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That... reminds me of Mom. She was always trying to take care of me, trying to make sure that I wasn't in danger. Probably because she lost my dad.

[ Glimmer sighs quietly, a small smile coming to her face. ]

That's probably why I met Adora though? She sent me somewhere supposedly quiet, then it turned out not to be and she got mad because I was fighting. I just wanted to yell at her that I didn't need protection.

[Ellie looks at her, a small, thoughtful smile on her face.]

Does it hurt a little now, when somebody else tries to protect you?

[ The question actually seems to surprise Glimmer. She blinks, her expression turning soft and pensive as she thinks. ]

...Yeah, a little. I think maybe that's why things got so awful between me and Bow and Adora. I felt like they were trying to protect me even though I didn't need protecting. It was like they were stifling me and ignoring me. I just wanted them to listen.

[ She sighs. ]

I just... I guess I just want people to listen to me and believe me when I say I can handle something.

Edited 2020-11-21 04:08 (UTC)

[Ellie thinks back to how she was after Joel died; the only reason she didn't push Dina away was because she hadn't tried to hold her back. She hadn't even gone to Jesse at all, afraid that he'd try to stop her.

She'd lashed out at Tommy and Maria. Pushed Tommy, guilted him, hurt him when he'd been trying to make the smart choice.]

When you're hurting that bad, nobody knows what to do with you, or what to say.

[ GLimmer tenses a little. Her hand grips at the bedclothes, balls into a taut fist for a brief moment. ]

...When we were getting ready for the coronation no one would even mention my mom or why we even had to crown me in the first place. It was like they were afraid just mentioning her would break me.

[ There's a hint of bitterness in her voice. She had made her peace with it, but it still stung. ]

Fucksake.

[Ellie sighs, deeply. Shuts her eyes for longer than a blink.]

Sounds like an incredibly shitty day to begin with, but that couldn't've helped.

It sucked. I mean... they figured it out eventually but I just wanted to scream the whole time.

[ Glimmer sighs and slowly moves to flop onto her side next to Ellie. The bed is small. She can feel the heat of the other young woman and she's doing her best not to think of it. ]

I know it was because they wanted to protect me, which made it worse.

[It's cramped enough that Ellie can feel Glimmer's body heat next to her thigh. It is a physical, aching effort to stop herself from reaching out and brushing her hair back from where a fluffy lock of it has fallen over the shell of her ear.

Self-control, El.]

What clued them in?

[ It feels strange, laying like this. Almost eye to eye on the small mattress, the closeness of the space pressing in around them, as if to enclose them in their own small world. Despite the heat of the summer evening, Glimmer finds herself wanting to be closer so that she wrap herself in the Ellie's warmth. She swallows. ]

There was this guardian monster I had to get by to finish part of my coronation ceremony. We had to hide in a side room for a minute and I just. Let Adora and Bow know how I was feeling.

[ She fidgets. A pair of fingers touch gingerly at the fabric of Ellie's shirt. ]

I hadn't been recharging my powers because I was afraid that taking all of the power of the Moonstone meant that she was really gone for good. It had been split between us before. I just broke down crying and told them everything. Then we teamed up and we managed to get it done with without too much more trouble, but...

[ Glimmer groans and closes her eyes. ]

I'm glad I only ever had to go through that once.

Edited 2020-11-21 05:37 (UTC)

[Ellie nods, feeling a heaviness sitting hard and horrible inside of her chest. After a moment's consideration, she decides it's best to keep her hands to herself.

Glimmer's fingers find her shirt, just a light tug, and it hurts, just how much Ellie wants to give in, to be closer. The sticky heat and the quiet of the room and the low vulnerability in Glimmer's voice is so tempting. To comfort, to be comforted.

Hurts, how fucking bad of an idea that would be.]

At least you managed to tell them. I just... shut down.

I had to be under a lot of pressure to do it. Until then I was bottling it all up inside.

[ Glimmer's voice is half-muffled as she lays her head back down against the mattress. She wants to sit up and grab onto Ellie. Knows that it's a bad idea. ]

Saying how you feel is hard. It takes practice. You also have to be braver than you'd think because you make yourself so vulnerable. Don't be too hard on yourself.

[Ellie presses her lips together, wanting to start, to say something, to try. If anybody, Glimmer deserves this from her. The truth, or at least a start of it. But it's terrifying.

So, she reaches out, presses her fingertips against Glimmer's side, playfully.]

You're pretty smart.

[It feels like a cop-out. So Ellie heaves a deep sigh, allows herself to fall backwards onto the bed, her feet still on the floor, her shoulder next to Glimmer's legs, Ellie's thigh next to her arm.]

... ask me something. Anything.

[ The touch induces a faint return of pink blush to Glimmer's cheeks. Glimmer watches as Ellie falls back onto the mattress. She's grateful, a little. It makes it easier to ask the question that's been burning at her but she's been too polite to really dig into it. ]

Um.

[ She hesitates, brow furrowing. Then she blurts: ]

What happened to your fingers?

[ Almost instantly, she regrets it. She buries her face into the mattress, feeling hideously embarrassed. ]

You don't have to answer that. Sorry.

Edited 2020-11-21 21:26 (UTC)

[In truth, Ellie's been braced for this question ever since she arrived. Everyone's been too polite to ask, and she's appreciated the reprieve, but it's only made things feel worse. They must be imagining something horrible and traumatic happening to her. Some accident, or...

Ellie's told herself she'll tell the truth. Lying to Glimmer doesn't cross her mind. But she still stares up at the ceiling, gripping the sheets.]

It's okay.

[Ellie lapses back into silence, gathering her thoughts. When she speaks, her voice is steady, but a little distant, like she's recalling it happening to somebody else.]

... I was drowning the person who killed Joel. She -- bit them off. While she was trying to get away.

It was a few months before I came here.

[ Glimmer wasn't sure what she had expected as an answer. What she gets is not what it was, though. There's a sudden tension in her body, an uncertainty. She understands the feeling--the desire to take hold of the person who hurt her, who hurt her family, and simply hurt them back. Thinks of how she gladly would have blasted Catra into pieces if she had been given the chance. She swallows. ]

Did she... um...

[ Gods. How does one ask this? "Did you kill her?" is what she wants to ask but she can't find the courage to actually say those words. She settles for the implication. ]

Did she get away?

[Somehow, Ellie appreciates that Glimmer has the courage to ask, instead of dropping the subject. It makes her feel sick, looking back on it, thinking of it. She hadn't been... all there. Hadn't been right, at the time.

Ellie isn't sure that she's right now, or has been for a long while.]

No. I let her go.

[Ellie swallows back the lump in her throat. And because she doesn't want Glimmer thinking she's some kind of forgiving saint, she shuts her eyes.]

... I killed all the others, though. Her friends. Everybody who helped her.

[Ellie swallows again, and shuts her eyes. She might lose Glimmer. If she does, then maybe that's for the best, it happening like this. This early, before Glimmer puts her whole heart into this.

So she commits to it, like she committed to the acid. Like she's burning something away. Suspends her feelings.]

Anybody who was in my way.

[ Glimmer doesn't gasp but there's a little rush of breath, a tension in her that coils tighter as Glimmer listens. One hand grips at the bedding, twisting it in an attempt to keep herself anchored here. Ellie has killed people, has followed revenge to its natural conclusion. She went after the people that hurt her and hurt them even worse in return. ]

Oh.

[ Glimmer's voice is soft. Despite the heavy feeling settling into the pit of her stomach, she is glad she asked. Even if she never went that far down that road, she knows why Ellie did, knows the feelings that motivate that much anger and grief. She swallows. ]

It must have been hard.

[ Does she mean the killing? Or does she mean letting the other person go? Glimmer isn't sure herself. Maybe she means both. It's hard to imagine sweet, funny, dorky Ellie killing people but then, Ellie might think it hard to imagine Glimmer fighting in and leading a war. ]

[Glimmer's voice is so soft, and she's coiled next to her. A knot of tension. She can hear her swallowing, almost feel the backdraft of her thoughts going a mile a minute.

Meanwhile, Ellie feels... empty. It just feels heavy, like a weight pressing down. All that guilt and grief and sadness without the fire to keep her burning. She doesn't feel sorry for herself. Not for this -- there is some kind of horrible finality in knowing that at least, it's over. That this is what's left.]

It's really not.

[And that's probably what's fucked up about all of this. Ellie makes herself let go of the sheets so she won't wrinkle them, touch her hands together. Her skin itches.]

Hurting somebody. Killing them. It's really easy.

The hard part is after.

[ Glimmer doesn't know quite what to think. She's been in a war. She has no doubt that she's hurt people, even perhaps killed them. It feels different, though, from this deeply personal revenge that Ellie has described. The idea of it makes her feel anxious, taut, uncertain. At the same time the idea of leaving aside Ellie and abandoning her over this--something she clearly regrets, from what Glimmer can tell--doesn't sit well with her. Not when she can so easily see how she would have taken the same path without the others to help her. One hand reaches out, trembling, and snags the hem of Ellie's shirt. A reassurance in spite of everything that she is present. ]

You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.

[ She takes a slow breath and tries to calm her rapidly beating heart. ]

I--I think I know what you mean, when you say it's easy. When you're hurt and angry and sad it's--you don't think. You just want someone else to maybe feel as bad as you do.

[ She's quiet for a long moment. Swallows down a thick, unhappy feeling in her throat. ]

You must have been hurting a lot.

Edited 2020-11-21 22:32 (UTC)

[Ellie can see the tremor in Glimmer's hand. Feel it when she grips her shirt, even though this has to be hard for her. Her stomach flips over and she feels more than a little sick. Even if this is terrifying it feels like Glimmer's ready to forgive her, without knowing. Just like that.

It's tempting to leave it here, to let her think that's all she did, but. The ache in her throat won't let her. Jesse's memory won't let her. Tommy's eyes and Dina's tears and all those sleepless nights.]

It was more than that. I was obsessed, and nobody could talk me out of it. I didn't stop. I couldn't.

[Ellie swallows again, staring up at the ceiling.]

They tortured Joel and killed him in front of me. So I did the same thing. I did worse. And I did it over and over again, even when it brought my friends into the line of fire.

[Ellie can feel the bile rising up the back of her throat, and has to stop.]

[ Glimmer feels shaken. It would be hard not to. Ellie is baring herself, some of the darkest part of her. The darkness frightens her--it feels so much like the things that she has seen her enemies do. The things she has wanted to do in her own dark moments, though she has never quite followed through on such impulses. She listens to Ellie. She hesitates, laying still, barely breathing. ]

Ellie...

[ She shifts her weight, pushes herself up into a sitting position. Looks down at where Ellie lays on the mattress. She hesitates there, not sure what to say, what to do. She feels uncertain, helpless, almost. This is so much. There is fear, yes. Disgust. A wretched feeling of having a rug torn from under her. And yet at the same time there is sympathy, concern, care. A desire to comfort. For all that Ellie admits, she seems full of regret. No, she can't hesitate. She shouldn't. Without thinking, Glimmer throws her arms around Ellie, embracing her heedless of the touch of skin. There are tears pricking in her eyes, sympathetic and horrified and grief-stricken all at once. She hasn't the words to say what she wants to convey. ]

I'm sorry.

[ The words are so inadequate, but the emotion that pours between them might make up for it. It is a confused jumble of sympathy and pity, fear and concern, care, affection, and so many other things she can't describe. She buries her face against Ellie's hair, holding tight. Assuming Ellie doesn't push her away. ]

I'm sorry, Ellie.

[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 --

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.]

Edited 2020-11-22 05:21 (UTC)

[ There aren't words that Glimmer feels make sense in this frantic moment of tangled fear and hope and grief and pain. There is too much happening and it is all she can do to anchor herself to Ellie, to try and hold her and hopefully keep her from slipping free. She has a feeling Ellie is at least partially telling her this in a bid to make sure that Glimmer knows so that Glimmer can reject her now. Is that her thought or something she's getting from Ellie through the emotional exchange? She can't tell and she's not sure it matters anymore.

The tangled pieces of memory flit between them. Glimmer confronted by her friends and refusing to let go of her idea, obsessed with finally ending the war. Glimmer threatening someone with magic. Someone helpless, unable to resist any longer. Fragments of her own obsession and helplessness and grief-driven desire to fix things. She trembles, holds Ellie closer. ]

I don't want to lose you.

[ The words are hers. Are Ellie's. Are Dina's. Are Angella's. So many voices all speaking the same words to different people and to the same person all at once. She has known Ellie for a bare few weeks and already it feels as if the world might crash down on her if Glimmer were to lose her. ]

Edited 2020-11-22 05:39 (UTC)

[The glow of the connection is caught between them, invisible, but the power strips them both bare, down to the nerves. Though Ellie always knows what memories are hers, getting flashes of Glimmer's always leave her breathless.

This is no different, no less sickening and sad.

Glimmer knows. Even if she hasn't done the things Ellie has, she has been terrible, too. She has been hurtful and terrifying and wrong, and she has brought her world to the brink-

And when it all boils down to it, they are just two people, both here and feeling desperately alone, feeling like someone else finally fucking gets it.

Glimmer's right. Ellie did tell her this now, because she can't bear the thought of her leaving later, when she's dug her way under Ellie's skin and into her veins, because Ellie knows she's going to. As surely as she knows her laugh and her thoughtfulness and how her voice changes when she's upset and how she likes to touch Ellie when she's close.

Ellie hugs her back, tighter. Breathlessly afraid.]

... okay.

[ Glimmer digs herself in closer against Ellie. She doesn't want to let go, even if all the confusing, terrifying flashes of memory and raw emotion are opening her up and leaving her bare and naked in a way that nothing else ever has. She needs Ellie to understand. Despite all the awful that they have done, the people they have hurt in the name of obsession, and because of their desire to try and put right a world that was through no fault of theirs turned upside-down, they're still worthy of love. Still worth of care and compassion and friendship and so much more.

Maybe Glimmer needs Ellie to believe it so that Glimmer can as well. She breathes. It's all she can do now. Her own feeling are laid bare, the want, the blushes and uncertainty and the raw nerves that come from not being sure if you can afford to upset the delicate balance of a friendship. The desire to help, to hold, to support. All of her. All of her is here and Glimmer feels so small and vulnerable. There's relief, tears springing fresh all over again at Ellie's single response. ]

Okay.

[ She repeats the word back and buries her face against Ellie's shoulder, still crying. ]

Okay.

[ What else can she say? ]

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