman to death, a friend of Abby's, forcing her to give up what she knew. The idea that this could turn into a reality makes Ellie want to tear her own skin off.

If Clarisse had been there back then, it so easily could've been her.

Later when the sun comes up it won't seem so dire. But right now with the Fade all around them it feels like walking a tightrope.

Please...

"It wasn't real," she agrees, speaking it aloud like the invocation alone can hold back the dark. Her voice is brittle, but firm. "You're all right."

Edited 2023-12-28 22:38 (UTC)

"I'm all right," Clarisse echoes, squeezing Ellie's hand in hers. "We're okay."

Like saying it out loud makes it true.

She hates that this place is fucking with them like this. That it's making their nightmares so much worse than usual, and that even when they're awake, they're seeing things straight out of their worst dreams. There's no escape from it, no true break, even after the sun comes up.

She's tired. Angrier than she's been in a long while. But she swallows it back when she speaks to Ellie again.

"We don't have to talk about it," she says, because she doesn't think Ellie will want to go into any sort of detail, at least not right now, when it's all so raw. "But I know that you would never hurt me. Okay?"

It's not true. Not right now at least. But Clarisse says it so convincingly that Ellie tries to stay with her through it. Like they can make it if they will it hard enough.

It's easier when she's there. When they're on each others' team, able to take on the bullshit together.

We don't have to talk about it, Clarisse says, and guiltily, Ellie's relieved. So much that she sags against her shoulder a little, shutting her eyes. She keeps them shut, holding her and letting the words settle in her ears.

"Okay."

It rings hollow, even if Ellie's desperate for it to be true. To make it true.

That feeling is familiar in a way that makes her stomach sink.

"I can't wait to get out of here. You?"

"Yeah," Clarisse says, "same here." Understatement.

She wraps both arms around Ellie again, settling with her chin tucked against the top of her head. Ellie's not shaking anymore, but it still doesn't feel right. The way she sinks into Clarisse's arms is all wrung out exhaustion, and it's doubtful either of them will get any real sleep now.

She stares into the dark over Ellie's head. Hours to go until sunrise, still. It's getting harder and harder to push through that sinking feeling in her chest as the nights drag on.

But this is, in its own way, helpful. They're not alone and looking up at the canvas roof of their tents. Things are fucked up and awful, but they're together tonight.

"I love you," she breathes. "Messed up dreams and all."

Ellie's not asking for the comfort, but Clarisse, as always, senses that she needs it anyway.

There's a type of trust that comes with letting someone else take care of you, to bear that weight because they love you, with neither of you pretending it's not heavy. For Ellie, who has not allowed this for a good portion of her life, it's especially comforting.

She closes her eyes and sinks into Clarisse, letting her thoughts become a white noise of heartbeat and breath. She is so goddamn tired. They both are. But they're together.

"I love you too," Ellie whispers against her skin. It was never in doubt, but they've made a good case for saying it often anyway.

"Thanks for helping wake me up."

It almost startles Clarisse when Ellie thanks her, as if there were some other option. She could've let Ellie wake up on her own, she guesses, but that seems so fucking cruel, not like the kind of thing you'd do to someone you love at all.

"You'd have done the same for me." That she doesn't question at all.

"I just hope I wouldn't punch you. Not that I'm mad you punched me," she adds quickly. "Just, you know, I'm so unbelievably buff, I'd definitely knock you into next year." She's trying to make a lame joke, okay.

Ellie can hear the echo of Clarisse's voice in her chest, the vibration of her speaking into her hair. It's relaxing, comforting, though she has to pick out the words on purpose.

"So unbelievably buff," she agrees, a snicker sneaking in along with her words. Fuck, but she loves her. She loves her.

"I wouldn't even mind if you punched me," she reassures her.

"I know you wouldn't mind, but I'd still like to not do it." Just saying.

Clarisse runs the palm of one hand up and down Ellie's arm, trying to keep her warm. The fire is close enough, but their backs are to the dark emptiness of the desert, and it's cold out there.

"Want to sleep by the fire tonight?"

Well, again, she's not sure if they'll get any sleep. But they can at least get more comfortable if they grab their bedrolls. Yeah, they probably shouldn't be spending the night outside of their assigned tents, but Clarisse is more than willing to get lectured about it tomorrow if that's what ends up happening. Worth it.

"We could bring our bedrolls out here."

Clarisse solves the dread of knowing they'll have to go back to their tents with that question.

"... yeah."

She doesn't mention how much sand will get into their bedrolls. It's gonna be completely fucking worth it.

"I think I'm getting to be a bad influence on you," she teases her softly.

"You, a bad influence? Never."

Clarisse nudges her lightly before releasing Ellie from her hold so she can stand up and walk to the Smoke Tent to grab her bedroll.

"I don't care if they yell at me," she says over her shoulder, almost like an afterthought.

It's true. In the time they've been here, the amount of fucks she's been able to give about doing what she's supposed to be doing have dwindled significantly. She's even left patrol a couple times and walked back to camp in the middle of the day, without saying anything to anybody.

Bad, maybe, asking for trouble, but that's a problem for later.

"Then I'm losing my touch," Ellie mutters, shrugging as they get up to grab their stuff, and when Clarisse yells after her Ellie laughs out loud, unable to stop herself.

Fuck, she really can do anything with her here.

She comes back with her bedroll not that long later, flopping it out by the fire and smoothing it down. So much sand.

Worth it.

Clarisse comes back about the same time Ellie does, but she stands with her bedroll folded under one arm and waits until Ellie spreads hers out on the sand before she puts hers down next to it, on the side that's further from the fire. Yeah, they're definitely going to dig themselves out of a mini sand dune tomorrow morning, but she's cool with that.

She stretches out onto hers and reaches for Ellie. "C'mere."

It feels like it's been way too long since she's properly held her, not just slipped an arm around her shoulders while they sat next to each other on a rock or something.

Ellie pauses, waiting for Clarisse, but they've camped enough times for Ellie to know she's waiting for her to put her stuff down first.

The first time she did it Ellie had laughed a little bit, challenged her on it, but secretly been touched. Clarisse knows how able she is, how much she's survived, but she still wants to guard her while she sleeps anyway. Just to give her that little bit of peace.

(And maybe for Clarisse's own peace of mind, but still.)

Ellie settles down inside her blanket and between the fire, the bedroll, and Clarisse's warmth against her, she immediately stops shivering. Her eyelids are heavy, but she can't sleep yet.

"Hey," she says softly, shifting onto her back, pillowing her head against Clarisse's arm around her, their bodies aligned.

"... remember the first night we slept together? Like, sleeping. Back in Seattle."

Clarisse can feel the cold air at her back, but Ellie is warm, and the fire isn't too far away. She pulls the blanket up over her shoulder and shifts closer, pressing her lips against Ellie's temple, and that helps.

There was no fucking way she was going to let Ellie take this spot and sleep with her back to the desert.

"Yeah, of course I remember."

She still thinks about it sometimes. It had been a weird day. Not a very good day, when she looks at it objectively. But it had ended like this, lying with her arms around Ellie, and she'd fit perfectly in her arms, and they'd been able to forget about all the bad shit for just a little while.

"Gods." She huffs out a little laugh. "I liked you so much it made me want to barf."

Ellie's eyelids flutter as Clarisse kisses her, and she lifts her hand, settles her palm over Clarisse's arm around her.

It's practically an ingrained reflex, this relaxation. This feeling.

She laughs, and leans in close.

"Same," she mumbles. "I dunno how I kept my shit together when you held my hand in New York right after that. I was so fucking gone on you."

Ellie feels so much more relaxed now, settled on her back, breathing even and calm, one hand clasped over Clarisse's arm. This was a good call. Clarisse rubs her thumb over the familiar slope of her ribs. Gentle, slow circles.

"Do you think things would have been different," she asks, "if we hadn't spent so much time trying to be friends first?"

She doesn't regret anything, or consider it wasted time. But she wonders.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject