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betterthana-six · 3 months

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| MUSIC TO MY EARS - [ABBY ANDERSON] - CHAPTER TWO |

PAIRINGS: stoic!rugby player abby x fem!reader

SUMMARY: you and your new(ish) roommate, Abby Anderson, have gotten into an argument. about what? unclear at the moment. but it's got Abby in a fit of shame. until late one night she hears you outside with someone whose voice she doesn't recognize and listens in.

WARNINGS: yall. whats up. let me know if you like it pffffft. this is definitely a slow burn, but lots of pining, yearning, and, yes, smut to come. TRUST. so, mdni. there are a lot of flashbacks between now and when they met so we get the full story eventually. this is more of a light hearted story but it does deal with coming to terms with sexuality (and who best to help you along that journey but rugby playing and stoic Abby Anderson?). anyways, i hope that the five people who might read this like it.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Music To My Ears: Chapter 2

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

Without a plan for what to say nor a thread of rationality, Abby swings the door open. She half-expects you to fall back on her feet when she does it, but you are nowhere to be found. Only in your absence does she realize how hard her heart is pounding.

She takes a beat, feeling dumb in surprise. In all of the heat of her anticipation, Abby must have waited too long. Too late, she realizes.

To the left, she peers into an empty hallway. The overhead lighting forces her eyes closed. The walls are covered in paper flowers where students wrote their plans for Spring break in permanent marker.

To the right, Abby sees a group of people she somewhat recognizes all crisscrossed on the floor, encircling and packing what she presumes to be joints. Spearheading them is her friend, a fellow rugby player, who sees Abby and playfully lifts a joint in the air, gesturing an invitation.

Abby closes the door gently behind her and walks over.

“Care to join? We’re going to the balcony once we’re done here,” her friend says. Abby just looks over her shoulder.

“Nah. Nah, I’m good. Hey, did you guys see anyone out here a minute ago?” Abby asks.

“If you’re looking for your roommate, pretty sure she went to the bathroom. She wasn’t looking too hot.”

“What did you see?” Abby nearly hisses.

The friend raises their hands up in the air so as to claim innocence. “Shit, man, I don’t know. I think her date went bad or something.”

By the time the friend stops talking, Abby has already turned the other way, headed straight for the bathrooms, mumbling a vacant ‘thanks’.

She peers around the corner and slowly pushes the door in to listen for movement. All the lights are on. The motion sensors had been activated, which is strange considering the floor is usually dead at this hour.

The bathroom stalls are empty but there’s a shower going.

Abby calls your name faintly but gets no answer. She walks closer to the sound of running water, and through it, a distant voice singing.

“More than a feelinnnnnnnnnn’, more than a feelin’, when I hear that old song they used to- more than woaaah woahhh’, I begin dreaminnnnnnn…’”

Abby’s heart settles a bit as she walks down the white, linoleum hall. She calls your name again.

The singing stops abruptly but someone sniffles.

“What-uh?” You call out. It is the perfect sound to Abby. A sound she’d grown accustomed to hearing whenever she pissed you off. She doesn’t have to guess for a second that it’s you. And, the exaggerated “-uh” you added to your words when she teased you only confirmed it.

“I didn’t know there was a concert going on. I would’ve come earlier.”

You stay silent, knitting your brow.

She knocks on the tiles outside your stall. “It’s Abby.”

“Abby… Abby… what can I do for you, Abby?” You ask, your voice illuminated drunkenly as you roll her name over in your mouth.

She laughs. “Um, are you decent?”

“Are you decent?”

“Okay, princess,” Abby says a bit more sternly now. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t drown. Either by vodka or the shower. Now, can I, please?”

“Come in, come in.” Abby draws the curtains open to see you finally. She hides a smile and adjusts to the sight before her. She can feel her heart swell a bit. Your legs are sprawled out on the floor, heels still on. That can’t be comfortable. She sees the redness around your ankles. There’s mascara running down your face and not an inch of you is dry. You’re wearing your special occasion maroon dress, as Abby suspected, which now clings to your body with the weight of the water that drenches you completely. Abby has to avert her eyes. She knows you’d never let her see you like this if you were sober. “Hey, crib. Welcome to my MTV,” you say.

Then Abby sees the flask in your hand.

“Alright, hand it over,” Abby says. She kneels down to you with an open hand.

“Hand what over?” You smile big and clutch the flask closer to your body. “I’ve never realized how big your hands are,” you lie. Deflect.

You have Abby. Just like that. Her ears bent to every one of your words and her entire body enslaved to your stare. She is taken aback from how much you affect her.

She feels it in her stomach.

Your lips are full and dark, stained vibrantly with some berry. Maybe wine, she thought. You look up at her now, with that full deep smile, and Abby forgets for a moment that you were ever crying on the floor outside your room.

You look acutely into Abby’s eyes, testing her.

“Princess…” She elongates the word, staring at you. “Come on, now.”

“Alright, alright,” you concede. You take another swig and give in, handing Abby the flask. “Those damn puppy dog eyes.”

Abby laughs. She smells the flask and grimaces a bit. She turns the shower handle until the water no longer flows.

“Bad night?”

“Best night of my life.”

“It sounded pretty grim.” She shoots you a knowing look.

“Shit, how much did you hear?”

“Enough,” Abby says, looking at the floor. She’s almost skittish. “Enough to understand why you’re laying underneath a running shower at almost midnight. I mean, shit, you were right outside the door. It was kind of hard not to listen in.”

“Okay, fuck you very much,” you laugh. “I figured you were asleep.”

“I pretended to be,” she admits with a guilty smile.

You scoff.

“Well,” Abby says. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor about it now.”

“Yeah,” you hiccup. “Totally hilarious. God, I look fucking pathetic.”

“You look fine,” she says, looking you over, slowly making way up to your eyes. When she gets there, she can’t read your face.

“I don’t want to talk about it. So, don’t ask.”

She nods her head like it was the simplest thing.

“Let’s go,” Abby says.

She reaches a hand out to you. You lean into her for stability, soaking her clothes with your own wet mess, but Abby doesn’t shy away from it. Rather, she grabs your waist and puts your arm around her shoulder, squeezing you tight and concentrating ahead to ensure a clear path.

You, however, are looking up at Abby, though her gaze is fixed elsewhere.

In her arms, you feel like you’re floating. There might as well be a halo of stars swirling above your head. Your legs trail a bit behind hers as she guides you down the bathroom hall. Suddenly, it’s all so incredibly simple. Or, perhaps, all the happiness vodka afforded you is working its magic tenfold, pulsating a warm thrill through your body. It overwhelms you in a dreamy state of mindlessness. You stare at the sharpness of her cheekbones. Her mouth, downturned and focused. Her arms, her arms…

“Wow…” you whisper, eyes locked on her face, arms messily draped around her. Your nose is inches from her neck. Abby just grins.

“I somehow actually didn’t know,” she says, “you curse like a sailor when you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, well, there’s actually a lot you don’t actually know about me actually, so...” You boop her nose with your free hand and shine a wide, stupid smile at her.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

Once you get to your dorm room, Abby sits you down on her desk chair and covers you in one of her towels. She brings you her water bottle and nods to you, indicating a command: sip.

The only light in the room is her desk lamp, and it shines a warm and dusky yellow onto your face so Abby can see your puffy eyes and wine stained mouth in clear view. Abby contains herself as best she can. This is not the first time she’s caught herself staring at you, far from it; she turns her head away when you look up at her, keeping her composure, as always.

She takes a small rag and starts dabbing the makeup running down your face.

A sudden pang of guilt permeates your floating feeling. It sobers you up a bit, letting in the very feelings you were trying to avoid. As quickly as you were starry-eyed, swept up in Abby’s hold, you are washed over in a wave of grief, a twinge of pain piercing your heart.

“I’m sorry,” you say, straining your voice. “I’m a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it, seriously.” Her eyes focused everywhere but yours. She continues to dab your cheeks softly.

You huff, tears threatening to make their way out. You hiccup and take another sip. “I don’t want to go to bed,” you say. “Not yet.”

“That’s fine,” Abby says. She kneels at your feet now, unbuckling the tiny straps of your shoes delicately. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t-”

“Abby, please, can you look at me?”

The question came out more impatient and whiney than you planned. But Abby obliged, her hand resting on your ankle.

“Abby,” you say, shaking your head in defeat. “Abby, I screwed everything up tonight.”

“You didn’t screw anything up.”

“I did,” you insist. You place your hand on her face and she stays still, afraid to move or even breathe.

Then, Abby sighs, her eyes soft. “We can talk about it in the morning. I’m sure everything’s fine,” Abby says lightly, smiling at you.

She goes back to taking your shoes off.

“You were right about me, Abby,” you whisper. She looks up at you again and you don’t break eye contact. You tell her everything in those few words. You repeat, “You were right.”

Now, Abby stops what she’s doing and looks up. You see her in full. The light from behind consumes her in a shadow but it strengthens her definition and the fine edges of her face.

She moves her hand and clasps your wrist, the wrist that cups her own cheek.

She takes in your serious look and returns it with softness.

Finally, black tears come spilling down your face, but you don’t necessarily sob. You don’t close your eyes or keel over on the floor. Instead, your face is resolute and still, as though you are simply lost in thought. Eyes on Abby but somewhere else entirely.

“Hey,” Abby says. She instinctively pulls you in. “It’s okay.” Her arms wrap around your body, sheltering you with her own. She breathes you in, holding you tight while tears fall down your face and onto her shoulders. “It’s okay.”

You succumb to her embrace and let your body go a little limp. It’s a warmth you haven’t experienced in years. The room is spinning; you can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol or the catharsis of being held by her. Either way, you breathe deep and shiver on the exhale, and, as if responding to you, Abby squeezes tighter. There’s no sense of urgency from Abby to end this embrace. It could go on forever, and you both would let it.

It was clear.

This is what it felt like to surrender to yourself, your burning heart linked inarguably to the fire in Abby’s. Pressed against each other like old friends, finally reuniting after being apart for too long, in an act of true intimacy.

All of the tension and anxiety you felt around her these last few months dissipates. You can’t even remember why it was really there to begin with. You tilt your head into her, smelling her, digging your face into her neck like a child.

When finally you pull back, Abby looks at you as if seeing you for the first time again. As if her eyes were divinely predisposed to not simply look at you but really see you.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

This wasn’t a new sensation for Abby.

It had even become somewhat of a mindfulness practice to contain herself around you, if anything, which was a problem she’d never experienced before.

If December Abby could watch tonight’s spectacle, the irritated way she eavesdropped and the tenderness when she touched you, she would likely be mystified by this soft version of herself.

Her December self was far more regimented. Disciplined. Focused.

Especially during season, Abby had to excel.

You do what you need to do to get it done. Keep your head down. Study hard, lift harder.

This was her mindset, philosophy, way of life. Whatever you want to call it, she navigated it with steadfast conviction.

Her days were filled with routine. She woke up early and headed to the gym. Her protein shake waited in her bag after an hour or two of conditioning and her fifteen minute ice bath. She showered, and then she was onto her classes. Rugby practice lasted until early evenings most days. Then it was dinner and bed.

Weekends were almost her own; she spent most of her hours reading.

Distractions did come every so often in the form of girls. Who doesn’t need to be a little distracted sometimes?

They come and go. It’s never anything really serious. Abby had made peace with that. She preferred it, actually.

Abby wasn’t the type to force anything.

Her outlook was that if it was meant to happen, it would. She let it all fall into her lap.

Just like Gillian did, and Ally. And Mara.

She’d been told by her teammates that that’s what makes her “quite the magnet”. Girls always like the quiet thing, a friend once said, someone fierce on the field and tender in bed. Talented in both areas.

All of that, Abby very much knew, was a tad disingenuous on her end. She just wasn’t invested, so naturally there wasn’t much for her to say.

Get her laughing with an old friend, though, or anyone she’s really comfortable with, maybe when she’s drunk, and she becomes a talker. All silly and red in the face from giggling. It didn’t happen too often.

So, at first, it didn’t cross her mind to be concerned with you. You two would be good roommates, she thought. Maybe friends, if it happened naturally.

That was her rationale talking. Shower thoughts crammed her head not so long after she found you perusing her rugby trophies. She involuntarily assembled every view of you that she got from that brief introduction.

Abby pictured your cheeks and nose. They were still pink after coming in from the cold. And your hair was pulled back with strands windswept messily over your face. You looked like a storybook character, someone totally imagined, pulled from the page into real life.

And, there was something in the way you squirmed at the sight of her body. How your breath hitched when she bared her chest to you. It made something so completely obvious to her, but you seemed oblivious to it.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself like a fool while she thought it over. For fuck’s sake, Abby was grinning each time she turned away from you. She grinned all the way down the hallway on her walk to the showers.

You were intriguing to Abby. Undoubtedly.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

When she got back, you were sat down on the floor unpacking your clothes into small, wooden drawers.

Abby had her towel wrapped around her whole body. She nodded to you as a short re-greeting and searched through her closet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a guitar case. She noted the stickers on it - some obscure bands, some random abstract art.

“You play?” She asked.

You looked up to what she was pointing at.

“I’m studying classical guitar.”

“Cool,” Abby responded absently. “You sing?”

“Uh, to myself. In the shower. Sometimes.”

“I’ll have to stop by for a concert.”

You laughed, shaking your head.

“What about you? What do you study?” You forced out. You knew you sucked at small talk, and, god, you were so fucking awkward it killed you sometimes. The words came out like sludge. Abby didn’t seem to notice, or, if she did, she didn’t let on.

“Marine biology,” she answered. “Actually, it’s ichthyology. I study fish.”

“Marine biology sounds way cooler.”

“Yeah. That’s what I usually tell people. Makes it seem like I don’t just stand around all day hunched over a microscope. People tend to envision me in a scuba suit taking photos of massive animals, like, a hundred feet deep in the ocean, so I let them.”

“I’m still impressed,” you said. “I was never good at science, but I love aquariums.”

“I love aquariums,” she agreed, earnestly.

You both looked up at each other then.

You were about to say something else, but Abby started drying herself off, revealing her body, muscular and lightly tan.

“Oh,” you blurted and turned sharply away from her. “I- sorry.”

Abby laughed, and asked, “Am I offending you?”

“No, no. Sorry. I didn’t realize you were doing that. I’m good, though. Let me know when you’re done.”

“I mean, we’re gonna be roommates ‘til June. This might be something you have to get over.”

“Yeah! No, I know,” you trip over yourself trying to explain. “You’re very…comfortable… being naked in front of strangers. I wasn’t expecting it.”

She chuckled at that. “I didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’re squeamish,” Abby pointed out. “You’ve never had a roommate before.”

She literally pointed her finger out at you, like she finally decided on your guilty verdict.

“Fine, you got me. My last dorm was a solo. I didn’t want you to think I’m some creep, okay? We met, like, an hour ago.”

Your voice went all high-pitched in a way you could never control when interrogated.

Abby stayed quiet for a moment, letting your words sit in the air as she grinned to herself and wrung out her hair.

“I definitely don’t think you’re a creep,” she said eventually. “A bit innocent, maybe…”

“I’m not in- ” You snapped, whipping your head around.

Abby stood tall and relaxed staring at you. She was fully clothed now, wearing a tight shirt and sweats. Her arms were bulging from the sleeves.

Something about her demeanor was sweet though, even with her “who me?” face. She wasn’t trying to be mean.

“Sorry, sorry,” Abby said. “You’re just very polite is all. Like a princess.”

You felt your face get hot. You turned away from her again and went back to organizing your stuff. Abby plopped on her bed indifferently and cracked open her book.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

An hour passed in complete silence. You worked away, slowly unraveling your belongings into neat separate storage units.

You thought about calling your mom. No. How many times will it take for you to remember that she only makes you feel worse? There was really no one else to call then. It’s fine, you reasoned. You understood well by now that self-reliance had its growing pains.

Every once and a while you snuck a quick glance at Abby. You didn’t mean to, of course. It was more to see what she was reading. You couldn’t look too long. It was almost like she knew exactly when you were doing it, like she could feel your eyes on her, and she would instinctively catch you in the act, only to recoil nonchalantly in her book as soon as she spotted you.

Eventually, you stood up on your bed to string fairy lights across the ceiling and stick your posters on the wall.

“Is that Janis Ian?” Abby asked, breaking the silence and startling you. You turned around. Abby’s face peaked above her book. You looked back at the poster.

“You know Janis Ian?”

“I think…” Abby says thoughtfully. And then she sang in a quick and quiet mumble, “I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens… right?”

You couldn’t help but beam a bit as you nodded a hesitant ‘yes’. She really didn’t look the type to start singing Janis Ian.

You turned to stick another poster up when Abby laughed aloud.

“What?”

“No, nothing, nothing,” she said, concealing a smile and hiding her head behind her book again.

You cocked your head at her. “What?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t realize that you were a 60 year old lesbian.”

The light on your face suddenly went dim. You scoffed and looked up at your wall. You had stuck a pink 1994 tour poster with the Indigo Girls posed casually on it.

“They’re all really great guitarists,” you said, plainly. “I grew up with their music.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me,” Abby said.

“They just happen to all be old lesbians, it doesn’t mean that I am one.”

“I’m not judging,” She said, and threw up her hands. “I fuck with it, really. Old school gay vibes. That’s awesome.”

“I’m not- ” You said, raising your eyebrows at her. “I’m not.”

“Okay,” Abby said. She was agreeing with you. Truthfully enough on paper, but you still couldn’t tell if she was fucking with you. “I got it.”

Abby tried to decipher something in your face, but you shot her a chiding stare and dropped down from your bed.

“I’m going for a walk.”

You felt Abby’s eyes following you as you left.

You walked around your dorm floor aimlessly until you reached an exit. It was the post-dinner lull of the night where some students were already in bed and some were already out.

Right or left, it didn’t matter where you went. You had no real idea of where you were anyways. All memories of touring the place weeks ago had flown from your head as soon as they’d entered. The ‘where’ of your transfer wasn’t the point at the time.

It didn’t matter. You walked to a bench a few blocks down and pulled out your pack of cigarettes. You only had them because they looked cool but always felt a little stupid every time you smoked one. They also came in handy when you needed one. Which you did.

You couldn’t put words to exactly what was bothering you about her.

She hadn’t said anything outright offensive. She was joking around.

Abby just seemed like someone who thought she knew everything about everything and everyone. Yes, that’s what it was. She was too confident in her own intellect. And far too proud of her body. It annoyed you. And, you weren’t looking for friends who put you on edge anymore. You weren’t interested in being tested.

Abby knew she was testing you, however clueless an act she put on for you.

It wasn’t something she did often. Not with strangers. At the very least not when she was sober.

It was something drunk Abby does at parties. The drinks go directly to her head thus emerging a butch Casanova who shamelessly flirts with straight girls.

“Straight.”

Not that the goal was to hook up with them necessarily. The thing is, Abby just had a little theory that everyone’s a little gay. Some people just try to hide it, if they can help it. And many people can succeed for a while. Unless the closet door were to be cracked ajar by an innocent, drunken conversation or two…

“Are all the rugby team fucking each other?” They’d ask. “Be honest.”

To which she’d respond: “Why, are you trying to join?”

Or, something like that.

She didn’t know why it was coming out around you on a random Monday evening. She felt weirdly invigorated.

You so quickly became imperative to her, though she tried to refrain from taking the feeling seriously. She couldn’t explain it to herself well enough, but it felt as though something new was beginning.

Everything about your demeanor said you wore your heart on your sleeve yet you acted like a closed book. It was obvious in the way you spoke, like you had some secret to hide and were aching to scream it. And there was something to your features. Starkly beautiful, that was obvious to Abby, but it was more than that. She felt she needed to see your face again and again to remember the details. Even in two conversations, she felt an urge to fix her gaze on you repeatedly.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

She feels the very same thing now. The absolutely fatal desire to look and look and look at you until she was acquainted with every feature.

Even with bitter sadness written across your face, you are gorgeous.

The light grazes your skin. Your hair still drips small water beads, and tears fall from the corners of your eyes like diamonds. You shake slightly in her arms.

You pull away, inches from Abby, breathing in her air.

“I don’t want to go to bed yet…” You say again, and the only thing you can hear is her breath and the buzzing in your ears.

Your faces are just inches away from one another. Abby’s blood pumps so hard she thinks you can hear it.

You tilt your head up to hers, lost in a trance.

How wonderful it would be, Abby thinks, to take your face in my hands and kiss you.

She wants to. God, and she’s wanted to. For longer than she’s willing to admit. But she retreats.

You look up at her with hungry, eager eyes.

Abby clears her throat.

“So, let’s not,” she says. You snap out of it. Your hungry eyes turn confused. Abby’s face changes per something that dawned on her.

“Let’s not go to bed, princess,” Abby says and grabs your hand. “I have an idea.”

Chapter 3

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Tag babies: @soupycloud @femme-historian @ichokedonmyoreo @paleidiot

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。.

#abby anderson #abby anderson tlou2 #abby tlou #lesbian #tlou2 #abby anderson playlist #abby x fem!reader #the last of us part 2

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