Work Text:
Abby’s fingers cramp the frets. She strums with a little too much force, and the guitar makes a rattling, muted sound. Its hollowness creaks in her lap as she resets, tries to find her place in the song again.
She found the guitar upstairs, in a room with Ellie’s other stuff. A stack of journals she didn’t open, despite her curiosity. Sketches of animals. A painting of Dina, which makes her regret stepping into the room in the first place.
But the guitar has a moth on the neck that matches Ellie’s tattoo, so she picks it up. She strums the strings, open. It’s out of tune, probably a little bit warped by heat and moisture. There are a few song books that teach her cursory chords. She hasn’t even attempted any fingerpicking yet.
In the living room, Abby hears the screen door swing open. Footsteps stomp through the kitchen, pause, and then approach more slowly.
Ellie props herself against the doorframe. She’s dressed in her brown jacket and looks tired from the hunt. “Are you trying to make my ears fall off?”
She hates Abby’s playing—or so she says. The first time she saw her with the moth-neck guitar in her hands, she looked at her like she’d violated some long-held pact. Touched something that didn’t belong to her. And Abby thought this would probably lose her the hard-won progress she’d made. Just a couple steps forward, so that they could exist in the same room together without someone flinching.
But then came the teasing. “You’re not supposed to strangle the damn thing.” “The sheep could hear you all the way from the barn. Told me to tell you it sounds awful.” Mostly, things to the effect of, “That sounds like hot garbage.” It was the most Ellie had spoken to her since they got back to the farm.
Despite the complaint, Ellie flops down onto the couch, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. When Abby stops playing, she gives her an insistent nod.
Abby laughs inwardly. “You want me to keep going?”
“No,” she says. “It’s whatever.” Petulant and infuriating, as always.
She’s almost as bad as Lev, who’s become a little bit of a menace with his newfound stability. Because he doesn’t need Abby’s help anymore, and he would do just fine hunting on his own if she let him. He’s started to add some of Ellie’s more colorful language to his repertoire, too. “That sucked balls,” she’d once heard him say when Ellie missed a shot with her bow, giggling.
“Any requests?” Abby asks.
“Ummm…” Ellie rolls her head against the couch cushions. Catching the fading light from the window, her face is dark and freckled from the sun, her hair cut unevenly above her chin. She keeps her left hand tucked into her jacket. “Anything but whatever that was.”
“Fine.”
Abby starts to play something else. She pauses between each chord, interrupting her strumming as she carefully places each of her fingers against the strings. Her hands are calloused enough—from chopping firewood, from her regular exercise routine, but her fingertips are still tender. The longer she plays, the more the strings bite. She would never admit this to Ellie, of course.
When she’s finished, she awaits a familiar insult.
I could do better with two fingers. Except Ellie doesn’t play anymore, because Abby took that away from her.
But there’s no reply. Abby lifts her attention from the fretboard, and Ellie’s asleep. Her head lolls peacefully to one side, eyes shut, brow furrowed, like she’s still pissed off. Her chest rises and falls with slow, even breaths.
It’s the first time Abby’s seen her like this in the daylight. They sleep in separate rooms, Ellie with her door shut tight. But sometimes Abby wakes in the middle of the night to find Ellie curled into her side, fingers knotted into her t-shirt, breathing softly against her neck. She never hears her come in, and they never talk about it in the morning.
Abby sets the guitar down slowly, careful not to make a noise when it connects with the floor.
It’s easy to imagine carrying her, taking all of Ellie’s weight in her arms. She could carry her upstairs and take her to her own bed. She would unlace her converse—she can’t believe Ellie still wears those things—and tug them off.
But Ellie would probably wake up as soon as she curled an arm under her neck. Her eyes darting wide, instinctively bracing herself against Abby’s chest. Taste of blood in her mouth. She would struggle, and say the words she'd been saying to Abby in one way or another since they got here.
Don't fucking touch me.
Abby hasn’t earned that yet. Ellie chooses when to approach and to retreat. Abby can wait. She can wait until she’s ready. They have time.
Instead, Abby unfolds a blanket from the back of the couch. She stretches it out to her full wingspan, letting it fall to her knees. Slowly, so slowly, she drapes it over Ellie’s sleeping form.
Ellie jerks in her sleep, and Abby freezes. She waits. But then she makes a grumbling sound and relaxes again, and Abby continues.
The blanket envelops her fully. Careful not to actually touch her, Abby tucks the blanket in around her neck and shoulders. It gets cold down here at night.
Which reminds her, she should close the window.
She cringes when it makes a grating sound against the woodwork—old house and all. But when she looks back, Ellie is still sleeping.
Flecks of white paint fall and stick to her forearms. She flicks off the light.