Revolve

[Ellis Vaccari]

Note: Set directly after H is for Home Invasion

Ellis registered that her initial thought was to leave. Her initial thought was always to leave. Her door was right there; a simple move and she could unlock the door, draw it open and leave. But as she watched Sam, she struggled to glance past just how upset she was. No, upset wasn’t the right word. She was angry. The usually neutral girl found herself wearing such concern.

Alone in the common area of their dorm, Ellis allowed the briefest of moments of silence to overcome her.

“Sam,” Ellis said, lightly. It wasn’t lost on her that the Boston girl had barely looked at her once she’d walked in. Once she’d practically scrutinised the blonde, and the expression she’d been wearing. As much as she thought to ask her further questions – what was wrong, why she was so swept up in this particular emotion – she didn’t. She simply stared across the distance towards her.

[Samantha Vaccari]

Sam kept her gaze cast downward, never allowing herself to glance at the blonde she normally couldn't stop looking at. Stuffed animals. Candy. It was all going into the trash. The Boston girl took the items scattered across the dorm, forcefully tossing whatever would fit into the common room bin.

Silent. Sam rarely was, but she couldn't bring herself to look at Ellis, let alone speak to her. She felt her jaw clench, moving quickly. The sooner the dorm was back to it's normal state, the quicker she could leave. The pressure of being there, under her gaze, was overwhelming.

As much as she tried not to, Sam felt herself tense at her own name. She paused in her movement, about to pick up a few pieces of candy. “What?” Still, she didn't look at Ellis, and instead she forced her shoulders to relax and continued reaching for the stray sweets before throwing them into the trash.

[Ellis Vaccari]

The almost erratic moves she was making almost confused Ellis. From what she knew of her roommate, this was different. This was something a side of Sam she'd never experienced before, and so she had no point of reference. Therefore, she felt stuck. Frozen in one place - so close to a way out.

The question she'd posed to the singular word Ellis offered wasn't surprising. It was expected. What else would someone in such a state say to their own name?

"Come here," The blonde said, crossing her keys between her hands before placing them back in her pocket, "Please."

[Samantha Vaccari]

While waiting for Ellis to address her, Sam threw what was left behind by the intruder out. She took the trash bag, tying it with every intention of taking it out the moment she could.

Sam stood up straight at the request, she stared at the wall for a few moments. Please. The word drew a breath from the Boston girl as she slowly turned to finally face her. To look at her. Still, the brunette couldn't offer eye contact for more than a few seconds. Her attention shifted to the wall behind Ellis.

Even so, Sam took the steps necessary to cross the common room, stopping only a couple of feet short of Ellis. Again, she glanced at the blonde briefly, catching the hints of light confusion deep within her features. “Here I am.” She said, her normally loud voice taking on a softer tone.

[Ellis Vaccari]

For the briefest of moments, Sam allowed Ellis to hold her gaze. The normally neutral girl still wore that defined concern in her eyes. But seconds later, the connection was severed. The moment, gone.

She felt a quick surge of relief when Sam walked towards her, bjt any remnants of that were replaced with confusion when she stopped. Such distance. Ellis dropped her gaze to the floor momentarily to take in just how much space was between them before she looked back up again.

Still; with concern.

Without hesitation, Ellis took those minor steps between them. She reached out, her gaze following her hand as she moved to curl growingly familiar dark locks around her fingers.

"Stop." She opted not to glance back at her eyes, despite the draw; "Alright?"

[Samantha Vaccari]

Sam was well aware of the distance between them. It didn't feel right. To be that close, but that far from her roommate. But she had stopped, and crossing that distance now felt impossible.

So when Ellis did so, Sam again looked at her counterpart, eyebrows raised. It was her turn to be confused. She, too, followed the blonde's hand as it reached towards her. A slow breath passed her lips as she felt now familiar fingers curl into her hair. She couldn't help but to lean into the touch.

“I can't.” Sam breathed, closing her eyes. Ellis's touch forced her features to soften. Her jaw to relax. Still, she couldn't hide her anger. “I just can't.” Slowly, she reached up, fingers trailing over the blonde's arm.

“I don't want to be... like this.”

[Ellis Vaccari]

The minimal point of contact this girl was offering Ellis was almost as captivating as the words she'd given. Moments ago, she'd made the point of leaving distance. Now, she was actively severing the thought.

Anger was a rare emotional discourse for the blonde, though not impossible. By now she registered the shift in her pulse's rhythm - the anxiety she felt was fading.

Like this. The phrase caught her more than anything else. There was a myriad of responses she could have given. Questions she could have asked. She shifted her gaze to try and catch her eyes again.

"Then why are you?" Ellis asked her. She could draw together a reason with ease, but she'd learned by now never to rely on such assumptions.

[Samantha Vaccari]

Sam kept her gaze focused on her own hand, watching as it traced along the blonde's arm. It drew idle patterns in the silence between them, lips pressed into a hard line.

But when Ellis spoke, her eyebrows furrowed together at the question, and she felt herself begin to tense again. “She just--” Her jaw clenched as she took in a short breath. “It bothered you.” She said, recalling the look on Ellis's expression when she walked in the door. “I don't like that. And then that little-- she just went and talked about you like--”

Again, the Boston girl stumbled over her words. She looked up, bringing her free hand to the blonde's cheek. Her thumb ran lightly across Ellis's cheekbone. “Like you weren't a person.” Sam studied her roommate's expression, waiting for the reaction. “Nobody should treat you like that.”

[Ellis Vaccari]

Ellis knew she should have expected such a response. The way Sam struggled to articulate the problem at hand was a more weighted fact than the actual words she offered. This was more difficult and more jarring than Ellis allowed herself to initially realise.

When she felt her hand pressed against her cheek, Ellis drew away from her hair, moving to run her fingertips across the Boston girl's arm instead.

"It's not new." Ellis replied, though as soon as the words left her mouth she knew she didn't make sense. "A new concept, I mean. It's not why I-" She stopped herself there. Ellis wasn't able to readily admit that she was upset, because it wasn't an accurate description.

With her free hand, she again moved to possess her keys, settling them in her palm as she kept her eyes on her roommate. She didn't need to look to find the familiar texture of her dorm room key. Slowly, Ellis curled her fingers around the hand pressed to her own face, drawing it away but refusing to let go as she turned away.

She made the move to unlock her door; "You care about me."

A statement, not a question.

[Samantha Vaccari]

“It doesn't matter if it's new or not.” Sam replied sharply. Angrily. If anything, the fact only added to the problem. Her shoulders tensed, gaze threatening to waver. “That's fucked.” Because it was. It was a problem for people who weren't observant, who didn't bother to even try.

It was a justifiable reason to be angry.

As Ellis cut herself off, the brunette only offered another look of confusion. There were so many ways that sentence could have ended. Instead, it just hung there. She opened her mouth, about to ask what Ellis was going to say. Even if the feeling of Ellis's fingers trailing across her arm pulled her focus, she still went to ask.

But the sound of keys forced her attention away from her own question, and Sam finally broke the imperative eye contact to look down at her roommate's hand. And there they were, a set of keys. Her fingers running over the metal in such a particular manner.

Sam's eyes widened slightly as she stared down at them, watching as Ellis unlocked her door. She couldn't stop the confused smile from tugging at her lips as she brought her gaze back up to the blonde. The Boston girl let out a breath in disbelief. “I do.” She knew her counterpart wasn't questioning her, but she still felt the need to confirm it.

[Ellis Vaccari]

As much as Ellis wanted to pull Sam’s response to pieces, she didn’t. She resisted the overwhelming urge to point out that it did matter. Being referred to or talked at in such a way the first time arguably had more impact than the second. Or the third. Or anything beyond the first. But she was learning to hold her tongue when it came to such arguments. Especially when she was working to keep the Boston girl calm, not give her more reasons to feel angry.

Of course, Ellis was aware of the fact that this girl had never been in her room before. As she unlocked the door and opened it, she offered a light tug to Sam’s hand, drawing her in after her. There, she closed the door behind them, listening for the audible click of the lock. She couldn’t talk. Not in that room. Not a place that was evidently so easily invaded.

Her room was nothing special. Nothing as extravagant as her seemingly peculiar behaviour might make it seem to be. It looked as if she’d barely moved in – little of real significance was out to see. A meticulously build computer at the desk. Grey bedding where she slept. The only thing of significant detail was the raw wood acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner. Everything else was as it was when she moved in. As it would likely stay,

But Ellis had kept her eyes on her the moment she’d closed the door behind her. As if finally, she could say something of importance. The confirmation of her words hadn’t been lost on the blonde girl, but she had nothing to say in response.

“People say certain things, and I can’t let it go.” Ellis started, immediately dropping her gaze as she shifted the set of keys between her hands. “If it’s an indirect question, or an inaccurately built concept. A string of thoughts without a process – a through line – I can’t.” Glancing up, she made a point of trying to catch her dark eyes. Her eyebrows raised a touch, eyes widened by an insignificant amount. Early signs of distress; “But she was here. And she wouldn’t answer me. She wouldn’t acknowledge that she could even hear a word I said. She didn’t answer a single question I asked.”

Taking a necessary step back, Ellis turned away and moved towards the desk in the corner. There, she settled her keys on the surface. But she held her hand against them, pressed down to the table. “The only time she acknowledged anything I said was when she, for some unannounced reason, attempted to point out that I potentially have an estranged sibling. One I’ve never known about. That she could be that person.” Pausing briefly, the blonde finally took the chance to breath. A slow inhale, a steady exhale. As if she willed herself to stop. But she knew she couldn’t. Leaving things unfinished was never her forte. “And it’s irrelevant that she didn’t mean it, it’s still an irrefutable – albeit unlikely – possibility. Because it happened once already.” Though the imperative confession had left her mouth, it was as if she didn’t register it. “I can’t dispute the potential presence of another unexpected sibling if it’s already happened. That fact easily raises the odds of repetition.” Finally, she drew her gaze away from her hand and she looked over at her.

Looking, but taking nothing in.

“She asked me how I knew. And I said I didn’t. Because I don’t. And that’s why I looked the way I did.” She added, retracting her hand from the table as she rolled her shoulders back. “Not because someone finds me inhuman, or felt the need to tell me I was broken.”

But still, she felt her features soften a touch at the thought – the relevant fact that for whatever reason, this girl felt the need to defend her against the concept. Because she didn’t know better. She didn’t know that she had been as much a problem as so many others; “You people force me to do so much, when I can’t. I don’t think the way you do.” Once started, it was difficult for the tattooed meta to stop her train of thought. It was also near impossible for her to register the connotations behind her own words. “I don’t bend. Perhaps I do just… Break.”

[Samantha Vaccari]

Although Ellis unlocked the door, Sam still wasn't sure how to react; there was still the possibility that Ellis wasn’t, in fact, inviting her in. Instead, the blonde simply could have been doing so without the intention of Sam following. But when the Boston girl felt the light pull of her hand, most of the anger cleared from her features, surprise taking over. However, she didn’t question it in fear that doing so would result in a change of mind. She squeezed Ellis’s hand lightly, following her inside.

Sam wasn’t sure what she would be expecting, but the practically vacant space certainly threw the brunette for a surprise. The space was tidy; neat because there was so little in it. Her dark eyes first landed on the desk, but she quickly caught sight of the acoustic guitar that captured her attention.

She never would have guessed that.

But her gaze broke from the instrument as Ellis began to speak. Her dark eyes turned to the blonde, watching how her gaze shifted to the keys in her hands. The brunette remained silent, listening carefully as her roommate explained, and even more carefully watching her features.

The signs of growing anxiety were clear to the Boston girl.

She pressed her lips into a definitive line. Sam knew this informational already – Just as Ellis needed to receive proper responses, she also needed to give them. To be able to give them. Still, hearing the blonde say it, watching the way her eyes widened just slightly, drove the point. She didn’t simply want it, she needed it.

And the fact that someone didn’t even try to understand that bothered Sam. She squeezed her hand, forming a fist before extending her fingers back out again, feeling her anger begin to build up again.

As Ellis walked to her desk, Sam took a couple of steps in her direction, unable to distance herself too much from the blonde. Still, she allowed Ellis a couple of feet of space, her gaze shifting to her hand, how it was pressed to the table. Even as Ellis continued to speak, she kept her gaze fixed to that point. Her eyebrows furrowed together at the statement, the confession. It was an immediate reaction before the words actually sunk in.

Sam’s eyes widened, unsure whether to be more shocked at the information or the fact that Ellis didn’t seem to be phased as it passed her lips. She looked up, seeing Ellis’s eyes, but not catching her gaze. It caused Sam to draw in a sharp breath, trying to keep her own gaze from wavering.

Broken. There was the word again. And again, Sam felt herself tense at it. She squared her shoulders, taking an imperative step forward and reaching for her roommate’s hand again. She opened her mouth, to argue that she didn’t break, but her mind got caught on another statement. Another word. “You people.” Sam was being categorized with the same person that broke into their dorm.

[Ellis Vaccari]

Ellis felt incredibly aware of the distance. Not long ago, it was Sam who seemed to require such a break. But as she stared back at her, she felt more than just the physical difference. She knew the way she looked at her had changed in a way she didn't want it to, but as it stood, she had little control of that.

She allowed her hand to be taken, her fingers intertwining with her roommate's on new found instinct. She thought keeping her distance would be more wise, but she couldn't deny the drive she felt to keep contact. To lean in.

But she didn’t; not when she said that, of all things.

"Don't do that." Ellis replied, reaching across with her free hand and curling her fingers around Sam's neck. There, she deftly recalled the way she'd once run her fingernails idly along the space. Through her hair. But in that moment, she simply held on. "Don't misread that."

Rather than trying to move her, Ellis moved inward, resting her forehead against hers as she closed her eyes. Contact was becoming increasingly imperative. "You were like that. You were... Berating and belittling and-" Pausing, she held her eyes shut tightly. She knew this wasn't going to be perceived well, but it was necessary. "Even when I couldn't- You tried to make me. And I let you."

[Samantha Vaccari]

Of everything that Ellis said, there was much to question. To respond to. Honestly, there was much more important things to respond to, and Sam knew that. Still, that particular statement threw the brunette. She needed an explanation. Something to prove that she was misunderstanding her roommate.

So when she felt Ellis's fingers curl around her neck, she found herself involuntarily relaxing into the contact. She closed her eyes, tilting her head towards her roommate's hand. The blonde's touch had a calming effect on Sam, and she even if she wanted to argue, she found her desire to do so slipping as she felt Ellis rest her forehead against her own, telling her not to misinterpret her words.

But her relaxed state was short-lived the moment Ellis explained further. Her eyes snapped open, trying to catch any physical cues from her counterpart. She felt her chest tighten at the words used to describe her, or rather, who she had been. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she pulled away, only enough so she could properly look at the blonde. “I didn't belittle you.” she stated immediately, sharply. “When?”

[Ellis Vaccari]

There was a brief moment where Ellis was sure she'd managed to settle the situation at hand. It would have been so much easier had she managed to keep her mouth shut, but that was never an option. She simply couldn't leave it as it was without a proper explanation.

She almost didn't let Sam draw back - it also would have been easy to hold her focus physically, but again, she couldn't. She let her slip away, knowing she wanted to look at her for whatever reason. But Ellis didn't look back. Rather, she took the choice as a physical cue within itself, and she pulled her hand away. She retracted her hand from hers and took a short step back, hitting the desk and using both hands to secure herself against it.

But she didn't open her eyes. "I asked you not to call me... That. I told you not to." Ellis started, dropping her head; "You still do."