Work Text:
If Ellie weren’t such a fucking failure, she would stop sleeping with Abby.
Her entire life is just one long laundry list of every person she’d ever fucked over- Riley, Tess, Sam, Henry, Cat, Jesse, Tommy, Dina, JJ- the whole fucking world, if the fireflies were to be believed. Joel.
And that was the kicker, wasn’t it? She let Joel die, and now she can’t sleep without his killer on the mattress next to her. Case in point- it’s three in the morning and she’s in Abby's bed.
Sometimes she thinks she has Abby’s nightmares. She can’t remember them exactly, but they’re about a hospital. About waking up alone. What else could that mean?
Abby never said she had those dreams. Ellie just pieced it together from the sharp cries Abby made in her sleep, the oblique mentions she made awake. They never really talked about their dreams, just around them. There was too much broken between them to mention.
Dina believed in talking it out. Ellie had never been that kind of person, and she’s glad Abby isn’t either. It makes them more compatible. Which is deeply fucked up, to be more compatible with the monster who brutally murdered your- than with a woman so deeply understanding, patient, gentle, kind, as Dina. But it’s what she deserves, she supposes.
Abby sleeps on her back, ramrod straight like a soldier. Her face is tense even in rest. Does Ellie’s face look as unsettled, as violent, when she sleeps? Ellie counts the silent rise and fall of Abby’s chest, wondering when she stopped wishing that it’d go still and release her.
She wants Abby to wake up. To meet Ellie’s expression with her inscrutable own- eyes intense and calculating, jaw clenched and lips pursed. She would like it if Abby told her to get out and leave. She would like it if Abby asked in that soft, husky sleep voice what she had been dreaming about. She’s like it if Abby curled in closer, wrapping Ellie in her arms-
She’d like it if Abby dreamt Ellie’s dreams. Mostly for the symmetry. She’s blindingly jealous of the fact that Abby seems to be handling everything better than she is. It’s so unfair, that Ellie could hunt so long and so hard and sacrifice so much for peace and not have found it. Abby, who by all rights doesn’t deserve it, or at least deserves it only as much as Ellie, has scrambled her way into a life that leaves her loose limbed and cheerful. Most of the time.
Ellie contemplates jabbing Abby awake. Getting up and noisily moving about the room. Mostly out of spite, but perhaps a little because she knows Abby would pity her.
A creak, down the hall. Ellie twists around to watch the door, one hand already on her knife. Lev, shadowed in the doorway, halts at her movement. She forces herself to relax.
“Hey,” she whispers.
Lev glances back down the hallway uncertainly.
Ellie props herself up on one arm and beckons. It’s hard to love Abby, but loving Lev is simple. Lev enters with trepidation.
He’s grown so much in their time in Catalina. His face has filled out, his shoulders and arms growing ropey with muscle. He moves with poise that defies his years.
“What’s up?” Ellie asks once he’s reached the bedside.
Lev clasps his bicep with one hand and refuses to meet her gaze. “Is Abby awake?”
Ellie turns over and pushes Abby’s shoulder.
“She is now.”
Abby inhales sharply and immediately turns to face them. Panic drains out of her face in an instant at seeing Lev, replaced by concern. “Lev,” she says.
Lev is dangerously close to crying. He climbs onto the bed and around Ellie to throw himself into Abby’s arms. Yes, loving Lev is easy. Ellie will never be that easy to love.
It’s just what she deserves.
-
If Abby weren't such a fucking failure, she'd stop letting Ellie sleep with her.
Every night sometime after Abby has dozed off she wakes to the sound of the mattress shifting. Abby squeezes her eyes shut and pretends she doesn't wake.
She used to sleep with Lev, all curled together. After the Rattlers it was the only way to ensure he stayed safe. Lev ran as hot as her, and they'd burn in feverish symphony together under the covers. They didn't have another choice.
Then, for a time, she slept alone again. She was surprised at how difficult it was. without a body breathing beside her she couldn't recall if she was alive.
Ellie squirms as she dreams, knocking her elbows and knees into Abby. A poor bedmate.
When she is asleep, Abby turns to observe her. It's the safest time to do so. Awake, they avoid each other's eyes. When the moonlight hits her it reflects off her pale, washed-out face and only further emphasizes the dark shadows under her eyes. Her freckles stand out starkly, each a pinprick of humanity across the delicate bones of her face. In rest, she has the expression of a killer. Mouth twisted and brow furrowed, halfway between fury and desolation. Like this, Ellie looks uncannily like the person who tried to murder her.
Ellie doesn't eat properly, doesn't sleep properly. Abby knows this because she crawls into Abby's bed after Abby has gone to sleep and is gone before she wakes. The numbers don't add up, but Abby can't mention it, the same way she doesn't mention the not-secret of Ellie coming into her room nearly every night.
When Abby wakes up undisturbed, she knows Ellie hasn't slept at all. Somehow that is worse.
Ellie writhes beside her. A pain in Abby’s chest reaches across the impossible distance. As if Ellie could find comfort in Abby’s arms. As if Abby has anything to offer her. She wishes Lev still slept with her. Or- not quite.
Mark has been flirting with Abby recently. She told him she's not ready but the truth is she doesn't mind the attention. If she gave in, would he sleep beside her instead of Ellie? The idea is momentarily compelling, until she realizes the pit in her stomach at knowing Ellie would have nowhere else to go.
She shouldn't care where Ellie goes. The girl follows her, has followed her, with the dogged determination of a hunting hound. Bear had been like that. All Abby would have to do, ever had to do, was tell the fireflies she wanted space. They'd placed Abby and Ellie together out of a misunderstanding neither girl had been cognizant enough to refute. But Abby let Ellie follow her. She could say she felt she owed the girl, for the pain writ across her face and evident in the hunched movements of her body. But if anything Ellie owed her. Abby has run the tallies, although running tallies is fundamentally stupid, and she is the clear casualty. In their slanted, piecemeal recountings of those terrible three days, Abby can account for each of the Salt Lake crew. She had asked in stupid hope after others of the WLF she called acquaintance, but Ellie could not remember the faces of all she killed. Probably dead by the scars now, anyway.
All that to say, Abby has every right to kick the murderer of her friends out of her bed. Out of her house. Perhaps if she laid it out to the council, she could even get Ellie banished.
One of Ellie's slender arms reach outwards, and her fingers curl over Abby's wrist. Her hand is cool and soft. Abby stares at the long, freckled fingers and tries to school her breathing. If Ellie knew what she was doing, would she attack Abby? Spit curses? Or would she retreat, coil into herself and no longer come in the night to Abby's room?
The touch could mean anything. A memory of the woman she left behind. A bid for human comfort.
Abby studiously pretends she doesn't care either way. She closes her eyes and focuses on the cool touch that connects them. Breathes deeply, in and out. If she doesn't fall asleep, she can be awake when Ellie slips from her bed. She can stretch out a hand and clasp Ellie's wrist in turn. Pull her back under the covers and fold Ellie against her.
They can pretend it isn't happening, the same way they've been pretending Ellie doesn't sleep in Abby's bed. They could pretend anything.