[giveherswords]

abby wants a girlfriend the way people want a puppy. wants ellie leaning against her leg, breathing evening-slow, because she knows she’s safe there. wants to read her moods by the set of her shoulders, to keep her fed, warm, busy enough that the worry can’t get in. wants the collar as a promise, the leash as a tether home. wants to see ellie drop every sharp edge she keeps for the world and just be hers.

[gardengnosticator]

angsty ellabs thought - what if abby gets infected at some point? what if abby gets infected trying to help/save ellie? what if she gets bit and just grimly looks at ellie like "well. guess thats it then. probably deserved this, huh?" and ellie is frozen in place flashing back to every single person she's lost to infection and infected and its her fault its all her fault again and oh man allllllll the drama and trauma surrounding the search for the cure and oughhh 😭😨😭 abby grab your club and just take me out i cant keep doing thinking about this

"Guess now you finally have an excuse to actually finish the job, huh?" Just like Abby to make a joke at a time like this, as Ellie's hands hasten to wrap layer after layer of co-opted gauze around her forearm.

"Shut up, just shut the fuck up okay?" Ellie doesn't want Abby to shut up, doesn't want her voice to drift away and be replaced with the feral sounds of the infection. Ellie winces, too panic-stricken to cry or do anything but hastily flip through the remains of her remaining medical kit. Saline, bandaids, more fucking useless gauze but nothing... nothing that would still the rot ripping its way through Abby’s bloodstream. No antidote, no magic shot or tablet. Just Abby, her breathing already slowing as Ellie contemplates throwing the useless metal tin into a wall.

"Hey, hey... calm down. It's alright." Abby speaks with eyes shut tight, every motion of her body causing searing pain as the once mottled hue of Ellie's makeshift torniquet blooms crimson, the bite far worse, far deeper than Ellie could imagine.

It's Riley. It's Tess. It's every life that could have been saved if things hadn't spiraled. For a second, a mere second, Ellie feels a violent pang of hatred for Joel. That because of his actions, someone she cared about was going to die again. Then she feels guilty. Then sick. She manages to scurry to the side and dry heaves onto the cold paving below her.

"Drama queen..." Abby mumbles, and Ellie, arm up to wipe her face, looks over to see her smirking. Smirking at time like this. "I'm the one who's dying here, save the theatrics." Ellie is back at Abby’s side as fast as she can, hands shakily coming down to rest over her wound, the wet warmth of blood making Ellie feel sick all over again.

"You fucking idiot. You... you should have just let it bite me, w-what the fuck were you thinking?" Ellie's head hangs weakly, tears now threatening to burst before a cold hand reaches out to cup her chin and lift her gaze.

Abby’s eyes are open, color rapidly draining from her face as she smiles at Ellie. It's not her usual smirk, the kind she gives in consideration for when Ellie's scavenging brings the goods. It's sad. And tired. "I was... thinking that... it'd be a damn shame to let some fucking shambling corpse get the jump on you," Abby coughs and Ellie moves forward to try and cradle her, try and ward off the inevitable as if her touch and embrace was enough, "If I couldn't kill you, like hell I'd let some infected get the jump on you."

Ellie looks over, a clicker now slumped into a bloody mess. It grabbed Ellie out of nowhere, teeth bared and ready to sink into her throat before Abby charged. Weapons dropped in sheer panic as she wrestled the thing off, and before Ellie could react, could help, the sick sound of flesh and sinew and muscle tearing under pressure filled her ears.

Ellie let out a weak sob, part laughter, part despair. "Never thought I'd be sad to see you like this." She mutters, moving back to sit on her heels. With great effort, Abby shrugs her shoulders, "Fucking crazy world, huh?"

Ellie feels the cold metal of her pistol in her hand, unaware she had even picked it up, yet fully aware of what she... had to do. Abby was too, eyes slowly dragging down to what she held and then back to Ellie's face. No bravado. No hatred. No glee or schadenfreude, just sorrow. The same look that pled with her to stop as she held that golf club for dear life now focused on her. At her.

"At least it's you," Abby sighs, eyes falling shut once again, for the last time as Ellie chokes back a sob.

There's the sound of gunfire. A bang that muffles an ineffectual apology. And then silence.

And then the sound of tears.

[giveherswords]

abby fucking ellie while making her wear a strap too—just bouncing there, tapping soft against ellie’s stomach with every one of abby’s thrusts. ellie’s red-faced, squirming. abby won’t stop teasing. ellie won’t admit she loves it.

[giveherswords]

abby’s like “get on the bed, spread your legs, touch yourself” but what she means is i need to know you’re mine in every way a body can confess it

and ellie’s like “abby, please—” but what she means is take everything, there’s nothing i wouldn’t give you

anyway they both come and briefly forget who they are.

[gardengnosticator]

ellie cutting abby down from the pillars, reaching up to cradle her face, run a hand through her hair, her eyes are glassy, body trembling. abby is hers. how dare they do this to her, her abby.

[attacat]

like a rabbit caught in a trap

[intoaflower]

“i'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice will haunt you”

sooo silver springs by fleetwood mac is actually about ellabs!!

[yaraanderson]

I 100% agree with the tags you left on my ellabs art

Like I said, I love the angst, that's the fun part of the journey, but at the end I want there to be love, tenderness, and understanding.

It's the idea of them reaching that point of gentleness despite all of that angst and suffering and hatred that makes them such an interesting and fun ship to me. I love the idea of them healing through each other despite being the ones who destroyed each other.

You get it!!! Your ellabs art was amazing and so gentle. For all that Ellie and Abby are capable of hurting each other above anyone else, that comes from the fact that they are capable of understanding each other more than anyone else. (Their lives are so intertwined with each other in such paralleled ways that they might as well be soulmates.)

I'm not an enemy to lovers for the sake of enemies to lovers person. Ellabs is such a good ship to me because it has that awful tension between I Hate you and I Know You on a level no one else is capable of. But to truly Know you is to love you, at least a tiny bit. I am also the one you have to forgive in order to achieve the highest form of healing and peace after all we've done to each other. I am the only one who can offer you the forgiveness you feel you need too.

Ellabs works because they would genuinely get along so well if they didn't have their history, and with it, they would connect even stronger if they could just get over that mountain of trauma between them. They are capable of loving each other in full, understanding both the goodness and the deep darkness held within the other. They both have good hearts, and love deeply, and I absolutely love angst, but I also just want them to be happy.

[chaiteart]

Confrontation

[attacat]

i know ellabs is usually all angst angst angst and i love it but i needed to draw them in a soft healing embrace

[gardengnosticator]

in my version of the santa barbara scene ellie is on the verge of bleeding out before they can make it to the boats and abby turns around to see this living corpse basically crawling through the dirt after her. maybe out of anger, out of fear, who knows but abby is reminded of herself. hanging in that forest, hoping beyond hope for someone to save her and someone did. and she’s carrying him in her arms and the only reason she can is because of ellie, so to hell with the rational side of brain telling her to leave ellie behind, she’s hefting her to feet and taking her too.

[hanamukes]

More! Garupa Life #428: To the Masquerade

[ladygrit]

abby scribble

[gardengnosticator]

There's no roadmap for what lives between Ellie and Abby. It's not a neat arc, and there's sure as shit no clean redemption. Just a series of collisions. Some brutal. Some healing. Crashing again and again. Grief slamming into guilt and vengeance and the brittle, confusing bones of longing until it strips them both to the most primal versions of themselves. They don't fall in love like other people do. They detonate. Crumble into it, blind and furious and bleeding out like shattered mirrors where all the shrapnel mixes together and it cuts their hands to shreds every time they so much as try to patch themselves back up. The reflection is messy and ugly and distorted, more blurry every go round but somehow progressively more honest. Just irrevocably laced with each other even when it rips them open to look.

But they do. They can't not.

Abby never says it out loud, but Ellie is the one ghost she doesn't want to outrun. She couldn't if she tried. Ellie could've killed her. Yet a world without Abby is a fate worse than death because if Abby dies, the last tether to her own soul goes with her. They aren't whole, never will be, and that's what makes it hauntingly beautiful. They're each other's ruin.

Keep your tidy ships where it's soft and loving and everything goes off without a hitch. I'm here to watch these two spend their miserable fucking lives trying to figure it out... bruises, scars and the whole shebang.

Truth be told, Ellie would drop the entire world to pick Abby back up. She had it. She had everything precious and it wasn't enough. In order to feel bound to something real, Ellie needs the familiar darkness only one other person in the universe can give.

Name a better end game. I'll wait.

[hostileplanets]

collide with the sky you will always be special to me

[kosmogrl]

[ellabsucker]

i forgot there were gifs on here 😅