Eli Pride is Elizabeth Bennet (hybristic) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-04-08 22:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | elizabeth bennet, viola |
Who: Eli and Preston
What: The next morning
Where: Reliquary
When: After Preston's Very Drunk Night
Warnings: None
Eli slipped out of bed early, and he didn’t wake the man who was sleeping heavily bedside him. He showered and dressed for the day in Julian’s room, and by five am he was opening the shop as he always did. He’d slept an hour, and he looks wan and tired in a grey t-shirt and jeans. Two coffees later, and guilt had settled in. He had been so determined not to take advantage of Preston, not to take something when the other man was vulnerable. But he’d given in, and his anger with himself grew as the sun rose higher in the sky.
By noon, Eli left Nana in charge of the counter, and he carried a croissant and coffee upstairs, along with two aspirins. He’d been bargaining with himself most of the morning - go up and see him after five customers, then after ten, then after fifteen - stretching the time as long as he could. His step on the stairs was uneven, and he knocked once before pushing open the bedroom door.
Preston was in the bathroom. He’d spent most of the morning in the bathroom, come to think of it, because it turns out you can’t just drink and drink and drink and not pay for it. (Alcohol is poison, who’d have thought?) He had been surprised and hurt to find the bed empty, but then he realized after he was sick the first time that all that clattering was customers downstairs, and that Eli must be working. Then, in between feeling disgustingly wretched, he felt really monumentally stupid. He had recollections that he wished were a lot fuzzier, and most of them had to do with him throwing himself at Eli several times. He recalled that at the beginning of the evening he had met Arrow, and after that he hadn’t actually wanted to leave the bathroom.
Preston’s stomach tried to force him to be sick again, but obviously there wasn’t anything left to throw up, so he just drank as much water from the tap as he could force himself to drink. He borrowed some clothes that were just slightly too small, and then fell back into the bed to try to fight off the headache. By the time Eli reappeared, Preston had recovered enough to turn over on his side in bed and scroll through the messages he’d sent the night previous. When the door opened, Preston rolled over and sat up quickly enough to incite a raging in the back of his head from the hangover. He tried to shrug tension from his shoulders without much success. “Hi,” was all he could think of.
Eli looked as tense as Preston’s shoulders, and he limped in and set the tray with the coffee and bread beside the bed, sitting on the edge after settling it on the nightstand. “I recommend the aspirin first,” he said, circles under his eyes dark and bruised looking. He looked Preston over for a long stretch of minutes, and then he looked away. “I am sorry about last evening. I realize you were not quite yourself,” he said.
Preston reached for the coffee and scalded his throat getting the aspirin down. In the silence, Preston stared down at a scorched spot on the carpet where he’d dropped the cigarette the previous evening, the coffee steaming gently between his fingers. When Eli finally spoke, Preston looked up as quickly as his aching head would allow. “That’s my fault. Don’t apologize. It was... very...” He had to cough to get going again, “...good of you to come get me. I don’t deserve it.”
“Don’t be a bloody daft pillock,” Eli said, shoulders relaxing a little and tone fond despite his words. He looked over at the other man. “You were quite persistent,” he said, guilt lingering around his eyes and in the creases near his lips. “We’ve never been formal with one another, and we’re hardly going to start now, Preston,” he added truthfully. “I can hardly control my temper, and I daresay I’m not going to start today. How do you feel?”
“Hungover,” Preston admitted, illustrating the point by letting his head hang too heavy off his shoulders. He avoided Eli’s gaze when he mentioned persistence. “I’m... I’m really sorry, Eli. I shouldn’t have come here and expected you to...” He trailed off, unable to really continue.
“Quit being so bloody apologetic,” Eli said, his own guilt and frustration coming through loudly in the sharp bite of the comment. He leaned his elbows on his knees and cupped his head in his hands. “I’ve slept an hour, and I’ve been working all morning. Perhaps you tell me why you drank you much you passed inebriated into something completely self-loathing, instead.”
“You should sleep--” Preston was quick to interrupt, at the mention of all the working, but he was overruled and then silenced by the last sentence. His breathing picked up and he leaned away, as if he wanted to find somewhere to hide nearby. “I... it was just a hard... few days. I’m having trouble dealing with... the things I felt and I’m worried that you and... and whoever else are remembering mine.” He was unable to stop himself from giving Eli an anxious, half-frightened look, worried about what he might see. Confirmation?
“I already told you what I had seen,” Eli said, but he didn’t honestly expect Preston to remember. The conversation he’d had with Preston on the matter involved much repetition, and he was increasingly certain Preston had not listened to anything that he’d said that day. “We all experienced the same thing, Preston, and I’m inclined to believe most of these memories were not identifiable without knowing the person in them.” He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.”We might as well accept the fact that our secrets are not secrets, and engaging in damaging behavior is not going to make the truth of it go away.”
“We didn’t all see the same thing,” Preston said, softly. It wasn’t that Preston hadn’t heard, it was that he’d been too distraught to understand, and not trusting enough to believe what he was told. He could not accept that his thoughts were not his own, nor that his secrets could not be secret. It took his whole psyche apart, and he didn’t want to admit it. He wasn’t going to start drinking habitually to cope, having seen what that did to even the best minds, but he realized he was going to have to come up with something, or he wasn’t going to be able to look anyone in the face. It was bad enough as it was--he was already looking away again.
It would have been easy to slip into an argument about ideals for Eli, about why they didn’t belong here, in this world. He held his tongue, though, and he didn’t argue the fact that, yes, they had all seen the same thing, at least on principle. “We all have secrets that were exposed,” he merely said, adding “some more dangerous than yours, I expect,” he said, thinking of the vigilantes he didn’t much care for. If the realization that Preston’s issues resolved entirely in the memories, and not in what had happened with Blake and himself, hurt him, he gave no indication of it.
Preston opened his mouth to say that Anton saw his ability, but he was no longer drunk, and he shut it once again a moment later. “You’re probably right.” He sipped at the coffee and fell silent, not sure what to say. He wanted to apologize again but perceived that probably would only make the awkwardness worse. He could talk about the mess with Rescue, how that had made it worse--but it wasn’t in Preston’s nature to make excuses. His tongue tied.
Eli watched him, and then he listened to him fall silent. “That’s all you have to say?” he asked, and it was clear he expected more. He didn’t wait for a reply, however, and he fished the cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, his gaze drawn to the burn in the carpet. “Your brother mentioned I vacation. I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” Preston said, trying helplessly to find something to say in response to the criticism. “An--They’ll find a way without me, I suppose.” Preston prayed for the aspirin to start working and followed Eli’s gaze to the burn a moment later. “What about you?” He was undeniably concerned, though he didn’t think he had a right to be, so the question was tentative.
“Shall I find a way without you?” Eli asked plainly.
Preston flinched. “I just mean...” He trailed off once again. Eli didn’t have someone to watch him, a Shiloh, as it were.
“You just mean...?” Eli repeated, his voice lifting at the end of the sentence, making it clear that it was a question, that Preston should continue.
“I just mean that... that I worry and you should take care.” Preston sighed, pressing his fingers into his forehead just above his nose.
Eli looked over, and the movement of his head was quick and sharp. “I do not want your concern, Preston. Have we slid back as far as all that?” he asked, hurt seeping into the words.
Preston recoiled, not a lot, but a little. “I’m not allowed to care what happens to you?”
“You sounded like a casual acquaintance sharing your concern,” Eli said, looking away and taking a drag off the cigarette, a long, slow drag and then pressing his fingers to his forehead, the cigarette precariously held between them. “Last evening, all of that, it was because of the memories and nothing more?” he asked.
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Preston said. “I don’t think we’re casual anything.” His fingers moved to the nape of his neck and tried to get the knots to uncoil. “‘All of that’?” Preston asked, wanting more clarification.
“Why you went on such a downward spiral. You went on a binge, and I would like to know precisely what precipitated it,” Eli said, and there was something beneath the words, something that indicated he was looking for something in the response.
“We... had that fight,” Preston began, tightening his fingers on the coffee cup and ignoring the tempting threads of cigarette smoke because his stomach hurt too much to contemplate it. “And I was... trying to get work done but... problems came up with--with the masks that I was working with. I found out... things from the experiences, so I quit, but... But the meeting didn’t go well. I’d had a few by then, when Shiloh found out, and then he called Anton...” There was so much pausing and trailing off here that Preston continually filled in gaps, each moment just compounding how much of an idiot he was, and how he was going to need to do a lot more in the way of apologizing. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to face anyone he knew.
The phrases were so short, so stilted, and with so much missing between the words that Eli couldn’t make it all clearly out. He turned to look a Preston, hips swiveled on the mattress, and he tried to remember the first phrase. Yes, the fight, and the next. “What problems came up?” Then, putting it together somewhat. “Preston, since when in bloody hell are you directly working with the Masks?” he asked, and he didn’t like it - it was obvious. “What meeting?”
“They didn’t trust me, and they traced all the equipment they gave me,” Preston said, realizing it made him sound like a foolish, very naive child. “I found out when one of the... experiences showed me, and I got angry, so I met with one of them because he said it wasn’t his fault.” He was anticipating angry disgust at this information, and hunched a little as he waited for it to come.
“Why were they giving you equipment in the first place?” Eli demanded, panic clearly rising in his voice.
“Someone went missing and they wanted some help with communication.”
“Someone went-” Eli stood, not finishing the repetition. He stood, and he paced, and he took longer, shallower drags on the cigarette between his fingers in an attempt to calm himself. An attempt which failed, and then he spun on the other man, nostrils flaring. “If someone went bloody missing, then you should not be taking their place!”
Preston watched him pace around, shifting his grip on the cup but otherwise avoiding movement. “There wasn’t anyone else available.”
“THAT IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE REASON TO BECOME INVOLVED!!” Eli yelled. Yelled loudly enough to be heard downstairs in the middle of the lunch rush. “Enough self-sacrificing, Preston. I mean it. This is done.”
Disturbed, Preston looked up and then at the door. “It wasn’t self-sacrificing. It was going to be perfectly safe.” Almost. Except for the risky meeting-in-person part. Then again he hadn’t looked like himself... until last night, anyway. Preston wet his lips, doing his best not to cringe. “They didn’t find out it was me until the--well, like you said, no secrets here,” he finished, bitterly.
“If they gave you equipment then they had the means to track you, Preston,” Eli said with frustrated disbelief. “You don’t ever take anything from strangers like that, love. Tracking devices can be embedded anywhere. Do you understand? I want you to stay away from these people.” He moved forward, and he tipped up Preston’s chin. “Do you understand? It is dangerous.”
Preston put a hand on Eli’s wrist. “They’re not strangers. Not all of them, anyway. Some of them are friends.” Eli knew very well how Preston got with people he cared about, and it tended to be all or nothing. He just didn’t have that many people he cared about, and it was like it all condensed into a certainty that he had to deserve the care in return. “I didn’t think he would do that,” Preston muttered.
Yes, well, Eli intended to have a small conversation with the Masks once this was through. “You’re steering clear of them for a time,” he said. A time, which would be long enough for him to threaten half of Seattle if they came near Preston again.
“The meeting didn’t go well,” Preston repeated, as if this might appease. His fingers loosened but didn’t unwind.
“I want your word, Preston,” Eli said, his worry for the delicately vulnerable man on the bed more evident in the plea for agreement than in anything he’d said since he’d walked in the door with the coffee.
A convulsive tightening of grip. “I can’t do that. If they ask me for help it will probably be very important. I was angry when I destroyed the equipment and they know I’m not willing.”
Eli started to argue, and then he stopped himself. It wouldn’t do any good, and he knew it; he’d simply find a way to get in touch with the Masks himself. After all, there was little question about who led them. The mention of equipment was interesting, however, and he realized he was going to go looking for it before he even decided fully. “When do you and Shiloh depart?” he asked instead.
Surprised. “I don’t know that it got that far in planning.” Preston gave a little tug to try to get Eli to sit down and, hopefully, calm down at the same time.
Eli gave into the tug, and he sat, his knee bumping the outside of Preston’s. “It should get that far in planning,” he said truthfully, looking over at the other man. “You’re falling apart, Preston, and it has nothing to do with me. I’ve no notion how to fix it.”
Preston just breathed for a minute, watching Eli’s eyes. His thoughts wandered; Eli had always had very intense eyes, and Preston had given way to anything they asked, even when his name had been Ash. He took a breath, a sharper one, to come back to the conversation. “I just need to handle it,” he said, reassuringly. “I’m sure there’s a way, I just need a little bit of time to... figure it out.” Like he just needed to find the right key to shove everything behind a door. Like that.
Eli noticed when Preston’s attention wandered, and he just waited for it to return, growing accustomed to Preston’s distraction. If he’d paid attention, he thought, he might have seen this all coming. But Preston had always been distracted by work, and after the last large fight Eli hadn’t pressed when he didn’t hear from him for long stretches at a time. If he had, he might have noticed this - whatever this was - happening. As it was, he felt like everything he said was barely making a dent in Preston’s thoughts, and he looked away a moment later. “It will be good for you,” he said, “getting away.”
Not thinking, distracted by demanding blue eyes that didn’t age, phantom ones from a boy that didn’t exist anymore, Preston touched Eli’s hair above his eyebrow. “Not from you.”
“I am nothing you want, love,” Eli said with a certainty found somewhere between last evening and that moment. “I am merely an afterthought, a blanket that brings you security and hardly makes it into your thoughts. I speak, and you don’t listen. You don’t ask after the things in my life. I am not what moves you,” he said.
The contact separated, and Preston’s hand fell back slowly through the air between them, as if in slow motion. “I was thinking of you just now,” he said, the lines between his brows deepening.
“I know,” Eli said, because he did. He leaned over and kissed Preston’s jaw once, just a rough brush of lips and then retreat.
Preston made as if to lean and follow the retreat, but he stopped, not wanting to cross a line. “You’re not an afterthought,” he said, a little horrified that Eli would think such a thing.
Eli smiled a sad smile, something soft and not as masculine as it should be on a face with such sharp cheekbones. “Where was I when I fell?” he asked. “Why was I there? Shall I got back further? Where is Isobel? Who took her? How did I find her? What am I working on for EIT? Where is Julian?” He cupped Preston’s cheek, and he stood. “I’ll drive you once you’re ready,” he said.
Preston’s mouth opened slightly and then closed. He didn’t know what to say. He never asked anyone for details like that. Not even Anton, or Poe, either, when it came to that. No one gave him details about their lives unless they wanted to, and he was always so careful not to pry, as if there was some boundary that he couldn’t cross less they push him angrily away. He thought that if there was something seriously wrong with anyone or anything that Eli would tell him, if he wanted to talk about it, and if he didn’t, he wasn’t right to ask. The lack of intimacy seemed, to him, normal.
He looked up at Eli with touches of hurt and bewilderment joining together into one behind his eyes, right before the headache. He nodded, just a little, and then dropped his eyes. “Alright.”