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urcursebreaker · 1 month

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burning body waiting. (ellie williams x fem!reader)

read chapters one, two, and three here.

warnings: 18+ content, canon-typical violence, gore, angst, graphic smut, scissoring, fingering, use of marijuana. | word count: 11.7k.

chapter 4: match in the dark

❝ the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. ❞ — richard siken.

. . .

The stories always say that love is something you fall into.

For you, it's always been a bludgeoning, throttling force, bone-shattering and breath-robbing; sudden and violent and jarring.

So why does this feel not like a punch to the gut but a slow and tortuous ailment of your health? An intrusion of sickness and vein-pulsing agony?

Instead of pummeling you with a lethal blow, your feelings for Ellie crept and slunk through your bones, a terminal parasite, malignant and festering inside. Until it was a sure thing. A cancer. Until your veins were blackened with heady need. Until there was a dark, frothing plague teeming from your heart, hammering to a consistent tune.

Ellie, Ellie, Ellie.

Or maybe you don't love her.

Maybe it's some third sinister thing. Living in the cracks of cruelty that stretch between friend and lover.

Last night, after baring witness to Ellie's breakdown, the sound of her wailing, heaving sobs followed you into a tenuous sleep.

You dreamt of a young girl, a smattering of freckles garnishing her sun-kissed face and arms, familiar, mossy blue eyes brimming with unshed tears. She clutched a watch in her fist, it's face splintered, cracks like lightening fracturing across the broken surface. She lurched it into the rapid waters of the river she stood before, her eyebrows pinched in earnest, chest heaving.

"Why are you so sad?" You had asked the girl, your voice a whisper in the wind, not fully belonging to you.

The girl only released a long, heavy breath and pivoted away, marching down an unmanicured path of ferns and overgrowth. She grew taller and leaner as she strode away, until the figure that dissipated through the line of trees was one you have slept beside.

And now you are woken up in that damn 7/11 to that same girl firmly shaking you.

Except now she's older— and a new scar marred her lip. A new slit cleaved her brow. And a new, harsh edge of ferocity contoured her face— still so young, in a world that would never allow her to be.

She had to shake you a few times before you came to, snapping awake in a bleated panic, lurching up. She was huddled over you, a finger to her lips, a solemn alarm flaring in her pale eyes. The overhead vines careening from the high rafters billowed gently with the breeze; the serenity of it deceiving to what prowled the weeds.

"To the left," she mouths meticulously, and you nod, carefully slipping out of your sleeping bag, heart drumming ceaselessly.

She unsheathes her switchblade and slinks away, her eyes trained on the glassless wall as she stations behind a counter, distractedly gesturing for you to follow.

You slowly retrieve your shotgun from the littered floor and pocket a shiv you crafted the night prior, shooting brisk glances over your shoulder as you inch to Ellie's side. A faint whistle rises from the swaying grass.

Fuck. More Seraphites.

They must be tracking you, if they're spreading this far into Seattle. They tend to lurk on the outskirts, basing along the edges of the city so they can terminate anyone who attempts to get inside.

You never heard of them abandoning posts before. Killing over a dozen of them must have earned you their vengeance.

Ellie must have a similar thought, for when you reach her side, she whispers, "I should have gone to their base and killed every last one of them." Her face was grim and hard with fury, jaw barred, as she glared over the counter in the general direction of the whistle.

You follow her gaze and your muscles tense. The piercing afternoon sun glints off the metal tip of an arrow— aimed directly at you.

"Get down!" You shout jitterly, just as the potent snap of the bows tension unleashing splits through the silence of the day. You shove Ellie down and duck over her right as it spears loudly through the chipping wall behind you, where her head had been precarious seconds before.

She looks up at you with wide eyes, her knuckles gleaming white against the shine of her blade. Her momentary shock morphs into a scowl that manifests on her face.

She shrugs her shotgun off her shoulder and aims it for the weeds— blasting through the first outline of a human that she sees without a second thought. Thickets of seared, chunky blood burst through the air, followed by a series of sharp, undulating whistles. Your ears ring boisterously from the gunshot.

You sense movement to your right and crawl past Ellie— who clips another Seraphite, her body rocking with the force of the shot— to investigate. Fortunately, your backs are covered by two withstanding, cavernless walls, leaving only the hole to the right and the sizeable gap overhead.

Ellie seems to have the other wall covered.

You use a rusting shelf as a barricade, crouching, shiv in hand, the blade biting through the cloth you wound around the bottom. You turn it over in your hands, tongue prodding your lip, casting furtive looks above you every couple seconds to ensure nobody inflicted an unexpected aerial attack.

Arrows rain down, piercing the walls, clattering off the concrete. Gunshots boom thunderously, reverberating through the vacant city, paired with the guttural screams of those they met. You chance a peek at Ellie to find her completely unscathed, propped on one knee, squinting through the thick scope of her rifle. She must've swiftly exchanged weapons while you were looking away; always efficient.

You swivel back around and feel the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck raise at the shaved head poking through the whirling canary, only about ten feet away. You hold your breath and flush your back with the shelf, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

He slithers into the room, bow drawn, frame veiled by a cloak seeped with rain water. Brutal, discomfiting burn scars eclipse half of his face, as if he were lowered, sideways, into a pit of roaring flames.

Back at the Front, everyone always refers to the Seraphite's as Scars. It's starting to make sense why; you had never seen one this close before.

He puckers his lips to whistle, and you deign that as your opportunity, before he summons another Scar. You spring out from behind the shelf and drill your blade through the side of his neck, tearing through tendons. "Gotcha!" you breathe sardonically.

His large body crumples in your arms. You lower him to the floor with a dull, sappy thud, blood instantly pooling across the concrete, lapping at the tips of your boots.

An insistent whistle echoes closely from the weeds he emerged from, and you mutter a curse, hoisting up your gun and loading it with bloodied fingers. You're about to shoot the nearing figure when a brutish man descends from the crater in the ceiling— landing on top of you.

"Fuck!" Your scream of raw surprise rips through your throat as you plummet under his weight, your arm twisted unnaturally and agonizingly beneath his body.

He yanks you back by your hair, peeling your body off the ground with ease, and you wrestle with his unyielding grip, grunting as you squirm and peer at him over your shoulder. His eyes are crazed, a deep, rigid scar splitting his cheek, fatal determination overtaking his face.

You think fast, hastily fumbling for the blade in his companions sputtering throat, writhing under his formidable hold, your breathing sparse as he crushes you. "Feel Her love," the man growls in an accented drawl, his pick-axe reered back, poised to strike.

You successfully dislodge your blade just in time.

You arch your arm back as forcefully as you can from the obstructive angle, nicking him in the chest— just enough for him to stagger back and graze his digits over the superficial wound— and for you to crawl out from underneath him.

You only make it up to your knees before the handle of his pick-axe is caging your throat, crushing your windpipes, a hoarse whine wheezing from your lips. He hauls you back, and you flail for the bar compressing your neck, feet aimlessly lashing and kicking the floor. "El—"

Dots swim and flood your vision. Your flickering pulse rattles droningly in your skull. You can't breathe. You're dying. You're going to die. You're going to—

"Don't you fucking touch her!" Ellie bellows.

Suddenly, the pick-axe falls from your throat, clattering with a resounding echo to the floor, and you drop right along with it. Through the haze of your disjointed vision you see the previous keeper of your fate— Ellie's switchblade protruding from his head, before he slams lifelessly to the floor.

You rake in breaths hungrily, the sudden, painful burst of oxygen blazing like fire through your lungs. You claw listlessly at your throat, as if that will stop the blistering burn, or vanquish the coppery tang of blood rendering your tongue.

Ellie then shoots his already deceased body twice— his immobile carcass lurching, jolting with the swift bullets— and doesn't spare the dead Scar a second glance before shooting the one approaching in the weeds with masterful precision.

He thumps to the ground with a muffled groan of anguish, and his departure is followed by a wave of dense, apprehensive silence.

Ellie lingers in that taut, defensive stance for a moment, her shoulders tense, face lined with concentration as she sweeps her gaze over the sprawling field. Eyes skittering over the towering buildings in a speedy examination.

And then her eyes fall to you, alarm leeching the color from her sharp face. She quickly lowers her gun and bunches her stiff shoulders. "Are you alright?" She demands brusquely.

You nod skittishly, chest heaving with your rapid, hungry breaths. "Fine," you croak out, voice hoarse and gravelly, scraping out of your raw throat.

She nods absently, slinging her gun over her shoulder and bending down to fist the knife puncturing the man's head. She gives it a forceful, ruthless tug, his upper body heaving off the blood-blemished ground. A harrowing crimson cascades down his skull, glistening over her fingers. She yanks it out of him with a second, ardent jerk, and he slumps onto the floor, his own gore splattering repellently through the air. She surveys the blood and bits of cartilage on her blade before calmly wiping it off on her pants.

You scarcely register the disturbing scene of the Seraphite's you downed together.

Ellie's callousness must be wearing off on you. The dark pond of sudsy blood gathering around your feet ignites only a faint ripple of disgust in you; and a hint of knee-buckling relief, that you had someone so unapologetically cutthroat at your defense.

She offers you a steady hand and you take it. She hauls you to your feet, and you waver, your grip unabashed and bruise inciting. "Are you okay?" You ask attentively, a tremor underlying your tinny voice as you eye her top to bottom.

On the exterior, she's untouched by harm, and the relief that floods you is instantaneous.

"I am if you are," she says with a dim smile, surveying you for injury in turn. "We should get the fuck out of here, though. You sure you're good?"

"I'm fine," you offer a meek, hopefully reassuring smile back, unhanding her. You clear your throat and discard your broken, useless shiv on the floor, your breathing evening out. "Lead the way, my noble Knight," you tease with a shaky grin.

She rolls her eyes with affection and mimics a flourishing bow. "Yes, my Queen," she snorts, before pivoting away, heedlessly overstepping the dead body of your attacker and trudging for the opening she'd been guarding, her backpack already slung over her shoulder.

Your scratchy, cackling laugh scorches your throat, but you stifle the dizzying pain, her responding laugh, breathy and chittering, making the hurt worth it.

It was the sweetest thing you have ever heard. So light and natural and opposing to the violence she had wielded mere minutes ago to protect you.

As you trail after her, trusting her direction without question, you think you'd let her be as mean to you as she needed to be if you could hear her laugh like that again.

Which may be the scariest thing of all.

• • •

ELLIE

Her resolve was dissipating through her fingers. Now particles, everything she fought for was reduced to inconceivable dust, streaking through the wind, escaping her clutches.

She had destroyed versions of herself, tapered off past selves, trimmed and manufactured herself into this precarious thing that she was now.

A shell, filled by a need to take back all that had been stolen; a vessel for her grief and anger. She felt like she lived and breathed the horror that clung to her insides, fermented and congealed, taloned rage clawing it's way out of her with every step she took closer and closer to reclaiming the vengeance she was owed; the debt that was due.

But now the calamity in her mind has quieted. Her pain felt distant and hushed; it watched and whispered. She was never truly liberated from it. Only when she's with you does she feel that boulder lift, that bone-crushing mass of misery eased off her soul. But it's hearty weight lingers phantomly, etching itself into her bones.

She glances at you through the waning firelight, your thoughtful expression dim in the flickering amber glow. Your eyebrows are skewered, lips pursed, eyes indulgently roving over the pages of the tattered book splayed across your lap.

She had no idea how you found the room to store useless objects. From your brothers stuffed childhood bear, a chunky, faded hot-pink cassette player, to a couple weathered, worm-eaten books, you seemed to carry only your indulgences.

When she was fourteen, her backpack was similar. It overflowed with graphic novels and worthless trinkets. Joel had everything they needed, carrying double his weight in supplies. Despite everything she'd seen, despite everything he did, he gave her a simple life. One she could not envision herself pursuing ever again, without him there to urge her on.

She wonders if your brother was that guiding light for you, too, a match in the dark, as Joel had been for her.

She looks at you, and she wonders if you have ever truly been alone.

You perform with a buoyancy and easiness she cannot replicate. Either you have never known suffering at all, a portrait of innocence under a brush of death; or you knew it too well, with an intimacy that left you unblinking and acclimated to its sharp edges. When it tried to cut through you, it's relentless knifing was fruitless, it's slashes meeting metal, sliding off the shine of your armor.

Do you even know it's there? That even though you are not brutal and unforgiving— as she herself had become— remaining steady and balanced under the ruthless beat of the worlds bitter drum was a shield in itself?

She both admires and envies your ability to let it all roll off your back as it's hurled at you.

"What?" You drawl at her notably indiscreet examination, amusement seeping into your tone like liquid gold, eyes unstraying from the pages— though she can see, even from the distance that separates you, that your eyes are bright and swimming with it.

For months now, she has locked her feelings down, imprisoned them behind walls of adamant, impenetrable steel. Had deliberately tailored a mask that would keep them from slipping through.

And then there's you. Feeling unabashedly and unapologetically and, unknowingly letting her know she can do it, too. That you see the wounds that gauge her soul and do not flinch at the sight of blood. That you see the hurt that shines in her eyes and do not pity the tortured girl, but embrace the wrath of the killer that torture had birthed.

Being understood was once something she ached for. But now that someone is starting to understand her, to see through the defenses she constructed, she is afraid. She is terrified of being seen, of being known.

Almost as much as she fears being alone.

She is facing that fear day by day, and it is just as fucking scary as she anticipated.

She was cripplingly alone, and she felt the aftershocks of it belting through her. She's a lost, untethered soul, searching for its other end, though the thread had severed and all that remained was remnants of fragmented, disjointed memories, and rippling regrets that would never be ironed out.

She has nothing to return to; no home, no person. Instead, she keeps coming back to that hollowness inside, where the grief is stored, and fed to the flames of rage that blaze there. It is the only consistency she knows now. Even you are not a promised thing. Not when you had a brother somewhere out there waiting for you.

And not when she had a list of lives to end.

You are not enough to mend the gaping hole inside of her; you will never match the shape of that gauge. No one will. No one can replace the things he taught her, gave her.

But at least now... when she lays her head to rest, there's a beaming voice, illuminating the shadow-shrouded void of her mind. Beckoning her toward the light.

And it's yours.

She fights the darkness. Wrestles out of its restraints— the guilt and sorrow that anchors her down— and runs to that voice, desperate for the sun.

But the darkness always seems to win in the end.

"Ellie?"

Your soft, tentative voice lulls her out of her clouded thoughts, and she averts her gaze from the fire to look at you. She blinks the dark specks away and discerns your earnest face. Your attention is honed in on her now, the book dog-eared and closed in your lap, head tilted inquisitively. "Where'd you go?" You ask quietly, your voice a whisper under the crackling embers.

She feels her head shaking before she even forms a response. "Nothing. Nowhere," she insists, blinking rapidly, stroking a spectral scar on her forehead. "I'm just tired. How's your book?" She urges casually, craning her head back and resting it on the tree stump of the sprawling oak behind her, studying you.

A big, unadulterated grin contorts your face. Your cheeks dimple, smiling teeth luminous in the firelight. Her heart skips a beat at the mirth glimmering in your eyes. "So good. It's my favorite. I've read it six times," you chuckle at the look of disbelief that slips through the cracks of her facade and continue, "My mom used to read it to my brother and I a lot when we were kids."

She nods, plucking the grime out of her fingernails, swiping her tongue over her teeth. She glances down at her hand to conceal the warmth rising to her cheeks at the sight of your infectious smile. There is no other way to describe it; it is debilitating, impossible not to mirror.

"What's it about?" She murmurs, ducking her head, her emerging smile evident in her tone. She hopes the shadows eclipse her face from your view.

"Oh, it's just a collection of fables," you sigh contently, wistfully, reclining back, clutching the fraying book endearingly to your chest. You sway your knees back and forth, feet planted to the ground, peering up at the star-speckled sky before tilting your head to face her. "Do you like to read at all?"

Ellie yawns gingerly, extending her legs out in front of her, staring down at her muddy, threadbare Converse. "I used to read comics. There was this series I collected... Savage Starlight?" She winces as she pronounces the humiliating name.

Your responding gasp is so sudden, an animal audibly skitters through the weeds. You lurch up in astonishment, wisps of staticky hair fanning around your shocked face. "Wait, really? My brother loved those!"

Ellie laughs, and you visibly loosen at the sound. She pretends not to notice. Just as she pretends not to feel the warmth budding and blooming in her chest, a sprout of something gentle taking root in her heart.

"Yes," she huffs out, rewarding you a vague smile. You were the only thing that made her feel like she could smile anymore. "I read them all. Probably more than 6 times, actually. So. I got you beat."

"Pfft," you bat a hand of dismissal, rolling your eyes playfully, laying back down— resting your head on a smooth, upturned rock, leisurely prying your book back open. "Does looking at pictures even count as reading?"

"Comics have words!" Ellie protests defensively, straightening.

Your boisterous laugh echoes through the dense forestry, booming out of you, as you drop the book and cradle your stomach, rolling over with the force of your guttural laughter. "You are so easy to rile up!" You cackle tearily, wiping your eyes.

Ellie snickers. "You're an ass," she chides, laughter bubbling in her chest, threatening to escape her sealed lips. She threads her fingers through her unruly hair, sweeping the russet strands out of her face. You jeeringly stick your tongue out at her, and she flips you off, earning her another one of your exuberant laughs.

"Read your book," she scolds with a raspy chuckle of her own, pointing at the now discarded fables. She rummages through her backpack, the sound of your stifled giggling following her as she fishes out her journal.

She waits a couple minutes, until you're helplessly engrossed with your novel, your brows once again pinched in concentration, before thumbing through her journal, flipping to that tarnished, browning page. Her eyes flicker over the names she memorized distastefully, that familiar anger burning bright.

Abby

Nora

Owen

Mel

Jordan

Manny

Whitney

She absently ghosts her fingers over that taunting, four-lettered name. Abby. Her throat swells with grief, searing-hot anger boiling in her stomach. The condemning red marks slashing through the names of those she already killed grant her only momentary satisfaction. It's not enough to quell the hatred the unmarked name at the top sparks within.

Nora she killed weeks ago. She let the spores smother her lungs, debilitate her of breath, ring her dry of any vitality and will to resist her tragic fate. Then she took a pipe to her head. Over and over. Just as Abby had done to Joel. Just as she would do to her.

Then she killed Nick, and Jordan, after the Wolves tailed and captured her. They beat and chained her to a counter, as if a pair of copper-rusted handcuffs would restrain her— would save them from her blinding wrath. The scar she brandished him with was rigid and pink and poorly stitched, dismantling his otherwise smooth cheek. She told him that stopping her from extracting her revenge would be futile.

Then she broke free and stabbed him persistently, with ferocious, vehement arches of her arm, until his blood had coated her face in fine beadlets and puddled in heaps that sapped her feet to the floor.

And, most recently, she killed Whitney. At the hospital, where she took you to bed and tasted every glorious inch of you, high with adrenaline, pulsating with want.

She told you she took out a few infected.

But it was only Whitney there, alone, guarding the sewage system, swaying to the boisterous music that reverberated through the concrete-walled boiler room. She slit her throat and kicked her into the murky, sludgy water. Then shot her twice just to insure that she did not inexplicably survive.

After the night you shared, a part of her was horrified of you unveiling the deplorable, merciless acts she committed. She did not know if she could face you. She slaughtered a person in cold blood and touched you with the stained hands that did it.

She left, just in case you found that bleeding body floating in the basement, and turned terrified, accusatory eyes on her. She did not know if she could bear your disdain. Or worse— you being disgusted by the harrowing life she has dedicated herself to.

Because she could not change.

She has a purpose, now.

To take everything from those fuckers. Leave them with nothing as they did her.

She's going to take and take and take. The life of Abby's friends, crushed and squandered beneath her foot. The solid foundation of security they built, ripped apart at the seams, until walls topple and plans expire— until all the Wolves are scurrying through the wastelands, tails tucked, howling for mercy.

She abandoned the safe, armed walls of Jackson for this mission. Nothing could jeopardize it; not even her captivation with you.

Fortunately, you never found Whitney's body.

She should've been relieved. But when she stumbled upon you again, in that blossoming valley, there was spite there, and for a completely different reason. One she never considered; that you were truly scathed by her abandonment. She thought you would be better off without her; better rid of the sucking parasite leeching the good out of you with each moment she spent in your presence.

"Hey, Ellie?"

She snaps the journal closed briskly, sucking in a sharp breath. She thought you had fallen asleep; you had not shifted or spoken for an impressive duration of time. Especially for you.

"Yeah," she responds groggily, scratching her head, slipping the journal back into her bag, the list temporarily forgotten. She glances up to find you gone.

She staggers straight to her feet, calling your name, her tone dripping with apprehension. "Where are you?"

"Shh," you instruct quaintly from the shadows, whispering meticulously, "Over here."

She peers through the darkness encompassing the camp you'd assembled together, trailing your voice, conveyed through the cloying, nectary wind. The warming spring breeze fetters her hair.

She deciphers your figure in the tall, swaying canary, your stature hunched and diligent. "Come here," you whisper urgently, loudly, beckoning her over fervently. She reaches for her gun but freezes when you make a noise of disapproval.

Instead, she follows your voice, curiosity and concern weighing the scale in equal measure. "What is it?" She rasps quietly, cresting your side. Your eyes are trained intently on a small, shapeless shadow, lithely prowling the weeds.

"Come here, kitty," you drawl sweetly, clucking your tongue, drumming your thigh. The small creature pauses its strides, slowly lowering itself to the ground, giving an impassive lick of its paws.

"It's a cat," you mutter to Ellie, as if she had not already gathered that.

She refrains from rolling her eyes. "I can see that. Why were you even over here to begin with?"

You pointedly disregard her, taking a heedful step forward, crouching to be level with your new feline friend. "Come here, sweet thing. Come on. It's okay," you lull in a reassuring tone, patting the ground insistently. The cat only stares at you.

You sigh, arms draped defeatedly over your knees, frowning. "Okay. Never mind. Go back, please, I think you're scaring it."

"What?" Ellie snaps, and the cat startles, bracing it's paws in the dirt, back arched. "No way. Animals love me."

"Kay, well, it was coming to me before you came over here, stepping on every single branch you could find." You argue flippantly, shooting her a glare.

"It's your fault, you're the one who called me over here, dick!" Ellie defends airily, waving her hands.

You clap a hand over your mouth to conceal your automatic chuckle. Your rumbling shoulders and escaping snorts give you away. "Okay, okay, fine," you chortle breathily, shaking your head. "God, that look on your face never gets old."

She groans out a husky laugh, falling back a few paces, propping a mocking, insulted hand over her heart. "You are evil."

You flash her a sinister, lippy smile, mischief twinkling in your eyes, before averting your focus back to the cat, who had inched closer while you argued.

"Yes, that's it. Come here, baby," you click your tongue in a series of encouraging noises, and the cat— ears perked, nose sniveling— prances over to you, as if you waved a heaping bag of treats.

You tenderly, dubiously scoop the cat into your arms. Though acutely tense, it allows you to hold it, claws hesitantly retracting from your sleeve, piercing green eyes slitted and alert. "She's hurt," you inform, scratching it's matted, furry back. You slowly ascend to your feet and nod back toward the camp, following Ellie as she begins to trudge back. "I saw her limp by and followed her over here. Do you have some more gauze?"

"For the cat?" Ellie drawls incredulously, shooting you a look over her shoulder, stepping over a cluster of unearthed roots.

"Uh, yes? She's small, it won't take much." You assert, hiking the cat up as it starts to thrash and mewl anxiously. "Please?"

She wanted to tell you no, but she found that it was impossible to form the word— especially when you were gazing at her with sheer hope, head tilted pleadingly. "Fine."

"Woohoo!" You exclaim triumphantly to the cat, softly stroking between its luminous eyes with your thumb, easing its trepidation. It whimpers, pink nose prodding your jaw, pawing at the latticed hem of your tank top. "She said thanks, El-Bell!"

"How do you know it's a she?" Ellie asks as you enter the fire-illuminated clearing, the light casting ominous, flickering shadows over the deep, towering pine trees.

You shrug, hoisting the cat by its underarms, promptly spinning it around and baring its tattered, grimy belly to Ellie. "Yeah. You were right. Girl." She concedes with a grimace.

Ellie resumes her original position as you perch cross-legged across from her, planting the knotted cat in your lap. She's coated in a sweep of sleek, midnight black fur, so sumptuous it reflects the moon's sapphire glow. Her green eyes are unnaturally bright against her dark coat, penetrating through Ellie as she unpacks her gauze.

"I'm getting it," she mumbles to it warily, and it pivots away from her with unnecessary drama, curling it's tail.

"Don't be rude," you reprimand the cat, who ignores your scolding and persistently licks her splintered paw.

"Here you go," Ellie says, tossing you the gauze and medical tape. "You better hope your little friend doesn't get hurt again. I don't have enough supplies to fix her boo-boos."

She swears the cat fucking glares at her, before curiously, reluctantly sniffing at the gauze.

You must have seen it, too, for you giggle smugly. "What was that about animals loving you?"

"Shut up," Ellie grumbles, leaning back, hiking her knees to her chest. Exhaustion weighs heavy on her eyelids. She surveys you, bleary-eyed, as you scoop the cat into your arms and gingerly pry the wound, a pained shriek tearing from it's tiny body.

"Shh, it's okay," you comfort genially, petting her back as you fumble with the gauze, lightly encasing her wounded paw. "See? Almost done, already."

The cat relaxes in your gentle grasp, allowing you to seal the bandage around her paw. Ellie herself is nearly lulled to sleep by the pacification in your tone— the soft, honeyed melody of consolation rolling off your tongue.

"All done," you state quietly, pressing a forbearing kiss to her nicked ear, delicately peeling her out of your lap and placing her on the ground. "Be free, little one."

The cat lingers, staring at you nearly contemplatively. She blinks slowly, languidly, before swiveling away and skittering through the craning grass, disappearing through the trees.

You watch her go with a bleak, placid smile, the wind whipping your hair. Then you turn to Ellie. "You sleep, I'll keep watch."

She opens her mouth to refute, but you slice her a cutting, silencing look. "You're actively falling asleep as we speak. I'm good. You rest. I want to read some more, anyway," you insist blithely, dusting off your pants and walking back to your previous spot.

Ellie merely mumbles a response, her head already drooping. She falls into a brisk, fitful slumber, so tenuous that the snap of a twig could send her lurching. For once, she does not dream. Visions of terror did not cleave her conscious or beat her breathless. She saw only the flicker of light through her eyelids, and the quiet fragility of her own mind.

Until a faint meow has her bursting out of her slouch, eyes darting frantically around the clearing.

The black cat has her uninjured paw primly resting on Ellie's thigh, peering up at her expectantly with eery, incandescent eyes. Upon her attention, she nimbly removes her paw and demandingly rubs her head against her leg instead, another tinny meow ringing out of her.

"She's back. And I think she wants to lay with you," you explain humorously over the pages of your book— now nearly finished.

"Oh?" She replies in bewilderment, as the cat spins and pads her feet a couple of times before nestling into her side, resting her head on her dark paws.

"Can I come lay with you?" You murmur sleepily, casting fleeting, cautious looks at her as you stow your book away. As if already bracing for the sting of her rejection.

Ellie's heart throbs perniciously in her throat; she swallows in trepidation, sweat gathering on her palms. "Yeah. Yeah, of course," she forces out, wiping them on her jeans, straightening. Even after viewing your body after dark and eating your pussy, you make her nervous as fuck.

Even more so now that she knows how good you taste. And how perfect you are. Now she's burdened the knowledge that she cradles something precious in her hands, and she could unintentionally destroy it.

"I added some wood to the fire," you announce wearily, words punctuated by tiny, bursting yawns, as you adjust your oversized corduroy jacket around your shoulders and clamber over to her, a sheepish smile transforming your fatigue-dulled face.

"Come here," Ellie finds herself muttering, mimicking your exhaustion, spreading her legs and gesturing to the grass-cushioned ground beneath her. The cat still pressed into her, undeterred by her shifting.

You crawl delicately into the space between her legs, smiling through the yawn splitting your face, drawing a yawn out of Ellie, too. "Want me to keep watch again? You need to sleep some more," you say, reclining back against her chest and comfortably situating yourself, humming richly in unsuppressed delight.

Ellie wraps her arms around your shoulders, steering you back into her embrace, resting her chin on your mussed head. The affection should not come so naturally; she should not instinctively reach for you. It's not good.

Not fucking good at all.

"No," she whispers navally into your ear, eyeing the blazing fire through the tendrils of your unbound hair, that gleam with the dwindling light. "You sleep. You didn't sleep at all last night."

You tense fragmentarily in her grasp, muscles tightening under her arms. You hesitate, before craning your head back to face her, eyes searching. "You didn't either..." you whisper heedfully, lifting a hand and resting it on her forearm, stroking soothingly.

She had suspected you heard her cries last night. Instead of the confirmation making her feel ashamed, she felt... free. You saw the depths of her despair turn inside out and you did not cower at the hideous, wretched pain she unleashed.

"I never do," she replies baldly, swaying you gently, mouth hovering near the crest of your ear. Your thumbs tenderly caress the scars garnishing her arm, your eyes fluttering blissfully, your body sinking into her warmth. "Just sleep."

The lack of resistance proves just how desperately you needed it. You are whisked into a precipitated, fragile sleep, your breathing light and measured, your frame tucked up and slumped into her chest.

Her mind wanders only briefly to the violence lurking in its dark crevices, as she watches dense tendrils of smoke arise from the tamed fire, whirling and cascading toward the abrasive, glistening night sky, polluting her view of the stars.

She fantasizes of a smoldering house; a massive fire roaring from its pits, erupting in rippling flames that smolder the caving ceiling and dissolve the weak floorboards. She imagines the sear of blistering skin and the melting screams of anguish, of those who had incinerated her heart. She envisions all the relics and archives of her past being licked up by the fire and consumed by the glaring, ravenous heat.

Then she glances down at you, your blank, unconscious face illuminated by the flickering, dim orange glow. Something inside her softens, and she knows, grievously, that she has become malleable and pliant under your molding hands.

She stares at the slumbering, unbothered cat before returning her gaze back to you.

All of her hatred seems an afterthought to what she had right in front of her.

• • •

YOU

Blood pools on the fractured pavement. Firefly laps at it ravenously, her whiskers tinged crimson. "That's disgusting," you scowl disapprovingly, snatching her off the ground. She hisses in protest, clawing aimlessly at your sleeve, eyes crazed with hunger. You tap her bloodied nose reproachfully. "Bad."

She nips at your finger and you relent with a hearty sigh, placing her back on the ground. She skitters behind the rotting carcass of a clicker, it's head blown off in odious, blossoming cordyceps, pulsating dimly in a puddle of venomous blood. It's the first of hundreds.

You lift your head and examine the carnage that laid, revoltingly and obscenely, before your squinting eyes. Dozens upon dozens of butchered infected— cleaved into indistinguishable bits, sputtering blood, gushing decayed organs and crumpled flesh— piled in the lush street.

"What the fuck happened here?" Ellie drawls with a surprising amount of disgust, eyebrows furrowed as she ascended from her crouch, kneading a clump of clotted blood between her fingers.

You gulp down the thick lump of trepidation bulging in your throat, fretfully shaking the tremor out of your hands. "Don't know. It's gnarly, though," you respond, fighting the wobble out of your tone.

Truthfully, you recognize this distinctive gore.

After your parents tore each other to bits, Zander adopted a newfound disdain for infected. Before, he humanized the restless, ungovernable creatures— sympathized with their fucked up fate, to be killed and morphed into a monster.

But after the accident, he hated them. He found impressively disturbing ways to terminate them. Eventually he founded a signature method; to slice them into pieces as your parents had done, unbidden and under the influence of the infections debilitating madness.

This was him. You know, in the deepest caverns of your soul where your joint grief was stored, that this was his doing.

Not to mention the ragged Z carved into the blistered, yellowing flesh of one of the dead runners. You kick it's gnarled, unseemly body over to hide the exhibiting brand from Ellie, curling your lip with rehearsed repulsion. "Gross," you whisper, though internally, relief swarms your nerves, cacooning your apprehension in a warm blanket.

He is alive.

And the mark signifies that he is leaving signs for you to find.

"I'm just mad they beat me to it," Ellie complains under her breath, glowering at the expanse of cadavers cloaking the broken road. She tips your chin up, extracting your lingering gaze from the reeking bodies. "You good?"

You brush her off with a forced, invigorated smile. "Yep!" you chirp, nodding robustly, side-stepping a clicker. "At least we don't have to deal with all of them. Whoever did it, we should thank. Saved us some ammo," you craft your words meticulously as not to unearth your burrowed truth.

Ellie studies you a moment before dropping her hand. "True," she eventually yields, eyes wandering to Firefly, who was attacking a cord of muscle that protruded from the gaping stomach of a dead clicker, gnawing at the tough tissue. "Get your batshit cat. We're losing daylight."

"She's a perfectly normal cat," you retort, though your rebuttal is contradicted by the face you make. You grimace as she swats at a springing cordycep, growling ferociously. "Firefly! Stop that!" You shout, snapping your fingers.

Her ears twitch, head lurching up, green eyes wide. She is deathly still. You snap again, and she darts after Ellie skittishly, following her lead.

You chance another look at the wreckage, toying with the gold wedding band dangling from your throat. It was your mother's. Zander wore your fathers matching one around his neck. You usually kept yours stowed in the pits of your backpack, but you needed that touch of home.

Ellie had lifted your hair and gently latched it around you without questions asked, a hint of understanding in her eyes. You were grateful for her silence in that moment. Usually it unnerved you when she didn't speak. But in that moment it felt like a gift as opposed to a punishment.

"Where are we heading?" You question plainly, tucking the wedding band under your shirt, the memories a wild, unleashed zoo animal, tranquilized and thrown back into its enclosure. The ring is damp with your incessant, sweaty fidgeting.

"There's a place up ahead I like to go. Thought we could rest there for the night," she replies vaguely, glancing furtively at you, then the cat, her lip curling. "I still can't believe you named that thing Firefly."

"It's a cute name," you grumble back, sweeping your sweat-glistening hair off your neck and fanning the hot skin. "You could've come up with something too, you know."

This morning, you had awoken in Ellie's arms, jovial and recharged. For the first time in months, you had an uninterrupted, rejuvenating sleep, one that added a spring to your step and an effortlessness to your trekking. The cat was curled snugly in your lap, her affectionate purrs vibrating against your legs.

Ellie was stiff-necked and ill-tempered for the better half of the day, massaging the tension out of her shoulders and grumbling her responses.

"What should we name her?" You had asked, sprawled on your back, hefting the cat into the air as if she were a wailing baby in desperate need of motion and entertainment.

"Dramatic?" Ellie had quipped dully, and you rolled your eyes skyward.

"What about... oh!" You jerked upright in excitement, still cradling the cat in your arms. "Firefly."

An indecipherable emotion passed over her, tension lining the contours of her face. A hint of contempt glimmered in her eyes, and it felt like she was glaring down her nose at you, judging you like God weigh's pupils of sin, even as she sat at your eye-level. "Don't tell me you believe in that Firefly bullshit, too?"

Her reaction both intrigued and befuddled you. You possessed minimal knowledge on the Fireflies beyond the basics— that they were a reformed militia group that was majorly massacred by a man, who resulted in the death of Abby's father— and that she recruited a few friends to go after said man.

And someone was hunting them down for his murder. You had lost Nora and Jordan to the spiteful hands of his avenger; which is the only bright side to being excluded and shunned from Abby's circle— you were not involved in the man's murder, meaning you will not be involved in whatever vengeance they earned themselves.

Every now and then, back at the base, they get a few former Fireflie's filing in to join the Wolve's. Isaac— the focal overseer and governor of the WLF— was wary of stragglers that claimed past allegiances to the Fireflies, but welcomed them anyway, if they guaranteed to defend the base and protect his established citizens, as you and Zander pledged to do.

"No. Not at all. All of those stupid groups are bullshit," you agreed ardently, shaking your head in aversion, stroking Firefly's tummy. "I meant the actual insect, fireflie's. I just think they are so pretty at night. And I swear I could see the moon reflecting off her. Just seemed fitting."

Ellie had paused the sharpening of her blade. She analyzed you in the dewy, clouded sunlight, combating the interest off her face. But it flashed too late for her to conceal; her eyes lit up. "What other groups do you know about?" She asked carefully.

You shrugged, feigning indifference. "Like the Seraphites," you hummed, finger-combing Firefly's shiny black coat. "And I've seen another group around here. But I think they were just travelers."

Ellie said nothing, resuming her survey of her switchblade. She polished it with a tattered cloth and studied it, and that was that, the subject abandoned.

Now, Ellie snorts, peeling back a looming, overgrown branch to allow you passage. "Nah. That's your cat." She says as you saunter by, even as the cat pads after her, nose tipped to the air, breathing in the sent of damp soil, heady rot and the faint, sweet traces of a budding spring.

You trudge along the rocky, uneven path, bricks and shattered molasses-brown beer bottles specking the dirt, holding hope tight to your chest.

After stumbling upon Zander's mess, all the worry you harbored for your brother had ebbed away. He's alive. You hope the others are, too.

Even if you are not amicable with a large number of his group, a couple of them treated you fairly. Whitney was the closest thing to a friend you had there; she always tracked you down in the mess hall and shared her lunch. She even alternated her watch-shifts with Manny to join you on yours when she could, and shared her access card to the armory to practice shooting with you.

When you had first arrived, you scarcely knew how to use anything beyond a hand-gun. She trained you on a variety of firearms when your free time corresponded; you owe the new capabilities that kept you alive on this expedition to Whitney. She was the only one who never made you feel bad about it. She simply demonstrated for you without comment or judgement.

You hope whoever was sent to retrieve you— if anyone at all— was safe. Though, considering that Isaac didn't even send out a search party for Owen when he went missing, you doubt that he would gamble the life of his prized soldiers just to find a meaningless girl who was bullied and deluded out of his faction.

Clearly it did not stop Zander from looking for you, if the mutilated bodies of those infected were any indication. It could not be a coincidence. You know it was him. You just know it.

A strange part of you just hopes he doesn't find you yet. You have an intuitive, twisting suspicion churning in your gut, that this tenuous thing between you and Ellie will snap if anyone, or anything disrupts it.

You have a feeling that in finding him, you'll lose her. And you don't know what that means. You don't know where you're supposed to go from here; but you know that you can't just let her go.

With that, you saunter up to Ellie and flash her a winning, mindless smile, slithering your hand snugly into her back pocket. She tugs you flush into her side with a finger curled in your belt loop, and you stumble into her with a stunned laugh, Firelfy at your heels. You wish things could stay this easy.

You look at her and find strength beyond what had been forced upon you— a strength to fight for a better future.

• • •

Tangled, warm white Christmas lights dimly illuminate the abandoned teen-girls bedroom. Peeling posters are plastered to the walls, fraying with age and weathered by earth's course battering. A threadbare beanbag chair collected dust in the corner, the once vibrant purple now grimy and muted with time. Cobwebs edge the corners of the room in a luminous sprawl, their thick tendrils sparkling under the light.

You could see why Ellie found comfort in this place.

A black rack of CD's lined the desk, where the residue of ripped and prodded band stickers marred the refined oak. A thick coating of dust blanketed the surface. Your eyes flicker from the impressive album collection to the hot-pink poster board taped haphazardly to the closet with leopard print duct tape. Emboldened words scrawled in bright marker and glitter gel pens jut out in bubbled letters— MAISIE'S SUMMER BUCKET LIST 2003!

You avert your attention back to the desk, and the stack of mussed, tattered sketchbooks. The black covers are stained with charcoal and splotches of solidified paint, pages scattered. You rummage through one idly, thumbing through the doodles that range from gleaming sunrises to descriptive depictions of infected in a variety of stages, flowers blooming from their skulls instead of cordyceps.

You hum, grazing your pinkie over the elaborate drawings. "Have you seen these? They're..." you trail off in bewilderment when you glance up at what had captured Ellie's attention.

The dead body of a fallen solider.

Ripped camo dangled in tattered strips from the skeletal frame slumped against the unhinged door. It's jaw was missing, baring decaying teeth. Flies rattled in its hollow skull and buzzed busily about its frame. Ellie crouches and examines the chain enveloping it's neck. "They were a firefly," she informs you bleakly from over her shoulder, smoothing a thumb over the raised design etched into the pendant.

She rips it off it's neck sharply, and an involuntary screech bursts out of you when the head rolls off the body with a sickening crunch, thudding to the floor, sending up a cloud of dust. Ellie watched it fall with disinterest, holding the necklace up to you. "We should put it on your cat," she says, glaring pointedly at Firefly, who nestled herself into the bean bag and chewed on something dead she scoured, tail waving lethargically.

"Go ahead. I'd wait until she's done eating, though, or else she might maul you."

She releases a long-suffering sigh but ascends from her crouch, jingling the pendant tauntingly in your face, eyebrows raised. You laugh as she pursues Firefly with rightful caution. Her deliberate movements do not stop the cat from freezing and glowering at her, dark fur elevating.

"It's okay," Ellie drawls with no conviction. "Relax, dude."

Firefly makes to dart away, but Ellie swiftly wrestles her into her arms, holding her firm, as she hisses and screams in protest, squirming. "Come here, little devil," she grunts out harshly, sloppily clipping the pendant around her neck. Firefly swats violently, nicking her with a razor-sharp claw.

Ellie relinquishes her grip and Firefly wastes no time scrambling away, scurrying under the half-dilapidated bed. Her brilliant green eyes flare with menace from the shadows, narrowed at her.

"The shit I do for you," Ellie clicks her tongue and brandishes the furious scratch that superficially sliced her arm.

You ignore the jest. "Should we get rid of... of..." you stutter, gesturing at the body apprehensively, shifting from foot to foot. "That?"

Ellie nods, and you follow her to where it's rotting. She carelessly scoops up the skull and chucks it out of the gaping hole in the wall, before bracing her hands on the remnants of its body, leveling you with a look. You scramble to aid her, mustering a confirming nod back.

With joint effort, you shove it over the edge of the building. You peer over the jutted lip of the bedroom; numerous stories stretched between you and the pavement. Mist gathers in a dense, ominous cloud, shielding your view of the ground below. The bones clatter and deconstruct until they're engulfed by the haze. You were so far up, you couldn't hear them break against the earth.

You glance at Ellie to find her already observing you.

"What?"

She simply shrugs and rises, dusting the loitering essence of death off her hands, changing the topic with a fluidity that came with her consistent avoidance. "We can either try to fix that bed or sleep on the floor. Take your pick."

"I don't think Firefly would appreciate it if we took away her hiding spot," you quip, and it was settled.

The day was not yet done, but you set up camp regardless. Both of you maneuver in a pleasant silence as you unbundle your sleeping bags and roll them over the stained, carpeted floor. Ellie positions hers a whopping ten feet away from yours, the distance nearly offensive. "What are you doing?" You ask in disbelief, pausing your bed-making to gawk at her, open-mouthed.

"What?" She snaps in alarm, glancing around, looking for tangible evidence of her misdeed.

You point at her bed roll incredulously. "Why are you so far from me?"

She tenses and flicks her gaze away, her bag sliding off her shoulder and to the floor with a hefty thud. "I didn't want to assume you'd want to sleep by me."

You blink fervently. "Ellie."

She watches uncertainly as you punctuate her name and drag her sleeping bag next to yours, until they're close to overlapping. "You literally had your tongue inside of me. Stop being weird all of a sudden."

She visibly reddens, a vicious blush blotching her cheeks. You open your mouth to continue, adrenaline coursing through your veins, when she charges at you and cups a silencing hand over your mouth, a pained smirk tugging at her lips. "Just stop!" She hisses, her lips a wobbling line as she resists a grin of her own.

You chuckle and stumble back, licking her palm. She blanches and releases you, wiping her spit-damp hand on her jeans, her sudden movement sending you plummeting to the floor. You drag her down with you, your breathy laughs mingling as you collapse in a tangle of limbs onto the sea of slippery blankets.

You both burst into another fit of laughter when Firefly growls at all the commotion. She pads out into the foyer, swaying her tail with sass.

"Do you ever shut up?" Ellie mutters lowly, laughter clinging onto every lulled syllable, as she props herself on an elbow and gazes down at you, running a finger over your bottom lip.

You smile, and she traces the shape of it.

"Do you want me to?" You whisper humorously, and her thumb joins her finger in its exploration of the curves of your face, stroking your cheek with an unlikely tenderness that had the power to undo you.

"Never," she mumbles back, applying a chaste, shapeless kiss to the corner of your mouth. It's not enough. She deigns to pull away but you sling an arm over the back of her neck and hold her in place, lips seeking hers with repressed fervor.

She groans into your mouth, the decadent sound rumbling through you, alighting a glimmering need within. You increase the speed and intensity of the kiss— her noises an invitation for more— and propel yourself up with a hand plastered unsteadily to the floor, combing your fingers through her hair with the other.

Her hand rests on your throat, the pressure existent but not imposing, as she guides you into a languorous dance with your tongues. You buck your hips up to sate the craving for pressure and she slips a hand down to your waist, guiding you up and into her.

"I want you for real this time," she blurts breathlessly, words blasting into your tingling, swollen lips. Her eyes are teeming with earnest, pupils so dilated with lechery, they reflect you, doe-eyed and wanting. "No interruptions. I don't fucking care what it is... I'm not going to stop." She utters the words with quivering determination, fumbling with the button of your jeans.

You desperately nod your assent, arching up to assist her in removing your jeans. She brushes fluttery kisses to your exposed midriff where your tank top had ridden up, hurriedly tugging your jeans down, until they pooled at your ankles. She shucks them over your cowboy boots and hurls them to the side.

Your heart hammers with anticipation, core throbbing at the sight of her absolutely unraveled with yearning. Ever since that night in the hospital, you've wanted more. Needed more. You were just as fucked up by your need for her. It consumed you, ate you from the inside out, until all that was left was a thirst that could not be quenched without her hands on you.

"Fuck me, Ellie," you demand hoarsely, winding your hands up her thighs and shakily unbuttoning her jeans as she looms over you. She arches back and unabashedly shreds off her shirt as you hike down her jeans, unveiling small, supple breasts and hard, tantalizing nipples.

You kiss up her pelvis, across her toned, bruised abdomen and to her sternum, licking a slow stripe over one of her nipples and swirling it on your way up, eyes trained on hers lasciviously. You nip and suckle at a spot on her neck and she cranes her head back, hiccuping a sharp cry. She pants and lulls her head as you kiss and nibble the bared column of her throat, her hands roaming up the front of your body, palming your tits through your shirt.

She lifts herself off of you momentarily to kick off her jeans over her Converse, discarding them quickly, before she's back on top of you.

She's framed by the dying daylight penetrating the gaping hole behind her, her eyes flickering over you hungrily. She glides her hands under the hem of your tank top and yanks it over your head, tousling your hair, rejected with all the other articles of scattered clothing.

She pries your legs apart forcefully, and you squeak, as she pulls you closer to her. "How do you want it?" She croons gravelly, voice rich with heady desire, eyes honed in on your face with predatory focus. As if she could take every hint of pleasure you show and have it for herself. She straddles your pelvis and slowly, faintly swipes her pussy over yours, your clit throbbing at the contact. "Like this?"

She cradles your leg in her arm and drags her pussy across yours again, this time with more force. You bite your lip to suppress a whimper at the delicious sensation. "Or do you want me to really fuck you?" She thrusts against you hard for emphasis and you choke back a stunned moan, jerking.

"Yes," you breathe carnally, hair fanning around your head, mouth agape— all subtly gone with the wind that billowed through the room and cooled your slick skin.

"Yes, what? Use your words," she demands, hand encasing your throat, rocking into you with that same jarring force, another moan escaping you.

"Fuck me," you pant, nearly drooling, the husk of her words a fuel to the kindling that was her pussy moving against yours, "Please just fuck me. I need you, Ellie."

She smirks haughtily, wicked satisfaction gleaming in her blue eyes. "That's my girl," she praises knowingly, leaning down until her mouth brushes your panties. She sinks her teeth into them and tears them straight off your body, her hand never abandoning its anchoring hold on your throat. The movement was so effortless you could feel yourself dripping, the duality of this woman stupefying you.

How she could go from awkward at your flirting, to claiming your body as if it were a land she possessed and ruled in the matter of minutes.

You whimper unintelligible nonsense, unable to form coherent words to convey your debilitating need. Wanting her feels as natural and essential as breathing. Explaining it is nowhere near as simple.

She removes herself from you just to slide her own panties off, repositioning herself between your legs, holding your leg to her chest. She offers no warning before she grinds her bare, wet pussy into yours, the skin on skin making tingles of pleasure erupt through your core.

It was nearly too much.

You emit a shuddering moan and arch your back as she returns her calloused hand to your throat and slams into you, rolling her hips, your clits rubbing and chafing. "That's it. Fuck," she hisses out, her tattooed arm stark against your thigh as she hoists it to her, using it to drive into you with fierce precision, your pussy's slapping together stickily.

"Oh my fucking god," you mewl dumbly, tits bouncing, as she angles her hips and relentlessly drives her pelvis into yours, her breaths clipped and high-pitched. You undulate your hips and grind up into her, meeting the ferocity of her thrusts, your juices coinciding and glistening on your thighs. "Ellie."

"Fuck, yeah," she pants blissfully, peering down at you. "You feel so good."

She leans over you, slapping a hand next to your head, folding your leg up to your chest, the position allowing for better movement. She grinds into you from the new angle, your clits gliding and throbbing, and you feel yourself ascending higher and higher, toward that peak you nearly met the other night, at the hospital.

She fucks you nearly senseless, your frame wracking with her thrusts. She burrows her face into the crook of your neck, hot breath ghosting your skin, tiny grunts departing her lips. She grazes her teeth over the flesh and you shudder, her hand that was planted to the floor snaking up and finding yours, interlocking your fingers.

"I'm gonna cum," you whimper into her mussed hair, writhing beneath her, choppily grinding up, your muscles tight. You use the hand that's not intertwined with hers to fist her hair and reer her head back, until your faces are level, gazes locked. Both of you are heavy-lidded and pupil-blown, her eyes brimming with that same pleasure that was mounting in you.

"Cum with me," she orders breathily, your noses compressing, and on demand your body convulses and a blinding white light shreds through your vision, an uncontrolled moan belting out of you as she continues to fuck you through your orgasm.

"Fuck," she groans without restraint as your pussy's squelch, a cry leaving her as she reaches her own peak, her eyebrows furrowed, a dimple surfacing between her brow. She breathes into your open mouth, and you claim it as your own, granting her fleeting kisses through the aftermath.

Not a single thought filters through your head. Nothing beyond her drenched pussy, resting dormant upon your slick thigh, and her lips eloping with yours. You don't even know where to begin when it comes to processing the unprecedented feeling that roared throughout your body, or the swelling off your heart.

Neither of you say a word, your harsh, heavy breathing mingled and protruding the silence. Ellie peels herself off of you, her legs shaking as she thuds to the sleeping bag adjacent to you, her damp forehead pressed into your bare shoulder. She peppers a few kisses over it before falling back, expelling a deep, contented sigh.

You angle your head to face her, a dazed grin splitting your face. "What. The. Fuck. You've been holding out on me," you muse dreamily, playfully swatting at her.

She snickers huskily, scratching her head, propping it on an elbow. Her bare chest glistens and heaves with her labored breaths, as she reaches under the broken bed and slips out a shoebox. She dumps the contents out on her abdomen— a packet of finely minced weed, rolling sheets, a mini box of matches and one pre-rolled joint. "You smoke?"

"I have. Don't do it much though," you admit with a sheepish chuckle, watching her. She licks the length of the joint to insure its sealed before slipping it between her lips and lighting a match, bringing it to the tip. She waves out the tiny flame once smoke billows from the end, taking a measured, steady drawl.

She closes her eyes briefly at the sensation before passing it to you. Her lips quirk as you survey it dubiously before holding it hesitantly to your mouth, sucking in. Her smirk morphs into a resounding laugh when you sputter out a choppy haze of smoke, a profound burn blistering your lungs.

"That shits gross," you cough gutturally, passing it back, batting the swirling smoke out of the air. "You keep that stuff here?"

"No," she responds, smirking, inhaling another graceful heap of smoke. Exhaling slowly. You watch her watch the tendrils churn through the otherwise still air. "It was here when I found this place. Whoever lived here before was stashing it," she glances to the summer bucket list, "Maisie was a stone-er." She chides, flicking the ashes off and taking another hit.

She is noticeably put at ease. Her muscles are relaxed, and her smiles form innately and without dictation. As if all her worries have been laid to rest, now that she got to feel you.

It had the opposite affect on you.

The dark, possessive thoughts that have been circulating your mind like vultures preying on rotting roadkill did not flea at the taste of her.

All it did was amplify your morbid longing.

You snuggle into her embrace and rest your head against her drumming sternum, entangling your sweat-glowing legs together, fusing your bodies. She holds the joint to your lips and you take a drag, careful not to invoke another coughing fit, and she takes one after you, blowing precise, opaque O's with the smoke. She gently runs her fingertips up and down the length of your arm, clutching you to her.

"Can we do it again?" You blurt, angling your head up to face her, and she pauses her stroking. She says nothing as her hand winds down your arm, coasts over your hip, and creeps between your legs.

You suck in a breath when two fingers collect the wetness pooling at your entrance and drag your slick to your clit, rubbing delicately, the feather-light application of pressure evoking a whimper out of you. You squirm and rock into her hand, and she chuckles on a weed-laced breath, "Mm. You want me to fuck you again?"

You nod frantically as she works your pussy with her fingers. She sits up suddenly, taking you with her, until your spread in her lap. She holds the joint between her lips as she uses one hand to palm your breast and the other to expertly thumb your clit, smoke coiling from her nostrils. "Needy fucking girl," her approving groan is muffled by the joint, as she inches her fingers down your wet folds, teasing your entrance. "You want my fingers again?"

"Please," you whine, as reeking smoke tickles your earlobe and wafts into your face, the hand that wasn't easing fingers into your cunt slithering down to keep one of your legs spread, curling around your thigh, kneading and caressing, the joint between her massaging fingers.

You reach back to feather your fingers through her hair, riding her hand, breathy gasps escaping your lips. "Mhm. Good girl," she praises gravelly into your ear, curling her digits inside of you, stroking that sweet spot.

You tug helplessly on her hair and crash your head back onto her shoulder, arching desperately as she makes you cum for the second time, this time drenching her rough fingers.

She doesn't stop there. She maneuvers you out of her lap and sprawls you onto the bed roll, your legs spread, pussy gleaming and sated before her devouring eyes. She braces your thighs in her arms, takes a hit, and exhales onto your clenching pussy, the faint gust stimulating your throbbing clit. You moan and attempt to inch away, but she pins you down and eats you stupid, until her chin is dribbling with your juices, her sardonic smile highlighted by the cum glistening on her lips.

After she was done, she unburried herself from your legs and licked the juices off her lips, eyeing you sensually. She acted as if she were about to go right back down, when Firefly began scratching at the door insistently, meowing manically. Both of you redressed, hefting your tops and underwear back on.

You let the cat in and enveloped yourself in the near-translucent, cotton sheets, observing her as she tiptoes in, sniffing the air. She follows the scent to the crumpled joint on the floor, nosing it curiously. Ellie clicks her tongue in reprimand and tosses it over the side of the building before she tries to eat it. The last thing you needed was a high cat.

After discarding the joint, Ellie plops down on the hazardous edge, swinging her legs. She looks at you from over her bruised shoulder. "Come on," she urges, patting the space next to her.

You oblige, the sheet trailing you as you wander over to her. She takes your hand as you gingerly lower yourself beside her, effortfully prying your gaze from the dizzying height.

The mist had cleared with the days dissipating humidity, revealing the enchanting sweep of ocean that spread before you, dark waves emphasizing the curve of the earth. The sun gleams amber like a glass of whiskey caught in the light, painting the clouds a mass of colors, descending toward the seam of sky and sea.

You avert your attention back to Ellie. Her eyes are sealed, brown lashes fluttering with the breeze, tawny hair cascading with the salt-tinged wind. Her freckles are emphasized by the golden, showering glow, gilding her features. You sit on your hands to keep yourself from tracing them.

Firefly inches over, perching next to you, her green eyes mirroring the setting sun. You close your eyes and drop your head onto Ellie's shoulder, wrapping the sheet around her.

There's a prolonged beat.

And then she tilts her head and rests it on yours, hand gripping your thigh proprietarily. You don't even hesitate. You slide your hand over hers and stroke the bruises blossoming on her knuckles, smiling to yourself.

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