Who: Eli & Shiloh What: Coffee at Reliquary Where: Reliquary When: Saturday morning Warnings: None
He felt like shit. Of course, he could list off all the reasons he felt like shit, but Shiloh didn’t really feel up to doing that. He just wanted coffee, and the thought of trudging into any of the many Starbucks that dotted the corners of every city street made him nauseous. That, coupled with the headache that he still hadn’t shook off, led him to another coffee shop he had heard about, but had never visited. Reliquary.
It was late afternoon by the time he made his way there, the white clapboard house at odds with the image of the normal coffeehouse that Starbucks had made so common. He had to admit that it was nice, the quiet atmosphere dotted with the sounds of soft conversation, the smell of coffee, strong and black, lingering in the air. Shiloh almost regretted not cleaning up more before coming out this way, but there was only so much one could do in a museum bathroom. His clothes were rumpled, face scratchy with two days of growth, and his eyes bloodshot and tired. He’d just get his coffee, tuck into a corner and try to feel slightly more alive. That was his goal, at least, when he approached the counter and asked for the largest cup of the strongest blend the shop carried.
Eli was manning the counter when Shiloh came in, and his old habit of actually speaking to his customers meant he actually looked at the man across from him as he began taking his order. He recognized Shiloh immediately, even having only met him once in a dusty hallway looking at stained glass. This time, however, he didn’t immediately confuse the man with Preston. The differences were there, visible enough, now that he knew about Shiloh. And, so, he turned to get Shiloh’s drink without a word.
Once the coffee cup was filled - a real cup, porcelain and old fashioned - Eli asked his part-timer to man the counter, and he walked out from behind it with the coffee in his hand. “Come along,” he told Shiloh with an inclination of his head and a nod to the stairs. The man looked a bloody mess, and the fact that he was Preston’s brother made him a sort of extended family. The thought made Eli hesitate on the old, creaking stairs for just a moment as he thought of Isobel, who he had reported missing that morning, after finding no trace of her anywhere at all.
Eli pushed open to the room that doubled as EIT’s headquarters, and he held it open for Shiloh in wordless invitation.
It didn’t take much to get Shiloh to follow after Eli, up the stairs, creaking and full of stories of days gone past, since the man did have his cup of coffee. At this point, Shiloh would have likely followed him over a cliff just for a sip of the brew, especially if the scent wafting behind it was any indication of the enjoyment promised in that cup. His hand trailed up the railing, head still foggy as he gave a nod to Eli, though he paused once he was in the room, turning to look back towards him. He had just recognized the man as the one he had met at Thornewood, and he felt ashamed that it had taken him this long to acknowledge him.
“You’re the man from the castle, aren’t you?” Shiloh said, pushing a hand back through his hair, grimacing at how dirty he felt. “Sorry. I’m kind of out of it. Half-asleep.” Still hungover, though that was left unsaid. “You work here?”
Eli was fairly certain he could smell alcohol on Shiloh’s pores, and that it wasn’t sleep that plagued the other man. He considered, as he set the coffee down on the small bistro table near the window, calling Preston, because he felt rather certain Preston would want to know if his brother was in this condition. He didn’t do so immediately, though, and after a moment’s thought, he pulled out the chair opposite where he’d sat the drink down, and he took it for himself. “Eli, and I am. How have you been, Shiloh?” he asked, the question accompanied by a quirk of brow that said it would do little good to lie to him.
The seat was taken with a resigned look as Shiloh sunk down into it, curling his hands around the warm cup and bringing it to his lips for several careful sips. Shiloh sat like that for a long while before he sat the cup back down, eyes closed, the coffee already starting its magic on his tired body. Looking back towards Eli, Shiloh managed a small smile, turning the cup around between his hands. “Eli. That’s right. Sorry I forgot the name. And...” He trailed off, reading Eli’s look and resisting the urge to sugarcoat his current state of affairs.
“I’ve been better,” Shiloh confessed, taking another drink before leaning back in his chair, glancing out the window to their side. “I’ve been much better. How are you doing? It’s been a while since we’ve talked, hasn’t it?” Turn the conversation back towards the other man, off of him. Shiloh didn’t want to think about himself, his situation, and all the chaos that he was existing in.
Eli shook his head. “No, love, this conversation is not going to be about me. Care to tell me why you look like bloody arse?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and watching the other man with a carefully intelligent expression. “Has it something to do with your nephew?” he asked. “Preston told me what happened.”
Shiloh didn’t say anything for a long moment, slightly uncomfortable with how easily Eli kept the conversation right where he wanted it. “I look like hell because I’ve spent the last two nights drinking and then sleeping it off on the couch in my office.” A faint grin pulled at his lips then and he took another sip, shifting to look back out the window, releasing a breath that only relaxed some of the tension that rested in his bones.
“My son, actually,” Shiloh corrected him a moment later. “And yes. It appears I’m failing at something for the first time in my life. And it’s the first time that it’s actually been someone else I’m failing. A wonderful feeling, I’ll tell you. Everyone should experience it.” His gaze slid back over towards Eli, the smile fading from his lips as he sat the coffee cup down, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned forward, elbows resting against the tabletop.
Eli made a thoughtful sound at the confirmation that the boy, the one that had turned Preston into crying and memories, was Shiloh’s son, and he tilted his head to the side and regarded the other man. He had no idea what to do with children that were not Georgie’s age, and he wasn’t a very good family member (as matters with Isobel illustrated), but he could comprehend the guilt of failing someone you did not wish to fail. “You’re not going to care for my advice, but sometimes the only thing to do is apologize. Often, loudly, and hope they hear it often enough that they comprehend that you did not mean to hurt them,” he said. It was the tact he was taking with Preston and, he hoped, that someday it would work. “I warn you, however, that the guilt does not lesson merely because the apology has been accepted.”
Shiloh looked away at Eli’s advice, not completely discounting it, but it was, as Eli had said, not what he cared to hear. He wasn’t sure apologies were the way to go, wasn’t sure if the word ‘sorry’ could make up for nearly two decades of absence and ignorance. “I don’t think I could ever apologise enough,” he admitted after a moment, stretching his legs out beneath the table for a moment before he tried to relax.
“And even if he did accept it... I’m not cut out to be a dad. My dad wasn’t cut out to be a dad, so how the hell would I know what to do?” He spun the cup around between the palms of his hands, something to do to help calm the nerves. “You don’t allow smoking in here, do you?” Shiloh asked as an afterthought, though he hardly expected it. Few places did nowadays, but it was worth at least asking.
“Parenting, despite popular belief, is not inherent. You can be a perfectly good parent, never having had good parents of your own.” Eli knew little about Shiloh’s parents, and what he did know he did not care for. His jaw clenched enough to be impossible to ignore, and he had to fight to calm down again. “Did you know not about him until recently?” Eli asked, finally, making sense of the words Shiloh had just spoken.
The tensing of the jaw caught Shiloh’s eye, and he wondered what had brought that about. But he didn’t get a chance to ask before Eli coaxed the conversation along further, leading Shiloh to shake his head, gaze finding the window again at this uncomfortable turn in topic. “No. It... seems she was scared to come forward and tell me, thinking my parents would make her give up the child.” Shiloh let out a laugh then, shaking his head again in the negative.
“That’s the type of parents they were. The sort you were afraid of. The sort that... didn’t approve of anything unless it fit in their perfect little definition of normalcy. Hearing their son knocked up a dancer? Yeah, Lily was right to be afraid.” His lips pursed and he looked back towards Eli again, considering his next words.
“This is going to sound strange, but... have I met you elsewhere? Even before Hawthorne?” Shiloh asked, feeling some sort of nagging feeling, some memory chewing at him that he couldn’t quite put together.
Eli’s feelings about Preston’s parents didn’t take a more positive turn based on Shiloh’s description of them, and the fact that the other man hadn’t known about his child for so long went a long way to explain the trouble he was having. He would have made a comment along those lines, but then Shiloh was asking a question Eli didn’t much want to answer. He had wondered if Shiloh had remembered him, but the man had given no indication of it at the hotel. Eli had been fifteen when he’d seen Shiloh prior to coming to Seattle. It had been a long time, and Eli hadn’t been surprised not to be remembered, especially with his re-adoption of his surname.
“I believe you might remember me as Elijah Garden,” he said. “I knew Preston in high school. He was a few years ahead of me at the time,” he said, and he was tense, wondering how much Shiloh knew and trying to decide if he could duck a punch from the other man in time, should he opt to throw one.
Shiloh was quiet for a long while as he took in that name, trying to find the matching file that was stowed away in his memories. It was likely obvious when he found it with the way his eyes narrowed slightly, his very posture tensing up. “Oh.”
“You remember me, I see,” Eli said, sitting back. “I was fifteen and frightened, and I believe you were away at college,” was all he said to defend himself, because it was all he had, really.
There was a lot that Shiloh could say about what had happened, but was it his place to do so? No, not particularly. The crimes of children did not have to be rehashed against their grown up selves. “It... is what it is,” Shiloh finally said, taking another drink of coffee, something to wet a mouth that had gone suddenly dry. “And it’s hardly my business to get involved in. So.”
Shiloh left it at that, finishing off the last few sips of his coffee before placing the cup back down, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn’t know you back then, and from what I know about you now, you seem like a perfectly mature young man. So I’ll base my opinions on current knowledge.” He cracked a small smile. “You can relax.”
Eli chuckled despite himself. “You make it sound as if I was quite young. I assure you, Shiloh, we are, neither of us, quite young - not any longer.”
“You are younger than myself, so I’m allowed to say that.” Shiloh chuckled quietly, shaking his head as he leaned back, arms folding casually over his chest. “Ah, I didn’t sign up for such a complicated life when I moved here.” Another shake of his head and he glanced towards the window, his expression fading into something more somber. “I feel like I should be saying I’m getting too old for this stuff.”
“If I might make a suggestion?” Eli asked. “Go home. Take a shower, sleep off the alcohol in your system, and once your eyes are not quite so bloodshot, invite the boy to lunch.”
The suggestion was a valid one, but not one that Shiloh felt up to dealing with at that time. “I was planning on heading back to the office. I took too much time off this past week and I have things to catch up on. And... I feel like he might desire some space. If I go pestering him with a lunch invitation, I’ll probably just frighten him again. Apparently, I must be rather scary.” Shiloh let out a small laugh then, shaking his head in the negative before he slumped slightly in his seat.
“Please tell me I don’t look that bad,” he said quietly, lifting his eyes towards Eli.
Instead of answering, Eli stood. “Wait there a moment,” he said. “If I don’t call your brother, I don’t think he shall ever forgive me.”