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Ellie can taste the blood at the back of her throat, feel the burn in her windpipe. She’s doubled over and clutching her stomach where Abby kneed her, hard enough for Ellie to forget about all the aches and bruises that built up during their fight.
It was worth it. Even with Abby strangling every last atom of oxygen out of her Ellie got her good, managed to stick her switchblade nice and deep, halfway to the hilt. Deep enough that Ellie could hear the slick-sharp squish of metal splitting muscle over the blood rushing in her ears.
Abby is groaning, too busy assessing the wound on her thigh to dish out anything more than a halfhearted swipe in Ellie’s direction. Ellie veers back, intending to dart around a corner and melt into the shadows, give herself some time to recuperate. But Abby’s previous hit to her jaw must have hit Ellie harder than she thought because her depth perception is horribly off: she misjudges her distance, stumbling into a stack of wooden pallets and sending them flying. She manages to catch herself before she loses her balance completely but by the way her head pounds when she catches a glimpse of the flickering fluorescent overhead Ellie knows she’s only a couple more clips to the head away from a concussion.
(Later, Ellie will curse herself for not retreating, curse herself for ever setting foot in this basement. For not running upstairs and grabbing Dina and breaking for Jackson. She will wonder if things would have turned out differently. If she would have turned out differently. If she never dropped that map in the aquarium, if she camped at a different theatre, if she never went to Seattle at all.)
(If she never set foot in another basement, never caught sight of that long, blonde braid.)
(But for now her brain is wiped clean, empty but for the mantra that carried her through Joel’s death, carried her to Seattle, carried her past bite-happy W.L.F dogs and fanatical scars. Drove her into a spore filled basement, pushed her to bludgeon a girl to death, kill her in a way no one should die.)
(Later, this mantra will drive her to abandon the kindest woman she’s ever known, as well as a child that loves her more than anyone currently breathing. It will pull her to Santa Barbara and drag her down to a beach. It will bring her to the lowest point in her life: pushing a knife against the throat of a child, innocent and limp with sleep.)
(Abby, Abby, Abby.)
Her switchblade is slick with Abby’s blood and Ellie can feel it crusting beneath her fingernails.
She adjusts her grip on the handle and charges.
Abby just grabs her wrist and swats the knife out of her hand, throwing it on the ground and kicking it out of reach. Ellie roars, grabbing her braid and yanking down, trying to slam her head into the metal of a circuit breaker panel. Abby kicks her legs out from under her and Ellie drops like a rock, Abby following her down and dropping her weight on top of her in a straddle. Her movements are almost lazy. She catches Ellie’s wrists in one hand and pins them over Ellie’s head as the other winds up for an uppercut.
Ellie squirms like a worm on a hook, jerking her head side to side to make herself a harder target and bucking her hips to try and dislodge Abby.
Abby just scoffs and grinds her hips down. Presses strong thighs into Ellie’s sides. Ellie panics, thrashing with a newfound struggle because if she can't move her hips she has no chance of breaking the pin. She’s throwing all her weight into her thighs, thrusting upwards and side to side, trying to jostle Abby. Create the slightest window of opportunity for Ellie to crawl out from under her. She’s so focused on escaping that she doesn't register that Abby isn’t hitting her. Not even winding up to hit her, actually. It’s only when Abby’s other hand comes to land next to her head that Ellie realizes she's not being actively hurt. She looks up, wincing against the fluorescent light overhead. Once the brightness fades she’s met with Abby, breathing hard and looking away from her.
Ellie panics. Jerks her head to where Abby’s looking and ignores the way her vision swirls. If her switch is within Abby’s reach and she’s planning on going for it Ellie would like to know in advance. But as things come back into focus all she sees is the flakey brown wooden beams and grey concrete of the basement.
Not comforting. Ellie flicks her eyes around desperately, searching for the weapon Abby must be looking at. Finds nothing. She’s frantic, rocking her hips harder, managing to get them halfway off the ground before the hand that’s next to her head comes up to press Ellie down by the sternum.
“Stop fucking squirming.” Abby’s voice is strange, almost strangled. But she's not hurting Ellie so she’s inclined to cooperate. As much as she hates Abby, she knows that this situation is really not good and that her best move is to buy herself as much time as possible. Enough time to recover her energy and think of another way to escape the pin.
Ellie doesn't quite relax, muscles still taut like a tripwire, but she stops actively resisting, stops straining against Abby’s hold. Abby’s grip on her wrists loosens ever so slightly but her hips stay heavy, pressing down on Ellie’s pelvis as she straddles her.
She's tired. There’s a dull ache in her head and now that she’s still the adrenaline is beginning to die down. All those aches and bruises from earlier are back in full force, have moved from easily brushed aside nuisances to actively painful. Ellie tells herself she’s strategizing and lets her eyes fall closed, giving herself permission to fall into a parody of rest. With nothing else to do, she listens to Abby's harsh breaths. Feels Abby’s weight against her, the fabric of her cargos shifting against Ellie’s jeans.
The longer she stays like that, the more her pain fades into the background. And the more focused Ellie gets the stranger the situation seems. Abby’s moving on top of her, almost rhythmically, and her breaths sound ragged. Almost as if she’s panting. Ellie wonders if Abby’s more injured than she let on. She cracks an eye open and is relieved when the light is only irritating, nowhere near the headache of earlier.
Her relief evaporates when she sees cold blue eyes staring down at her.
Ellie suspected Abby would be somewhat calmer, given that she’s stopped trying to break her jaw, but the anger from earlier is far more subdued than Ellie ever expected. She scans over Abby’s body but doesn’t see any injuries of note. Besides Ellie’s stab wound in her thigh. Which, now that Ellie has a good look at it, isn’t nearly as close to Abby’s femoral artery as she intended.
The corners of her mouth tick downwards. Abby isn’t looking at her the way you look at someone who’s hunted you across several states for the express purpose of murdering you and everyone you love. Ellie knows her eyes are full of hate and the idea that Abby’s aren’t, that Ellie’s insignificant, not temporarily cast aside in favour of tending to an injury but really that little of a threat, irritates her.
“What the fuck is your problem,” she spits.
Ellie doesn’t care if Abby busts her nose, cracks her cheekbone hard enough to fracture her orbital. Abby’s hips haven’t stopped moving but Ellie doesn’t notice, too focused on that strange, strange look in her eyes.
Abby only moves her hand from beside Ellie’s head to press down on her sternum. It’s uncomfortable, reinvigorates that breathlessness from earlier. Makes Ellie fight a little harder to take in air. But it seems like a warning more than anything else. It’s certainly not a mercy Ellie would have shown her.
Abby’s hips shift again, harder this time, and that, contrasted with the stillness of her upper body, has Ellie’s eyes snapping up to her face.
Her very flushed face.
“What the fuck is your problem,” she repeats. It comes out strangled.
Abby doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. She sighs and drops the charade, shifting her weight to slide her hand down Ellie’s sternum. Only to slide it back up, this time underneath Ellie’s tank top, sweat slick skin gliding against sweat slick skin. She paws at her stomach, hand tracing the curves of her waist, hips never ceasing those rhythmic motions. As her hand slides closer to Ellie’s chest her thrusts get jerkier, and by the time she’s fully cupping a breast Abby’s thrusts have lost all rhythm. Impossible to interpret as anything other than the depraved grinding that they are.
Why Abby even attempted to hide it in the first place is beyond her. Ellie briefly wonders why she’s not instinctually disgusted, raging and squirming, and it occurs to her that perhaps Abby’s not as shameless as initially thought. It strikes her that it's less dominance and more genuine desire, a lapse in priorities. The thought is disgusting but it makes Ellie smile, an ugly, crooked thing. She’s still disturbed, but not viscerally so, and Abby’s the one humping her like a poorly trained puppy. Ellie should be nauseous, sick with it, but all she can think of is how she can turn this situation around. If this is even half as embarrassing for Abby as it is for her then Ellie will gladly take advantage of that. She tests against the pin, just once, not wanting to draw attention but needing to check if there’s any hope of getting out of this. Abby's grip is stronger than ever. But that’s fine.
If Ellie can't escape this she'll just have to drag Abby down with her.
“No wonder the scars call you wolves.” Abby looks down at her questioningly. Ellie jerks her chin towards Abby’s rutting hips. “You're like a fucking dog.”
It doesn’t have the desired effect. Abby’s cheeks get redder, flushing all the way to the tips of her ears. Her thrusts get harder, hard enough to jostle Ellie’s back along the concrete. Ellie presses her thighs together to concentrate her weight, ignoring the wetness between them as she thrusts up, trying to get Abby off of her. Abby, who is squeezing Ellie’s tit and giving one last exceptionally jerky thrust, throwing her head back and letting out a shaky moan.
Ellie stares at Abby in disgust as she pants above her, coming down.
She thinks of telling her to stop. Get off of me. Her lips form the words but they never make it out of her throat. She's scared to say them and make it real. Make it what Ellie knows it is. Scared that Abby will ignore them and keep going. Scared that she'll stop.
Ellie’s wrapped up in her mind, wondering how she let things get this far. Still not quite willing to admit exactly how out of hand things have gotten. She’s in her head, so much so that she doesn’t see the shift in Abby’s expression. Doesn’t feel the way the grip on her wrists goes lax for a split second, then bone breakingly tight. Doesn’t notice the way Abby adjusts her weight so she can shift back, move her straddle from Ellie’s hips to just below her knees, carefully angling the stabbed thigh away from her. Doesn’t notice much of anything at all.
Until she feels a hand slip out from under her tank top and down to her belt buckle.
Ellie thrashes on instinct. It jostles Abby, just barely, but hard enough her injured leg threatens to smack against concrete. “Stay still” Abby grits out. “We both know you can’t take another hit to the head.”
(Later, she will turn these words in her mind, over and over. But for now, they cut through her panic.)
Ellie, disoriented as she is, knows Abby is right. The fear of being unconscious, completely helpless, grabs Ellie by the neck. She forces herself to still, muscles spasming on instinct but not moving as Abby's hand runs up her sides and over her chest. Fumbling to undo her belt and creeping between Ellie’s thighs. The stiller she is the rougher the touches and the rougher the touches the smaller she feels, falling deeper and deeper into her own mind until she's a million miles away.
(This is a terror Ellie has only felt once before.)
(Flashes of a searing hot room, flames licking at her back, blood splattering across her face, smoke stinging her eyes, the relentless shick shick shick of a machete as she swings it. Up and down and up and down and in and out and in and out.)
She doesn't register the change in Abby's expression. She does register the sharp flick to her temple. It's not hard enough to completely renew the headache from earlier, not hard enough to snap her back into reality, but hard enough to cause a dull ache to spread through her skull.
“What the fuck?” she slurs. Why Abby hit Ellie when she didn’t do a damn thing is beyond her. When she speaks again her voice is clearer, irritation creeping into it. “I’m cooperating!”
Abby is frowning. Her eyes seem to be searching Ellie’s face. Looking for some hint of shame, maybe. Abby’s murderous intent from earlier seems to have completely evaporated but Ellie can't find it in herself to be grateful. “Don't do….” Abby rolls her shoulders back and flicks her eyes upwards. “Whatever that was.” Ellie realizes her hand is fully under her jeans. She hadn’t noticed. She's toying with the edge of Ellie's underwear.
Ellie is halfway to present, incredulity beginning to cut through the shroud of her haze. “Alright. So stay still but not too still.”
Abby stares down at Ellie as if she’s missing something incredibly obvious.
The entire situation is so ridiculous that Ellie can't stop the laugh that erupts from her. It's chest deep, heavy enough that her breasts jiggle. She catches Abby's eyes flickering to them as she heaves. Her breaths are ugly. They’re cracked and twisted and tinged with the slightest hint of a sob. Ellie feels a warning sting at her waterline and screws her eyes shut. Imagines Abby staring down at her as if Ellie’s the lunatic in this situation and laughs again. When she opens her eyes Abby's shifting on top of her, differently than the grinding from earlier. Her expression borders on uncomfortable and that only makes Ellie laugh harder.
“Never mind.” Abby says quickly, sliding her hand out of her pants. Her voice is high, almost placating. The change in attitude draws Ellie's attention upwards. There’s a hint of a frown on her lips and something Ellie can't quite place in her eyes but just as Ellie starts to have an inkling of what it might be, Abby’s face smooths over.
When Abby speaks next her voice is impassive as ever. “Do whatever.”
Ellie’s too overwhelmed for words but she's so confused she knows it has to be showing, feels the space between her brows scrunching up, the corners of her mouth ticking.
Abby’s face splits into a grin. “I mean,” she says, running a hand along Ellie’s protruding ribs, over her tank top this time, “it’s not like it matters.”
Ellie feels the blood drain from her face. Just like that she's back under again. Feels herself go into freefall, plummeting back into that dark corner in the deepest part of her mind.
Abby must notice but she doesn't say anything, eyes fixing on Ellie's face as her fingers trace circles along her sternum. “No padding. Does that shitty town feed you anything?”
The switch from threat to banter is so jarring that Ellie's getting whiplash. “Is this bitch serious?” she thinks, half hysteria and half disbelief. She should be terrified but this entire situation is so surreal it wipes the exhaustion and terror from her mind. The mismatch between the haze of her own mind and the sharp focus of Abby’s eyes is so jarring it cuts through the fog, dragging Ellie fully into reality.
(Later, Ellie will come back to this moment and be horrified, the retroactive terror of a nightmare that's only truly felt once you have startled awake. Pounding heart and sweaty sheets; irrelevant in sleep, but making things just that much worse upon waking. But for now all she feels is overwhelming incredulity.)
(That, and a faint urge to get Abby back. Not the same violent compulsion as earlier, though that certainly hasn't left Ellie. But it’s faded into the background and what she feels now is something far lighter. The sort of energy that drives a dog to nip at its owner's heels.)
She cranes her neck up, towards Abby's thick forearm so she can lean forward and bite. Just lightly enough to be felt. Nowhere near hard enough to get Ellie's head cracked against the concrete. It's practically a nibble. In another context, it would be playful. Abby recognizes the restraint for what it is and tilts her head curiously, raising a brow.
Ellie’s swallows. Feels the dry walls of her throat contract. Chews on Abby’s arm just a bit harder, looks at her pointedly. When she speaks her voice is raw and cracked, a sharp contrast to her words.
“You sure W.L.F doesn't stand for Whole Lotta Food?”
Abby blinks, bewildered. Throws her head back in a laugh. It's a nice laugh, loud and deep. Comes straight from her belly, so Ellie knows it's genuine. It makes her guts churn and wipes any thoughts of cooperation from her mind. This time when she brings her mouth to Abby’s arm she bites to bite, like a rabid dog, like a fucking clicker. Doesn't stop when she tastes blood, doesn't stop when Abby shakes her arm like it's a dog toy and Ellie’s an unruly puppy. It takes the sharp crack of her skull against concrete and stars filling her vision for Ellie's jaw to unlock.
(Later, she will wonder just how calculated the force behind that hit was. At the time it seemed like Abby hit her as hard as possible. But later, as Ellie and Dina ride back to Jackson, Ellie will think of Abby saying she couldn’t take another blow to the head. She will flick through her memories of those three days in Seattle, mentally replaying snippets of conversations between W.L.F troops, caught on radio waves or overheard by Ellie as she hid in the underbrush. Will wrack her memories of Nora in the hospital, poring over the soldiers' reactions to her treatments. Slowly but steadily building a rough estimate of the average medical know-how of a W.L.F soldier.)
(She will consider that Nora and Mel were medics. Slowly but steadily building a rough estimate of Abby’s medical know-how.)
Ellie doesn’t fall unconscious, but the pain is jarring enough that it takes a few seconds for her to blink back to reality. When she opens her eyes she expects to see Abby glaring down at her. Thin lips screwed into a scowl and face full of rage. But Abby only looks excited, blue eyes bright and fixed onto Ellie’s face. She doesn’t even glance at the bite mark, ignoring the blood welling up in favour of tugging at the edge of Ellie’s white tank top. Pushing it up and over the swell of Ellie’s breasts. When she feels the chill of the basement hit her nipples she hears Abby exhale shakily.
Ellie's stomach flips. She should be disgusted but the adrenaline is back in full force, only transmuted into something different than the fear and rage of earlier. And she’s too hopped up on it to make those connections, too present to be truly disgusted.
“First time seeing a pair that's not your own?” she spits, entirely performative.
Abby’s too busy teasing Ellie's nipples to be offended by the spite in her voice. She’s not touching Ellie like she’s trying to get her interested, but it's nowhere near clinical. Just touching to touch, callused fingers against soft skin. “No.” The blood from the bite mark is dripping off her arm and into the valley between Ellie's breasts.
Her touches are too soft, her face too calm. Any gentler and Abby might as well take the blood and finger-paint a heart onto Ellie's chest.
Ellie wracks her brain for something, anything, that can make this hurt. Something that will get her nose busted open, get her jaw cracked. Rapid-fires through her mind until she settles on a pregnant woman and the man who was so unwilling to give Abby up. Flashes back to that basement and forces Joel out of her mind, focusing on Mel’s face and the way it twitched. How they were all so focused on wrangling Ellie but all Owen was doing was staring at Abby, a worried look on his face.
“Oh. You and that guy seemed so close, I just tho-”
Ellie doesn’t get to finish her sentence because Abby’s letting go of her wrists to clap a hand over her mouth. Pushes down hard. Ellie’s skull meets concrete hard enough that she can feel her brain rattling around in her skull.
(Later, she’ll discover Abby’s father was a neurosurgeon. She’ll find a polaroid of them in the Salt Lake compound, hugging as Abby smiles. Not the schadenfreude-tinged smirk Ellie associates with her but something much kinder, much more innocent. Ellie will see the Firefly logo spray-painted on the wall behind them, handwritten notes detailing the deterioration of cordyceps infected neurons surrounding it, and several things will click into place.)
(But for now, there’s only a sharp pain and the temporary relief of unconsciousness.)
“Shut the fuck up.” Abby’s voice is low and dangerous.
Abby’s touches get rougher as she grabs the edges of Ellie’s underwear and jeans, shoving them down her thighs. Jams her fingers between her legs to run through her folds. She nearly misses the split second where Abby’s eyes widen before her face twists into a self satisfied smirk.
Ellie doesn’t want to hear whatever taunt is coming next, taking advantage of her newfound handedness to bring her hands up to Abby's shoulders. One latches onto the fabric of her shirt to yank her down and the other wraps around the back of Abby’s neck and digs in, pressing down until Ellie feels wet and drags, knowing her nails are leaving trails of red in their wake.
Abby only moans shakily, eyes laser focused on Ellie’s face as she pushes a finger in.
And Ellie’s wet, so fucking wet that there's no resistance as her finger slides in, wet enough that Abby can't get a grip, thumb clumsily slipping across her clit but it doesn't even matter because Abby’s found that spongy little nub inside of her and keeps rubbing it just right. Ellie hears a breathy gasp that she knows must be her own and feels Abby smile against her neck, pull back to whisper in her ear.
“If I knew killing Joel would've gotten us like this I'd have done it a lot sooner.”
Ellie’s heart sinks as reality snaps back into place. She makes a broken, keening noise and really, truly, struggles, puts all her strength into it, hands moving up to claw at Abby’s face but all she does is take her hand off Ellie’s mouth to catch her wrists and wrench them over her head and pin them to the ground and just like that Ellie’s back to square one, squirming uselessly as Abby slips another finger inside. She tries to bring her leg up to kick at Abby's injured thigh but Abby’s too heavy and the angle is all wrong and it's fruitless, utterly fruitless. She’s pinned down and helpless and she can't look at Abby so she looks over at the concrete floor. Finds dull grey splattered with shining red.
Ellie retches and feels stomach acid come up, feels it burning at the back of her throat and forces herself to swallow it down. She wonders how young she looks like this, wide eyed and pinned down and howling. Wonders if she looks like that girl from another basement and another lifetime ago. Wonders if Abby would even recognize her, or if she was too focused on Joel.
(Later, she will realize that the way she feels about Abby is very different from the way Abby felt about Joel.)
Ellie feels pinpricks at her waterline and tries to blink back tears. Tries to hold back sobs, but she can tell it doesn't work because she can feel that telltale tightness at the back of her throat. Can hear the little hic-hic-hics of her hyperventilation. Can feel hot tears leaving salty tracks as they run across her cheeks.
(The next part of this memory is the part Ellie will try hardest not to think about.)
(Most of the time, it will cease to exist in her consciousness. It will only be during rough spells, weeks where she’s slept far too little and drunk far too much, that Ellie will allow herself to think about it. Will let herself shift that loose tile in her bathroom and reach for the spare journal she so rarely touches. Will let herself pour her thoughts onto paper and pore over previous entries. Will hate herself when she can’t tell the difference between thoughts just put to paper and ones written down years ago.)
(The nights she’s particularly drunk are the ones where she will let herself put the pen down and shift her journal fully to her left hand to hold it open. Let her fingers drift lower and lower.)
(She will tell herself she doesn’t remember, in the mornings.)
Abby growls low and hungry and doubles down, crooking her elbow and curling and pumping her fingers until Ellie is whining and her hips are jerking confusedly into Abby's hand, legs trembling like a newborn fawn.
Abby is surprisingly silent. Her chest is heaving so Ellie can tell she’s breathing quite heavily but the breaths themselves are near inaudible. She expects Abby to mock her further but all that Ellie hears are pathetic, bitten off moans and the slick sound of her own cunt.
(Later, she will recognize why Abby didn’t feel the need to humiliate her in that moment: Ellie was already doing it to herself.)
Her eyes are fixed between Ellie’s legs, gaze hot and heavy but still razor sharp. Ellie groans and arches her back, tilting her neck far back enough that she doesn't have to see slick-shining fingers pistoning in and out of her. Lets her line of sight drift from wet skin against wet skin to wooden pallets and grey concrete. Bets on Abby being too focused to notice or care.
But of course that would be too kind.
Abby pulls her fingers out, leaving Ellie empty to grab her jaw and jerk her forward. “Look at me.” Her voice is hard.
Ellie screws her eyes shut, shakes her head back and forth. The hand on her jaw moves up to spread her wetness right under her nose, thumb pressed into the hollow of her cheek and fingers clapped over her lips. It’s wet and warm against her upper lip and smells sharp and salty. She smells sharp and salty. She's not quite sure if the salt is from her arousal or her tears.
Ellies lips move against Abby’s palm. A muffled “fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.” But she opens her eyes.
“Stupid girl,” Abby scoffs. Lets go of her jaw to bring her hand back between her legs and Ellie hates herself for the relief she feels when Abby slides those fingers back in. “You don't get to escape from this.”
Ellie looks down to the hand between her thighs and for a moment she’s scared, scared that's not what Abby meant because eye contact right now would make her break. Feels tears threaten to spill over at the thought. But the hand doesn’t reach back up to her jaw and Abby’s gaze remains fixed between her legs so Ellie relaxes, lets her vision unfocus. Quick fingers in and out of her fades into pink flesh on pink flesh fades into a senseless blur. The only thing Ellie registers is the feeling and the shlick shlick shlick of her cunt. She’s clenching down, hard enough that she can feel the moment where Abby has to start putting a bit of force into her thrusts, hunkering down and bending fully at the elbow so she can really put her back into it. And that thought, that Abby has to pin her down and force her, and that no matter how tight she squeezes she just can't keep her out, that makes Ellie so wet that she can feel herself loosen, feel Abby's fingers slip just a bit deeper, feel herself get just a bit wetter and hear just how much louder those little shlick shlick shlick noises get.
Ellie's starting to think she might be a bit fucked up. At least when it comes to Abby.
Abby starts grinding the heel of her palm against Ellie’s clit and she feels herself clamp down, so tight that Abby’s fingers feel twice as large. She hears a whispered “fuck,” followed by a louder “it's like you're trying to cut off circulation.” Abby’s voice is something too close to awed. Ellie is out of it enough that she doesn’t notice, much less protest. She just whines, wrists twitching in Abby's grip, fingers curling in the air. Searching uselessly for some semblance of grounding, something to anchor herself to.
Abby laughs. “If I let you go, are you going to behave?”
(Ellie will come back to this moment and hate herself for how quickly she nods.)
(But more than anything else she will hate herself for how she thinks, hazily, of a bobblehead Joel gave her. Some politician from before the outbreak. She thinks of Joel putting it on her nightstand and flicking it, head wobbling back and forth and back and forth. And Ellie doesn’t feel a thing beyond her own arousal. Doesn’t make a connection beyond the movement of her nodding head and the bobblehead’s wobbling. And later, she will hate herself for that more than anything.)
(But for now she only nods.)
(Quickly.)
(Desperately.)
Abby flashes a shit eating grin but doesn’t mock Ellie for her eagerness. Only mutters a teasing “doubtful,” quiet enough that Ellie doesn’t think she was supposed to hear. Her hand leaves Ellie’s wrists to grope at a tit and Ellie’s not thinking of fighting, not thinking of anything at all. Her hands fly up to the shoulders of Abby's top but it's no good, the cotton too thin and flimsy to provide any sort of grounding. Ellie whines, jerking her hands down to claw at the cool concrete beneath her but that doesn't help either so she's reaching up again, tugging at the dishwater blonde braid dangling over Abby’s shoulder but not to hurt, not to pull Abby’s hair out by the roots, but to haul her down so they can kiss, slow and dirty.
Objectively, it's disgusting. It’s not a kiss in the true sense of the word. It's nothing more than mouths meeting mouths. Abby’s smiling against Ellie’s lips and Ellie’s doing all the work, slobbering against her like a lovesick puppy.
Subjectively, it's the best thing Ellie has ever felt. It’s wet and warm and welcoming. It feels like a hug, like coming home on a snowy winter's day and feeling the tingle of warmth against cold skin. In that moment, it's everything she needs. Ellie feels a tear run down her cheek and for the first time in a long time it's not one borne from sadness or rage.
Ellie breaks the kiss to press her forehead against Abby’s. The muscles in her thighs are twitching and tensing, itching to snap closed against the overwhelming stimulation. Ellie breathes through it, forcing them to stay open. Abby seems to sense she’s close because her fingers speed up, just a hint.
“Come on.”
The words fan across Ellie’s face and her breaths get shakier. Feels hot breaths puffing against her mouth, knows she’s puffing against Abby’s. Carbon dioxide mixing with carbon dioxide.
“Come on.” Abby’s voice is cracking at the edges.
Ellie hears her inhales, knows Abby hears hers. They're sharing oxygen. Life for life, death for death.
“Come on, Ellie.”
Abby’s voice is beginning to edge into desperation and that's what pushes her over the edge.
It's quiet. Ellie’s mouth drops open, soundlessly. She curls into herself like a collapsing star, arms throwing themselves around Abby’s broad back and pulling her down into her. Feels Abby gasp more than she hears it. Feels the hand on her breast fly up to cup the base of her skull and hold her close. Forehead to forehead, skin to skin, breath to breath.
Ellie’s slow to come back to herself. For a while, she drifts. It could be for a few minutes, or perhaps an hour. Ellie has no way of knowing. She feels her sweaty back against the once cool concrete, now warmed over by her body heat. Feels blood and spit crusting against her skin. It doesn’t register as disgusting. There’s no thought attached to the feeling, it simply is. Ellie curls her fingers and uncurls them for the simple sensation of it. At some point she feels her pants pulled back up, rebuttoned. Feels her tank top pulled down and back over her breasts. She whines at the scratch of rough denim against sensitive thighs, the scrape of cotton against tender nipples. Hears someone shushing her. It’s a kind, indulgent noise. Ellie feels pressure against her hips, something shifting on top of her. At one point she swears she feels a hand carding through her hair, calloused fingertips scratching against her scalp, but she’s too tired to open her eyes and look.
(Later Ellie will wonder if, in her haze, she superimposed a memory of Dina overtop of Abby. Coated cruelty with kindness, a pitiful attempt at comfort made by a broken brain.)
(Towards the end of things, on those late nights, the ones where it's clear something is so very wrong, Ellie will lay her head on Dina’s lap. She will ask her to run her hands through her hair. Each time, she'll feel soft hands and blunt fingernails, and every night Ellie will pull further and further away from Dina.)
(She’ll drift further and further away from a little farm in Wyoming and closer and closer to a beach in California.)
(But she doesn't know that yet.)
(So for now Ellie only hums, appreciating the feeling for what it is.)
Ellie opens her eyes once she’s present enough to be disgusted by the sweat sticking to the cotton of her tank top. Blinks blearily up at Abby, who's straddling her. One hand is tracing patterns along Ellie’s stomach, almost absentmindedly.
Abby’s other hand is glossy and slick-shining. It's held close to her chest and she’s staring at it with an unreadable expression. Ellie looks over at her belt, discarded on the floor, leather curling away from her like a snake. Thinks of lunging for it, wrapping it around Abby’s neck and pulling until her face turns blue. Becomes aware of the ache in her muscles and sags, imperceptibly. She's worn out, unspooled, taken apart by Abby's hands. Ellie feels a hand wiping against her jeans and looks down. Sees the dark blue spot of her wetness beginning to crust on denim. She can’t bring herself to feel nearly as disgusted as she should.
They should be back at eachothers throats, the scent of Ellie’s arousal in the air be damned.
But now, here in this window between afterglow and altercation, there's a bubble between them and the consequences of their actions. In this moment they exist in the negative space between fucking and fighting. Ellie's stomach churns. Abby hovers above her, eyes uncertain. She looks at the space between them like she sees potential. As if there's a curtain separating Abby and Ellie from the trail of bodies they've left behind.
Ellie itches to rip it down.
(The night she leaves Dina, the night she pares her life down a rucksack and sets out for a Firefly base she's not quite sure exists, she will wonder if it started here. That compulsion to blow things apart, when they're going too well. Always in the name of some goal that seems so much more pointless once it's accomplished and Ellie is left with the wreckage left in its wake.)
(Maybe it started in that basement, watching Joel’s skull cave in and swearing to avenge him, even if it meant losing her life in the process. Maybe it was when she resented Joel for saving her life. Maybe it started at fourteen, deciding to stay alive and wishing they just killed each other before Riley turned, keeping their last memories together sickly sweet instead of spore-ridden. Maybe it started even earlier, long before she existed, an egg among eggs, a hypothetical of a person in her mother’s womb.)
(Much like most things that trouble her, Ellie will never quite settle on an answer. And that will be a blessing and a curse all at once.)
Ellie thinks of, arguably, the worst thing she’s done. Thinks of the kind of person who should be safest, who should be protected. Who should never have been anywhere near a situation like this in the first place, much less caught in the crossfire. Ignores the way her stomach turns, the acid that threatens to creep back up Ellie’s throat at the thought of what she did. Pushes it down to focus on Abby. Focus on making her feel a fraction of the pain that's haunted Ellie since she stumbled into that basement. Everything else is rendered irrelevant through comparison. Her nausea and sleepless nights. Her relationship with Dina. Joel, Jesse, Tommy. Ellie would pick up the sharp white shards of their fractured skulls if it meant she would have something to cut Abby with. She steadies herself and echoes Abby’s earlier words.
“If I knew shooting that pregnant bitch would’ve ended in me coming that hard I’dve tracked you down a lot sooner.”
Abby’s reaction is everything Ellie wanted and more. Her face flicker-fires through emotions for split second and then she’s on her, fists flying against Ellie’s face and she hears her nose crack but she doesn't feel it, doesn’t register anything beyond the wet of blood and salty tears along her cheekbone and the vibrations of her own hysterical laughter.
She's going to die, beaten to death in some basement and she thinks of Joel, unconscious and not knowing she was right there and now Ellie’s crying harder, sobs wracking her body, shaking like she’s being electrocuted. She’s heaving as her lungs inflate, deflate, in quick succession, pure hyperventilation as her chest jerks, so much so that Abby has to plant one hand on her sternum to still her as she cries and cackles and seizes. Holding Ellie down in a whole new way.
Abby clips her in the head again and spots of black begin to creep into Ellie’s vision but she wills them away, focusing on Abby's face. Her expression lies somewhere between anger and anguish, and Ellie holds onto it, holds tight to consciousness. She stares at Abby, sees her mouth twisted in a scowl, eyes narrowed and watery and aching, and Ellie realizes she’s made peace with dying. She doesn’t want to die but if causing Abby even a single shred of pain comes at the expense of Ellie’s life then that’s an acceptable cost.
So long as Ellie witnesses that hurt for as long as possible. It belongs to her, and no one else.
She’s so focused on Abby’s expression that she doesn’t notice her vision getting blurrier and blurrier, doesn't notice she's on the very brink of unconsciousness until she hears a small, soft voice.
“Abby?”
The kid with the bow, she thinks hazily.
Abby’s fists still as she shifts, blocking him from Ellie’s view. Not that she can turn her head. There's so much pain that Ellie can't be sure of the source but she thinks her jaw is dislocated, if not broken. She runs her tongue along the inside of her mouth to inspect the damage and winces when she prods at the shards of a shattered molar, feels the sharp ache in her gums. “Go back upstairs. I'm almost done.”
Ellie forces herself to stay awake. Abby’s going to kill her but she wants to see it, wants her to know it was Ellie that did this, Ellie that reached into her mind and tugged and pulled and pushed her sanity to the brink, enraged Abby enough for her to beat Ellie to death in the damp basement of a dilapidated theatre. Not a simple bullet to the head, not how Abby would kill an infected, some roaming nuisance that deserved to be put down like a dog. Not how she would shoot a nameless scar or even fucking Jesse. This is no execution of convenience, no firing squads or guillotines to be found here. Abby’s putting every last bit of strength into her punches and they’re calculated, designed to hit the places that hurt the most. She's getting Ellie’s blood under her nails as she kills her slow and steady, the way you kill the person who's hurt you more than anyone else.
Ellie is teetering on the edge of unconsciousness but that thought reinvigorates her, gives her enough energy to gather all the rage she feels and push through the pain, screwing her face up and ignoring the way her nervous system screams in protest. All so she can fix Abby with a look that lets her know Ellie will haunt her, out of this life and into the next.
But when Abby looks back at her that intoxicating mix of anger-anguish is nearly wiped from her face. Not completely gone, but significantly subdued. Not nearly present enough for Ellie's tastes.
The expression overriding it is completely unreadable. Ellie is too tired to dissect it, too busy using every last bit of energy to push through the sharp ache of fractured bone and torn muscle, directing all that pain into her eyes.
Abby’s voice is hard. “Don't let me see you again.”
Ellie barely begins to parse the implications of that statement before strong hands are around her neck and black is teasing at the edges of her vision.
The last thing Ellie sees before she passes out is her own face, rage-split and bloody, reflected back at her through cold blue eyes.
(Later, Ellie will wonder if it would have been kinder for Abby to kill her. Bash her skull into the floor and shatter her beyond repair. Strip Ellie down to a corpse, cold and unfeeling.)
(Instead Abby will leave her broken and bloody, and Ellie will be forced to pull herself together and pick up the pieces.)
(But for now, in the seconds before unconsciousness, Ellie is grateful.)
(If only because it means she will get to chase after Abby again.)