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Ellie Parker liked to think that everything was great. And it was, really. It was way better than it was three years ago, before Disventure Camp.
Before then she was a broke, overworked college student barely making ends meet with multiple horrible jobs. She had no leisure time, working almost every hour of the day, and even that wasn’t enough to fully pay for tuition. The show was her last ditch effort to get the money she needed to graduate, otherwise she would probably have had to pause her schooling, and if she did that, Ellie wasn’t sure she would go back.
Luckily, that didn’t happen. She went onto Disventure Camp, and got some money from that. Then she went on again, on All Stars, and made more money. She was launched into the fashion world after graduating, and immediately hired by a well paying label that really liked her work. She left New York City for Canada, and hadn’t looked back since. Ellie could safely say it was all thanks to the show, even though she didn’t win.
Though, there was another benefit besides the money. She had formed strong bonds with others, making friends like Gabby and Grett.
And she had fallen in love with Tess.
They had only been casual college friends before All Stars. Though Ellie would have had to have been stupid to not realize how nice Tess was, how beautiful, they only talked occasionally about school and art.
But All Stars changed all of that.
She saw Tess in a completely different light, as if the other girl were a whole new person. And Tess seemed to think the same about her. Sure, they saw the bad in each other, what money and television could do to a person, but they also saw the good- Tess saw Ellie’s passion, her love for what she did, and Ellie saw Tess’s caring, how she wanted to do what was right.
In the end, they got together naturally. Back at the Loser’s Motel after being eliminated, getting to spend time together and really get to know each other, it just made sense for the two of them to become a thing. They may not have gotten the million, but in the end, they had gotten each other.
Now, they’re still together. Living in Canada in a fairly nice apartment, they eat breakfast together every morning, before Tess leaves for the game design studio. Meanwhile, Ellie works on sketches and concepts at home. When the work day ends, they meet up at home and either prepare dinner or order in, usually watching a movie or playing a video game before they get tired and go to bed.
Currently, Ellie is in the stage of going to bed. It’s a Tuesday night, which means work for both of them the next day. Tess had already fallen asleep long ago, pressed against Ellie’s side and snoring gently. It brings Ellie lots of joy to see her girlfriend so peaceful. But it brings her dread to think about going to sleep.
She had been having nightmares lately. They were disruptive enough to wake her up, and sometimes it took her a while to go back to sleep. On one bad night, she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep at all, and just lay in bed awake for several hours. The rest of the day, she had been tired and cranky, and had almost sent the wrong file for a project due to exhaustion.
The nightmares were becoming a huge pain, disrupting her daily life. And it wasn’t just one recurring nightmare- they would change, from being about her time on Disventure Camp, to school, to her current job, to her past jobs, to brief experiences in her past-
The point was, the bad dreams were almost nightly, invasive, and an overall scrooge on her life. Ellie would do something about it, but she was saving her money for her and Tess to buy nice things, and she doubted that there really was a dream therapist anyways. She was basically stuck in her own mind.
Ellie shakes her head. She shouldn’t worry about the nightmares- otherwise, they’ll come easier.
She turns off the television, setting the remote onto the end table as quietly as she can. Then, she tucks herself into bed with the blanket up to her neck. Tess lets out a happy sigh, and readjusts to press herself closer to Ellie. She smiles, turning to wrap her arms around her girlfriend.
Shutting her eyes, Ellie tries to let herself peacefully drift off.
The smell of the woods overwhelms her, as she recoils. The sun is going down, and all she can think about is how she needs shelter. She’s running, running, but something tackles her and brings her down. Then it digs its teeth into her leg, and then someone else carries her, and then there’s the swing of a weapon and her leg comes off. She screams as the transformation begins, and everything becomes painful as her vision fades and-
Ellie shoots up in the darkness of the room, panting. Jerking her hands up to her face, she feels sweat and tears drip down to her chin. She takes a second to breath, bringing her knees up to press her face to them through the blankets.
She grits her teeth. She doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want to have nightmares. She just wants to sleep.
There’s a rustling beside her. Ellie looks over to see Tess starting to wake with a groan. She instantly feels bad- she didn’t want to wake up her girlfriend with her nightmares.
“Tess… go to sleep, babe. I’m sorry for waking you.” Ellie reaches over to pat Tess’s head.
Tess shakes her head.
“Don’t worry about it. You know I wake up easily.” She sits up sleepily and turns on the lamp on their nightstand, illuminating the room. The two of them take a moment to adjust to the sudden light.
“Now, can you tell me what’s the matter?” Tess asks.
“I just woke up. It’s nothing.” Ellie shakes her head.
“It can’t be just nothing. You’re shaking.” After Tess says that, Ellie looks down and realizes that it’s true, she is shaking. She hadn’t noticed before, but now that she has, she’s struggled to feel calm. Her breathing grows quick.
Tess notices this, and reaches down with her hands to clutch Ellie’s own in between them, squeezing reassuringly.
“Hey,” her girlfriend whispers. “It’s alright. You’re safe. You’re in your bedroom at home, with me. It’s okay.”
Ellie takes a deep breath, releasing all the tension in her chest.
“Thanks.” She smiles at Tess. “What would I do without you?”
Tess just laughs.
“Don’t say things like that. You’d be more than fine on your own.” Tess bumps their shoulders together. “Now, do you want to tell me what upset you?”
Ellie frowns. She knows she should discuss the dream with Tess, but it’s still fresh in her mind, and thinking about it causes her anxiety to flare back up.
“...Can we maybe go to the kitchen first?” Ellie asks meekly. “I want to talk about it, but… I want something to drink first.”
“Sure thing.” Tess nods. “No coffee though, alright? You still need to sleep after this.”
Tess sits up, gently pulling Ellie with her. Putting on her slippers, Tess leads the two of them through the darkness of the house into their apartment’s kitchen. It’s pretty small, but in a way that’s cozy. With a good amount of counter space and a small wooden table in the middle, it’s perfect for the two of them to eat alone or with a few friends. Ellie’s favorite part of the kitchen is how decorated it is; Tess likes to go to art markets, and without fail she’ll bring something back to wear or for the house. The kitchen is the prime example of this habit, with custom pots lining the window sills, a few watercolor paintings hung nicely on the wall, and little animal sculptures.
Ellie is urged to sit at the table as Tess rubs her shoulders. When Ellie gets comfortable, Tess goes off to their pantry, then their fridge, then the breadbox. While Ellie sits quietly at the table, counting the tiles on the floor, Tess slices bread to put in the toaster and then works on making chocolate milk, mixing the cocoa powder into the milk. Then, she puts the mug in the microwave. While that warms up, the toaster dings, and Tess quickly puts butter on the toast. She also sprinkles a bit on cinnamon onto it, which makes Ellie smiles- it’s something unusual that Ellie likes to eat, and even though Tess teases her about it, she’ll always prepare toast the way that Ellie wants.
A minute later and there’s a warm glass of chocolate milk and cinnamon toast in front of her. Tess also made herself a piece of toast, but only drinks water with it. Her kind smile encourages Ellie to eat, and she does, gratefully. The milk isn’t too cold or too warm, and it accompanies the toast nicely.
Faster than she had realized, Ellie finished the light meal, wiping her dirty mouth with her palm. Tess leans over to take her dishes and drag them over to her side.
“Now, Ellie.” Tess says, tone growing serious. “Mind telling me what upset you so much?”
“It was…” Despite the comfortable warmth now in her stomach, Ellie still feels unsure, embarrassed even. She knows Tess would never make her feel bad about this or make fun of her, but the part of her that feels the need to protect herself hesitates to share information like this with someone.
“Please? Tell me?” Tess once again clasps Ellie’s hand in between hers, resting them on the table. Ellie looks at where they’re joined, and she sighs.
“I had… a dream.” She says, blushing a bit. “A nightmare, actually.” She feels like a little kid, talking about how a bad dream woke her up. But Tess doesn’t look at her with any mockery or judgement, simply observing Ellie with a patient expression.
“It was about Disventure Camp. About the zombie challenge. The challenge began, and then I had to relive it. Getting bitten, getting my leg cut off, then transforming.” She shakes her head. “I’m sick of having that nightmare.”
“Do you only have nightmares about that specific challenge?” Tess asks.
“No. The nightmares change. Sometimes they’re about that challenge, sometimes they’re about other moments in Disventure Camp, sometimes they’re about my past shitty jobs.” Ellie shivers as she recalls the memory. “I even had one about grade school.”
“That sounds awful.” Tess frowns.
“That’s not even the worst part,” Ellie says angrily. “I have the nightmare, and usually I can get over what happened in the dream, because it happened to me before. But then the dream throws something else at me, or it causes me pain, and I wake up and I’m scared.”
Tess is quiet.
“I know it’s silly. A grown woman, scared of her own imagination.” Ellie huffs.
“No, it’s not silly.” Tess says firmly. “The dreams feel real to you, so they hurt you.”
“But they’re not actually real.” Ellie argues.
“Do you know that, when you’re in the dream?” Tess raises an eyebrow. “I’ve had dreams myself, you know. And I’ve had plenty of nightmares too. I know for a fact that in the moment, when a dream is happening, it feels like it’s real life.”
Ellie grits her teeth. She knows Tess is right, but she still can’t shake the shame.
“I… I know. I know it feels real.” She sighs. “But I just feel so bad about myself after them. Like… like I’m an adult woman just wallowing in a few sort of bad moments in the past.”
“Of course, I get that. But if it’s how you feel, then it’s how you feel. And you aren’t going to stop having these nightmares just because you think you’re too old to be having them.”
“I guess not. That sucks.” Ellie says. Tess smiles, before pulling her hands away. She gets up and moves to the other side of the table, dragging one of the chairs to sit right next to Ellie.
“How about this,” Tess says, in that sweet tone of voice Ellie loves. “I’m not sure if we can reduce the amount of nightmares that you get. At least, not overnight. But maybe if we talk about the nightmares specifically, you’ll start to become less afraid of them. Then when you have nightmares, they won’t hurt you as much.”
“I thought we did talk about the nightmare.”
“I mean in detail. Like, really nitpick it. Take it apart entirely.” A strand of hair falls over Tess’s face, and Ellie instinctively reaches up to brush it behind her ear. “Whenever I have bad thoughts, I pick them apart.”
“Really?” Ellie cups Tess’ cheek. “And it works?”
“Mhm. Like, a month ago, when you packed a bag to meet your boss, a small part of me thought you were leaving me.”
“But that’s ridiculous.” Ellie says. “I wouldn’t leave you, and if I did it wouldn’t be like that.”
“Well, that’s exactly it. When I thought about it for more than a second, I realized it made no sense. I dug into every detail, and concluded that I was just being anxious.” Tess nuzzles into Ellie’s hand. “My point is, that’s a good strategy. If you ignore the stuff that bothers you, even if you think that it doesn’t, it lingers in the back of your mind. If it lingers, it just comes back to hurt you. You have to get rid of it.”
Ellie looks at her girlfriend, and she takes a deep breath. She isn’t entirely sure she wants to talk about her dreams, especially not in depth. But Tess is the most emotionally intelligent person she knows, and that’s a big part of what attracted Ellie in the first place. The ginger knows she can be a bit naive when it comes to emotions, tending to not really see the bigger picture. She’s hurt a lot of people just because she simply didn’t understand why they felt a certain way.
But Tess is completely unlike her, able to see how people are feeling and do something about it. It’s no wonder that everyone likes her so much- she’s a really special person. So if she wants to try something out to help Ellie, who is Ellie to say no?
“Alright.” Ellie leans in to kiss Tess, gently. “We’ll try your thing.” Tess grins.
“Awesome.” She says. “Then why don’t you get tucked into bed? I’ll clean the plates.”
Ellie wants to insist on helping with the dishes, but Tess has a stubborn look on her face, so she concedes and goes to bed.
Her side isn’t warm anymore, but Tess’ is, so Ellie selfishly scoots over to the warm spot and soaks it in. Tess returns shortly, and giggles as she sees Ellie on her side. Then, she climbs into bed alongside her, and turns off the light.
They’re in the darkness now. Ellie’s heart beats quickly, a bit nervous. Tess suddenly wraps her arms around Ellie’s waist, adjusting her girlfriend so that she’s tucked directly underneath Tess’s chin. The closeness is comforting, and Ellie shuts her eyes.
“Now, about that zombie dream,” Tess says. “You got turned in it, right?”
‘Yeah. Well, I did get turned in the actual challenge, although it was only a virtual reality thing.”
“You got bit?”
“Yep.”
“So, they weren’t special zombies.”
“No, they were normal zombies. Like, slow and green and stuff.” Ellie giggles at the memory. “They were kind of silly looking. So was I when I turned into one.”
“You were cute!” Tess defends her. “I watched that episode. It actually made me want to join to show even more. The virtual reality seemed fun.”
“It was definitely interesting. I would’ve liked to live a little longer though. Maybe I could have won that challenge.” Ellie muses.
“Honestly, I suck at survival stuff. I would have died right away too.”
“If I protected you, we would have survived together.”
“It doesn’t matter if you protect me!” Tess giggles. “I’m a total clutz. I would have died somehow. Maybe I’d get bitten, or maybe I’d get shot by a six year old.”
Ellie starts to laugh then, a real laugh. When she thinks back on it, the whole situation was so ridiculous. A virtual reality challenge where they wore silly hats and fought zombies. The whole show was a joke, really- she was outsmarted by a child and a senior citizen. It should be painful thinking about it like that, but it was just so funny.
“There we go.” Tess laughs too, pulling Ellie in closer. “Now that you think about it, doesn’t it seem silly?”
Ellie pauses.
“Yeah,” she admits. “It feels like something that would make me laugh rather than be scary. Your technique worked.”
“Knew it would.” Tess says, feigning smugness.
“Oh, whatever.” Ellie presses her face into Tess’s neck. “I’ll be the right one next time.”
“Looking forward to it.”
There’s a moment of silence as the two of them lay together, hearts beating in sync.
“Hey, Tess?” Ellie says.
“Mhm?”
“Thank you. I mean it.” Ellie whispers. “I was scared to tell you about my nightmares, but you helped me a lot. Now, everything that bothered me doesn’t seem that scary anymore.”
“You’re welcome, my dear.” Tess presses a kiss to Ellie’s head, and she feels the smile against Tess’ lips. “I can’t promise you won’t have nightmares again, unfortunately. But, I can promise that I’ll be here for you if you do have them. At any hour of the night, come to me, and we can fight off the bad dreams together.”
Ellie grins.
“I love you.” She says with a yawn. Suddenly, she feels very drowsy. “I think I’m going to pass out. Night, Tess.”
“Goodnight Ellie,” Tess says, managing to pull them closer together still. “I love you too.”
Those words are the last thing that Ellie hears before she drifts into a restful sleep, free of any bad dreams or nightmares.