[Ellie braces herself on the mattress as Glimmer sits up, the breath caught in her chest. She's waiting for Glimmer to ask her to get out, to give her space to think about what she heard, or just- any number of things that she thinks should happen, because Glimmer is a good person and Ellie just fucking confessed to torturing people.
And then Glimmer comes bodily down on top of her, covering her like a blanket, holding her down like gravity's turned off and she's the only thing keeping her from flying off the face of the earth.
Ellie can't breathe, because the wave of emotions that hit her are so much, and not all of it's good. It's complicated and tangled and painful and afraid, and even so, even with all of that, it breaks something in her, a tiny little snap that means a chink in her armor, a breach in the wall.
It's that monumental guilt and horror and disgust, it's flashes and fragments of coming back to the theater with bloody, shaking hands, and Dina hugging her like this, and Ellie holding up her hands because she can't bear to touch her when her hands are covered in Nora's blood. It's the feeling of utter terror as Dina cleans her up in the back of the dressing room, holding her while tears ran down Ellie's face and she whispers --
no subject
And then Glimmer comes bodily down on top of her, covering her like a blanket, holding her down like gravity's turned off and she's the only thing keeping her from flying off the face of the earth.
Ellie can't breathe, because the wave of emotions that hit her are so much, and not all of it's good. It's complicated and tangled and painful and afraid, and even so, even with all of that, it breaks something in her, a tiny little snap that means a chink in her armor, a breach in the wall.
It's that monumental guilt and horror and disgust, it's flashes and fragments of coming back to the theater with bloody, shaking hands, and Dina hugging her like this, and Ellie holding up her hands because she can't bear to touch her when her hands are covered in Nora's blood. It's the feeling of utter terror as Dina cleans her up in the back of the dressing room, holding her while tears ran down Ellie's face and she whispers --
I don't want to lose you.
And even as she says it there is that profound, earthshaking sense of loss, because she did, and it was her own fucking fault.
Ellie closes her arms around Glimmer, holding on so tight it has to hurt.
... she doesn't want to lose her.]