Re: Garage: Elijah/Aubrey
Elijah lacked the precise certainty and understanding of what it was he did. He was sharp-minded enough to understand that experiments were possible. Presumably, he could arrive at the nearest hospital and test as many people he could 'cure' practically in one go, until he had clarity on what he could do and what he could not until he stopped. Presumably, he could also lurk in the woods under a fat moon and see how far nullification extended there.
But fear, as cold and sharp as cold salt water, blotted possibility out entirely. He knew, because he had been told, what he could do from a mother who had been beautifully mad by the time she had got to the point of telling him. She had thrown herself off the roof shortly afterward, which was as much experimental precedent and hypothesis proven that Elijah necessarily wished to have. Didn't touch people. Didn't disturb people. Stayed out of people's way and prayed (practically, to all deities there were and some that weren't) that people would oblige him by doing the same.
Was cold in the garage. It was numbing, it bleached the sensation out of Elijah's skin and left the tingling absence that was what he imagined, when he imagined, it was probably like. Had nothing to compare it to, but the sensation of snuffing out bellowed up against his rib-cage like his lungs expanding too far to breathe fully.
The man advanced. He gestured with the phone and Elijah took a quick but delicate side-step to dodge his approach and the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched as he looked at the phone, at the man, at the car, at the phone, at the man as if the man's approach were masked with a loaded gun he was waving about. Preferred guns to phones. (Hated guns).
He looked blankly at the man who talked again in prancing circles. The problem with loquaciousness was that people used a lot of words to say nothing at all. Didn't have any more understanding of what the man wanted than he had before he opened his mouth again. Still tires. Tires, and cashmere.
Elijah's hand twitched entirely off the counter when Aubrey's came down onto it. Habit. He held his hand close to his body, like it was hurt, or sore, or wounded.
"Tires," Elijah elucidated, very carefully and clearly with the blue-glass gaze fixed on Aubrey as if he were very small or very stupid, "It's a Range Rover, not a Humvee. Want specialty service, go to the other place. They do high-end." Elijah sounded dismissive. Cars were just parts, pieces, less-than organs. The other place administered the kind of love and devotion required by owners of high-priced chassis and ridiculous spray-jobs. Was thorough, here. Neat. Cheap.