#very effective

I really should do more crosshatching again! ✨

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🦊

😁💤

I'm so happy to find some time and calm to draw a bit and work on beautiful creative and beloved things that I started a long time ago 🫠💕 Even if it takes time, I tend to finish stuff sooner or later ☺️

– Except I get distracted by a WIP distraction Fox like this! 💡🦊✨ But as Thorn somehow got into my affectionate show-off peacock clone I thought this time I can send him to Fox for some brotherly care-pestering 😹

Thorn! 🪽 @jetii @tangledlichen @elektroskopik @blackat-t7t @thornhands

Taglist: @lezz-agna @returnofthepineapple @sunshinesdaydream @vrycurious @chaicilatte @ladylucksrogue @freesia-writes @bittybug-sunflower-blog @littlebitofeverything-lass @thecoffeelorian

My Chaos vode💥 @sabaccsniper @lonewolflupe @wings-and-beskargam @eclec-tech

It’s early enough that it doesn’t feel like patrol. Abby can imagine that they’re safe from everything outside their little nylon tent with condensation from the overnight chill dripping down in slow lines. She watches a daddy longlegs sprawl its shadow overhead, peaceful. She knows Ellie will shudder at the sight of it, so she won’t mention it to her.

Ellie’s pressed into her side, still sleeping—flushed cheek against her chest, mouth parted lazily, hair escaping from the knit cap that’s probably too warm for her now. They’d needed to trap all the heat they could when the sun went down, but now Abby shifts under layers of flannel and long johns, heat creeping just enough to be uncomfortable, not pressing enough for her to wake Ellie.

Another need sits at the back of her awareness. She knows soon she’ll have to drag herself out of the too-small sleeping bag they’re sharing, pull on her boots and load her pistol, and trek across mossy grass to find some half-hidden spot to relieve herself. All of that sounds incredibly unappealing right now, so she drifts away from the thought. She doesn’t notice if she stays still, anyway. 

Ellie murmurs something in her sleep, turning to bury her face entirely in the rough texture of Abby’s waffle-knit shirt. Abby feels her breath, hot and slow, through the fabric. 

It still surprises her—this feeling, this calm, when all of Ellie’s frenetic energy settles into the heat of her body and she can’t get close enough. Soft in a way she would never let herself be in wakefulness. Abby lets her fingertips trail gently over Ellie’s arm, careful not to shift her shoulder enough to disturb her. 

She feels Ellie sigh. Feels the shape of her lips and the heat of her mouth. If she could keep both of them like this forever, she would.

It doesn’t last. The birds get louder, the sun gets hotter, and soon Ellie is stirring, blinking slowly, and then yanking off her knit cap. 

“Jesus Christ.” She looks perfectly disheveled, and Abby resists the urge to smooth her scattered hair back down—not that it would do much to help. “How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough,” Abby says, grunting when Ellie’s elbow digs unintentionally into her abdomen, reminding her of the limited time she has left wrapped in this comfort. 

“You love watching me sleep,” Ellie says, no hard line in it. “Pervert.”

“Mhm. Kind of an irresistible view.”

“Shut up.” Ellie wipes dried spit from her chin. “You look hot too.” It has all the weight of her characteristic sarcasm, but it doesn’t land—not with the way her eyes track the flyaways stuck to Abby’s temples, or the thick muscle of her neck, or the place where her collarbone disappears under far too many layers. 

The way Ellie looks at her—it’s hungry. It’s the wetness in her eyes, the way her tongue flicks over her bottom lip like she’s not even aware of it. It’s a kind of wanting Abby isn’t used to—being seen and studied, like something Ellie’s held in her mind for even longer than she’s ben able to touch her.

“What?” Her laugh comes out shaky, and Ellie catches it. Of course she does.

“Just looking.” But she isn’t—it’s never just a look. It’s startlingly-cold palms making their way under her shirt so that Abby winces, a smile playing on Ellie’s lips when she sees the reaction. “Sorry.” And she isn’t, either, not the way her fingertips trace the ridges of her abs until they draw a longer breath out of her. 

When Abby’s adjusted enough to the feeling to pretend she’s unaffected by it, Ellie curls in closer to her side. Fingers brush upward to the curve of Abby’s breast and graze just barely across her nipple. 

That forces a sound from Abby’s throat—something closed-off and trying to hide. Failing. And then a whispered, “fuck” that follows. 

Abby can feel the expanse of Ellie’s ribcage against her side when she laughs. “What?” Ellie asks, like she doesn’t know. 

“Just… cold.” She tries to un-tense her abs, tries to ignore the pang it sends through her core—half tense fullness, half want. They mix in something that balls in her throat, something that expands into a whine when Ellie thumbs over her nipple again. 

“Hm, there you go.”

“Fuck you,” Abby tries to say, breath caught in her throat.

“What? I like you loud.”

Abby would argue that someone would hear them—that was her usual excuse when they were anywhere near civilization. Here, the chances of drawing infected are slim, and another human being, almost none. 

Still, something in her throat clamps down. She holds herself together with taut muscle built to withstand, to contain, to keep inside. Ellie knows how to draw that hidden thing out of her—but it never comes easily. Shame chases need, only one of them winning out in the end. 

But she can’t be anywhere but her body when Ellie’s hand rides lower, mapping her abdomen, slipping toward her waistband. Lingering above it in a way that’s intended to tease, eyes fixed so intently on Abby’s face when she stiffens, shrinks from it, the subtle pressure of her palm intensifying the pressure already building inside her. 

“Ellie—” She shifts her pelvis, trying to relieve the pressure, but Ellie chases, not letting up. A quick smile that’s barely there, replaced by the furrow of concentration. “We should start getting ready.”

She should get up. She can. Ellie’s never been stronger, even if she’d like to think so. She wouldn’t try to keep her here, anyway, if Abby told her what she needed—would she?

But Ellie buries her face in the crook of Abby’s neck, breath hot on sweat-slicked skin. She parts her lips and breathes against her before making contact, before letting her tongue drag over Abby’s jaw. “Why?”

Abby squirms. She tries to say something convincing, which just comes out as “patrol,” which makes Ellie chuckle against the flush of her skin. 

“I think patrol can wait a few minutes.” Her fingers reach the buttons on Abby’s jeans, and press. 

The warmth of Ellie’s mouth sends heat rippling through her, dripping, collecting under the pressure of Ellie’s fingers. Almost too much. Almost enough for a whine to escape her clenched jaw.

All she has to do is say it. It’s so stupid, actually, to be embarrassed over it. All she has to say is that she has to go take a piss and she’ll be right back and then Ellie can suck bruises into her throat and slip her cold hands under so many ridiculous layers and take what she wants from her. It would be so easy.

But she can’t or won’t, because her thighs are pressed together so tightly that she can feel the swell between them, can feel the thrum of her heartbeat in a pattern that itches for Ellie’s fingers, her mouth—hard enough to beg. 

She tells herself it’s not just desperation, it’s necessity, when she does. When that first “please” falls from her lips, she tells herself it’s because she needs this fast and hard and sudden. Because she can hold back just long enough. 

“Please what?” Ellie’s voice gets dark and full like this, vibrating against the curve of Abby’s jaw close to her ear. 

Abby lifts her hips in reply, a temporary reprieve, an ask for more. “Touch me. Please.” 

“I thought you wanted to get up.” 

“Ellie.” She means it to sound harsh, delivered as a warning, but her voice breaks when Ellie’s palm drags higher. Presses firm and flat above her waistline. 

One hot, sharp pang. She’s already fucked and she knows it. And doesn’t want Ellie to stop. 

“Fuck, please. Just—quickly. Please.”

She sees it in the way Ellie’s eyes work her over, torn between drawing this out with a kind of patience she’s never had, or giving in—not to Abby, not swayed by her begging just yet, but her own need to see Abby even more broken than she already is. 

“Fuck, fine—” voice heavy with breath, not hiding it anymore. “If you need it that bad…” 

She’s rough and uncoordinated getting Abby’s zipper down, working her hand under her jeans and long johns and finding the hem of Abby’s underwear, cursing under her breath. And then she sighs when her fingers finally reach the coarse fur between her thighs. 

“Ellie… please.” She doesn’t care how she sounds anymore, just pushes her hips into Ellie’s hand until Ellie’s fingers slip lower, until Ellie moans at the feeling of how wet she is. 

Ellie’s knuckles brush her clit, and Abby jolts—tries both to escape and to grind herself into the friction, with nowhere else to go. 

“Fuck...” Ellie’s eyelids flutter. Her hips grind unconsciously against Abby’s thigh, mouth diving to the only bare skin she can find at Abby’s throat, pulling fabric unceremoniously down her shoulder so she can bite at the meat of her chest. 

It's embarrassing, how open she is. How little resistance she has to Ellie’s fingers as they slip against and inside her, almost by accident. How she can't find the difference anymore between each kind of release, just that she needs, and Ellie presses so precisely at that swollen point inside her that she downright sobs. 

Ellie lets out a low sound when she finds it—that slow, unrelenting rhythm. Sinking into her with steady precision, hand trapped against Abby’s body under layers of clothes. Abby can’t find her breath. Every thrust is a spark and a threat, like Ellie knows. Like Ellie’s trying to draw it out of her. 

Abby sounds more and more like a wounded animal—panting, yelping, writhing around Ellie’s fingers. She’s chasing it, hips rolling back in return, until she’s close to the brink of something and she isn’t sure what. Her thighs clamp around Ellie’s wrist, trying helplessly to stall the inevitable, or bring it closer. 

Ellie stops. She shifts until she’s upright, until she has enough leverage to lean over Abby’s torso. Fingers still buried inside her, she gives Abby’s knees a firm nudge with the other hand. “Stay. Open.” 

Time slows and swells to that single point, as Ellie works a third finger inside her. It’s too much. Abby grips at the sleeping bag, now discarded, scrambles for Ellie’s thigh, to give herself something to brace against, but there’s nothing. Ellie’s just nodding, watching the way her thighs tremble, making sure she takes it. All of it. 

She can’t feel anything but Ellie’s fingers filling her. Stretching her until it hurts, then curling upward into white-hot near-release. Maybe, maybe, she could survive that. 

And then Ellie’s palm finds her belly again, warm and searching against the taut fullness there. Giving a little pressure and then a little more.

“Come on—” Fingers fucking into her, other hand firm, demanding. “Let it go.”

Abby’s body resists. Of course it does—everything in her, every muscle, trying to hold back. But the swell rolls closer and closer and Ellie isn’t letting up, and that first, thankful, unrestrained spurt wets Ellie’s palm. 

And the dam breaks. She couldn’t stop if she tried. 

She feels the cascade that’s out of her control now—initial flooding relief, the heat spilling around her, soaking through fabric, the shuddering way her muscles give. Ellie pins her thighs almost painfully, and then she’s climbing again, climbing and still emptying and clenching hard around Ellie’s fingers, everything tensing and releasing when she comes. 

Ellie fucks her, more slowly, until she’s gasping. Until she’s empty. 

Abby’s eyes are shut so tightly that she’s not sure she can open them. She groans when Ellie slips out of her, palm over her pulsing clit for a moment just to hold her. 

Lips meet her collarbone. Ellie’s weight settles over her, her breath fills the empty spaces of her body. Hands dig firm into her clothes, anchoring her. 

When her own breath has slowed, she feels Ellie shifting. “God, you made a mess,” she huffs against Abby’s shoulder.

She’s lying in it, both of them are, and the way that Ellie doesn’t shy away from her makes the heat in her chest lose its edge. Embarrassment that’s softer now. “Your fault.”

“You love it.” 

Practical concerns start to creep back in: all her clothes, ruined. She’ll need to wash herself in a stream, out in the open where she’s vulnerable. And the sleeping bag—

But Ellie’s still nuzzled into her, and she lets herself be in this softness a little longer. Lets herself feel the relief she’s earned and been given. Lets the moment last. 

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