Work Text:
“...Beautiful.”
Elyza ghosted two fingers across the healing tattoo. Alicia watched her until she actually touched the inked skin, then quickly pulled her arm back, hissing at the pain.
“I literally just did it last week, it still hurts.”
“Sorry.” There was a genuine apology in Elyza’s eyes, and the softness was in such contrast to the tough front she normally put up that Alicia immediately regretted her tone.
“S’ok,” she muttered quickly, not able to hold Elyza’s sincere gaze. Instead she looked down at the spiral heart she’d pricked into her skin of the arm she was cradling. She heard Elyza lean forward to follow her gaze. She could almost feel the curiosity radiating towards her.
After a few minutes, Elyza broke the silence again. “Who did it for you?”
Alicia glanced at her without actually turning her head. “Nobody. I did it.” And then turned back to tracing the edges of the tattoo gingerly, not bothering to wait for Elyza’s reaction.
Before the silence had settled, Elyza broke it again. “Did you design it too?”
Alicia sighed slightly in annoyance and answered shortly. “No.”
“Oh. Who did?”
“Do they not teach people how to mind their own business where you come from? Jeez.” Alicia nodded quickly to flip her hair over her shoulder as she turned her face from the conversation Elyza seemed to want to start.
Besides being confused about the young woman’s desire to make friends with her, Alicia felt overwhelmed by the questions she didn’t feel ready to answer. Why should she allow this stranger to push her through the feelings and fears she didn’t want to face?
Elyza had appeared the night after Alicia’s arrival at Strand’s mansion on the beach. She’d broken in through Strand’s extensive security system and was only caught because Nick woke up in the middle of night sweating, twitching, and thirsty. If any of the other members of the house had discovered her she might not have been so lucky - she thought the house abandoned and wasn’t being very careful, and claimed that she had disabled the security system to avoid attracted walkers with the noise - but Nick was too single-minded to do her any damage when he walked in on her rummaging through the refrigerator. Similarly, Nick was lucky that Elyza wasn’t being careful because if it came down to it, he didn’t stand a chance against her in a fight. Nick’s yells for help before Elyza put him in a chokehold woke the rest of the house and began a midnight argument. Madison and Travis were ready to kick her out unprotected and unceremoniously, but the guns Elyza was packing won her Salazar’s support, and Strand had been impressed with her breaking-and-entering skills. After a solid hour of panicked and exhausted debating, Elyza was allowed to stay.
Alicia still held a little bit of grudge for that. She didn’t appreciate being woken in the dead of night, and felt guilty expressing anything but animosity towards someone who put her (admitted stupid) brother in a chokehold.
So when Elyza asked if she could join her sitting on the beach cliff where she’d been trying to find a few moments of solitude in the dark evening, Alicia didn’t know why she said yes. And when Elyza made a corny joke about the danger of going it alone as she sat down, Alicia couldn’t explain the unheeded laughter that shuddered in her chest briefly. And when Elyza asked if she could have a closer look at the tattoo on her arm, Alicia really felt like maybe someone had possessed her arm and extended it to rest on the ground between them.
But the questions that followed broke whatever spell had been placed on her, and she remembered that she was not friends with this suspiciously dangerous, dangerously smart newcomer.
Elyza sat back and spoke without looking at the back of Alicia’s head. “Where I come from, actually, we all live in glass houses and don’t know the concept of privacy. We all know everything about everyone.” She paused. When Alicia didn’t move, she added, “Also, the sky is green.”
Alicia refused to respond to any of it. The calm that she had gained for a moment in the dark and the quiet and even the warmth of Elyza’s presence when she first sat down was drowning in the memories that now flooded her mind.
After a few minutes of silence, Elyza asked quietly, “Hey, do you know how to shoot a gun?” Still facing away from Elyza, Alicia rolled her eyes and tried to hide how the question fueled the anger she’d been stewing in. Elyza continued after a lack of response, “...because I could teach you, you know, if you wanted. I know it’s probably not the first thing you want to do but it could be good, just to know, just in case-”
Alicia read Elyza’s non sequitur as exactly what it was: an attempt to return to their initial amicable small talk; another chance to find a way in. But her patience was gone. She spun, unable to contain her bubbling anger. “No, thank you,” she spit. “I don’t want to touch a gun right now, I don’t want to know how to shoot one. I don’t know if you’ve noticed - I know you just got here - but my step-brother is a little bit of a mess and his mother’s body has a hole in it so no, I think we’ve all had enough of guns for a while.”
When Alicia finally actually looked at Elyza’s face and registered the expression, she knew she’d hit a nerve. Her anger protected her from regretting the outburst, but her brain knew that Elyza’s intentions had been good. Somewhere, in some part of her mind, she knew that her anger was misdirected.
Alicia closed her eyes and sighed. She heard Elyza shift next to her out of the recoil she’d twisted into when Alicia had spun around. She took a deep breathe, and as she exhaled, whispered an apology. She heard Elyza whisper her own apology at nearly the same time. The surprise opened her eyes and turned her head to meet Elyza’s gaze.
Alicia squinted. “Why are you talking to me right now? I’m like, the last person here who you need to win over.”
Elyza picked at the hem of her jeans and looked out over the dark waves. She shook her head slowly, thoughtfully.
“Because you’re the one I want to win over.”
Alicia’s stomach dropped. Her brow furrowed. That was something she definitely didn’t want to investigate further, not yet, not now, not with a dark spinning heart still healing on her arm and in her chest. But Elyza continued after a moment of quiet.
“Life should be about more than just surviving, don’t you think?”