Reader taking care of boxer!Abby after an especially rough match?
Maybe even sharing a bloody kiss or two because she didn't clean her bloody nose before reader patches her up.
And maybe some comfort after she lost the match, like just sitting on the sofa and eating takeaway burgers and vanilla milkshakes to cheer up?
(How I look like asking you this btw)
a/n: literally so sorry this took so long, i honestly forgot it was in my drafts for months, and just remembered i had it to finish while i was showering, lol (lowk tmi but okay). hope you enjoy nonetheless!
bruised and beaten
boxer!abby x gf!reader
You wasted no time in going to find Abby in the locker rook after her match. This match was especially hard to watch; her opponent landing multiple foul blows out of some, what seemed personal, harboured resentment for the blonde. Even the spectators rooting against Abby could see that their girl was way out of line.
Abby would never show that she was particularly affected by them, nor would she ever claim she couldn't handle what they had coming at her, but you couldn't help but feel extensively worried for your girlfriend. You knew she was anything but frail, yet your panic did not subside.
To also say you were angry at her opponent for competing so dirty was an understatement. But you couldn't be bothered to confront them about it now. You were too busy fretting over Abby.
"Pumpkin, I told you already, I'm fine," Abby tried, swiping away the sweat from her forehead with a towel.
"I mean, it sucks I didn't win, but you know, can't win 'em all." She shrugged with a slight grimace, holding onto her shoulder.
You didn't buy it, but she wasn't going to let her walls down while she was still at work. "Let's just go home," you suggested, knowing she'd feel way more comfortable being vulnerable in the comfort of your shared space. "The match is over, you- we don't need to be here anymore. Let's just go home, and I'll run you a warm bath and patch you up. That sound okay?" You held both her hands as you stood looking up at her.
She gently let go of your hands to cradle your face, "That sounds amazing, babe."
She leaned down to kiss you gently, face still bruised and bloody from the brawl. "M' sorry," she giggled, seeing the blood transfered unto your face from the kiss.
You practically pried the keys away from Abby, demanding that you drive. She reluctantly agreed, still opening the driver's seat door for you, despite your many protests, then making her way to the passenger's seat.
Upon arrival, you promptly escorted Abby into the bedroom so she could get out of her clothes while you set up the bath. After some time, -- the drive from the ring to the house -- she succumbed to your efforts at taking care of her for the night. So with her full compliance you attended to her, running a warm bath as promised and taking the liberty of ordering burgers and shakes from you guys' favourite place.
"Is the water okay?" you asked her as she settled herslef in the tub, "I didn't wanna make it too hot in case of any wounds."
Moaning in delight, she responded, "It's perfect, babe. Care to join me?" she asked with the sneakiest smile.
Sighing reluctantly, you answered, "I'll pass." You couldn't help but laugh at her shocked expression resemblant of a hamster, "If i get in there, you're gonna start attending to me when the plan was the other way around."
"Is that supposed to be your rationale for objecting my offer?" she joked as you playfully slapped her bicep, groaning.
"I'm serious, Abby. I wanna take care of you tonight." You stroked her hair, staring into her eyes lovingly. She returned the gaze, leaning forward to bring you into a kiss.
Only Abby could make you almost forget the crazy match from earlier that landed her in this position in the first place. Unfortunately, you were not forgetting about her opponent's foul play anytime soon.
"I know baby, i'm just playin'. I will gladly accept your services tonight. No helping." She nudged your foreheads together.
"Plus," you sighed, "It's either this, or i head back to the rink to give that bitch a taste of her own medicine. God knows she needs it." you seethed.
"Baby!"
"What?! She shouldn't get to be all smug about winning when everyone knows it wasn't fair. I'd just need to sneak into the locker rook and knock her silly. Maybe that'll shut her up."
"Okayyy, let's just- just focus on taking care of me for now, huh?" Abby tried easing your nerves, not hiding the smile plastered across her face at your promises of "revenge".
You giggled," But seriously, you did amazing tonight. okay? The only reason it turned out the way it did was because of that feral ferret. The final ruling had nothing to do with your skillset." You knew she was enjoying your anger at her opponent, but you also needed her to know the truth, which was that it wasn't her fault.
She leaned foward, giving you a tender kiss. "Thanks. babe," she said as she rest her forehead against yours.
After the bath, and you leaving her side for a minute to collect the delivery, you headed back to you guys' room so you both could change and you could patch her up.
Even with all your fussing about making this night about her, Abby just could not let you leave the bathroom without having washed up yourself. So after enough time had passed of you taking care of her, she ever so swiftly got you out of your clothes and into the tub with her.
You had to admit, even when you genuinely wanted all the attention to be on her, it felt nice having her tend to you. Not that you'd ever doubt it.
Sitting her down on the edge of the bed, you looked over her bruises. None seemed to be too bad to need any dressing, but you still kept an eye out. Especially to her abdomen, which endured the brunt of the damage.
Abby watched as your face dropped, applying a cold pack to her stomach.
She leaned foward slightly, rubbing her thumb against your thigh, "What is it, sweetie?"
You sighed, "How were you even able to stand this whole time?"
"It isn't as bad as it looks, i promise," she assured, pouting at the worried expression on your face.
You didn't believe her, yet you kept the cold pack on her stomach for a few more minutes, continuing your rant about her opponent's poor sportmanship, much to her delight. She might not show it, but you knew she was very disappointed in how the match had gone and her opponent's lack of professionalism. After you removed the cold pack, you grabbed her hand, carefully guiding her to the living room and unto to couch.
"I really do appreciate everything tonight, sweetie," Abby started, settling into the couch.
"But.." you continued, "I feel a 'but' coming."
"No but."
"You sure? 'Cus it seemed like you were gonna say that i don't need to fret over you, to which i'd respond 'Yes i do, you'd do the same for me'."
"I wasn't gonna say that, i promise," she assured, "I genuinely just wanted to let you know that i'm really enjoying this."
She gently pulled you into a loving embrace, placing a kiss on your neck beneath your ear.
Despite being together for more than 2 years, Abby still found ways to make your heart flutter with her sincerity. And she knew it. All your efforts to seem nonchalant and unaffected, falling short the minute she looked directly into your eyes.
"Gayass," you blushed.
She laughed, pulling you in closer as you two endulged in your burgers, putting on a movie you'd seen many a time before.
The night didn't have the best start, but you two being together made for the best ending there could ever be.
a/n: hope you guys enjoyed that. i myself am kinda ambivalent towards it, but hey, that's the gig. i'm gonna try to continue all the others in my drafts and answer all of my asks, so hopefully, there'll be more coming soon! no promises, tho.
i still have a major fic i'm writing that folks on ao3 will have my head for if i don't update soon :p
also someone assumed i was english??? do i write like i'm english?? idk man. the british did colonise my country so maybe some of it seeps through my vocab? idk i though that was really funny
pairing: southern!femme!reader x best friend!butch!ellie
synopsis: you’ve carved your life around the summers in italy with your best friend. you belong to her gentle hands but each year, there’s more at stake. you’d do anything for love and for ellie, anything to get away from it. what can be done after one night forces you to confront the unsaid?
content: modern au. the beginning. somewhere in northern italy. childhood best friends. they’re baby gays aww. reader is a hopeless romantic and anxious. ellie is awkward and short tempered. mentions of childhood abuse. mentions of parental deaths. mentions of bullying. light angst. hurt/comfort.
word count: 972
prologue ➺ chapter one ➺ (tbd.)
2013: boston, ma
between it all, you frankensteined into a myriad of neuroses.
a few therapists down the line deduced it to be a form of neglect; your mother would uproot the family every few months without explanation. you were too young to understand, and now, too distant to ask. the curiosity was short-lived, snubbed out by your older sister, whose repeated response was an abnegated spiel of how selfish and troubled ‘that woman’ was. you were neither wholly her nor the one who gave you life. the teeth of despondence failed to break the neck you bared.
the east coast was the last place your mother unpacked the car. she passed sooner than the change of seasons, before your first winter when snow stuck to the ground and morning frost could be licked from the glass. but boston was a real city, palliative from the dinky towns that stifled.
the vagaries stretched your sister thin as the walls of the apartment. instead of your mother’s box radio at night, your sister’s cries infested the shabby one-bedroom. her detachment mutated into a mercurial disposition. you acclimated to the kitchen floor when she pinned your head against the tiles and screamed until your ears would ring. in following, she held you and promised to do better.
it was beyond you to delegate the blame. even then, you saw her as a kid.
“if you want to wear it then you should wear it.” the young girl beside you spat out, rubbing her freckled nose. she was an unkempt sight; grass streaked against the grain of her jeans, the hem of her dinosaur shirt torn, and scrapes littered on her person. you eyed her tangled ponytail with a leaf poking out and the fresh cut on her eyebrow as you picked at a dried tomato stain on your sleeve.
“they’re not wrong. i don’t look nice.” you replied, dropping your gaze to the scratched flooring of the office.
you’d learn how to do your own laundry. there didn’t need to be another reason to pick at you.
“yeah, well, my dad says school is for learning, not fashion shows.” she asserted, tilting her chin upward and straightening her shoulders.
you winced at the smear of red down her neck, grinding your teeth together. “you shouldn’t have fought them.” you said nervously. “i’m not even going to be here all year.”
she shrugged, “neither am i.”
as a child, you were inclined to make friends, but something about her made you feel taunted. it could just be pity, you told yourself.
“i’m sorry you got in trouble.” you mumbled, a heaviness in your lungs.
“don’t be,” she furrowed her eyebrows and hissed as she dabbed the scrape on her chin with a thin tissue, “i can take care of myself.”
rings of dirt sat beneath her stubby fingernails; a fair consequence for the lump of mud she pitched at a classmate’s head.
a benign envy crawled to the roof of your mouth; you had stood by and watched, wordless when her eyes watered once the teacher aide pulled her off the other. in a matter of minutes, she was decently composed. brave, careless, or righteous; you couldn’t name it, only covet. the most special girl and you couldn’t recall her name.
the yellow door of the office swung open as a tall man walked in, his voice a deep murmur to the woman at the front desk. he wore a dusty outfit, brown to his worn leather boots. the girl beside you looked over at him, shrugged on her backpack, then met your eyes. you cowered under her pointed gaze, and the tissue dried to her jaw with blood.
“my name is ellie.” she said.
2018: somewhere in northern italy
“do you like it?” you asked, swinging your legs in the weaving stream. your streaky, blue toenails reflected minutely against the algae-covered rocks beside ellie’s neat, glittery, black ones. it had been her idea to steal her aunt’s nail polish, then yours to care for her. ellie reciprocated; she always did. “it’s beautiful here.” you mumbled.
she tugged at the neck of her shirt, wiping the sweat from above her lip. she’d never done well in the sun with her complexion, but you adored the bloom of her freckles; another facet of hers to bring home to boston and run over your mind until the next summer.
it was not lost on you; the weight of it in the face of sacrifice. it dismayed you to hear the stories about her crushes, even more when she would raincheck calls to amuse the girls.
not now, you’d tell yourself. she sounded so happy over the phone.
“i like it here,” she said, “maria is nice. my dad and uncle tommy made up because of her.”
after ellie’s mother ran off, the state granted her father custodial rights. your mother died while hers only reached out to ask for money. oddly enough, ellie had it worse. the long-distance calls were her only consolation. joel ate the cost for months before proposing your visit, and your sister didn’t mind, as long as you were out of her hair.
“that’s good. do you think you’ll ever move back?” you asked carefully.
ellie scrunched her nose, spooning water over your palms to wash away the earth.
“i don’t think so.” she replied.
you hummed and stared at her hands over yours. The skin of her fingertips was split from the guitar you two took from a second-hand shop. she couldn’t keep away, and you always listened.
“that’s okay, right? we’ll still see each other sometimes? ellie’s mossy vision met yours, lowering her head. “i’m sure my dad would pay for your ticket— or i could help.”
as if you’d do otherwise.
“you’re my best friend. i’ll see you every year.”
˚ ༘ author’s note— i’m introducing a new series! this idea has been sitting in my drafts until now, after a fruitful, soul-crushing lesbian summer brought me back. i also took inspiration from cmbyn (over-emotional drunken rewatch). chapter one will be uploaded soon but let me know if you’re interested in being part of the series’ taglist! i aim to upload at least once a week now that i have more time on my hands. thank you <3 likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated!
words: 3k
warnings: TLOU2 spoilers, fem!reader, canon-typical mentions of trauma, death, & violence.
synopsis: abby discovers more about you, including how you were bitten.
After her shower, cold enough to zap feeling back into her, Abby wanders. She doesn’t know why, or where she intends to end up — or at least, not consciously. Not until her feet stop outside a consultation room with a plaque reading Doctor Peter Dutton. There is a window beside it that looks into the room, curtains peeled open without care for your privacy. Several Fireflies unabashedly peer into it on their journey past, like the way people must have peered at the fish behind the aquarium glass before the outbreak.
Somehow, this place holds more memories of Seattle than ever before.
She doesn’t want to be like them, doesn’t want to ogle or pry, but she can’t help it. She’s curious, eyes narrowing just slightly when the grey-haired doctor rolls up your sleeve seemingly without consent. And then she sees your arms, and it’s like stepping back under that icy shower.
She expected one bite. Instead, your skin is a mosaic of pale red and purple, connected by the snaking tendrils of scar tissue and, beneath it, the Cordyceps infection.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” a voice at her side asks. Lauren.
Abby gulps and steps away from the window, turning her back. Still, she feels the prickle of your presence down her spine, even with glass separating the two of you, and the sight of your wounds flashes neon in her mind. What must you have gone through to get that many bites?
As before, Lauren isn’t deterred by Abby's silence. “I still keep waiting for her to turn into one of them. It shouldn’t be possible, not with that many bites.”
“How long since it happened?”
“We found her just over a year ago, completely by luck. Almost shot her, until she told us the bites were six, seven, months old.”
Abby doesn’t want to wonder, but those questions hiding in the corners of her mouth won’t recede. Still, she fastens them in, refusing to entertain Lauren's obvious love of gossiping. It’s your story to tell, and the way Lauren has taunted you leaves Abby with little desire to hear her version of things.
“We contacted Doctor Roe to let her know you arrived safely. The cafeteria’s in the building next door, when you’re ready.” Lauren says. “Should I save you a seat?”
More of those fluttering lashes. Abby is barely aware of them, folding her arms and staring at the paint on the wall opposite: the black Firefly symbol along with the words, Look for the light. They feel, somehow, like a jab. An accusation. I worry that you’ve grown too comfortable in the darkness, Abby.
With Roe's words repeating in her mind, she almost forgets Lauren is waiting on a reply. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Lauren’s mouth curls with poorly suppressed impatience, and she marches off without another word.
Abby waits where she is, ignoring the niggling urge to turn around, inspect your scars and observe just what else the doctor is willing to do without first acquiring your consent. Maybe it’s silly. You know him, have probably established a level of comfort with him after so long of — what was it you said? Bleeding you dry?
She doesn’t know why her stomach twists at the thought. What did she expect? You’re a medical marvel, one that has already donated your body to science.
She just thinks maybe people should still treat you like a person, even if you won’t be one for much longer. Maybe that’s her first mistake.
Maybe, she’d be better off viewing you the way everyone else does: a subject, a cure, a cadaver not yet dissected.
*
You eat together in uncomfortable silence. People stare. Abby keeps her eyes on the bland mush, and the fork she spears into it every now and again to give the illusion that she has any interest in it.
It’s eons before you break it, twirling your water bottle around absently. Your arms are covered again, but she still sees the bites. “Is the food better at your base?”
She shrugs. “It’s less… gloopy.”
“Less gloopy. Good to know.” Your cheek dimples in amusement. “You going to humour me with some idle conversation at all, or are we remaining strictly on three-word sentences?”
Abby almost smiles. Bites it back quickly. She’s gotten too used to grunting out short responses, only when spoken to, or otherwise orders when on patrol. Only with Lev does she ever offer more. With you especially, it feels apt to keep it that way, but she’d at least like to be less rude than Lauren. There's no reason to be rude. The opposite, all things considered. “We occasionally get a decent harvest from the greenhouse, and we have enough chickens to feed a small army if you don't mind eggs.”
“Nice. What about electricity? Will I at least be blessed with a warm shower…?” The sentence trails off, and Abby hears the unsaid words: before. Before you’re sentenced to death. Before your brain is cut into quarters. Before the infection is pulled from you, and your life with it.
Again, she’s struck by how damn blasè you are, like you don’t care at all. Like you’re not the least bit afraid. She sits straighter on the bench, finding the courage to meet your eye. It’s hard, and not getting any easier, mostly because you have an intensity about you that holds her hostage. Once she’s surrendered to it, there’s no escaping. “We’re powered by solar energy and wind turbines, so yes, warm showers.”
“Thank god.” Your sigh spills nothing but contentment. Abby rubs her brow, because it’s all she can do, as you fall back into that quiet. Only now, it feels a little less oppressive than before.
*
As night falls, you return to the office that is also your bedroom, Abby spreading her bedroll out on the opposite side of the room. After dinner, she filled up on extra supplies for your trip back to California, including extra ammo and gas, just in case — had to trade some of her favourite tinned soup when a few Fireflies started complaining, but she wanted to make sure to cut out the need for unnecessary resource runs. Get this over with, like you both want.
With your own bed made, you sit down and peel off your jumper. She tries, so fucking hard, not to look, but she sees that the bites branch over your shoulder and across your collarbone, and she can’t help it. There are indentations in your biceps where the infected must have ripped away pieces of you, skin stretched uncomfortably taught and pink over your wrist. She can’t imagine it, bearing the weight of those scars. She sees how Lev sometimes lingers over the ones on his face, when she’s cutting his hair in the mirror, and she has tried to scratch away some the Rattler’s left on her own body before now, but neither of them are nearly as drastic as the ones you bear. Anybody who has gone through hell at least deserves not to wear the unmissable evidence all over their skin.
“You can ask me about them, if you want,” you say gently.
Her hands grow unsteady around the jacket she’s folding as a makeshift pillow. “‘S not my place. I just… didn’t know you’d have so many.”
“They didn’t tell you how it happened?”
Abby shakes her head, trying to fluff up her jacket into something less flat.
You sigh and offer out one of your pillows. “Here. Your neck is stiff enough as is.”
Her brows pinch together. “How’d you know that?”
“You roll your shoulders back a lot. Not that I’ve been staring,” you add quickly when her frown deepens. “Just… Ironically, I don’t like needles, so I may have been focusing on the window when Peter drew my blood earlier. You happened to be blocking my usual view of Derek the nurse banging his head against the wall between patient rounds.” And then, softly, “Take it. I don’t need two.”
Again, her mouth tugs with the ghost of a smile. She wish you’d stop doing that, making her want to laugh. She takes the pillow, sweeping her rolled up jacket aside before unfastening her boots. “In that case, I’m sorry to have ruined your entertainment.”
“Was a nice change.” You stretch to tie up your hair haphazardly, revealing hair-dusted under arms and — god, more of those bites. They seem never ending, every one drilling another hole in Abby’s composure. It’s the vest top that really makes her stomach drop this time, though: the way the dark fabric clings to your body, revealing softness and sinew. She’s mesmerised by you, even if she’s not willing to admit it. She wants to know you, but she shouldn’t.
She works her jaw, nudging her shoes aside. It feels… wrong, to get comfortable in such a foreign space, your warmth just inches from pressing into her. Her hand is forever hovering on her holstered gun, body thrumming with non-existent dangers because safety feels fragile after all she’s endured. You should surely feel the same, but you yawn and pull out a book from your bag like you’ve only ever known peace. It’s one she’s read before, in another life, when ink and paper was enough to calm her mind. An Austen classic, set in a time and place she can’t put images to, but wanted to enough that it made the whole experience feel like an escape.
That disarming calmness would be so easy to sink into, if she wasn’t her and if you weren’t marred by the teeth of monsters. Still, it opens something up between you: an ease, one she is too tired, too damn curious, to nudge away completely.
So she doesn't. She asks, “Do they hurt?”
You slip your thumb between the pages, placing down the book to give her your attention. “No. Well, sometimes, but I think it’s mostly in my head. I keep thinking they’re burning, and then I get scared the infection is setting in, like it's been delayed, somehow. It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not.” She knows, because she sometimes feels it, too. She wakes up with the sensation of greedy hands pinning her hips down, knife blades skimming her skin, rope chafing her wrists. Memories that have forgotten they are supposed to fade, so they just stay beneath the surface of her, waiting, stagnant, torturous.
It’s another reason she doesn’t bother to get comfortable on her bed roll. She will sleep little, if any, tonight, the same as every other night. Exhaustion has made a home on her shoulders, and she’s long since stopped trying to evict it.
Abby tugs a knee to her chest, curling her arms around it. She sees your eyes lingering on her thick arms, and it lights a very small, very distant spark somewhere deep in her gut.
“So, are you also a doctor,” you ask, “or just my security detail?”
“I guess the latter. My, um…” She swallows the dryness in her throat. “My dad was a doctor, so I picked up a little, but I was never one for bedside manners.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me, somehow.”
Her smirk is getting too comfortable on her face. She rubs her palms together, just for something to focus on that isn’t you. Is the air a little thick in here, or is she just unbearably terrible at conversing with strangers these days?
The quiet makes her want to squirm, and she can’t help but fill it. “It’s a good book.”
Your forehead crinkles in surprise. “Yeah. My favourite Austen novel, actually.”
“Hm.” Okay, yes, she is unbearably terrible at conversing with strangers. Trouble is, she doesn’t often try to be anything but terrible — she’s breaking a pattern, for you, and it’s the last thing she should be doing.
You go back to your book, the room falling into quiet. She kicks out her leg and accidentally brushes your foot, then pulls away with such a quick jerk that you look up again. “You can’t catch it from me, you know.”
“No, I know,” she says, softer than intended, because how many people have shied away from your touch in fear?
Jesus, this is too much for her, sweat beading in her hairline. She leans her back against the cool wall, taking a deep breath. Trying not to look at you, looking at her.
“If the bites are bothering you, I can just put my sweater back on—”
“No,” Abby blurts quickly, guiltily. “No, it’s not that.”
“Okay.”
Abby twirls the bracelet on her wrist, gifted to her from Lev on her last birthday. She misses him. She knew she would, but not to this degree.
With his absence and your bites and the unsettling crinkle of your pages turning, she can’t remember why she ever thought this was a good idea.
Finally, you sigh and shuffle closer, dropping your arm in her lap. She stiffens, a question in her gaze. She won’t dare touch you, not because she’s afraid of infection, but because she’s afraid of feeling your flesh and blood. You are already too real to her. So real, you take up all the air in the room.
“The hell are you doing?” she questions.
“I’m letting you look. Closely, so you can stop ogling me from across the room.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I get it, okay? None of this is normal. Believe me, I’m used to it. It’s just… extra annoying when you sit there, not saying what you’re thinking, pretending like you don’t want to peel me open and study my insides. So just do what you need to do.”
Abby is stunned to silence, and, despite your permission to study away, it’s your face she’s transfixed on. The glimmer of your eyes, the set of your jaw, the way you seem just as curious of her as she is of you.
She nods and takes your arm, turning it over gently, because she refuses to poke and prod you like everyone else. She can’t deny that it’s fascinating, a network of fungi refusing to move, to infest, under your skin. Her finger zigzags over the one near the crease of your elbow, breaths jagged as they dip into the divots that could only have been caused by teeth.
“I was with a group when it happened,” you say, quietly, as though afraid to shatter something. “One of my friends was sick and we needed medicine, so we risked this huge pharmacy. I think, when you survive this long, you start to think you’re invincible, right? Like you can handle whatever’s waiting for you?”
She nods. She knows that feeling. Any close call she’s ever faced has been born from cockiness. Believing herself to be stronger than the things that are thrown at her. The Rattlers got that out of her system, though, and now, every move she makes is carefully calculated. She refuses to ever be taken prisoner again, and she will never let her carelessness cost her Lev.
“It was one of those creepy fuckers. You know, the ones that hide, the ones you don’t notice at first. My gun jammed. By the time I’d realised, its teeth were in my arm. As soon as I felt it pierce skin, I… I knew. it was over So I just… stopped fighting. I’d rather it kill me than let the infection set in.” Your throat bobs, tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. Abby is scared to so much as move, just in case you stop. There is something about the cadence of your voice that wraps around her like a blanket, even as you describe something so horrifying. “One of my friends shot at it, killed it. He… He said he wouldn’t let me go. Not until I changed. Made me sit there, waiting for the symptoms to start, while I begged and begged for him to just get it over with.”
She can’t imagine that kind of torment. Worse, the cold silence that must come after, when you were covered in those bites but had no idea why they didn’t affect you the way they did everyone else. “Do you know why you’re immune?”
“No, but… Peter thinks I was bitten as a baby. I have this birthmark on my back he thinks could be an old bite. It’s been there for as long as I can remember, but like most people, my parents are gone, so I can’t know for sure.”
She hums again, contemplative fingers pressing into your palm as she turns your arm a final time. “So, how’d you find the Fireflies?”
“By accident. Cal, the guy who wouldn’t kill me… He took me back to camp, and needless to say, they didn’t believe I could be immune. Tried to kill me. So I ran. I was alone for months before I made a stop in Fort Worth, half-dead by that point. Hid my bites from them, settled down, until I overheard Peter talking about hope for a cure. Offered myself up, and the rest is history.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. All’s well that ends well, I guess.” You shift away, but you’re still close enough that your knees are touching.
But Abby didn’t mean that part of the story, that supposed happy ending that applies to everyone but you. She meant all of it. What you’ve endured. What you’ve lost.
There is one last question she wished she was brave enough to ask, but she can’t. She’s afraid the tightness in her stomach will snap if she finds out why you’re willing to give yourself over to Roe. This is already too much, more than she wanted, your touch pressing into her like a bruise.
She doesn’t know why she does it; why she smooths a hand over the inside of your arm in a way that could only ever be meant to soothe. Your fingers twitch when she reaches the heel of your palm, and there, she draws away — but she hears it, the hitch in your throat. Her affect on you.
“Get some sleep.” It’s more demand than advice, Abby trying to rebuild those long held walls before you climb all the way through. “It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”
You shuffle back to your corner of the room, climbing under your thin bedsheet with an unreadable expression. Still, you slip the book over to her before you get comfortable under the covers. “Goodnight, Abby.”
“Night.” She stares at the arch of your body in the shadows for longer than she should, fingers running absently over the worn pages of your book.
As expected, she doesn’t sleep — but she doesn’t read, either. Just keeps watching you, flashes of memories that aren’t hers, and images of what might be, soon, erupting in her mind.
In the silence, thoughts racing, she craves your voice. She thinks that, with just one conversation, the damage is halfway done.
words: 2.4k
warnings: TLOU2 spoilers, fem!reader, canon-typical mentions of trauma, death, & violence but nothing on page yet.
synopsis: in which you & abby meet for the first time.
tags: @hakandnsjoqmsn @abbyily @mamas-evil-hag @cherrybomber3000 @chraw @abbysburr1t0 @mewl3tte @loonetteslooneybin @lilredbird101 @wontilly @littlelittlebear @pomm3verte @mumuming @naponiac @ramsmain
(lmk if you don't want to be tagged for this series!)
Fort Worth’s Firefly base is spaced out across a once glamorous array of country club houses on a cul-de-sac outside the city. Abby is permitted through a set of wrought iron gates after a four-day drive from California to Texas, both her and her truck coated in a grime that seemed to get thicker the further east she went. No trouble, mostly, but only because she refused to risk losing the car to raiders, so she rarely got out at all. The Fireflies kept her prepared with food and gas — but then, she knew the journey here would be the least of her worries.
It’s a stiff-spined, dark-haired woman who greets her outside what must be the main facility. Abby sucks in a long breath before peeling herself from the truck, legs numb from so long spent sitting.
“Doctor Roe doesn’t mess around,” the woman says, brows rising into a black cap. “We weren’t expecting you for another week, at the earliest.”
“Yeah, well, she’s eager to get started.” Abby clears her throat, looking around. The base isn’t as busy as the close-knit community on Catalina Island, but the amount of people ambling around, chatting on lawns and filling up on ammo at makeshift workstations, surprises her all the same. She can’t imagine why someone would choose to become a lab rat when they could stay here.
At the thought of the immune Firefly, her pulse quickens, and she scrapes her attention up and down the soldier’s form, trying to work out if she is the woman she’s looking for. Probably not. She wears a soft smile, one that doesn’t reek of imminent demise. “Where is she?”
‘You seem eager, too.” The woman nods to the building behind, a once white-bricked, now yellowing, clinical looking place with tents stationed outside. “We’ve been taking samples, just in case she doesn’t make it during transport.”
Abby fights not to wrinkle her nose. During transport. Like you’re nothing more than cargo, not a person giving up everything to offer the world a second chance.
The Firefly must sense Abby’s distaste, because she purses her lips, once against raking over her stony face and broad muscles. Her voice lowers to something sultry: “Usually, I’d be surprised they sent someone alone, but you look like you can handle yourself.”
If she’s flirting, Abby doesn’t care enough to notice, a lump already clogging her throat as she sees nurses moving between the tents, stethoscopes around their neck. It’s a med bay, and it reminds her too much of Seattle. Nora. Mel.
She wants to get out of here. Now.
“You gonna keep me in suspense, or can I see her?”
The soldier’s expression hardens, likely not used to disinterest. She's pretty enough, but Abby has no intention of noticing, especially not after her earlier comment.
A terse nod is all she gives before she leads Abby to the doors. Abby pointedly avoids looking into the tents, though she sees bloody bandages and hunched forms on the makeshift gurneys.
“Why are they out here? No room inside?”
“Superficial wounds. We like to keep the minor injuries and ailments outside, save hospital beds for people who need them. I’m sure it’s not nearly as sophisticated a system as the one Doctor Roe has, but it works.”
She understands. Still, it’s hard not to feel like she’s back in the barracks, a cold metal lump rattling around her hollow insides as she prepares for the next battle, knowing that many of her comrades won’t make it out alive. She’s glad she didn’t bring Lev. Glad she can parse through these memories alone. He begged to come, of course, but her only comfort is to think of him safe with new friends and his usual schedule. He’s building a home there, and Abby won’t let anybody or anything take it away.
Besides, she knows he wouldn’t have the stomach for this. Not really, though he'd pretend for a while. Abby would sooner die than make him travel with another person fated to die. He’s experienced enough loss to last a lifetime.
Inside, the place smells like disinfectant and rubbing alcohol. A dozen gazes follow Abby as they pass through a reception area with more wounded, through a ward of full beds and towards a stairwell tucked away at the back of the building.
“I’m hoping this might be the start of an allyship,” the woman says. “We could use more support. Maybe we could trade supplies, perhaps even merge in the long run if we find a place with enough space and resources.”
Abby only hums. She doesn’t give a shit about making friends. She just wants to get the immune girl and get out. She’s skilled at presenting stoicism, learned from her days in the WLF, but her composure feels fragile, and she never knows when an old hurt might knock the wind out of her sails.
This world has not been kind to her; she no longer expects it to be.
“Are all the people on Catalina Island this chatty?” the soldier asks, breathless as they climb the stairs.
“It was a long drive.” Too long spent alone with her thoughts — for the first time since before Seattle. She’d forgotten how quickly her mind could disintegrate into chaos with nothing but the whir of an engine to soothe her. It’s a different kind of loneliness, venturing over barren landscapes, and she still doesn’t know if she’s doing the right thing by being here. She wants to believe this is it, that this immune girl will be the key to a vaccine, but the stone behind her ribs won’t shift.
She’s here because it makes her feel close to her dad, and that is it. Not because she wants to be, not because she believes this could work, but because she is trying to get herself back by doing what he died for. She even tried to braid her damn hair, but it’s still too short, growing out in choppy layers she keeps scraped back.
Certain proof that things will never go back to the way they were.
“I’m sure,” the soldier says. “Well, we figured you’d like to stay a couple days, recuperate. We can get you a hot meal, somewhere to sleep, though it’s a little cramped right now, so I’m afraid you’ll have to share—”
“I’d rather get this over with.” Abby focuses on counting the steps beneath her feet, one boot in front of the other, because otherwise, she’d have to acknowledge her churning stomach and the exhaustion on her shoulders.
“I insist,” says the Firefly, propping open a set of double doors on the third floor and motioning for Abby to enter. She does, coming into a minimally furnished corridor overlooking the ground floor. No escaping the sick in this place, then. “Just down here.” And then: “I’m Lauren, by the way. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Abby.”
“Oh, shit. The doc talked about you. You’re Jerry Anderson’s kid.”
Her heart stutters. She ignores it, gaze fixed straight ahead. They veer into one of the back hallways, where a set of old offices face the back of the building. She couldn’t pinpoint what this place might have been before: the main country club, perhaps, but any resemblance to what she knows about the old world is lost to her inexperienced eyes.
“Okay.” Lauren sighs as though annoyed by Abby’s silence, stopping outside the door on the left. “Here she is. Don’t worry. She doesn’t bite.”
Abby blinks, less than impressed by the joke, and turns the handle without permission if only to escape the stifling atmosphere out in the hall. If this was an office once, it isn’t now, a mattress and bedroll crowding one corner of the room. The rest of it is empty — save for you.
She has been planning for days how to approach you, whether to feign friendliness because you may not live to experience much more, or do what she wants, what feels right, and keep you safely at arm’s length. She doesn’t want to like you; it would only complicate things more, and she’s already trying so fucking hard to be on board with this.
But she can’t help it. You pull her attention like a magnet, even with your back facing her. Her gaze traces the slender curve of your neck and the jut of your shoulder blades. You’re engrossed by the trees rustling outside, the distant Fireflies heading to and from the gates.
“Your chauffeur has arrived,” Lauren says to you, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe.
Finally, you turn around, and something sticks in Abby's throat like stale bread. She doesn’t often notice if people are beautiful or not. Vanity was something preserved for the old world, and it’s rare to meet people now not stripped down to dark under eyes and thin-lipped grimaces. You have both those things, but your chin dips, and she sees you try to smile in a way she is not brave enough to, like you’re not the least bit afraid of her presence and what it means.
You aren’t what she expected. She’s tried to picture you, but it’s Ellie’s face she sees when she thinks of immunity. You don’t resemble her at all — a relief. You wear an oversized hoodie and charcoal joggers tucked into black combat boots, hands mostly hidden by the long sleeves, and something tugs in Abby’s stomach. Unfamiliar, unwelcome, but not entirely unpleasant. Her body, perhaps something even deeper, responds to the sight of you like it would a bullet in her path: with fear, but also with thrill. She is a soldier, after all. She thrives on the battlefield.
She can imagine you would, too, with the way you step forward to shake her hand. Confident. Your palm is warm, smooth, in hers. “You’re from the facility in Avalon?”
She forgets how to speak for a moment, tongue pushing through tar just to say, “Yeah. Abby.”
You give her your name, though it’s already been printed on the back of her eyelids after hours of staring at your file, wondering why. If you’re a Firefly, you have to know what will happen to you, how the infection will be extracted from the very roots of your brain. Are you truly noble enough to give yourself over?
Abby might have been, once. She told her father that she’d happily serve herself up if she was the immune one, as long as it meant saving the world. Now, she has Lev, and even if it’s a struggle to keep her head above water most days, she isn’t sure she’d be willing to leave him. Not until he’s old enough to not need her anymore, at least.
She’s still holding your hand, she realises. It drops limp to her side quickly, and then, when it doesn’t feel like enough to rid her of the tingling warmth left there, fists it in her pocket.
In the silence, you wring your hands, looking more at Lauren than at her. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We can leave as soon as you’re packed,” Abby is quick to propose.
You snort. It surprises her. You grab a small backpack with a holstered pistol attached to it, waving it with a strained smirk. “Already done.”
She raises her brow. Sure, you’re headed to a place you’ll probably never return from, but Roe plans to study you for a while first. She expected… something more. “You travel light.”
“What, am I supposed to bring my Sunday best? My funeral dress? A couple photo albums to remember everyone by?”
Abby rocks back on her heels, not quite expecting you to talk so bluntly.
“Don’t listen to her,” Lauren says with a roll of her eyes. “Always after sympathy, this one.”
“The opposite. I’ll be glad to get this over with.” You lock eyes on her again, and she feels that tug, tighter now than the last time. “So? We going?”
“No. Peter’s probably going to want to prod you some more. You’ll go tomorrow. Abby will stay the night here, leave you two to get cosy before your little roadtrip,” Lauren decides, leaving no room for question.
“Peter's your doctor?”
You nod. “A thorough one, at that. It’s a miracle he hasn’t bled me dry yet.”
She rubs at her clenched jaw, an impatient sigh falling from her. She’d rather not get cosy, as Lauren put it, but she doesn’t have the energy to argue. If this Peter is anything like Roe, better not to insert herself in precious research.
“You should head downstairs,” Lauren advises, then casts Abby a final glance. “I’ll start getting some supplies ready. Feel free to take a nap. Communal showers are on the second floor. Our little miracle'll show you the way.”
She disappears with the mocking drawl, leaving just the two of you. Abby clears her throat, allowing herself just one more glance at you and all your… rareness, she guesses. She wonders where the bite is, how it happened. Wonders whether people will be sad to see you go tomorrow — likely not, judging by your nonchalant demeanour.
“So, did you draw the short straw or something?” you ask, and she’s sure you noticed her staring this time. Still, you don’t balk, eyes steady and intense as coals on her skin.
“What?”
“How did you wind up on chaperone duty?”
“Oh.” She fidgets, pounding her fist into the opposite palm nervously. “Something like that, yeah. Roe figured I’d want to help.”
“And do you?”
Abby would shrug if every muscle wasn’t stiff with tension. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Right.” You shift on your feet: nervous, too. She’s glad for some sign that you’re not completely indifferent to all this. Perhaps, even, a sign you're not indifferent to her.
A million questions buzz around her head. She’s not brave enough to ask any of them. Instead, she hoists her backpack further up her shoulder and steps out of the doorway, gesturing in front of her. “You wanna lead the way?”
“Yep.” Your warmth grazes her torso as you squeeze between her and the door, the scent of the clinic downstairs wafting over her, but beyond that, earth, petrichor, and a hint of something sweet. It’s hard, then, not to see you for what you are: a living, breathing thing, but only for so long. Temporary, but by no means insignificant.
In fact, you might just save the world.
And there it is, that light flickering again, a bulb not screwed tightly enough.
But it’s there. And as you guide her back down the corridor, Abby Anderson can’t help but trail you like a moth, fixed on the shape of you, the way some parts of you spill into the hoodie like something soft, something real.
Once again, she holds a life in her hands. Only this time, the responsibility of keeping it there will only last until she gets home.
words: 4k (sorry)
warnings: 18+, minors dni, angst, violence, torture, post santa barbara!abby, firefly!reader, hints to off-page sexual assault, fluff at the end
synopsis: when you're attacked on patrol, abby retaliates with a bloodlust you've never seen from her before. a bloodlust that, for a moment, terrifies you.
The hours between losing you and finding you are some of the worst of Abby’s life — and given everything she went through in Seattle and Santa Barbara, that’s saying a-fucking-lot. When she finds out you’re missing, she’s not sure how she keeps her breakfast down. She yells at every Firefly that was on patrol with you, voice loud and harsh and cutting, fingernails biting into her palms all the while as she tries to figure out where it might have gone wrong. How she can get you back.
She needs to get you back.
She hasn’t been that soldier for a while, but she is one wrong reply away from killing these incompetent assholes. The ones who didn’t realise quickly enough that you’d strayed from the group. The ones who are bumbling, wide-eyed fools as she readies them to head back out in the storm. She’s risen slowly through the ranks since arriving on Catalina Island. After the WLF, and enduring the trauma the Rattlers put her through, she spent a year in a fog. Her only priority: Lev. You snuck up on her. Talked her through shit, made it clear suppressing it wasn’t an option. You saw her for more than just the trauma. You saw who she'd been before. She started fighting harder, started being a person again, and not just for Lev’s sake anymore.
For yours.
Now, you are gone, and there’s a million possibilities running through her head. Infected. Raiders.
Rattlers.
The possibility she might run into them again one day haunts her. Behind the walls of the base, she knows she’s safe, but outside…
Putting a country between them still wouldn’t feel far away enough, let alone the stretch of sea between the mainland and here.
She raids the armoury without care for the usual rules, and the Firefly leader doesn’t dare question it when she sees the storm on Abby’s features. She might have softened with you, but with everyone else, she’s harder than ever before, muscles hewn from stone so that she will never, ever have to go through what she did before. She’s an impenetrable fortress.
Her one weakness, you.
Lev joins the mission as soon as he hears. He loves you almost as much as she does, and knows he’s the only thing that will keep her steady until you’re found. If you’re found.
“Take me to the last place you saw her,” she instructs your patrol partner, shoving the keys into his hands with a bitter glare. And then, to Lev: “You sure you don’t wanna sit this out?”
Lev shakes his head. “If it was one of us, she’d be the first out there, looking.”
It’s true, you would. Abby is still learning to recover that sense of community — she’d lost it in Salt Lake along with her dad. For you, it comes naturally. She warns sometimes that that heart of yours might get too big for your chest one day. Worries that you’ll come across someone who will pierce straight through it.
She can’t think about that now, but the image is there when she closes her eyes, rifle poised under her arm: you, bloody, crumpled, lifeless. If she loses you…
She doesn’t realise she’s spoken the fear aloud until Lev says: “You won’t. She’s going to be fine. We're gonna find her."
It’s hard to believe when it comes from a mouth puckered by scars. None of you have survived this without losing something vital. She doesn’t think herself lucky for having found you. She thinks herself cursed, because it’s one more thing to lose. One more way the world might destroy her.
But you don’t need her hopelessness, now, and she isn’t prepared to let you go without a fight, so her armour comes up as she rides in the truck with your partner, Lev, and a couple of other patrollers in the back. She bites into her tongue until she tastes blood, every jolt over the rubble sending another wave of sickness through her.
“And you saw nothing, no one, at all there?” she asks again. She’s lost count of how many times it’s been now, and how many times she’s received a dithering shake of a head in response.
“No infected, for sure, but who knows when the place was last picked over?”
“You should know,” she spits. “It’s your fucking job to know.”
He’s wise enough not to reply.
The rain is pouring when they reach the town. She jumps out of the truck before it’s even stopped moving, letting your partner retrace your steps with barely contained impatience. Even Lev is bristling when she keeps snapping out insults, but she can’t help it. She needs someone to blame for this, even if she knows you’re plenty capable of making your own decisions. Another thing she’s warned you about? Going off on your own.
More hours pass that way, searching through every apartment and store for blocks. Her fingers grow unsteady around the trigger of her rifle, and there’s blood in her mouth. When Lev talks, she barely hears him. She’s underwater, drowning, without you.
And then she hears it. Your scream. Somewhere nearby.
She stops breathing.
“Abby—” Lev tries to stop her, knock sense into her before she barrels into an ambush, but she’s past rationality now. She’s running on clumsy legs, boots pounding concrete and debris, rain rolling off her back like it's afraid to stay close too long, and she’s not just here. She’s in Seattle, chasing Scars. She’s running from the Rattlers’ cages, foolish enough to think she might actually get out this time.
At the end of the street, her stomach twists. Blood stains one of the few shop windows still intact. She hears you scream again, close now. Inside. Her heart is pounding your name over and over as she climbs through the empty frame beside it. She wonders if she's wrong when she finds the place empty, until a hallway leads down to the basement.
When she sees it, she knows she’ll never forget it: you, crumpled in a puddle of your own blood, just like the way she found her dad. Him hunched over you, enjoying drawing his dirty blade over your skin. He’s so engrossed by your reactions that he doesn’t hear the glass breaking beneath her rubber soles.
“Aren’t you getting bored of keeping your secrets, sweetheart? Tell me where you came from, or we’ll just have to keep going.” The man’s voice drips like oil. She remembers that croon from her months with the Rattlers. The way it usually followed with a torture, an invasion, she still can’t stand to think of. It follows her into her dreams all the same, her body remembering the burn of ropes around her wrist and the longing she’d had for death as they’d pinned her down and abused her over and over. Laughing, sometimes, as she sobbed for it to stop.
If you’d endured that, too…
“Fuck… you,” you grit out through laboured breaths. She’d be proud if you didn’t look so terrified, so weak, bloodshot eyes hooded by heavy, bruised lids.
He juts his boot into your stomach, and Abby shoots. Not anywhere fatal, because that would be too easy. Her bullet pierces the back of his knee, drawing him to the ground beside you. He roars out, clutching the injury as he twists to face her.
She’s less human, more predator, as she drops her gun and prowls toward him, her vision turning the same colour as your blood. Her teeth are bared, hands fisting around the hilt of her knife.
“Abby,” you whisper with something like relief. She wishes she could focus on it, but as long as he’s still breathing, she’s fuelled only by loathing for the man who hurt you. He is so much like the ones who abused her and Lev, grimy and smirking even now.
“Look at that. Got yourself a friend,” he says.
She drives her knife into the hinge of his shoulder, just a hair away from a major artery. Watches, patiently, as he cries out again. It gives her time to assess your injuries, which only makes her more murderous, because she’s yet to see a patch of skin that isn’t cut or bruised. This man has been taking his time with you.
It’s the purple fingerprints on your bicep that leave her growling, though. The thought of how he might have gripped you, and why.
He tries to fight back, then, swinging his own knife in her direction, but she’s faster. She blocks him, then snaps his wrist, pinning him against the refrigerator so roughly the glass shatters.
“How many of you are there?” she utters out, a piece of her wet hair slicing her glower in two.
He chuckles.
She draws her foot down on his knee until it cracks. His yell mangles in his throat. She likes it.
“How many?” she demands.
“You’ll kill me anyway.”
With her thirst for his blood, it feels like an invitation. She tilts her head and says, “You’re right. I will.” She grabs his jaw. “And I won’t make it quick.”
She slides the knife away, eager to feel his bones break, piece by piece. She loses herself, then, in the heavy punches and rough kicks, grinning when he begins to gurgle on his own blood and teeth.
“Abby,” you’re muttering, voice faint. Too faint for her to really register it, because all she sees is the way you’d been beneath him, so afraid, so alone. The way she might have found you if she’d come just a few hours later.
It’s like when she killed Joel: she expects every pound of flesh to bring her more satisfaction, but it only drives her further into that void, where there’s only darkness and hunger. Her body is on autopilot, a sick sort of fascination brimming. In moments like this, she thinks it’s all she’s made for: to destroy. She’s so good at it, breaking skin and bones down to whimpering pulp. It still doesn’t feel like adequate enough payback for hurting you. She wants to plunge her hands into his chest and rip out his heart just to think of the way he must have—
“Abigail, please stop!” Your sob pierces through the vacuum, and she resurfaces, the sight of him rearranging into something new. He’s dead, body limp where she grips the collar of his jacket. His features are lost under the mess she's made, jaw dislocated, eyes swollen shut.
She almost doesn’t want to stop. Not until you whisper, “He’s dead. He’s fucking dead already. You’re done.”
She growls. She doesn't feel done.
“Abby…” A voice behind her. Lev’s. Her insides coil at the thought of him seeing the kind of violence she’s capable of — because you’re right. He’s long dead, and yet she carried on. She didn’t kill because she had to, but because she wanted to.
She drops the body, wiping the sweat from her brow, which only serves to smear more blood over her skin. She’s spattered in it, freckles replaced by something more sinister.
Her chest heaves up and down, ragged and unsure, as she steps away.
And then, you. She kicks him away and goes to you, finally weighing up the damage properly for the first time. Acid floods her tongue at the sight of all the ways he’s maimed you: a stab wound in your stomach and thigh, your shirt torn by greedy hands.
“Hey,” she whispers. “I got you, now.”
Only she doesn’t. When she tries, you curl away with a pained keen. And that fear you’d shown him… it’s now directed at her.
She doesn’t understand at first. “Baby, you’re okay. You’re safe now.” She presses her torn hands over your stomach wound, realising the blood is gushing too rapidly, your face leached of colour. She could still lose you, because she wasted time on him. “Hey. Hey, stay with me.”
You whimper at the new pressure, clawing at her forearms like you want her to stop.
“I know. Know it hurts, but you're gonna be okay," she’s saying, so softly that it’s hard to believe what she’s truly capable of. “Lev, go have the others bring the truck around.”
The scuttling of feet, and then just the two of you. Your lazy eyes lock onto hers, throat bobbing with a swallow. “Didn’t think… anyone was coming.”
Her chest cracks open, jaw clenching. “I’ll always come for you. Was never gonna let you go. Were there others?”
A faint shake of your head. She’s losing you.
“Baby, stay with me,” she begs. There’s blood slipping through her fingers, and she feels helpless. She’d thought killing him brutally would reacquaint her with the feeling of control, but now here she is with a wound she can’t close, a woman she can’t stitch up. Not here. “Need you. I need you to stay with me.”
She’s choking on a sob, because it hits her then, that thing she’s been pushing away for hours: the possibility of what she could lose.
What she is losing as your lids close. The truck pulls up outside just in time. She hauls you up, one arm under your knees and the other around your back. In the truck, there’s nothing she can do for you but keep applying pressure while your patrol partner speeds back to base.
She was wrong before. The hours between watching you slip away and watching you wake up again, not knowing if you will, are the worst of her life. And this time, she has nothing else to focus on.
Nothing to pour her helplessness into.
***
You wake groggy and confused. The infirmary is dimly lit, the mattress beneath you lumpy, and your body hurts everywhere.
That last part is nothing new. The pain brings with it memories of the man who captured you, trying to prise information out of you with his rusty knife and grubby hands. You can still feel the latter all over you, enough for your pulse to spike.
Usually, the first face you see, drawn with worry, would soothe your fears, but this time… it stokes them. Abby’s fists, pummelling through him like his flesh was a fragile, easily crushable thing. You hadn’t recognised her. Had thought she’d never stop when you’d begged and begged. He’d been dead for minutes by the time you’d pulled her out, but it had felt like hours. You still hear the crunch of sinew against knuckles, the squelch of blood with no place left to go.
You’d known, before, that she was capable of violence — but you hadn’t known she thirsted for it that way.
Your gaze moves to where her hands cover yours, the sight of her torn knuckles making you queasy. You pull away, and don’t miss the way her brows pinch at the loss of contact.
“Hey. You’re awake. Thank god,” she breathes shakily, standing to brush the hair from your face.
It’s instinct to turn your head, afraid to be left in the wake of hands so capable of destruction.
She halts, eyes turning glossy.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just sore.” Your mouth is dry as sandpaper. “How’d you find me?”
“Heard you screaming.” Her chin wobbles, that hatred rearranging her features again. Her lip curls, eyes darkening until you can no longer see the usual flecks of green there. “What’d he do to you?”
It feels like a silly question, considering the evidence is all over your body. You try to answer it anyway, voice sounding flat to your own ears. You were so scared, and fuck, had it hurt. You wasn't sure he'd ever stop carving into you. “He… He wanted to know about the Fireflies.”
“What did he do?” Abby repeated, roughly this time. Demanding. The same tone he’d used when he’d grown impatient.
“He tried to get his answers,” you bite out with just as much venom. “He did what you did to him, Abby, only much, much slower.”
She flinches. You never thought anybody could make her flinch, let alone you. Then again, you also didn’t think she was capable of this. Her face is still spattered with his blood. She still wears coldness like a mask.
She is not your Abby, not the warm woman who speaks soft and kisses softer. The woman who wrinkles her nose when you tell a joke, the woman who has taught Lev how to survive, grow, with nothing but patience and support.
“Was I supposed to let him live?” she questions.
You don’t reply, pressing your head into the pillow. Exhausted. All you want is to feel her arms around you, protecting you, but your body screams that it isn’t safe. She isn’t safe.
She says your name. Pleads it. Tries to take your hand again, but you yank it away quickly.
Hurt crinkles her face. “Don’t do that. I thought I was going to lose you.”
“You took it too far,” you hiss. “I need… I need a breather, okay? I need you to go.”
The first tear falls, drawing a line in the dried blood on her cheeks. “You can’t be serious.”
“I watched you torture a man and enjoy it, so yes, I’m serious.”
“He hurt you. He deserved—”
“I don’t care about what he deserves. I care about what I saw in you today!” you erupt, trembling.
Abby pauses, hands moving to her hips. She glances up at the ceiling, and you know that means she’s trying not to break down. And that? That means she’s your Abby. You know her as well as you know yourself. Yet still, you can’t get the images out of your head.
“You’re right. I lost it. I…” She sniffs, turning her back to you. Her braid slopes down her spine, messy and matted crimson. “Fuck, what do you want me to say? I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry for any of it. He was a piece of shit, and you… He almost killed you. In fact, he almost did worse.”
You lie back, defeated, against the flat pillow, taking in the bruises and cuts over your arms. Your hands are trembling. Usually, when they do that, she holds them until they stop.
She whips around suddenly. “You know I’d never hurt you, right? I did it for you.”
“No, you didn’t. I was bleeding out, Abby, and you were too obsessed with tearing him to pieces to care.”
She shakes her head, but it’s no longer convincing. When her lips part, only a pained noise escapes. Because you’re right.
She tries to reach for you again. You draw back again. A sob falls from her, as though she’s just now realising what she did. Her watery eyes are big and round, and you wish they weren’t so focused on you. You need a minute to figure this out without her here, watching, an oppressive presence by your bedside.
She says your name again, this time like a question, voice quivering. Your own resolve begins to waver, bed sheets bunching in your bandaged hands. You might not have ever seen her so brutal before, but you’ve also never seen her so broken.
And it’s because of you.
“You’re right,” she says finally. “I was… I was lost in all this fear and hatred. When I saw you lying there, it was like all the other times I’ve lost somebody, and I needed to make it stop. I needed to make the person who tried to take you from me pay. Maybe I needed to feel like I was in control, like I’m capable of protecting you in a way I couldn’t… for my dad, for my friends in Seattle, for Lev back in Santa Barbara.” She swipes her nose quickly, then rasps, “I saw you there, and my whole world caved in, and if that makes me a monster, someone you don’t like, it’s only because I was so, so fucking scared.” Her voice breaks. This time, she doesn’t try to stop it, the tears coming fast.
You cry with her, forgetting all at once why you’d wanted her so far away. Maybe now, you understand it better. Maybe now, you’re seeing the girl who lost her father, the girl who loved him so much that she hunted down his killer. But also the girl who knows mercy, the girl who took in Lev when he was just a kid, the girl who stopped fighting so she could take care of him.
You’d seen her kill like a soldier before, but you’d forgotten that some of that skill came from all the losses she’d faced, all the blood she’d watched pour.
“Please,” she says again. “You don’t… You can’t be scared of me. I’d never fucking hurt you. I just… I’m so sorry. I should never have let you see me like that. I should never have kept going when you needed me.”
It’s devastating to watch her break in front of you. So devastating that, eventually, you can do nothing but say, “Come here,” gently.
Abby blinks away her surprise, stepping closer. You hold out your hand so she knows she can touch you, though your breath still hitches as she perches on your bed, clammy palm slipping into your cold one.
“You’re not a monster, Abigail. Don’t ever say that,” you say.
She dips her chin into her chest, squeezing your hand harder. You brush her hair from her face, using the pad of your thumb to swipe away some of the blood. She leans into you like you’re all she needs, and it makes your chest flutter.
You love her. Maybe, now you have her back, you even love the violence in her. The lengths she’s willing to go to protect the people she loves. That anger and hatred you saw today is also the reason she has so much capacity for love.
She jokes about your heart being too big, but hers is, too. She’s just usually better at hiding it.
“But you’re right,” she croaks. “I enjoyed it. I would have kept going if you hadn’t pulled me out.” She traces the bandages across your arms. “I think I forgot, for a minute, what I was fighting for. He reminded me too much of a Rattler. I wanted to make him suffer.”
“He was like a Rattler,” you admit, then cup her jaw when worry pierces through her sorrow. “I didn’t go through the things you did, though. I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? He didn’t…?”
“He might’ve, if you hadn’t got there when you did.” You don’t want to think of it, of anything he did to you, or wanted to. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is we’re both here.”
She hums, like maybe she’s scared to do anything but agree with you.
“Abby,” you say again.
She looks at you, mouth tugging down like she’s waiting for more hurt.
You could never, ever give it to her. If you were in her position today, maybe you would have done the same thing. Maybe you would have been worse, because she’s all you have, and you want to ruin anybody who touches her.
“I love you. I just… I was in shock, that’s all.” Regardless, the memory will haunt you. You’ll never forget her bared teeth and snarls, the damage she could make with only her fists. “I’ve never seen you like that before.”
“I know.” She clamps her trembling lips, tracing figure eights over your wrist. “I wish I could tell you that I’m sorry. That it won’t happen again. But I can’t. I think maybe… I love you too much to make that promise.”
You lean forward, resting your forehead against hers. “As long as you come back to me.”
“Always.” She squeezes her eyes closed, mouth brushing the crease between your brows. “Just… don’t do that to me again.”
“I’ll try to avoid being attacked in future, yes.”
She snorts. It fills you with ease. She’s her, and you’re you, and nothing has changed but the knowledge that she would rip the world apart to keep you here. Maybe that isn’t such a terrible thing, even if you wish it wasn’t born from all the agony she’s faced before.
“I need you to hold me now,” you admit, because your bones still rattle with the terror of the day.
She doesn’t need to be asked twice, peeling back the sheet to slip into bed with you. She’s careful around your injuries, that anger still flaring in her nostrils when she thinks of all the ways he hurt you.
But you matter more, so she tries to forget it. To be with you. You settle into her, where you’re safe. Where nobody will dare touch you. You fall asleep. Abby doesn’t, still not quite reassured that you’re here, safe, not slipping through her fingers with the blood. She kisses your hair, using your musky scent and weight to ground herself.
“You’re safe, now,” she promises, as much to herself as to you — because like hell will anybody take you from her again.
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