Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

Tattoo

I'm woking up to knocking on my bedroom door and it flies open to reveal Ellie. I jump from fright on my bed and just look at Ellie with a questioning gaze.

"Hey can I talk to you?" Ellie breaths out.

"Well I don't think I have much of a choice now."

"Right... sorry?" Ellie gives me an awkward smile before she actually looks at my appearance and lets out a snort, "cute pj's" I look down at my boxer shorts and oversized t-shirt.

"I was sleeping!"

"Ok well I need to ask you something." I raise my eyebrow at Ellie and look at her expectantly, "I need you to finish my tattoo."

"Why?"

"Well Cat can't right now. She's also kinda not talking to me right now."

"It's her tattoo though. Why would you want me to take it over?" 

'I've seen some of your work that you did on Cat and you're good... you're also the only other person in town that knows how to tattoo."

"Wow you flatter me." I tell Ellie flatly.

"Please? Look Cat's mad at me right now and at this point I don't know if she will ever finish it."

"Why is she mad at you." Ellie doesn't reply as she looks away, "Ellie, why is she mad at you?"

"She's just being stupid right now. She's just jealous." I raise my eyebrows at Ellie and look at her to keep explaining, Ellie sighs, "She's jealous... of you."

"So you had the great idea of having me finish her tattoo for you?"

Ellie shrugs, "Well... yeah." I just stare at Ellie annoyed and she shifts uncomfortably, "Please? I really want you to finish it."

I sigh and fall back down onto my bed, "Fine. Just you have to get me the tattoo equipment and you have to get permission from Cat. She's your girlfriend and my friend. I'm not going behind her back like that." 

Ellie nods slowly, "Okay. Yeah, I can do that." She gives me a strained smile before she leaves my room. I keep my eyes trained on the spot she was just in. I give an involuntary sigh and move my eyes so they're at my ceiling instead.

"Have you talked to Lily recently?" Yara asks me while we're patrolling area 6. I keep my bow and arrow to my side while I whistle to the other pair.

I shrug at Yara, "A bit."

"Has she opened up about anything?"

I know she's asking if Lev has said anything about being well, Lev,  "I don't know. Have you heard anything?"

Yara shakes her head, "No."

"Just let them be. If they open up they will."

"Why are you referring to her like that?"

"Like what?"

"They. Them."

"I didn't notice."  Yara looks at me skeptically, but doesn't comment. I need to be careful on my wording. I don't want to say 'she' for Lev's sake, but I might have to so I can keep his secret safe for now. I don't know how Yara will react to it. My head whips to the other side where we heard the whistle signal for combat. Yara and I run over to the scene and hide behind cover. I take my bow and shoot at the wolves who came here. They shoot at me and it just misses my head. I jump back into cover and breath heavily, "May she guide me through the storm. May she keep me calm." I whisper with my eyes closed. I stay in cover, "May she guide me through the storm. May she keep me calm." I repeat. The sound of war surrounds me.

May she keep me calm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I open the door to see Ellie looking at me with a smile. A tattoo gun in her hand and ink. I raise my eyebrows at her in surprise. I'm surprised she found all the stuff since it's only been a few hours.

"Cat gave them to me." Ellie tells me.

"She did?"

"Yeah. She wasn't really happy about it, but she said she's okay with you finishing it." Ellie shrugs. I still feel conflicted with this, but I did say I would do it.

"Okay, fine. I can't do it in here so can we go to your place?" Ellie nods at me with a smile and we start to walk to her place. When we get there I start to set up the equipment and Ellie watches me.

"So I've seen Cat's design. Do you want me to stick with it or change it?"

"Uh well I was actually going to ask you to add something." Ellie says as she grabs her journal. She turns it to me I see a drawing of a moth. When I look closer I see it looks familiar, "I remember you drawing this moth." Ellie tells me.

"Yeah it was off of your guitar?"

"Yeah. Joel gave it to me, so I wanted to add it. And I like how you drew it."

I nod, "Okay yeah. I think I can do that. Here let me just sketch that on you quickly." I grab Ellie's arm and start to sketch the outline. When I finish it I show it to Ellie and she smiles at it and nods to me. I get out the tattoo gun and start to tattoo Ellie. She has a pretty good pain tolerance so she doesn't even flinch and she just watches me as I stay focused. The line work for the moth gets finished and I switch the needle to the shading needle. 

"Do you want me to play some music?" Ellie asks.

I stop and look at her, "Yeah sure, if you want." I keep doing the shading on Ellie's arm as she uses her free arm to get out her music box. She plays music and I keep working.

"You know you're really good for someone who doesn't have any tattoos."

"Yeah tattoos weren't really a thing where I'm from. It's also hard to have them at this time."

"You grew up in a very strict environment, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Do you miss it? Your religion, or your parents?"

I shrug and continue to do the shading, "Sometimes. They were very strict, and my mom was so... so faithful." Ellie doesn't reply so I keep going, "I still believe in my faith. At least how it was originally intended as." I sigh and stop the shading and look at Ellie, "It was nice though. Having something to believe in. Something to hope for."

Ellie smiles at me, "That does sound nice." Ellie and I just keep looking at each other until I shake my head and start to work on the shading again. Ellie keeps the conversation down so I can keep working. After a few hours I finish the shading. I grab some soap and a towel to clean the tattoo.

"Done." Ellie looks at her arm and smiles.

"This is so fucking cool Tate! Thank you." Ellie smiles at me and I give her a small nod. I watch Ellie as she examines the tattoo. I can't help but have a small smile on my face as I look at Ellie.

"Can you, uh, can you do me a favour?" I ask Ellie.

"Sure."

"Can you teach me guitar?"

"You want to learn?" I nod at Ellie and she gives me a smile, "Yeah, sure. We can start tomorrow? I would not but my arm kinda hurts like a bitch right now."

"Okay, sounds good." Ellie gives me a smile and I return it. I feel my heart start to beat faster than normal.

May she keep me calm.