Library (m.list) | rules | current wip | palestine | song recs ࣪ ִֶָ☾.࣪࿐
𝘿𝘼𝙉𝘼 – ࣪ ִֶָ☾. resident mad scientist, arab, lesbian (she/her), 18, woman in stem, and the person behind this overgrown library. i mostly write saphic fanfiction for tlou, arcane, and whatever women happen to consume my thoughts at the moment. my inbox is open for requests ᝰ.ᐟ ࿓ 🕯️ ⚢
Disclaimer – this blog stands with palestine. do not interact if you support zionism or israeli apartheid. men and minors are not welcome here. ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ ༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚ ˚˖𓍢ִ໋🦢˚
sometimes it feels really lonely not being able to fully say things out loud, but i’ve found so much solace and comfort through creating and sharing little parts of me here this last year. writing for ellie — whom i love endlessly — and connecting with other lesbians through this app, even if only briefly, has genuinely meant the world to me
i don’t really talk to people much, so even the brief little interactions i’ve had here have meant so much to me and stayed with me more than you probably know 😼
i’ll always be grateful for lesbian stories, lesbian art, and i’ll always be grateful for characters like ellie that made so many of us feel seen and understood. i love and treasure us and our stories so much !!
so thankful for this community and for everyone who puts a little bit of themselves into keeping this little corner of the internet afloat. thank you for making it feel so warm and safe.
a portrait of ellie, (still) hopelessly in love. a series of small moments following your relationship after borrowed time runs out.
or... long distance gf!ellie headcanons ˎˊ˗
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie learns very quickly that your texting speed is its own language. a text every few minutes means a regular day. a wall of messages arriving all at once —like seventeen notifications in the span of thirty seconds— means something good happened. she'll open her phone to a tsunami and she'll read every single message in order, carefully, and then she'll put her phone down and she'll be smiling like an idiot and she'll hope nobody in the vicinity notices.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is just not a natural texter. if anything, she's a caller —always has been, always will be— but the time zones don't exactly cooperate, so she had to learn. it cost a lot. there was a period, early on, where her response time was just awful. you'd send her something and then wait and wait and wait. and the waiting would start to feel like something it wasn't, and more than once you sent her something like are you mad at me?
slowly, she got better. it took time and it took you telling her, once, that the silence made your brain do things. once she did, her messages became unbearably tender. tiny updates throughout the day, pictures of things that reminded her of you, half-finished thoughts sent at three in the morning because she suddenly missed you too much to stay quiet about it.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie treats facetime like the sacred thing it is. there are loose scheduled times that you two try to keep but honestly it just happens whenever it happens. she'll be deep in research at midnight, papers spread everywhere, and you'll call because you just got off your shift and she'll always answer immediately, without hesitation. sometimes you two talk for hours. sometimes you two just exist together on screen. her at her desk, you wherever you are, neither of you saying much. just there, present. it's more than enough.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie has fallen asleep during your calls more than once and this embarrasses her deeply. you have a collection of pictures and screenshots, evidence of her sleeping like a log. one of them has her drooling slightly on her notes. the irony is, you're statistically the more frequent offender; you've fallen asleep on call more times than either of you can count, but ellie's cases are documented and that's what matters. she has pretended, every single time, that it didn't happen. you have let her have this because you sense her embarrassment.
͙͘͡★ will watch you do your skincare routine with her chin in her hand and not say a single word. you prop your phone up against the mirror and just talk, rambling about your day, about your students, about whatever is happening in your busy head at eleven pm. she listens and watches carefully every single time. something about the domesticity of it does something to her that she couldn't name even if she tried.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie who sometimes plays guitar on call because you ask her. at first, she refused but you asked again and then asked again after that. she caved eventually and now it's a thing. her, her guitar in her lap, her phone propped somewhere nearby, playing quietly while you listen. if she's feeling particularly daring she'll even sing a little, just a bit. she acts embarrassed every time, but she's not that embarrassed anymore. she loves it and she loves that you love it.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie who secretly saves every photo you send her, every single one. selfies, coffee pictures, random screenshots, your classroom decorations, your dog, your lunch. it doesn’t matter. her camera roll is basically just evidence that she’s deeply in love with you.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie never gets used to missing you, but also never stops feeling grateful that she gets to. missing you means that she gets to love you and to her that’s worth every ache.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie struggles with the distance more than you do, even if she doesn’t always know how to say it. she isn’t clingy exactly, but she needs and craves closeness. she just feels the distance differently than you do. you miss her terribly but you can hold yourself together with words, the connection sustains you as long as it's there.
ellie needs the words and the physical. she doesn't need much, she just needs something. kissing your temple while passing behind you in the kitchen, feeling your fingers play with the baby hairs at the back of her neck, you, specifically, scratching slow circles between her shoulder blades... she especially misses all the tiny unconscious intimacy.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie who genuinely cannot believe she’s dating you, like actually. sometimes she’ll just look at you and think what the fuck. the prettiest girl she’s ever seen is talking to her... willingly. that's crazy.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie gets sent a lot of pictures per week of your newest coffee creations. little foam flowers, hearts, leaves... one time, somehow, an actual swan. most of these look a little curious but that's okay.
ellie 🦕
oh i know that coffee is fire
you
you don’t even like coffee so how would you know...
ellie 🦕
the barista is gay as hell so i know actually
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie especially loves when your hands are visible in the photos you send her. when she can see your rings, the chipped red nail polish, the little ink stains you get from correcting papers. sometimes there’s glitter stuck to the side of your hand from classroom crafts or faint marker smudges near your wrist. all these tiny traces of your life she’s grown so painfully fond of. tiny fragments of a life she wishes she was standing inside of instead of only witnessing through pictures on her phone.
she stares at those pictures longer than she means to because she misses your hands terribly. misses the feeling of them in her hair, your fingers softly tracing shapes against her arm while talking or the outline of her tattoo, misses holding your hand while walking somewhere with no rush to get there.
sometimes she catches herself staring at a picture and thinking how badly she wants to hold your hands again. not even for long, just once.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie thinks you’re beautiful in a way that actually disorients her a little. especially because you’re not just hot — you’re sweet. she does think that you’re the hottest person alive but also the sweetest. and somehow the combination completely ruins her. because okay yeah your tits are incredible but you also remember little things she says in passing and send her voice notes when you walk home and talk about your kids so lovingly and suddenly she’s sitting there like damn... i’m doomed.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie who sends you bouquets of flowers quite frequently. she found a flower shop near your house and even though they didn't do house deliveries, she got them to do it somehow. the florist on the other end of that call was charmed within thirty seconds when ellie first called and agreed to deliver a bouquet to your house.
it started because you had a terrible week. like genuinely awful — double shift at the café, a difficult class, one of your kids was having a hard time and it was breaking your heart, and you mentioned it to ellie scattered across three different conversations that she was paying close attention to even when she didn't say much.
the flowers arrived next day. you just got home from your classes when your mom called you to the door and there it was, a bouquet of pink flowers with a little card.
"you're doing really good. i mean it. - e"
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie after that, it becomes a thing, though not on a schedule. it just happens when it happens, which somehow makes it more devastating each time because you never see it coming. tucked between the stems there’s always a tiny little note. in it it's not her handwriting, but definitely her words.
"obviously. you studied for two weeks straight. - e"
“i kissed you in my thoughts did you felt it... -e"
"that bus driver will go to hell. -e"
"i beleaf in you -e"
“for my favorite teacher ♡ -e"
"you're worth every mile between us. -e"
“sometimes i think the universe made you specifically for me. like okay. pretty girl who smells like coffee and oranges and kisses me softly. alright man. - e”
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie once opened tiktok late at night and got one of those tarot readings that are now flooding her fyp thanks to you. the woman in the video was saying something like "YOUR PERSON IS A STUBBORN FIRE SIGN WHO MISSES YOU EVERY NIGHT. YOU WILL BE SOON TOGETHER ONCE AGAIN." she was already prepared to scroll past it but she opened the comments and noticed your profile picture in the comments, dead serious:
"i claim this energy ✨🧿"
she laughed so hard she had to put her phone down for a second. still, she found the whole thing weirdly endearing... it was just so painfully you. romantic and earnest without embarrassment. you love things wholeheartedly and openly in a way ellie still still isn't fully used to.
okay, maybe the universe is speaking directly to her girlfriend through tiktok tarot readings. WHO is she to judge.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie teases you relentlessly for your tarot habits but also listens with complete seriousness whenever you start explaining them. she'll sit there nodding while you talk about crystals and energies and card pulls like you're presenting groundbreaking scientific research.
sometimes, she'll pretend to be skeptical just to hear you defend it harder. she even lets you do readings for her and acts deeply unimpressed about it. "this is bullshit.... okay, pull another card though."
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is incapable of saying goodnight first, you've noticed. no matter how tired she is, no matter what time it is, ellie will not be the one to end the conversation. you have to do it every single time, and even then she always sends one more thing after just in case.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie misses your country’s summers so much it physically pains her, even though she spent the entire time complaining. she genuinely hated it. your room had no AC, only that loud ass fan that sounded like a plane preparing for takeoff and barely helped at all. secretly, she loved feeling your skin warm and sticky against hers. both of you were always too overheated to fully cuddle but still found a way to touch each other somehow; a leg thrown over hers, your fingers sleepily scratching her stomach, her face tucked into your chest at 3am while the fan rattled violently in the background...
she complained about it and yet, she would give anything to be back in your bedroom right now. she misses those horrible sweaty nights more than she can explain once she’s back in jackson.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie randomly sends you songs, and you do the same. it's like another form of communication at this point.
ellie’s are usually late night sends with absolutely zero context. just a link, no caption. just the song and the implication that she heard something and thought of you or thought of herself or thought of the two of you and couldn't not send it.
you send her songs too, even though your music taste is a tad different than hers. she listens to every single song carefully because a song you love is information about you and she wants all the information about you she can get.
your contributions to this arrangement include playlists with titles like songs to kiss me to when you see me again and, inexplicably (or not so inexplicably if she thinks about it), multiple tracks from the shrek soundtrack.
you
this is the greatest song of all time
ellie 🦕
disespectfully i disagree
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie cannot, under any circumstances, maintain a single linear conversation and neither can you. this is a ongoing issue. you will be mid-sentence about something important and one of you will say something that reminds the other of something completely unrelated and suddenly you're three topics deep with no map back. many important conversations have been lost this way. every discussion becomes like ten different discussions stitched together badly.
the solution you implemented, after one too many "wait what were we talking about" moments was the parentheses system because otherwise neither of you would ever finish a story.
you say parentheses out loud and whatever comes after is a detour. you're allowed to go as far off road as you want but when you close the parentheses, you go back, no exceptions. and it works! you actually finish conversations now... occasionally.
both of you say the word “parentheses” out loud constantly because both your brains work at the speed of light apparently.
“PARENTHESES. did i tell you dina and jesse are dating again?"
“okay so my professor said— wait, parentheses. remind me to tell you what happened at the café afterwards.”
of course, you forget to close the parentheses half the time anyway. you absolutely enable each other’s tangents too, neither of you are helping the situation AT ALL.
͙͘͡★ the issue now is nested parentheses, which happen constantly and were not accounted for in the original system design.
"so the kid did the funniest thing— PARENTHESES this reminds me of what you said about the museum tours— PARENTHESES wait that also reminds me of— okay i have THREE parentheses open right now."
"well, close them in order?"
"i don't remember what order i opened them in."
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie actually loves listening to your brain jump around topics though. loves seeing how excited you get when you remember something halfway through another sentence. she thinks it’s very cute!
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie gets sent approximately eight hundred tiktoks per day. genuinely an alarming amount considering you are both busy adults... you send her tiktoks like you're being PAID per video sent. ellie wakes up to at least five notifications minimum on a slow day. she's completely baffled by it, but she still watches every single one, always.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie on the other hand, is an instagram reels person and this is genuinely incomprehensible to you. you receive reels from ellie that were funny approximately four to six months ago. memes that have been dead and buried and mourned.
you
ellie. this meme is from february
ellie 🦕
okay? it's funny
you
it was funny... in FEBRUARY
ellie 🦕
it was funny in february and it's still funny now
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie who receives a good morning texts from you every single day, without fail. even if it's just "gm <3" at 6am while half asleep. ellie wakes up to them and her whole morning is different.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie quietly opens her camera roll and just looks at your pictures for a while when the missing gets particularly bad. she always avoided cameras, even before meeting you. always turned her face away or groaned whenever someone pulled out a phone, but now she wishes she had documented every ordinary little moment that felt infinite at the time. she regrets not taking more pictures so much.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is a composed person... generally. she acts all cocky over text until you tell her “i’ll send you something later” and suddenly she’s typing like her hands are vibrating because they, in fact, are. her body just responds before her brain can do anything about it. she genuinely shakes in excitement when she knows you’re about to send boobs or ass, like a damn chihuahua. pacing around her room and checking her phone every four seconds.
you figured out very early that you have an extraordinary amount of power in this specific situation and you use it responsibly (well... no.)
ellie 🦕
i was in a meeting????
you
i know 😚
ellie 🦕
ok so you did that on purpose
you
it was on purpose yes
ellie 🦕
i hate you
you
booo you don't
ellie 🦕
were you actually thinking about me or
you
literally yes. i'm thinking about you alllll the time <33
ellie 🦕
okay
i don't have another meeting until 3
you
LMFAOOO
ellie 🦕
what
you
nothing nothing 😇
you're so cute i can't stand it
ellie 🦕
i'm not cute
so about that 3pm window
you
yes els
yes okay 😭
ellie 🦕
cool cool cool
i mean
good
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie literally gets hit with longing at the the most mundane moments that have no business making her feel like this. like, when she's doing the dishes, or when she hears a song you love, or when she wakes up from naps and reaches for you before remembering... just yearning and daydreaming all day long.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie has a moment, just a few months in, where she genuinely cannot see how this works long term and it terrifies her. she almost texts you about it at 2am. instead, she stared at the ceiling for an hour and then send "i really like you" completely unprompted. you answer immediately "i really like you too ILOVEYOUUUU <3333 go to sleep. long day tomorrow"
and the crisis passes, just like that.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie owns an “i ♡ my girlfriend” pin. it’s clipped onto her backpack right beside the one joel got her for her birthday a few years ago. she looks super proud every time someone points it out and will talk about her awesome girlfriend—you, of course. it has never been removed and it will never be removed. it will be on that backpack until the backpack disintegrates.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie gets a summer position doing guided tours for children at her local natural history museum. this is objectively perfect for her and also a disaster because ellie is great at information but not so great at children, or so she claims. she called you in a quiet panic on her second day.
"there's so many of them and they won't stop moving and one of them just licked a bone?"
obviously, you immediately appoint yourself as ellie's unofficial child-wrangling consultant. you had been handling this exact category of chaos for some time now, so you gave her the tips you'd collected the hard way. the advice starts coming in unprompted, but ellie listens to all of it and takes notes.
"okay, if a kid won't stop touching the display, what you do is give them a job. tell them they're the official display guardian. suddenly it's their responsibility to protect it."
ellie tries this the next day, and it miraculously works.
͙͘͡★ so, this becomes a thing. ellie encounters a child situation, texts you, you provide a strategy, ellie implements it, and it works most of the time, so she ends up using your techniques constantly.
“okay guys, if you can hear me clap once!” and suddenly twenty children are listening to her. holy shit. witchcraft? maybe.
ellie starts looking forward to having problems just so she can ask you about them.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie by the end of the summer is genuinely good with the kids on her tours. like actually really good. she crouches down to their level and speaks to them like small intelligent people and gets them excited about bones and fossils they did not care about in the first place.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie has a contact photo of you that you hate with your whole entire heart. it was taken during autumn. you're sitting on a park bench, mikey in your arms, laughing at something off camera — something she said, probably, though neither of you can remember what. you were not aware that she was taking a picture; your hair is messy from the wind and your mouth is wide open mid-laugh, your nose scrunched the way it does when you laugh. mikey is looking at the camera with his whole little face.
you've asked her to change it an ungodly number of times but ellie genuinely loves that picture so much that her eyes go a little watery when she looks at it for a long time.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is not a words of affirmation person in general EXCEPT with you over long distance. because she can't touch you or show up the way she wants, so she has to say it. and every time she does, you stores her words up like treasure.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is not sending nudes. this is a non-negotiable that she established early and has maintained with great conviction. she's glad that you respect that completely and never make her feel weird about it.
you, on the other hand, have no such convictions. you send her nudes like you're sending a good morning text. she receives these and has to take a minute because holy fuck? she loves receiving them, loves them BAD. but sending things back? uh, that's an horrifying concept. she just doesn’t feel fully comfortable with it at first, not because she doesn’t trust you —she trusts you completely— she’s just awkward and weirdly shy about it.
the first time ellie sent something, it was completely unannounced. just a mirror picture of her in her sports bra after coming back from the gym.
she slowly starts getting more confident over time, little by little. at first it’s just mirror selfies in sports bras. then maybe the waistband of her boxers peeking out low on her hips, maybe a blurry picture of her stomach while she’s laying in bed... she always sends what she's comfortable with and nothing more, so, her face isn't showing in most of these pictures.
the no face rule is also firm and you think it's actually really cute.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie spends like twenty minutes deciding whether or not to send a picture only for it to be the tamest thing you’ve ever received in your life, but to her it feels insanely vulnerable. she gets embarrassingly proud of herself afterwards too, trying to act all casual while clearly waiting for praise.
ellie 🦕
so
was that like. cool or whatever.
you
i almost passed out in the middle of the grocery store
ellie 🦕
okay relax
you
NO because why are you casually sending me stomach like that ??? happy pride to ME !!!!
need you so bad phone sex isn’t enough anymore actually i’m being serious
and then you said the most explicit shit she ever read.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie gets so flustered when you’re explicit because she never expects it despite the fact that you have literally been dating for ages. you’ll say the most insane out of pocket thing imaginable and she’ll just stare at her phone blinking slowly with her cheeks burning bright red. she secretly loves knowing she can affect you like that, loves when you lose your mind over the smallest things she sends. she still genuinely can’t believe you want her that much.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie is, however, extremely and immediately down for phone sex every single time. her consistency is actually remarkable... this is not something she needs convincing about AT ALL. she's down for it literally every time, there is no situation where she’s turning down phone sex. you could text “u busy" and she’s already plugging her headphones in. the contrast between "will not send a single picture" and "phone call? yes. right now? yes." is something you find both hilarious and incredibly her.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie has a name for you when you're grumpy. it started because you called her once when you were in a sour mood that had no single cause, just the accumulation of a long day. she listened to you rant for minutes before saying, very calmly:
"okay, miss trunchbull."
you got grumpier immediately, which made her laugh. and you cannot stay grumpy through that laugh, you've tried, and it's physically impossible, but you were determined that day so you stayed grumpy a little while through sheer force of will before it cracked you open.
so, she calls you miss trunchbull just when you're grumpy because it makes you grumpier first and then not grumpy at all. it's the most efficient method of fixing your mood and she uses it without shame.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie almost cried tears of joy when your old phone finally died. not because she hated it or anything — she had defended that thing for months actually. “it’s still working” she’d say every time you complained about storage or battery life or the camera quality resembling active surveillance footage. it served you well. it was a good phone. she harbors no ill will toward it whatsoever.
but the second you texted her my phone finally gave up she sat up so fast because okay, that meant you were getting a new one… a better one. with a better camera, probably. which meant she got to see you in HIGH DEFINITION.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie was genuinely stunned into silence for a second the first facetime call after you got the new phone. because suddenly there you were, her girl. all pretty and alive looking on her screen. your face clear and detailed in a way she hadn't seen in months. she could see the exact shade of your eyes, the little moves your eyebrows made while talking, the texture of your lip gloss. the tiny beauty mark in your face that she used to kiss all the time.
her eyes went embarrassingly wet.
obviously, she became immediately unbearable afterwards.
“wait hold on move closer.”
“lemme see your makeup.”
“baby your skin looks crazy good on this thing, what the fuck?"
“wait, smile again”
“okay now turn your head to the side please— wait, you got a new piercing?"
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie did not come pre-assembled for this relationship. opening up —about feelings, mostly— did not come naturally to her. it took time, an embarrassing amount of time, by her own private admission.
joel miller raised her, so one can do the math.
early on she'd go quiet when something was wrong and you'd be on the other side of it not knowing what you'd done or what she needed. more than once you asked are you okay and got yeah and had to decide whether to believe it or not. sometimes you pushed gently and sometimes you waited, but you got good at reading the difference.
she's quite good at it now. not perfect, and she's probably never going to be perfect, but now she'll tell you when something's wrong and she'll tell you what she needs and she'll say it was a bad day and instead of just not saying it and hoping you somehow know.
you think it's one of the bravest things about her, and you love her a little more for that.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie thinks loving you feels a little like adding honey to bitter things. the bad parts don’t disappear completely, but somehow they become easier to swallow.
you are, very literally, the sweetness of her life.
since you got into her life, her days started feeling softer around the edges simply because you were in them. she notices it especially on bad days, because even when everything feels exhausting and frustrating, there’s still this quiet thought in the back of her mind:
i can call her later.
and somehow, that makes everything feel a little more survivable.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie doesn't talk about you much with joel. not because she doesn't want to, it's just kind of weird, so she keeps it brief. like, she mentions you occasionally. "she's good" when he asks about you. "yeah, we're good" when he asks how's everything between you two. joel doesn't push much and she's thankful for that. still, somehow, he ends up knowing plenty about you anyway through little things she mentions.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie whose lockscreen is a strip of those vintage photobooth pictures with three frames.
in the first, the two of you are side by side, just looking at the camera, her arm around your shoulder
in the second frame, you've turned toward her, one of your hands grabbing her face with absolutely zero gentleness, and you're kissing her cheek so hard she has her eyes closed. her expression is somewhere between laughing and suffering, even though she was delighted.
in the third one you're sitting in her lap and you're kissing her properly.
she’s changed phones twice and somehow the lockscreen always stays the same. she's never changed and never will because you look so pretty in it. she's told you this more than once and she's not saying it to be nice, she's saying it because it's just true.
once she admitted very quietly that she likes it so much because it captured you exactly as she remembers you, just loud and sweet and all over her in the most loving way possible.
“i dunno,” she shrugged afterwards, all awkward about the vulnerability. “you just look really happy with me in them. i like it.”
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie sends you a picture immediately every single time she sees hello kitty and spiderman together anywhere. doesn’t matter where she is. random stores, at the shopping, on gas stations, when she's doing her groceries... you best believe she’ll stop dead in the aisle to take a picture.
ellie 🦕
thought you should know we’re apparently luggage now?
ellie 🦕
you and me
ellie 🦕
i got these two. they reminded me of us
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie stole your hello kitty plushie before leaving. technically, you let her borrow it while she stayed in your place, but one day she left with it tucked under her arm and never gave it back.
in her defense, she fully intended to tell you before leaving. then she forgot. she got back to jackson and unpacked and there it was, sitting in her lap looking guilty as hell. you discovered the theft like four days later.
you
ellie. WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?
turns out, she underestimated how emotionally attached you were to that thing. she should've known, of course, since it was very obviously beloved. poor thing looked like it had survived several wars. one eye missing, fur all faded and discolored, stuffing slightly lumpy from years of being held too much. maybe that’s part of why she loved it immediately.
eventually, after a long dramatic exchange where you accused her of kidnapping and demanded visitation rights that she had to pay, you relented.
you
okay okay okay… you can keep her
take care of my daughter please ☹️
now it sits on her bed in jackson like it belongs there. she uses it as a pillow sometimes, mostly when the missing you thing gets particularly bad. not because it’s comfortable but because it smells like you. like coffee, your shampoo, and that sweet clean scent that clings to your sheets. every time the smell faded a little more she genuinely felt devastated.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie cannot peel an orange without getting nostalgic.
it’s genuinely baffling to her how specific the memory is, too. every time she peels one, the memory just hits her. the juice on your fingers, the smell sharp and sweet in the warm air.
it's this really specific memory: the two of you sitting outside in the sun, eating oranges like two elderly people with nowhere to be and nothing to do. you beside her, handing her a piece before she asked.
you’d peel them together and leave little piles of orange skins between you while talking about absolutely nothing.
it was genuinely nothing. no special occasion, no milestone. just a random afternoon in your backyard eating oranges in the sun because you insisted you needed “vitamin D and enrichment,” so you dragged ellie outside with a bowl of oranges.
she'd been so hot that day, she remembers. she'd also been so happy, but she hadn't said that part out loud.
every time she peels one, she immediately gets hit with this horrible ache in her chest because suddenly she could practically hear your voice again in her ear.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie has a locket with a tiny photo of you inside it.
you both do. they're small matching ones in silver, heart shaped and worn from constant use — your idea, which she called cheesy and agreed to in the same breath.
inside hers there’s a tiny picture of you on one side and a picture of the two of you together on the other. inside yours, the same. just ellie where you were. the photos are cut unevenly because you were laughing too hard while trying to trim them with tiny scissors.
she touches it constantly without realizing.
when she’s stressed, her fingers drift there automatically. when she’s tired. when she’s thinking. when she misses you. she’ll rub her thumb over the edge of it absentmindedly over it.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie knows the distance is hard and ugly sometimes. there are nights where missing you sits so heavy in her chest she genuinely doesn’t know what to do with herself besides call you and listen to you breathe for a while. there are days where the time difference frustrates her so badly she has to put her phone down and walk around the block before she starts feeling too miserable about it.
but still, underneath all of that there’s certainty. quiet certainty, but certainty anyway.
it won’t be like this forever.
maybe she’ll come back to you, or maybe you’ll come to her. maybe it’ll take longer than either of you want, but it will happen because she’s sure of it, like the way she’s sure the sun rises every morning in the east. it's not blind optimism, just faith. in you and in what this became. faith in the fact that loving you has rooted itself too deeply into her life to ever become temporary
she doesn't know when it will happen and she's made peace with it, mostly. the logistics are complicated, after all. visas, flights, money, schedules and a thousand more small bureaucratic obstacles that stand between two people who just want to be in the same room again.
she knows all of them by heart. she's been working through them one by one, but she doesn't talk about it much. doesn't say i've been researching flights or i asked about visa requirements again or i've been putting money aside every month since i got back. she just does it without fanfare.
you know, anyway. you can tell by the way she says when instead of if. always when. from the very beginning, it has always been when.
when i visit.
when you come to jackson.
when we're in the same place again.
when i see you again.
when, when, when.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie works so hard for it too. probably harder than you realize. taking extra shifts at the museum and saving money whenever she can, researching programs for once she graduates and jobs late at night when she should be sleeping.
she's building a bridge back to you, piece by piece. slowly but surely.
͙͘͡★ bittersweet!ellie once told you, after one particularly difficult night apart:
“i don’t know exactly how yet. but i know i’ll find my way back to you.”
and she meant it with her whole heart.
───────── ⋆ ˖ ─────────
⋆｡° ⋆ ˖ a/n:
honey-sick because... homesick. but honey. because she misses you and you’re the sweetness of her life. get it... 😚 maybe it sounded better in my head BUT WHATEVER. maybe i’ll rename this part later hehe
this was originally written as a little extra or as companion piece for my one shot bittersweet, but honestly i think it can be read as a standalone too. it’s basically just ellie and reader being painfully in love across several time zones and trying to survive it <3 also this is my first time writing in this format so i genuinely have no idea if i did this correctly LMFAOOOO but i had so much fun writing it. these two mean everything to me actually. like genuinely i think about them all the time
i wrote this in one sitting and didn't proofread it so the tenses are probably all over the place i’m SO sorry i’ll probably fix them later. or not..
anyway thank you so much for reading ♡ and if you have any requests or thoughts about these two PLEASEEE send them my way because i will take literally any excuse to write more of them 😚 mwah
A small n short wardrobe analysis of modern!ellie by meee :3
Note: hi, I felt motivated to write something, anything and have my first upload on my blog. However I couldn’t come up with something writable. I’ve been gaining my interest in fashion again so I decided to do a little modern au ellie’s wardrobe headcannons. :p
Tags: Umm nothing really :3 Enjoy!!
When it comes to Ellie’s fashion sense, I don't think she would be lazy or as effortless as we would assume her to be, She knows what she likes to wear n she does take interest in wearing things that are her style. She isn’t following up to date with any fashion trends or anything like that, She is casually expressing herself. Her style definitely has sauce.
She doesn’t venture out in the mall with a goal to buy clothes, It’s usually more spontaneous. Like stopping by a shop that piqued her interest with a nice looking jacket on a mannequin while she was on her way to the arcade.
She even enjoys looking at clothing that she would never wear. Like maxi skirts, or more corporate clothing. It gives her idea for sketching. She likes to take inspo from real life for her oc's (YES she does have ocs.)
While she has stables in her wardrobe, there are some unexpected fun pieces as well, and she absolutely rocks them. I also canon her to be around 18-20 here. So she is probably a college student. Her closet has space for fun clothing rather than more mature choices.
She isn’t accessorizing too much, or sometimes none at all. She does like to wear a bracelet that Dina gave her, other than that she sometimes wears a watch, when it’s cold outside she grabs a beanie. :) cutie.
!! She is into more conventional clothing. Being stylish in her own ways and feeling comfy throughout the day are both important to her, so she chooses to have loose but not really baggy silhouetted clothing.
!! Her basics consist of cotton shirts, flannels, button ups, and regular degular jeans. She refuses to buy jeans and recycles through the ones that she has. She claims that it’s impossible to find good fitting jeans anymore.
!!Also her color palette is very autumn-like. Soft and muted shades of earthy colors are her go-to along with grays and navy blue.
Along with her sweaters, she also owns a %100 wool black turtle neck. It makes her feel artsy. She doesn’t wear it as often as she wants to though, she dislikes the fabric wrapping around her throat. :/
It's absouletly time that she takes off those converse. Does she? "uuhhhh..."
It almost feels canon that she would own a band-tee Like the sick habit band tee. She got it from a hot topic when she was 15. She wears it to sleep now though.
Does she own any meme clothing? Ummmmm no. I think she would be irritated by people who do wear meme clothing in public.
"That's sound so unfunny. You couldn't pay me to walk around with a "god's favourite" written on a camo. yuck."
!!Credits to @junabuggy for bannerssss yippieee!!
Oh hiii @the-sick-habit just putting you here because you wanted to be in my taglist
[ masterlist ] ── ⟢ 𓇢𓆸 wish i could shut it in a closet,
and drag you back down ── ⟢ pinterest | playlist
𓇢𓆸 synopsis - one year ago, your life changed. a family emergency caused skewed priorities, resulting in you leaving your hometown, your friends... and your girlfriend of nearly four years. a sudden for sale sign in a yard, an empty driveway... and you were gone. no contact–just gone.
one year without Ellie. one year of living with the worst mistake that you had ever made. one year of longing to go back to the place that you previously shared with her... the only place in which you could ever truly be yourself.
now – Jesse and Dina are getting married. despite the way that you had left town, an invitation to their engagement party had made its way to you. for the first time in a year, you're going back home. you're faced with everything–and everyone–that you had left behind, feelings that never died... and everything that should've been.
𓇢𓆸 warnings - second chance romance. modern au. death of a family member (not joel). miscommunication. slight angst. fluff. yearning. swearing. alcohol consumption. a life crisis? wedding planning. tense friendship dynamics. insecurity. self-doubt. heartbreak. wounds that never healed. complicated relationship with a hometown. dual pov. afab!reader that presents more femininely. each chapter may have individual warnings!
𓇢𓆸 PROLOGUE
𓇢𓆸 1 : RETURN TO YOUR ROOTS
𓇢𓆸 2 : ONCE BELONGED
𓇢𓆸 3 : ALL THAT YOU LOST
𓇢𓆸 4 : AND ALL THAT YOU COULD HAVE
𓇢𓆸 5 : EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING
𓇢𓆸 EPILOGUE (ALL MY LOVE)
𓇢𓆸 @letmebeurbaby @m0on1ight1 @girl-so-gay @liasxeatt @ghostofmaxx @nebulamor @merrilypurplemoon ── ⟢ comment to be added/removed!
── ⟢ 𓇢𓆸 no thing's so sure
that i can't learn to doubt it ── ⟢
𓇢𓆸 notes -
i've had this planned for over a year, put it on hold until the new noah kahan album came out... and now it's ready <3
if this looks and sounds familiar, it's because i first posted the masterlist in april! but i wanted to redo it. so, if you are currently tagged, it's from asking to be added to the original masterlist i had posted at the time!
⤷ ゛synopsis: ˎˊ˗ the room is full of noise, of motion, of fleeting company — but abby finds herself strangely tethered to you within it, as though some quiet and unseen force has placed you repeatedly in her path. She does not think to question it at first. and yet, as the night deepens, it becomes less a matter of chance than of something more persistent, more unsettlingly deliberate, as though even distance itself is yielding. (inspired by a moment you probably remember if you've played tlou)
⤷ ゛content warnings: ˎˊ˗ mutual pining, abby Anderson x femme reader, light intimacy; kissing, dancing etc. fluff, abby is very shy, loser!abby, flirty!reader.
The mess hall barely looks like itself tonight. Somebody dragged long tables against the walls to clear space in the center of the room, strings of salvaged Christmas lights hanging crooked between support beams overhead. Music crackles through old speakers with too much bass and not enough clarity, but nobody cares. Half the Wolves are drunk enough to dance anyway.
You linger near one of the support pillars at the edge of the room, a bottle of beer hanging loosely from your fingers. The drink had been thrust into your hand by someone whose face you'd already forgotten, its contents now lukewarm from neglect. Around you, the converted mess hall thrummed with life; music crackled through battered speakers, laughter rose above the noise in uneven bursts, and strings of scavenged lights cast pools of amber across the crowded room.
Across the hall, Abby was trying—and failing—not to look at you. Her gaze drifted back in your direction for what was probably the hundredth time that night, only to dart away the second Manny cleared his throat. A knowing grin spreading across his face.
"Looks like Cupid is working overtime tonight."
Abby's head snaps toward him. "The hell are you even talking about?" she scoffed, dragging her eyes away from where you'd been standing. "I'm literally just standing here."
Manny took another sip from his cup, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
"Yeah," he starts. "Like a fucking statue."
Abby’s brow pinched slightly, as if she was genuinely trying to find where the issue could possibly be.
“I don’t understand how me standing here is affecting you,” she quipped, glancing at her friend with a look that was meant to be flat and unimpressed — but didn’t quite hide the fact she was a little too aware of where her attention had been drifting.
He snorts into his cup, shifting his weight against the table behind him, "You've been staring at her all night."
A muscle jumped in her jaw, and abby had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. "Not this again."
She straightened, folding her arms tightly across her chest, physically barricading herself against the conversation. It would've been more convincing if her gaze hadn't already started wandering back across the room.
"Oh, you've got it bad."
Abby groaned, dropping her head for a brief second before dragging a hand down her face. "Can you please not do this right now?"
“Ah, so yes.” he tisks
she shoots him a glare sharp enough to cut skin, manny merely clicked his tongue.
"Mm." He nods to himself as though confirming a theory. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
“Whatever,” she mutters, already turning half away from him as if ending the conversation physically might make the whole thing dissapear.
She should walk away. She knows she should. There are a dozen places she could be — somewhere quieter, somewhere that didn’t make her hyperaware of every direction her eyes kept going. instead, like an idiot, her thoughts drifts back toward you anyway. You’re laughing at something Nora said, head tipped back, fingers curled around the neck of the bottle. The overhead lights catch and fracture across your face whenever you move, softening the edges of you in a way that feels unfairly distracting. Abby feels hot all over.
At some point it has to get humiliating. She’s dealt with infected swarms without breaking a sweat, seraphites, scar ambushes. Isaac himself staring her down across briefing tables. None of that makes her feel half as panicked as you grinning at her from across a room. Because then you notice her looking. And smile wider.
Manny groans beside her. “Oh my God, go talk to her.”
Abby scoffs “I talk to her all the time.”
That isn't even a lie. She does talks to you… sometimes. Usually after spending fifteen long minutes rehearsing a perfectly average sentence in her head beforehand. Unfortuly for her, most of the time manny is the first hand witness of her putting her shoe in her mouth.
"No," he starts. "You stare at her silently during training and act like you're being held hostage whenever she speaks to you."
“Fuck off.”
The laugh her friend lets out is entirely undeserved.
“That is actually everybody’s understanding of your relationship, you know that right?”
She feels heat creeping up the back of her neck. For a brief, horrifying moment, she wonders if he's right. If she's somehow been making a fool of herself for months without realizing it. If all those times she'd looked up during training and found you already looking at her had been witnessed by half the stadium.
She shoves at Manny's shoulder before he can say anything else, but he barely budges.
“You’re so annoying.”
“And you are head over heels.”
Abby opens her mouth, already reaching for another argument. Something about Manny being dramatic. About how this entire conversation is ridiculous. About how she can have a normal interaction with a person without everybody acting like she's sixteen.
But the words never make it out, because you start walking in their direction. Not in their general direction. Directly toward them. Towards her.
She feels her stomach drop.
"Oh," Manny grins, spotting you a second before she fully processes what's happening. "Well, would you look at that."
Abby shoots him a warning glance which he completely ignores.
"Looks like Cupid finally landed a shot."
"Manny." He raises both hands in surrender, already backing away. "Good luck, pendeja."
"Manny—" but the coward is gone before she can grab him, disappearing into the crowd with the unmistakable swagger of a man who knows exactly what he's done. She breifly starts to consider hunting him down before you stop infront of her, and every coherent thought leaves at once.
There's an amused smile already tugging at the corners of your mouth.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," you say as a form of greeting, your words arriving wrapped in laughter, and Abby thinks, absurdly, she could pick that sound out from the far end of a crowded stadium.
She blinks once, then again. There’s still a faint tension in the way she holds herself, something unspent and uncertain, even as her attention settles—unmistakably—on you.
“I’m just—” she starts, then exhales through her nose. Sixteen year olds could do better than this. “I’m fine.” The lie is so transparent it almost circles back around to sincerity.
Your gaze doesn’t leave her while you drink, the motion unhurried, almost thoughtful, like you’re giving her the dignity of being observed without judgment.
“that so?” you ask lightly. “cause' it doesn't seem like it.”
“Yeah?” A quiet laugh slips out of her, more air than sound, “Tell me why you think that.”
Her voice dips a little as she speaks, not quite challenging, not quite inviting, but somewhere caught between the two. She leans forward a fraction without seeming to notice she’s done it. You don’t move away from her. If anything, you drift in just slightly, hands folding loosely behind your back.
“Hmm,” you hum, pretending to think it over. “Maybe it’s the fact you’ve been glaring at me all night.”
There's a playfulness in your tone, but Abby's stomach drops anyway. Until now, she hadn't considered how it might have looked from your side. Getting caught staring was embarrassing enough. The possibility that you'd mistaken it for something else entirely—annoyance, irritation, a glare—had never even crossed her mind.
People have told her before that she can come across a little intense or abrupt. More intimidating than she means to be… It's part of the reason she makes such a conscious effort to soften herself around others; to be patient, quiet when quiet is needed, gentle where she can be.
And she'd come tonight determined to seem normal. Well. Mostly normal. The truth is, she'd shown up hoping to see you, which makes the idea that she might have spent the entire evening accidentally staring you down feel almost catastrophically unfair. Good job, Abby.
“I wasn’t— I mean, I didn’t mean it like that.” Her shoulders tighten a touch, the flirtation slipping just slightly into panic.
“sorry,” she adds quickly, lower now. “guess i should work on that.”
You blink up at her for a second, then a quiet laugh slips out of you before you can catch it. It fades just as quickly, leaving her briefly looking somewhere between composed and not entirely sure she ever was.
“Relax,” you reassure, the tension dissolving back into warmth as easily as it formed. “I’m just messing with you.”
There’s something disarming about the ease of your attention. The way you hold her gaze like it isn’t a challenge to withstand. You take a sip from your drink again, still watching her. “Manny bothering you?”
At your mention of Manny, she huffs faintly, the sound carrying a hint of fond exasperation. “He bothers everybody.”
“mhh,” you agree “True.”
For a second, neither of you says anything. The music changes songs. Something rhythmic enough that people start whispering in approval. Somebody bumps into Abby’s shoulder from behind and she shifts automatically closer to you to make room. Close enough now that she catches the smell of soap on your skin beneath the alcohol and sweat and crowded room heat. It completely ruins her ability to think.
“You having fun?” you question, leaning closer so your voice can carry over the music.
“I am.” then, honest before she can stop herself, “More now.”
Your eyebrows lift slightly and Abby could just smack herself. Smooth. Real fucking smooth. But then she thinks she sees the tips of your ears turn red, though she’s not entirely convinced she isn’t imagining it.
“yeah? i think i am too — more now.” you repeat, smiling at her in a way that makes Abby wonder if you're aware of the disarming effect you have on people. she finds herself wishing she knew what was going on inside your head at moments like this.
something about the look you give her sends her thoughts scattering in half a dozen different directions. It shouldn’t mean anything, and it probably doesn’t. But Abby still goes quiet, replaying your words with a kind of careful attention people don't usually give to the things they're trying to ignore.
You glance toward the growing crowd gathering at the center of the room. A few Wolves have already abandoned any concern for dignity, moving with the reckless confidence of people who have had way too much alcohol. She follows your gaze for a moment, grateful for the distraction.
When your eyes return to hers, there's a brief flash of something bright in them— Anticipation, maybe. Amusement? Whatever it is, it's gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
"C'mon."
Abby straightens slightly, caught off guard. “wha-”
“Dance with me.”
A breath of laughter threatens to escape her. The idea is so unexpected, so wildly at odds with what she'd allowed herself to hope for, that for a second she can only stare at you. And then, unhelpfully, her mind supplies the image of you standing close enough to touch.
“I—um,” she stutters, all at once aware of her own heartbeat. “I can't dance.”
You tilt your head, something faintly amused settling into your expression as if she’s just confirmed a guess you already had, voice easing into a lighter tone without you seeming aware of it.
“you can't or you won't?”
Abby huffs a quiet breath through her nose.
“…normally i don't”
You step closer anyway, reaching for her wrist before she can argue again. “Then this’ll be your first time.” Your hand around her arm nearly short-circuits her brain, but she lets you pull her into the crowd without resistance.
The crowd has thickened around the makeshift dance floor, people drifting toward the music almost unconsciously as the night goes on. Conversation still threads easily through the room, though it now tends to happen at closer distances, words exchanged near ears and shoulders rather than across tables.
Abby is discovering that dancing with you presents a problem she had already anticipated. Namely, that she has become acutely aware of every inch separating the two of you. Or, more accurately, how little of it there is.
You giggle quietly at the way she's standing, shoulders squared as though she's preparing for a briefing rather than a dance, and reach for both her hands. “Relax, Anderson,” you say, guiding them to your waist.
The warmth of you beneath her palms is intoxicating.
“I am relaxed.”
“sure you are.” You sway slightly with the music, one brow lifting. “You look like you're preparing for combat.”
Abby snorts out a laugh. “Full transparency— I don't really know what I'm supposed to do.”
“Just move.”
“That easy, huh?”
Your eyes crease at the corners. “My honest opinion? you’re overthinking it way too much, Anderson.”
Maybe. Abby has spent the last several minutes devoting an unreasonable amount of attention to things most people seem capable of navigating instinctively: where her hands should go, whether she's standing too close, whether she's standing too far away, whether you're aware of the effect you're having on her.
Her hands settle more naturally at your waist after a while, though caution still lingers in the gesture. You don't seem to notice—or if you do, you don't comment on it. Instead, you drift a little closer, following the rhythm without much thought.
Around you, the room carries on as it always does, crowded and warm and full of life, but Abby's awareness has narrowed to a far smaller orbit. The faintest freckles on your face, the smell of your hair, the impossible fact that, for once, she doesn't have to imagine what it would feel like to be this close to you.
You tip your head back to look at her. “See?” you coo. “You're getting it.”
Abby glances away.
“I think you're just drunk.”
One of your brows lifts. “That's your explanation?”
“It's the most reasonable one."
The laugh comes quickly, without restraint.
“Abby.”
Something in the way you say her name makes her stomach tighten. She stops thinking about what she was going to say next and registers instead that you’re looking directly at her.
“I'm completely sober.”
Her mind tries to adjust too quickly, catching on the realization that she may have misunderstood something fundamental. It doesn’t organize itself into anything coherent fast enough to respond properly. So she doesn’t.
“Oh.”
You stare at her questioningly for a moment, then your eyes narrow slightly.
“Wait.” The corners of your mouth twitch. “Did you seriously think I'd need alcohol to want to dance with you?”
God. There is no correct answer to that question. Abby can feel herself walking directly into a trap and somehow walks straight into it anyway.
“No- of course not….” a beat. “Maybe.”
Is she wrong, though?
The thought arrives almost unbidden, she cannot quite construct a version of reality in which you would willingly choose this—choose her, choose proximity that feels deliberate rather than incidental. There is closeness, yes, there has always been closeness, but not like this, not with the kind of ease that now unsettles her attempts at interpretation.
It leaves her suspended between recognition and refusal, uncertain whether she has overstepped some invisible boundary or simply misread the moment entirely.
You break the silence first, exhaling softly.
“Well, that’s honestly kinda insulting,” you comment, the line delivered with an ease that undercuts any real offense.
Abby looks down at you, still trying to reconcile the shift in tone.
“Why?”
There’s no hesitation in your answer, only a brief, incredulous clarity, as though the idea itself is difficult to take seriously.
“Because it implies I’d need chemical assistance to ask a pretty girl to dance.”
Warmth blooms beneath her skin with alarming speed, climbing into her face, settling somewhere behind her ribs. She becomes acutely aware of your hands, your proximity, the fact that you are still looking at her expectantly while her thoughts attempt, unsuccessfully, to reorganize themselves. Surely that couldn't have meant what it sounded like. Equally surely, she cannot think of another explanation.
The room feels warmer the longer this goes on. Music vibrating through the floorboards. People shouting and laughing around you. Somebody spinning recklessly nearby you. But Abby barely notices any of it anymore.
“You know,” you add after a moment, your voice pitched low. Abby has heard you speak a thousand times before. Across training fields. During patrols. Half-lost beneath the noise of rowdy mess halls. She does not recall ever hearing you sound quite like this.
“if you're going to spend the whole night staring at me, you can't really blame me for doing something about it.”
She nearly chokes on the words, registering them in full a fraction before she is able to respond. She becomes sharply aware, in a way she cannot un-feel, of how long she has been noticing you without meaning to make it obvious, and how impossible it is now to pretend otherwise while you are still standing there watching her notice it.
She has been caught. Thoroughly. The realization must show on her face, because you catch it immediately.
"Hey,” you soften.
Your hands shift along her forearms, a small upward movement that causes goosebumps to follow the contact.
“Don’t worry.” Abby looks at you. “Would’ve been embarrassing if I was the only one.”
This can’t be happening. She keeps waiting for the moment she gets jolted out of it—some sharp interruption, one of the others from her bunk calling her name perhaps, wake up abby. But no such moment comes, and you remain entirely real in front of her, and oh, she can’t stop thinking about how soft your skin feels where she's still holding you. the room feels fuzzy and warm, and she thinks she shouldn't jump to conclusions despite how clear it may seem, to preserve her heart.
“You…” Abby swallows once. “did you need something?”
You give her a look.
“Abby,” you say, almost disoriented. “Seriously?”
In hindsight, maybe it should’ve been obvious. Manny is for sure never going to let her live this down. You’re smiling tentatively at her when your fingers curl lightly at the back of her neck, gentle, careful, as if you’re waiting for her to pull away even though she would never dream of it. And then she notices the faint tremor in your hand, the small inconsistencies in your steadiness, every subtle sign that you might be just as affected by this as she is.
"sorry" her eyes dart to your mouth, then away again "i'm not very good at this"
For a moment, you simply look at her with a kind of fondness that catches Abby off guard simply because it is directed at her.
“Can i kiss you?” you ask suddenly.
She almost falls to her knees right there before you. You ask it so simply, as though you have not just handed her the answer to every selfish thought she has spent months trying not to entertain. Abby Anderson — built like a tank, terrifying in combat, emotionally constipated beyond repair — suddenly feels nervous.
"You really need permission?"
There is a faint challenge in it, which isn't an answer. It is, however, the closest thing to one she is capable of producing.
Your hands slide from her forearms without breaking contact, There’s no rush to it, just a steady glide as your fingers trace the line of her arms before settling to gently cup her face, anchoring her there. You lean in close enough that your breath brushes her, close enough that she can feel the faint movement of your lips when you speak.
“Just making sure,” you breathe.
And then you kiss her, and your lips are softer than anything she has ever managed to think her way toward, every imagined version of this falling away the moment it becomes real, leaving only the present of it. Your hands slide into her hair instantly, drawing her closer while the room blurs around you completely. Abby kisses you like she’s been thinking about it for months — because she has — warm and breathless and a little desperate because god she needed this, needed you.
She feels you smile against her lips, giddiness bubbling in her chest at the realization that this is actually happening, until she finds herself smiling into the kiss as well.
When you finally pull apart, Abby keeps her forehead pressed firmly to yours, both of you breathing hard. Somewhere nearby, someone lets out an obnoxious whistle— probably Manny.
“Think your friends saw that?” you ask lowly.
Abby can't look away from you. “Don’t care.”
Before you can tease her about it, she’s kissing you again, like nothing else matters.
please take this in good faith bc im not trying to be bitchy or snarky i'm just like genuinely confused and trying to understand why the "nobody writes" discourse comes up over and over and over again when i see anywhere from 10-30 fics on my dashboard every single day. i do my best to try and like/rb to drafts to read and react when i have more time/rb and miss a few sometimes bc i am still working etc whatever but something about this specific discourse coming up over and over and over again bothers me
it's always in posts about community when frankly the writing community on tumblr doesn't have a writer issue it has a reader issue (meaning lack of) and it just reads to me like what's being said is "well i only want to see fic from people i deem worthy of reading fic from otherwise it may as well not exist" and it's mean lmao like straight up it's mean
the way to have a writing community is to be a part of it. to read fics from fandoms you don't know and people you don't know and to go into tags and support smaller writers and to be involved. 10-30 new fanfics on my dash a day yet nobody writes? i'm just very confused!!!!!!!!!!
synopsis: the worst thing about hope is how easily it disguises itself as possibility. ellie hears something that makes her question everything she thought she knew.
content warnings: kinda pervy ellie, suggestive content, ellie’s pov, informal style, loser!ellie, lowkey oblivious reader, obsessive themes, nerdy ellie, she is down bad, stalking? high school au (characters are eighteen). next part
entry: the planetarium incident continues to haunt me
it has been three days. THREE. and i am still thinking about her tying my shoelace. i wish i was joking. i wish i could tell you i've spent the last three days thinking about important things, like idk school maybe, my future? the inevitable heat death of the universe. But no. instead my brain keeps replaying the image of her crouching down in front of me, like girl PLEASE. lord have mercy. okay and of course she'd take care of me, remind me again why she isn't my girlfriend??? too many fucking reasons. It's messing me up, she always does stuff like that. and its always the little things that get me every single time… like d'you know she always brings me snacks along with her lunch, because she knows sometimes i forget? She also sends me notes when i'm sick (hand written ones i'm not that easy yes i am), she also texts me after every single one of my tests, to let me talk her head off about every detailed answer.
god.
and she remembers EVERYTHING.
i mentioned once that i liked those stupid astronaut ice cream things they sell at science museums, y'know those ones that are shaped like different space objects- you get it. i mentioned it ONCE. fucking months ago. this morning she just dropped it on my desk and kept walking right on to her class, shit she winked at me too, my nipples got hard immediately. so like she had to have gone all the way to the museum during her free period (i was in a class which is why i wasn't glued to her side), then come all the way back… just to get me some ice cream and not say anything. what on earth is the protocol. someone really needs to write a handbook.
entry: i stared at her for an entire class period
so later in class she sat by the window. the sun was right behind her so she looked all glowy and i spent most of biology trying not to stare. keyword: trying. i failed so, so miserably. and then she caught me, should've ended me honestly, except instead of looking weirded out she just smiled. again. SHE ALWAYS SMILES. why why why why why why why? every single time she smiles at me i feel like a bobblehead. idk the comparison makes sense to me, head empty. just wobbling around. i'm pathetic.
entry: concerning developments
i think she's gotten clingier. or maybe i've finally lost my mind. both options are possible, only one is believable. she showed up at my locker before first period, not unusual i guess. except she didn't actually need anything… she just stood there. talking. about nothing. and everything. some story about her weekend, her neighbour did something funny apparently, i can't remember my brain was spiraling cause i was so nervous and confused- just completely random stuff.
okaaayy so it it posible she just wanted to talk to me? yes or no yes or no yes or no. what the fuck is my fucking problem, this shouldn’t even be that big of a deal, and i'm almost one hundred percent sure she meant nothing by it. a girl can dream though…
hmmm but like she could've talked to anyone — not that i'm everrrr complaining, If her voice were a frequency, my mind would literally be tuned to it constantly — but there were people everywhere, and she chose to be leaning against the locker next to mine, talking to me for twenty minutes before class.
i'm very aware of how hella insane i sound at the moment (or always?), no one can ever read this they seriously won't understand, fuck i don't know. it felt nice.
entry: worst day of my life contender #47
i got paired with him. HIM. out of every person in the mother fucking class. out of the hundreds of students wandering around this school like confused livestock, i — the unlucky ellie williams — got paired with the one person i've been trying my hardest to avoid. Haven't i suffered enough already universe?
so there i was. sitting across from him (he’s not that good looking), trying to focus on the assignment. trying to act normal. trying not to think about how i've spent the last month secretly resenting a guy whose greatest crime is existing near a girl i like.
i was actually prepared to hate every second of it too. i sat down fully committed to being the least helpful project partner in recorded human history, not enough to get a bad grade though because unfortunately i care too much about school, but enough to make my displeasure known.
except this man had the fucking audacity to act like a decent guy, actually fuck off. i would've sooo preferred it if he was an asshole, because then i could've continued hating him totally guilt-free. instead he's just like an actual human being. i know shocker.
we were working for a while and then he asked how long i've known her and immediately my brain went into fight-or-flight response, keep my wifes name out yo mouth. The conversation was so unbareable, he actually knew her more than i thought he would. when he started talking, i was like okayy?? actually get the fuck outta my face right now. but turns out i'm a idiot, who's surprised at this point? not me.
apparently she tutors him in math.
math. apparently he's awful at math, he’s horrible. which i absolutely did not expect by the way — he looks like somebody who understands taxes. told me he begged her not to tell a soul cause he was embarrassed (I mean I would be too, except I’m great at math so), which explains EVERYTHING.
all those times i saw them together… after class, at luch, while i was sitting alone rotting from jealousy, they were doing algebra. yep. algebra. i was losing sleep over algebra. just took the idiot test and got a whopping 100% yayy. should we include that on my gravestone:
"here lies ellie. spent three weeks emotionally devastated by a quadratic equation." i still hate his ass.
As embarrassing as that whole thing was, it's not even half of what's occupying my mind now. because he mentioned that she talks about me a lot. and i laughed initially because obviously that's ridiculous. and he was like no, and that he really wanted to speak with me cause of it and blah blah blah.
then he started listing the things. stuff she'd allegedly said about me. how i'm funny, how i know random facts about everything, how i always pretend not to care when i actually care a lot (she knows me so well it’s scary). i have goosebumps all over my body writing this, cause this is literally exactly what he told me. I swear i can't fucking sleep i don't even know how to begin processing any of these emotions. all these feelings i have for her. she talks about me when i'm not there… like enough that somebody noticed. do you know how much you’d have to talk about someone for that to happen? it feels insane, god.
there's something weirdly intimate about that, not even in a romantic way. just... she thinks about me when i'm not around.
oof that's a dangerous piece of information for somebody like me to have, i already started being ellie about it, where i take one tiny thing and immediately start building entire civilizations out of it. i keep imagining her mentioning me in random conversations. the thought of that is making me feel weird. good weird. bad weird? definitely both.
DON'T FUCK UP YOUR FREINDSHIP WITH HER ELLIE !!
gahhh! and then the conversation got even worse cause his ass admitted he likes her — which yeah, obviously. join the fucking club. take a number we meet on thursdays.
it actually felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest having to sit there, listening to him describe all the reasons he likes her and i couldn't even disagree. every single thing he said was true. she does make people feel important. i hate how easy it is to love her, i really do.
he told me he doesn't think she likes him back. should've made me happy, and it kind of did. fuck am i a terrible person? he's literally in the exact same situation i'm in, i know how bad it hurts, trust me i KNOW. I just… selfishly felt relieved that she didn't want him. but then he said he thinks she likes someone else. thank you for giving me a whole four seconds to bask in it before pulling the rug from under my feet. very generous. so now i'm sitting there listening to this guy talk about how great the woman I’m in love with is, who apparently has been noticing things… like there was someone specific she likes. and he said she gets distracted sometimes. like lights up when she gets a text from, what looks like the luckiest person in the world from where I’m standing. while he was talking i just sat there nodding, pretending i didn’t want to crawl into a hole or gutter or something and die.
i haven't stopped thinking about that since. somebody else. some random guy probably. some nice normal guy with nice normal guy hobbies and functioning social skills.
not me.
definitely not me.
because i'm currently sitting here at 1:13 in the morning already four tear stained pages in of my diary fuckin' journal, because a girl i'm secretly in love with apparently talks about me when i'm not around. it's never fucking over is it.
and y'know what makes me geniunely the biggest pathetic loser? after allll that, spending hours listening to a guy rave about how amazing she is, hearing that she probably has feelings for someone else, and feeling like absolute garbage all because of this one woman.. she texted me asking if i wanted to bake cookies with her tomorrow, and I’ve already forgotten about all the pain. She’s my favorite notification — my favorite everything, actually.
i'm going to sleep now, and definitely not to reread all our texts first. unrequited final boss.
summary: you find ellie wounded and confused, so you fix her up. she has an interesting way of thanking you.
warnings: as always, this fic is 18+. minors shoo!! slightly graphic descriptions of an injury, fingering (r!receiving), a touch of angst
a/n: i’ve been thinking about santa barbara ellie lately and now it’s your problem. forgive me for how self-indulgent this is, and it’s a teeny bit ooc for ellie. idc idc i need her.
though the day had dawned cold, gray, and misty, the sun had finally broken through the clouds, its warm glow a welcome sensation against your skin. you’re not typically one to stop and smell the roses, but you pause, boots scraping the gravel as you inhale lungfuls of salty seaside air. you have a good feeling about today. if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get to take out a few rattlers.
you’re well into their territory, so it’s not a completely far-fetched idea. about an hour down the coast is your beachside boat, your home base, but you’d already razed through the local towns for supplies. so here you are - deep in rattler-infested neighborhoods, glancing over your shoulder every few moments to make sure you’re not being followed and watching your footing for well-laid traps.
after ransacking a few long-abandoned homes for supplies, you round a corner to find a pair of dangling bodies strewn from a tree.
your eyes narrow. one is a clicker, you notice, its skin marred with welts and fungi as it hangs limp from a rope. beside the motionless clicker dangles a girl - she’s covered in blood, red from her hip down to her hairline, her eyes closed. from where you stand, you can’t tell if she’s breathing.
idiot, you think. doesn’t she know this area’s littered with rattler traps?
scanning the area for any other signs of life, you cautiously approach the tree from which the girl hangs by her ankle, rope taut.
you’re half-hoping she’s already dead - it’s better than whatever the rattlers would have in store for her. but when you’re close enough to reach out and feel for a pulse, her weak heartbeat thumps against your index and middle finger.
“shit,” you hiss, cursing yourself for wanting to help. whoever this girl is, she’s either not from around here or just plain stupid. and maybe you’re just as stupid for cutting her down.
when her body hits the gravel, the girl gasps awake, groaning in pain as her hands fly to her hip. her fingers emerge red from the blood-soaked cotton of her tank top.
you watch with curiosity, knuckles going pale as you grip your pocket knife tight.
the brunette coughs dryly, her body weak. she pushes herself up onto all fours and finally turns her head to look at you, green eyes wide with confusion and surprise.
“could’ve gotten yourself killed,” you say, just loud enough for her to hear. “or worse. rattlers all over this part of town.”
“rattlers,” the girl croaks, eyes flitting to the knife in your hand. “the fuck’s a rattler?”
you arch a brow. “seriously?”
as the girl stumbles to her feet, she grunts again in pain and presses her palm against her hip. she ignores you, instead scanning the area for something. when she finds it, she limps over to an overgrown patch of grass and pulls a backpack from the ground.
“you’re hurt,” you say as the brunette shrugs on her backpack. her eyes search the gravel for something else - a pocket knife, you notice, the silver glinting in the afternoon light. she picks that up too, doesn’t flip it closed. her green eyes flicker over to you.
“i’m looking for someone,” she tells you, voice gravelly. “abby’s her name.”
“if she’s as careless as you, the rattlers already have her.”
“thought i made it clear i don’t know what the fuck a rattler is.”
you snort. “keep making stupid choices and you’ll find out.”
the girl sets her jaw, expression stone-cold. you glower back at her, too exhausted from the hours of walking you’ve done today to be afraid of her. she’s clearly out of her depth here, anyway.
“slavers,” you say, folding up your knife and stuffing it into your pocket. “they set those traps. they catch you, you’re fucked. so… you’re welcome.”
after a beat, you turn on your heel and start walking away. you’ve found enough supplies to keep you going for a while, and this block’s too hot. you’re ready to call it a day and head home.
when you’re still within earshot of the brunette, you pause, turning your head. “come with me and i’ll patch you up, get you some food, maybe help you find this… abby.”
you shoot a glance at the girl, whose eyebrows are knitted together. the blood on her face has gone dark, drying to a crust on her forehead.
“or stay here. choice is yours.”
when you start walking again, it’s not long before you hear a second set of footsteps approaching behind you. reaching into the side pocket of your backpack, you pull out a metal canister of water and offer it to the girl. she takes it wordlessly, gulping down mouthfuls of water as you trudge through the barren neighborhood.
“god dammit,” ellie cries, knuckles going white as she grips the edge of her seat, alcohol stinging the open wound on her side. you mutter a quiet sorry, wiping smears of blood from her skin until only her wound remains angry and red.
“good news is you don’t need stitches,” you tell her, reaching for your first-aid kit. you wrap her wound with bandages and hand her a clean shirt, her blood-soaked tank discarded on the floor. she pulls on the t-shirt with cautious movements, careful not to disturb her freshly-wrapped wound. you dip your hands into a bucket of water to wash the blood off.
the boat rocks calmly with the rhythm of the waves, the gentle whoosh of the ocean outside a soothing white noise. ellie’s quiet, still catching her breath. you kick off your boots, stretching your legs out. god only knows how many miles you’ve walked today.
“why are you helping me?”
ellie’s question breaks the silence, her voice still hoarse. when you spare a glance her way, you find her already looking at you, eyes narrowed just so.
you shrug. “honestly? i felt sorry for you.”
ellie laughs humorlessly. “great, well… thanks, i guess.”
“you’re really not from around here?”
she shakes her head, eyes downcast. she taps her foot against the rug on the floor.
“i came here to find someone.”
“abby,” you say, nodding. “who’s she?”
a family member? a girlfriend, maybe? you’re not sure, but the still-human part of you hopes it’s not the latter. ellie’s pretty - freckled cheeks and toned arms, careful lines of ink decorating her skin, her hair somehow falling perfectly into her eyes. god, it’s been a while since you’ve looked at someone like this. it almost feels wrong. almost.
“long story.” ellie runs a hand through her hair, glances back over at you. “i have some unfinished business with her.”
not a girlfriend or a family member, you conclude, if the hatred in ellie’s eyes is any indication. you nod, not wanting to pry further.
“i don’t know anyone who goes by abby,” you confess, “but i can help you find her. or at least… i can tell you how to not get caught by the rattlers again.”
“yeah,” ellie says. when she’s quiet for another few moments, you stand up and grab the bucket at your feet, the water within it pink with ellie’s blood. you walk out onto the boat deck and toss the water over the edge, watching it splash into the sea. the weather has turned moody again, gray clouds rolling in with the coastal wind.
you fix a meal of canned baked beans and half-stale crackers, trying not to stare too long as ellie scarfs down the food like she hasn’t eaten in weeks. and, well, maybe she hasn’t. she’s quite thin, you had noticed, despite the lean muscles that define her frame.
the sun has already dipped below the horizon by the time you’re finished with dinner. your bed, at the back of the boat, is already calling your name - your legs are sore and tired from a long day of walking. call it naivety, but you’re not too nervous about sleeping near ellie. despite that threatening gaze when she’d talked about abby, she seems relatively harmless. or maybe you’re just being reckless, wooed by her good looks and mysterious charm. it’s embarrassing how drawn to her you are - so much so that you offer her a spot on your bed for the night.
“i can’t do that,” she responds, one hand rubbing the back of her neck.
“it’s that or risk dying from exposure outside,” you deadpan. she almost smiles, exhaling quickly in something akin to a laugh.
“you pulled my leg.”
so you end up in bed together, stripped down to your underwear in the long-unwashed sheets. you hadn’t asked ellie to undress, but she’d peeled her bloodstained jeans off anyway, settling into the mattress beside you. over the sound of the waves crashing against the shore outside, you hear her breathing quietly. you stare up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep.
“thank you,” ellie says suddenly. you turn to look at her in the dark, her face finally clean of blood and sweat. she doesn’t look at you, eyes trained on the ceiling.
“it’s nothing.” you shrug a shoulder.
except that it’s not nothing - you haven’t had company in months. you’ve been on your own for so long you’d almost forgotten what it’s like to share a space with someone else, to eat together and share a mattress with someone, completely at their mercy should they have bad intentions. it’s a kind of trust you’re not accustomed to doling out to strangers.
but something about doing this for ellie feels right.
or maybe you’re just an idiot. who’s to say?
as the boat cabin darkens with night, you turn over onto your side, facing ellie. she finally shifts her gaze to you, pupils wide in the dark.
“you’re not gonna kill me in my sleep, are you?”
the question seems to take ellie by surprise, because her eyebrows shoot up her forehead.
“after you saved my skin?” she scoffs. “god, no.”
“good,” you murmur, chewing on the inside of your cheek. before you can reconsider, you blurt, “but i guess a pretty girl killing me is a fine way to go.”
ellie’s silent just long enough for you to mentally scold yourself for the tasteless comment. you nearly chew a hole into your cheek until ellie’s voice cuts through the quiet. “you like girls?”
there’s a sudden lump in your throat. you nod, hesitant. “yeah. i do.”
the brunette turns onto her side, wincing just slightly at the pressure the movement places on her wound. you open your mouth to tell her to be careful when she reaches out to cup your cheek, her fingertips rough against your skin.
“this is stupid,” she murmurs, her thumb stroking over your cheekbone. “tell me to stop.”
your heart thumps wildly in your chest, pounding against your ribcage. your skin burns where ellie’s touching you.
“i won’t,” you whisper, and that’s all you can say before she’s kissing you.
it’s been ages since anyone’s touched you, let alone kissed you - that must be why your stomach turns with arousal almost instantly, a fire stoking between your legs. ellie tastes like salt, her tongue prodding against your lips until you open your mouth to allow her in. her hand moves to the back of your neck to hold you in place as she kisses you, lips wet and smooth against yours. you sigh into the kiss, somehow unafraid to melt under her touch.
you’re dizzy with want as ellie trails kisses down your neck, her fingers sliding under the elastic band of your sports bra. when you pull back to remove it, exposing your chest for her to see in the dark, she lets out a heavy sigh before her palms reach out to cup each of your tits and squeeze. the calloused pads of her thumbs brush over your taut nipples and you gasp, tangling a hand in ellie’s hair to steady yourself.
you’re not sure how exactly you end up naked in her lap, her fingers sinking into your soaked cunt as she sucks a bruise into the sensitive skin of your throat. you moan, cunt tensing around her fingers, and ellie pulls back to watch you with half-lidded eyes as her hand works between your legs.
“fuck, that’s so good,” you croon, grinding down against ellie’s hand. she curls her fingers inside you, prodding at your g-spot until you’re whining her name, already feeling your orgasm approaching far too fast.
ellie groans at the wet sounds of her fingers buried in your pussy, your arousal leaking down her hand. every thrust of her fingers produces a lewd squelch, and if you weren’t so fucked out, you might’ve found it in yourself to be embarrassed. instead, you drop your head to ellie’s shoulder and mewl, hips rocking weakly as she finger-fucks you so deep you see stars.
“i’m c-close,” you whisper, squeezing your eyes shut. ellie wraps her free arm around your waist to hold you steady, fingers never slowing as they plow into you from below.
“i got you,” ellie murmurs in response, her palm pressing against your clit. you let out a wrecked moan and ellie smiles at you in the dark, a slight curve of her lips that makes your stomach flutter.
you come with a gasp, the air stolen from your lungs by the sensation of ellie’s fingers rubbing deliciously against your g-spot, her palm warm and firm against your puffy clit. seeking comfort, you lean your forehead against ellie’s, body shaking with every tremor of pleasure she manages to pull out of you. you’re not sure if it’s just the dark boat cabin or the force of your orgasm that has your vision going black, but when you finally emerge from the thick haze of your orgasm, ellie’s fingers have left your cunt empty, her hand rubbing soothing circles over your lower back.
“good?” she prompts, nose nudging against yours. your heart stutters at the way she asks - like she’s looking for reassurance. you nod.
“really good.”
the two of you tumble around in bed for half the night, careful not to reopen the patched-up wound on ellie’s side. you mouth at her pussy and dip your fingers into the slick heat of her arousal, let her climb on top of you and slot yourselves together so your soaked cunts can find friction against one another. after you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve orgasmed, you fall into a dreamless slumber, curled up against ellie’s side in the tiny cabin bed.
when you wake up to find the bed empty and cold beside you, part of you isn’t surprised. you stretch out on the mattress, flashes of the night before playing out in your mind - the heat of ellie’s breath, the warmth of her touch, the welcome sight of her smile.
I like it when ppl confront me about things instead of shitting on me behind my back. cause we really don’t need to be beefing over a misunderstanding.
