words: 5.5k (jesus fuck)
warnings: MINORS & MEN DNI. I MEAN IT. reader infected by sex pollen, bad writing because smut is not the life i was destined for, angst, lesbian sex, post!santa barbara abby, dubcon bc sex pollen, mentions of off-page sexual assault, fluff at the end, bad jokes i'm afraid
synopsis: when you come across a new type of spore, your mask can't protect you from the troubling side effects, which include but are not limited to wanting abby anderson to fuck your brains out. we've all been there!
tags: @sweet-lover-girl @hakandnsjoqmsn @abbyily @mamas-evil-hag @cherrybomber3000 @chraw
It begins on a supply run. The Firefly infirmary is in dire need of more medicines, and you and Abby are sent out to the mainland to raid as many towns as is possible before you’re expected back at the docks. Only things are never that straightforward, and in an attempt to avoid a hostile group of raiders, you end up in a warehouse filled with spores.
“Masks on,” Abby instructs, because even though the two of you are the same rank, she never left the habit of leading behind. You allow it only because it’s her, because you’re in love with her, even if she doesn’t know it. When the strap on your mask is loose, her instinct is to tighten it, the brush of her fingers in your hair sending a shiver down your spine.
“You okay?” she asks.
Your hum is muffled by the gas mask. It’s been a strange run. More comfortable than usual, but also more uncomfortable in the way her eyes have been lingering on you for longer than necessary. The way she’s found reasons to touch you, where she’d usually avoid it completely. Fingertips across your lower back as she’s guided you through tight spaces, smoothing your hair in the pouring rain outside, covering you in an extra blanket when you’re shivering at night. It’s happened slowly, and you’re afraid to read into it. Maybe, before the Rattlers, Abby was just a tactile person and she’s getting herself back.
But maybe not. Maybe the static between you isn’t all in your head. Wouldn’t that be nice?
*
“Fuck, we need to find a way out. Fast,” Abby mutters.
“No shit.” The deeper you go into the warehouse, the more the telltale veins and growths of infection swallow the walls. Problem is, a cabinet fell across the door you came through, and the raiders are still out there, and the windows are boarded. There is no way out but through. Your breath is ragged in your mask. You’d think you’d be used to this now, but it never seems to get any easier.
In the darkness, Abby shifts closer, shoulder brushing yours where it flexes around her poised rifle. Unlike you, she’s good at pretending this isn’t blood-curdlingly terrifying, You’ve joked, before, that she must be a cat with nine lives. She laughed and said, “Uh-oh. If that’s true, I must only have a couple more to go.”
“Better start being more careful,” you replied, and rolled your eyes when she only ran into the next store, the next fight, the next danger.
She has never, ever been careful.
*
“These spores don’t look the same as the others,” you note. Your flashlight is nothing more than a watery spotlight drifting over the rotted furniture and spiderwebbing spores, diluted to grey by the thick, polluted air. You’ve stayed longer than necessary. Only had to put down a couple runners so far, but it’s been worth it for the supplies. This place must have been some kind of chemical plant, because you’ve managed to find medicinal supplies the infirmary hasn’t seen in years. Supplies that will seriously reduce the risk of surgical complications.
“No?” Abby frowns, busy raiding the shelves. It’s like this a lot: you, distracted, her razor-sharp in her focus. You used to worry she resented you for it, back when she barely spoke to anyone. Now, it’s just the way it works, and she worries more if you’re not talking about something completely unrelated to the task at hand.
You lean closer to the growths ballooning over the rubble, an unease filling your chest. You’ve seen a shit ton of spores in your time, but none of them have ever been bright red. Pulsing as though alive, half-ready to sprout from the wall and mow you down. You kneel cautiously, sole of your boot crunching over glass, and that’s when you notice it. Some of the chemicals have spilled out, the containers half-eaten by the surrounding fungi.
Guess that explains it. “Come look,” you say.
Abby sighs, shucking her backpack onto her shoulders and pointedly stomping over the debris to meet you in the corner of the lab. “Yikes. Looks… Hungry.”
“If we get another mutation out of this shit, I’m out.”
She snorts. “I think we’re good. Doesn’t seem like many of them are wandering around.”
“Hm. Famous last words.” As Abby goes back to the supplies, you spare one last glance at the peculiar markings, tracing the red mycelia — you think that’s what the roots are — with your eyes.
It puffs, suddenly: a gentle sigh, a cough at most, but you spring back as a splatter of red leaps out at you.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Thank god for your mask. You look down to make sure there’s nothing on your clothes, though you’re sure as hell set on burning them as soon as possible after this. “It just… spat at me.”
“You do tend to have that effect,” she says dryly.
You whirl on her, at once forgetting all about the weird little spores floating to the ground. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
You can imagine Abby’s shit-eating grin under the mask, see it in the flash of her eyes behind the visor. Hear the gentle chuckle as she finally zips up her pack. “Maybe you made it nervous with all that staring. Sure as hell do with me.”
“Yeah, right. Nothing makes you nervous.” But you’re blushing, afraid your mask might steam up. A little dizzy, even, because… is she flirting with you?
You lean on the table, feeling suddenly intoxicated, and she turns serious all at once.
“Whoa. You sure you’re good?”
“Yeah. Just… hungry, probably.” Not a lie. Running from raiders gave you little time to tuck into the sandwiches wrapped in tin foil in your pack. They’re probably mouldy now, three days into your run, but you’re no stranger to cutting off the crusts. Or the cheese. Or throwing it away in favour of jerky, which is also a very real possibility.
Abby’s hand still grabs your hip in an attempt to steady you, worry fixed on the little part of her face you can see.
She looks back at the unusual spore, fear flickering, just for a minute.
“Hey. I’m wearing my mask. I’m fine, Abby.”
“Yeah.” She scoffs like she’s embarrassed to have even contemplated it, the idea of you infected.
But by the time you seek refuge in an old apartment, you’re running a fever, and that fear… it infests her quicker than any infection.
*
“It’s probably just a cold,” you’re saying, but your voice is wobbly, and you’re not sure you believe it.
“So eat,” she’s asking — demanding — shoving the sandwich you’d so been looking forward to in your face. The scent of it, stale bread and rich cheese, has your stomach turning, and you twist quickly away as you fight down a retch.
She says your name, and you hear it. That terror, the crack. It’s an “I might have to kill you” crack. It’s a “you might turn into a monster” crack.
You’re starting to believe it, too, vision blurring, eyes burning, stomach cramping. It’s come on too quickly, and already it’s more than just a cold. Your body is shivery, not yours, and your focus keeps slipping away. She’s already asked you to count, slowly, to ten a handful of times. You have passed the test, for now, but you keep thinking of those spores. Is it possible they could have infiltrated your mask, somehow?
Are you dying here, like this, storm raging outside, Abby trying to force-feed you old bread?
“Abby,” you whine, and how strange; you like how her name feels in your throat, like for a moment, it can soothe you, make your head stop pounding. Honey against a sore throat.
“Fuck,” Abby hisses, pushing off her thighs to tower over you. She throws down the sandwich and marches to the window, an old kitchen counter digging into her palms. You map the muscles on her back, made more prominent by the evening’s shadows, and something… wakes up inside you. Or, maybe not wakes. Maybe just yawns, but you feel it: an echo, a flash of teeth, a shift. Something inside of you wants.
Because you’re dying, probably. And because you’ve always wanted. Her head bows, and you see her swallowing long, deep breaths. Trying to keep her composure.
It’s instinct to try to comfort her. “Maybe I just got so hungry that I’m not hungry anymore,” you suggest. “I defeated hunger. I’m just that strong.”
“Stop trying to be cute right now. That’s not how it fucking works,” she grits out.
“You think I’m cute?”
“If you’re not infected, I’m going to kill you myself. Slowly.”
“Damn. At least buy me dinner first.”
And then she’s yelling your name in chastisement, turning so fast you feel dizzy again, even from where you sit on a pile of blankets on the floor. You don’t think you’ve ever seen her this angry: not when someone hurt Lev, not when she was taken off patrol because of a sprained wrist, not even when you prodded her too hard about what happened before, with the Rattlers. Her nostrils are flaring, cheekbones flushed, fingers fisted like she genuinely wants to wring your neck.
It should scare you. She is decidedly scary. Not often, not with you, but she could crush you with her bare hands if she wanted.
Unfortunately, there is something wrong with you. Instead of clenching with fear, something a little further south than your belly is clenching with… lust. A flash, so bright it’s electrifying, ricochets through your brain. In it, her, kissing you, fucking you, filling you.
You’re disgusted. Not by the images, but by the fact you conjured them. You know, or at least can guess, what the Rattlers did to her in Santa Barbara. If you’re thinking of her that way, imagining the lewd sounds she’d make…
“I need to go to the bathroom,” you announce, because suddenly you’re on fire. Skin searing, beads of sweat dribbling down your neck, stomach fucking cramping. It’s so bad you can barely trap a whimper as you head to the half crumbling little room, then crumple on the tiles. You don’t care that they’re dirty: they provide you with relief, and only then do you realise your heart is right in your ears.
You’re dying, and worse, you’re dying horny. All of the things you did, the wars you fought, the lives you saved, the people you loved…
It’s all slipping away.
Not a minute after you’ve pressed your face to the tiles, you hear her come closer. Every step is a kick against your sternum. Somehow, she’s making it worse.
Outside the door, she calls your name. Soft now, all of that anger gone. You think you hear her sniffle, but maybe that’s just your first hallucination. Seems like that’s where the night might be heading.
You don’t have it in you to reply, afraid that talking will make her realise how sick you are. Because you are, and you can’t deny it.
“Need you to talk to me,” Abby begs. “Tell me you’re still alive in there.”
“For now,” you murmur, then squeeze your eyes shut. “Could you maybe tell Lev I died in a more heroic way than this?” Lev adores you. He’s awed by your sniping abilities, and your comics collection, and your terrible, terrible jokes.
And your way of making Abby laugh. That part, he likes the most. Still, you like when he treats you like a hero, somebody to be inspired by. You don’t want him to know that your final night is spent crying with cockroaches while your insides tear themselves up, all because you must have had a faulty mask.
“I don’t think you’re dying,” Abby says. You hear her shuffle, slide down the door to sit. “I don’t think you’re infected at all. I just checked your mask. It’s… it looks fine. And your cognitive skills clearly haven’t taken a hit.”
“I don’t know about that.” You laugh humourlessly. “Feeling pretty fucked up.” You gulp. “How will you do it? Knife or bullet?”
The pause almost kills you. It gives you too much time to think of it: Abby, putting you down before you become something else. Something wrong. All that time spent wanting her, loving her, and all you’ll be in the end is another fleck of death in her long line of it. Another pain she’ll learn to live with, over time. She’ll go home. Be with Lev. Find a new run partner, a new friend, someone who won’t piss her off with stupid jokes and distractions.
“It’s not going to come to that.”
“I think I’d rather a knife,” you admit. “But honestly, it’s your call. Whatever's easiest.”
“Stop it,” she warns, desperation scraping her throat, scraping the door, scraping your overly sensitive skin. And then, a slam. “Open up. Let me see you.”
“I might not be safe.”
“Open the fucking door.”
Her bark leaves no room for protest. Pulling yourself up is an effort, your head heavy on your neck. Sinking. There’s an ache between your eyes that feels… permanent.
You unlock the door. There’s a tear on her cheek, and a lot more on yours.
Even though it hurts, you let her hug you. Hold you. Whisper, “You’re not going anywhere” over and over, until, by the time you’re ready to pass out on your bedroll, already sweating through the fabric, you can almost believe it’s true.
*
You should have turned by now. That’s what Abby is thinking when you wake up, still you, hours into the night. She hasn’t slept, instead fisting the hilt of her knife. Just in case. She knows, if it came down to it, she wouldn’t be brave enough to use it.
Not on you.
Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that, but she can tell from the way you’ve been whimpering gutturally in your sleep that you’re still sick. Getting worse. There are red spiderwebs under your skin, identical to the fungi you saw in the warehouse. Your eyes are glassy as you rise, and your sweat is all over the bed roll. She can smell it from here: sweet, somehow, which is not unusual for you, only... It's off. Musky.
Sour.
“Hey. What do you need?” Abby questions softly, moving closer.
A sob escapes you, nails curling against your stomach like there’s something there you want to scrape out. “Oh, god.”
“What? What is it?” She crouches in front of you urgently, tilting your chin up. Your skin is on fire, hot enough to make her want to pull away, but she doesn’t. You keen against her like it hurts, and that terror returns in a surge from the crown of her head to her toes. “Baby, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Everything’s… burning.” More of those spiderwebs, dancing under your skin. Your hands knot her shirt so tight it rips.
She covers them with her own, thinking that maybe this has to be an infection, just not the one she’d feared. She begins checking your skin for marks, maybe an open wound or a rash, anything that might clue her in on what’s wrong. Anything that doesn't just lead back to spores. You jerk against every brush of contact, and she tries — she fucking tries — to be gentle.
It’s hard when she feels like she’s losing something she can’t live without.
It’s hard when you’re slurring, “Please. Please, make it stop.”
She gives you water. Lets you drink all that’s left in her flask, even if you were rationing it for tomorrow. It only makes you heave, and then you’re squirming away, your back to her, and she’s trying to keep you here, where she can see you—
Her hands brush your breast completely by accident when she reaches out, but there, you scream. “Abby!”
She’s never felt this helpless, this lost. All of the work she put into rebuilding herself — for what? So she could watch the woman she loves fall apart with a pain she doesn’t recognise, doesn’t understand?
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby. I need… I need to check you for a rash.” Because all she can think is it must be meningitis or sepsis, and so there must be something to find. Something to help her know.
She takes off your T-shirt, soaked with sweat, and the shriek of agony you let out almost destroys her.
*
You think maybe you’re on fire, skin melting into bone, organs boiling into soup. It’s the only way you can describe what you’re feeling, the only way you can make sense of it.
But worse is the throb between your legs. Your thighs are clenched, and you feel the slick pooling with your sweat there, pussy weeping like…
Like it needs to be filled. Every time Abby touches you, it gets worse, sending another lick of flames through you. They gather right there in your cunt, toes curling, hips rocking as though searching for any semblance of friction.
You can’t stop yourself from reaching down, rubbing.
You feel Abby pause her search for something you’ve already forgotten the name of, hear her at a loss as she whispers your name. “What… What are you doing?”
“Need. I need…” You sob, because the frantic rubs of your clit only make it hurt more. You need something else, something real, something that will split you open and let out all this pain.
“Hey.” Abby cups your jaw, straddling you in an attempt to keep your convulsions at bay. You can smell her sweat, her soap, and your hole clenches around nothing, and it hurts. You don’t know how you’ll survive this. You don’t think you will. “Tell me. Tell me what you need.”
“Need… Need to be filled.”
“I don’t understand. Help me understand.” There are tears in her voice. You open your eyes, her face swimming in your blurred vision. It’s marked with nothing but concern. Dread.
And she’s right there, pinning your pelvis down. So you roll up your hips to rub against her, and fuck, your entire body holds its breath. The friction is raw, scraping, even with layers between the two of you. She looks down, brows pinching at the sight of your mess.
“Holy shit.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t come, Abby.”
“Okay. Okay.” You have no idea how she’s in control like that right now. It’s not okay. None of this is okay. But she leans back, unbuttoning your pants with trembling fingers. “Maybe… Maybe it was those weird fucking spores. Maybe…”
As soon as the pants are gone, you’re fingering yourself again, plunging in a finger. It only makes it worse, insides spasming with so much pain you want to vomit. “I can’t. I can’t reach.” Your fingers are too fucking small. “Oh, god, it hurts.”
She grips your wrist to better guide you, lips parted with all the shock, the worry. Her eyes are dark, nearly black, as she watches you plunge into yourself, cunt leaking so violently that your panties are transparent now. Clinging to your folds, even when you push the fabric aside to fuck your fingers. Your legs kick and flail, more pain, more emptiness. Your gut is a chasm, and nothing is enough to stop the gnawing edges from yawning further. You feel like you’re minutes from being engulfed by the void.
You grab her hand. Rub against her, spreading all that thick, creamy arousal over her freckled skin. Her breath catches, blood draining from her.
This isn’t right. This isn’t you.
“Baby, stop. Stop.” She pulls away, a lump clogging her throat as she pins your wrists at either side of your head. You thrash, but she’s strong enough to keep you down.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” you’re crying again and again. It kills her. She wants to make it better, but she doesn’t know what it is.
When you open your eyes, she finds your pupils blown, face shiny with sweat.
“I need you to talk to me. Please, please talk to me,” she begs.
“I… I don’t know… I can’t. It just hurts. It hurts so, so bad.” Tears fall across your cheeks. Even now, you’re bucking your hips against her, and she’s trying so, so fucking hard not to feel the sharp shot of pleasure it brings when you rub against her clit.
It devastates her, a little. She’s been trying to figure out her shit so she can be with you. So that she can kiss you, fuck you, without remembering all the times she was forced into submission in Santa Barbara. And now… you’re here, beneath her, saying that if she doesn’t fuck you, you’ll die.
She can’t do that to you. She won’t.
“Okay. Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna use me—”
“No, Abby,” you choke out. “No. No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You take what you want.”
“Everything you’ve been through—”
Her heart fucking breaks. How the hell can you care about her right now when you’re suffering this much? How the hell can you still be dancing the line of consent when you could fucking fall apart if she doesn’t help you?
“None of that matters,” she says, leaning down to make sure you hear. When her breath brushes your ear, you moan again, thick and sultry and agonised. “Only you matter.”
You surrender beneath her, finally. She swallows, guiding you to a seat as carefully as she can — not carefully enough. Every sound of pain sends another needle through her skin. She just wants to make it stop. She just wants to make you better.
Her arms are a steady force around your back as she drags you over her thighs. You soak her pants immediately, and still, you don’t move the way she told you, your head lolling against hers.
“Come on. You’re okay. Take what you need.”
“I can’t.” You shake your head into her neck, but she feels the way you inhale her skin, the way your mouth brushes her. It’s all she can do not to arch her back.
But she can’t. You’re barely cognisant.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
She grips your hips, dragging your pussy over her thigh. When you scrape over the buttons and pockets of her cargoes, you bite your tongue so hard she sees blood.
She cups your jaw again, driving the damp hair from your eyes. “You’re hurting yourself. Stop trying to control it.”
“I can’t do this to you,” you’re mumbling. “Please, Abby.”
“I’m telling you you can.”
Another rock, another, this time without her needing to guide you. You’re sloppy and clumsy, seconds from falling right off her lap, so she keeps you up, whispers praises in your ear. “That’s right. Good girl. Gonna make it better.”
Only it doesn’t make it better, because you’re still empty. While your pleasure mounts, it never breaks, just keeps building, building, building. A well with no bottom. Your teeth clamp into her shoulder in frustration, another wave of pain racking through you. “I can’t. It’s not working.”
“Try your fingers again.”
You do, but you’re slippery and you still can’t reach. You must say as much through all the fog, because then she’s cursing, a hand wrapping around the nape of your neck. Her cool palm is a balm, but not one that lasts for nearly long enough. Your fever wins out, burning away the pleasantness of her touch.
Your head droops against her shoulder. “I think… I’m gonna die.”
She can’t let that happen. She deposits you back onto your bed roll, scanning over you one last time. She’s out of ideas. The fact she doesn’t even have anything to fill you up, only her fingers… it makes her sick. Makes her wish she was someone capable, someone who could save you.
What she doesn’t know is that nobody else could. Your body wants her. Needs her. Only her.
She peels off your underwear, closing her eyes at the smell of sex that covers your dark hairs. Her own core is coiled tightly, arousal dampening her pants, and she wonders if that makes her twisted. There is nothing pleasurable about seeing you in pain, but you’re still you, and she has wanted you for so long…
“I can try to fill you.”
“No.” You shake your head, tears zigzagging across your cheeks. “No, Abby, not like this.”
“We don’t have another option.”
“I don’t… I don’t want to force you into this.” You speak through chattering teeth. “I… fuck, I love you too much to do this.”
“I love you too much to not do this,” Abby whispers. “But I need you to tell me you understand. I need you to tell me yes.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” It’s clear from the way you’re weakening in front of her, the way your fingernails are digging into your own thighs. Again, she pins your wrists somewhere you can’t hurt yourself. Again, your hips rise to meet her body of their own volition. Through your shirt, your nipples peak, and she imagines clamping her tongue around them. Working pleasure into your body to replace the pain. She wants, so badly, to take care of you in every single way she can think of.
She wants what she shouldn’t. She always has.
“Okay,” you say then, likely because you’re buckling in pain again. “Yes.”
“You want me to fill you up with my fingers?”
“Please,” you plead hoarsely. “Please. Oh god, please before I…”
She plunges a finger into you, thick and beckoning, and your pleasure rattles through the entire apartment in a breathy, dazed scream. She doesn’t want to take more than promised, but when your walls clench around her, soft and noisy and hers, she uses her thumb to toy with your clit. If she can just get you there, get you through this…
“It’s not enough!”
Her heart squeezes, and she puts a second finger inside, thrusting harder, faster. You’re squelching against her, arousal pouring out of you, making it difficult for her to find purchase. Your murmurs become incoherent, eyes rolling to the back of your head, tension quivering in the soft pouch of your belly. She smooths over it, and it only fuels your frenzy, rocking over the blankets and pillows. You’re made of fire, but it isn’t searing now so much as smouldering, igniting a thousand tingling embers through you. You feel everything and nothing. You feel her, taking care of you, stretching you out, still so gentle as you ride her again and again.
“That’s it. Good girl. Taking me so, so good. I know it hurts,” Abby’s saying. “Gonna make it go away now. Gonna make you better.”
You’ve never felt an orgasm build like this before, so quickly, and yet not quick enough. The ceiling spins above you, but there, right on the precipice, all there is is more pain.
“More. More, Abby.”
“Fuck, baby.” A third and fourth finger are stuffed into you, a sting of pain followed by so much fullness you don’t know what to do with. “How’s that? Better?”
“So… So good.” The relief only makes the promise of finishing sweeter, but she’s not close enough. You need her closer. You drag her down so that there’s barely any space between you, pressing her hips against yours. She’s so deep inside, you can feel her in your stomach, and then her lips are on your tits, sucking through the fabric of your shirt, letting it chafe. You’re worried, for a minute, you might never come. You might be stuck in this limbo for the rest of your life, needing her, wanting her, clenched around her — forcing her.
She must sense where your thoughts go, because then she says, “You need my tongue?”
If you weren’t outside of your body, if you weren’t feverish, if you weren’t dying, you might recognise how wrong it would be to ask for more. But you’re sick, and you’re still not orgasming, and she’s asking.
So you nod. She dips down, mouth latching onto your clit before her tongue dips into you with her fingers, and the world collapses from under you. You grab her braid, the first thing you can hold onto, rutting against her face, fucking her tongue with reckless abandon, unravelling, and all she can think is: how can you taste this good even now? How are you still sweet as honeysuckle? How will she ever stop lapping you up?
She doesn’t, not even as you finally reach your edge with a bloodcurdling scream. She splays her fingers inside you until it stings, curling up your G-spot as she sups on your clit. She’s determined to get this out of you, determined to make sure you get everything you need to make this go away, so she pulls your hips up for better access, lengthening your orgasm into something you think might never end. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, your fingernails leaving crescents in her scalp because if you let go, you don’t know what will happen.
It’s eons before you collapse, body shuddering in the aftershock. Those cramps have dulled, thighs locked around Abby’s torso, exhaustion tugging you down somewhere deep and dark but warm.
The worst is over.
Abby rises to see you, chin glistening with your slick, lids hooded but still terrified. “Better?”
You nod. It’s all you can do.
She uses your blankets to clean you up, gently drying your swollen folds until you keen. “Sorry. I’m sorry, baby. Don’t wanna hurt you.”
“I’m so… I’m so sorry, Abs,” you reply, exhaustion making your words barely audible.
Abby shushes you, moving to wipe your face with a clean cloth. Tears are still dribbling from your eyes, face flushed the same pink as your cunt.
“You’re okay now. Let me take care of you.”
She already has, but she doesn’t sleep that night, forcing you to drink the last of the water before you fall into a sleep so deep she keeps checking your pulse just to make sure you’re with her, still. She is so afraid you won’t wake up, until in the early hours, you start murmuring her name, fever finally breaking.
Safe. Here.
*
In the morning, you wake sore and disoriented. Last night feels more like a vivid dream, but you know by the stench of musk and the way Abby won’t look at you that it isn’t. As she grabs food for you, you gulp down tears, certain she must hate you now.
You forced her.
“Abby…”
She flinches when you say her name, and you’d rather be dead, honestly.
“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t… I’m…” Tears flood you. You cover your mouth. “Oh my god. What have I done?”
“No. Don’t.” Abby sighs, and you’re surprised to find no hatred as she kneels beside you. Only concern, and maybe relief.
“I… I made you—”
“You didn’t make me do anything.”
“After everything you went through, everything—”
She takes your trembling hands in hers. “Baby, stop. Please.”
Baby. You remember her calling you that last night, but only now does the confusion spike. You’ve never been her baby before, and you deserve it less now than ever.
She takes your hand, corners of her mouth tugging down as she looks at you properly. She traces your skin just to make sure you’re not still hurting, a breath of relief puffing from her when you only lean closer. Still, it feels like it’s knitted over your bones differently now: tighter, more fragile. Whatever that sickness was, you hope it never gets you again.
Her fingers curl at the nape of your neck, forehead pressed to yours. “I’ve been forced before. That wasn’t that. You needed me, and I needed to help you, and there was no other way.”
“But you should have been able to say no—”
“I wouldn’t have. Don’t you fucking get it?” Abby whispers. “I’d never say no to you. I didn’t know if you were going to wake up. The rest… The rest is something we’ll figure out. As long as you’re here, as long as we’re both fucking here…” Her throat bobs. “I love you. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Slowly, your nose brushes against hers. “It… I mean, it was hell, complete agony, but the part where you came in? That was… It felt so... so good. I felt safe, as long as you were there.”
She looks at you like maybe she loves you. Like maybe she feels the same. “God, I didn’t want our first time to be that way.”
“You mean… you’ve thought about… that before?”
A timid curl of her lips. “Maybe.”
“With me?”
“C’mon. Who else?”
“Well, there’s Bill from the armoury. For all I know, you’re into older men.”
She tugs your hair lightly, chin wobbling with hidden laughter. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I know.” Which is why you have no idea how this happened. Why she could want you. “Mostly because I like the way your nose wrinkles when you’re trying not to laugh at my shitty jokes.”
Her nose wrinkles, and you say, “Yep. Just like that.”
Her lips find yours before you’re even done with the sentence, and thank god, this time it’s not because you’re dying. This time, it’s just because you really, really want to.
npt: @saintsqueensbutchers, @mycovenclaudia, @croweden, @feralnataroni, @puppysepulchre, @rippedpatches, @tiredandsapphic and to everyone else who wants to join!!
