Who: Eli and Preston What: A very depressing conversation Where: Preston's apartment When: Immediately after Preston returns from talking to Shiloh at the hospital Warnings: None
Preston came home late. This was not new, but in a blizzard, the white dark was cold and seemed to go on forever. He had been so distracted by the problem of Shiloh, and the place he had left him, that he’d gone around Bathos twice before realizing that the building simply didn’t look the same in all the snow. Between the slick tires of the car and the bobbing headlights, Preston’s head was spinning as he stumbled his way into the Bathos lobby, which, thank God, looked familiar. At first, he had the strangest spat of panic, but that was because he remembered his parents were coming, and he had made plans to avoid Bathos lobby and Shiloh’s apartment until they were gone--at least until worse things had pushed that from his mind.
Shaking his head at a child’s old thoughts, Preston tried to rub some feeling into his hands, which were numb to the bone. He stared at the elevator for a moment, and then decided not to risk it, mounting the stairs in a kind of vague trance, using muscles instead of mind. Outside his door, he searched his pockets for his keys. Instead he came out with his phone, which was in the wrong pocket, and after a glance at it (no word from Shiloh, not that he expected any) he shoved it back into the overcoat.
Eli was inside Preston’s apartment. He’d been expecting the other man for hours, and when Preston had not arrived Eli had let himself into his apartment via the kitchen window (a challenge with thick snow and ice on the escape). That had been years ago - or it felt like it - and he’d been pacing ever since. Pacing and smoking, and the smell of his unfiltered cigarettes rolled under the door and blanketed the hall in the unique scent. He’d had nothing to drink, however, because he didn’t trust himself to have this conversation drunk. Unfortunately, sobriety only meant the delay made him more agitated than he could have been.
When Eli heard the sound at the door, he crossed the hall and pulled it open, as if opening another person’s door from the inside was entirely normal. “Avoiding me?” he asked the man on the other side of the threshold, thinking only about his small little world and not realizing something else could be wrong.
Preston had not forgotten his fight with Eli. It was as if that conversation was ice under his feet, and he’d fought to stay upright in front of Shiloh, and then fought again to slide away before the snow piled up too deep. The smell of Eli reminded Preston that he was cold, as if the other man was warm enough for the contrast to get past the sharp tug of the nicotine craving lingering in wait. Preston’s eyes came up, and blue met blue in a look that was automatically defensive. “No. Believe it or not, it’s snowing.”
Preston stepped inside his own house, disregarding whether or not Eli planned to give way, and turned to shut the door behind him. He’d left his scarf at the hospital, and snow was melting down his collar and into his shirt.
Eli was not expecting the anger, which seemingly came out of nowhere. Yes, they’d argued, but he was not expecting this. His stance immediately changed - shoulders going straight, back rolling out, hands fisting at his side. “I see. Yes, of course, how could I miss that small fact?” he asked, immediately going on the defensive. “I was under the impression you were coming home. But, of course, the snow caused a delay of hours.” He didn’t believe him, and it was obvious he didn’t believe him. And having been burnt by Preston before, it made Eli even more defensive. “Or, rather, would you care to tell me the truth? A novel idea, I realize.”
Preston stepped slightly to the side, shoulder nudging high on Eli’s chest. He brought with him the scent of the blizzard that conquered stale cigarettes and any lingering hints of antiseptic from the hospital. He took his time, considering his answer, and shook his coat off with some difficulty. “Shiloh’s son is in the hospital. I stopped by.” There wasn’t any anger in the return; Preston was aware Eli didn’t mean anything really hurtful in the accusation, so he didn’t want to throw the information at him, bullet for blow. He brushed past him again for the living room sofa, but took a detour for the thermostat.
That sentence melted all Eli’s anger away, as if it had never been. He stopped mid-step, still a moment, and then he crossed to Preston and the thermostat in three, long steps. “What happened?” he asked, all concern, his own issues non-existent in that moment. “Is it serious? You said nothing,” he added, because he’d spoken to Preston hours ago, and the other man had said nothing about his nephew being injured. “Was it to do with the snow?” The news had been showing a raising fatality and injury count for the past two days, so it would hardly be surprising. He touched Preston’s back, and his hand slid around Preson’s waist, cigarette lost somewhere between the couch and the thermostat.
Without hesitation Preston turned and leaned into Eli’s arm. He didn’t touch him otherwise, nor had he done more than turn the dial up a few degrees before letting his hand drop. He shut his eyes and let his temple touch Eli’s in an unspoken question. Instead of voicing it he said, quietly, “Apparently he was on the plane that went down in the bay. Shiloh just mentioned it today. I wasn’t keeping it from you.” Though Shiloh’s involvement in the crash would go with Preston to his grave, unless the goddamn city tore it out of his head whole.
Eli had heard about the plane crash. Four hundred passengers and an accident that could not be explained. Wind, if memory served. He went quite still, unmoving, remembering a basement and Shiloh assisting him in catching a thief by calling up a strong wind. But no, that could hardly be him. The wind that crashed the plane was being attributed to the one they called the Weatherman, and Eli almost scoffed at himself for thinking a parent would intentionally harm their child in such a matter. “Is it serious, love? The injury?” he asked, knowing there was a question in Preston’s touch that had nothing to do with a plane crash, but that could wait.
When Eli didn’t push him away, Preston’s weight got heavier against Eli’s shoulder for a lingering moment.“Yes.” He didn’t say anything more, finding it unnecessary, and then moved away, unthinkingly pushing at the thermostat again to activate the heat on the way to his living room couch. He sat down in the leather, which was cold but would soon warm as he did. Preston reached for his lighter, which was under a pile of unopened mail.
Eli followed, but he didn't sit. He felt suddenly selfish, wanting to have a conversation about his own needs when Preston's nephew was injured. "Would you rather I leave?" he asked, watching Preston reach for the lighter.
“No. Have a seat.” Preston almost added ‘make yourself at home,’ just to be a jerk, but he changed his mind at the last minute and exhaled into the flame instead, making it waver before the red embers crawled up the end of the cigarette and Preston breathed out smoke toward the ceiling, not caring anymore what it stained. “I could have called, but if you weren’t waiting it would have been a bad idea, so I didn’t.” He turned to watch him in the half-light.
That made Eli angry (again), and he didn’t sit. “If I wasn’t waiting? What does that mean, precisely?”
“If you weren’t waiting,” Preston explained, passively, “then it would have sounded like I expected you too, which would have made you more angry, I imagine.” He scratched at one cheek with the same fingers that held the cigarette.
It would not have, and Eli was fairly certain he had never given the impression that he was not waiting, when he’d said he would be. He was also quite certain that he’d never not been there when Preston had required it of him. It hurt him, Preston’s words, and he tried to push down the anger that rose up to meet concern inside him. “And what have I done to give that impression?” he asked. “Or are you simply lashing out at me, because you can’t lash out at someone else?”
Preston’s hand paused against his cheek and then slowly lowered, trailing slips of white smoke. He hadn’t meant to hurt Eli with the comment. “I was just trying to avoid potential conflict. I didn’t want to assume...” Preston’s eyes slid slowly away as he tried to think of what he had meant to say before he’d begun the sentence. He couldn’t.
“Did not want to assume?” Eli asked. It was a demand couched as a question, and Eli looked none too pleased with it.
"...Anything," Preston finished, aware of how lame it sounded and not really caring.
“We’ve backpedaled that far, have we?” Eli asked, voice going too calm, too distant. “I see.”
That annoyed Preston. Eli always said 'we' when he meant 'you.' "What does that mean?" he demanded sharply.
“This distance you’re forcing between us. Has it to do with the dreams?” Eli asked, going back to that, going back to Anton.
Preston sat up straight angrily, casting a black look in Eli's direction. "I am not the one forcing distance. You are the one constantly bringing it up."
“This entire bloody conversation has been about forced distance. About you forcing distance.” Eli insisted, a wave of his arms, and then he was pacing again. He reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, and he lit one with angry-shaking fingers. “You’re constantly retreating, pulling back from me. Lying, not telling me things, the lot of it. Constantly.”
"You pry! You have to know every goddamn thing. Even if you don't really want to know, and all you do is get angry and stop listening to me. It is not a conversation! You ask me a question and then you ignore my answer!"
“I don’t bloody pry,” Eli insisted, pointing his now-lit cigarette at Preston. “I have to pull teeth to get you to share anything at all with me, and what you do share is so bloody anesthetized that it’s impossible to find the truth in it. Don’t think I don’t realize that, Preston. I’m not an idiot.”
Even Preston couldn’t deny the validity of that. He couldn’t trust Eli not to act against Shiloh if he said anything about the conversation at the hospital, and he definitely couldn’t trust him not to say anything to Anton. “Maybe because you overreact any time you do hear anything,” Preston replied, hedging. Last time I got a call from Anton asking why I had my friends screaming at him about being the Bat.”
“This is getting us bloody nowhere,” Eli said, and he walked over to the coffee table and angrily stubbed out his cigarette. “We don’t talk, Preston. You’ve this ideal life where we circle each other and share nothing. I would like to talk about my life, the things that matter to me, but you don’t ask. I’d like to discuss things that matter to you, but you don’t share them. This has nothing to do with Anton bloody Sparke, this,” he said, motioning to Preston and then back to himself. “Do, call me when you would actually like a relationship.” He turned toward the door.
Preston pushed numb fingers into one temple above his ear, hoping the headache would go away. “I ask. I asked about the shop. I did your damn taxes, for crissake.” Preston thought that doing taxes was sort of like stepping in front of a bullet for someone. It was a business perspective that probably wouldn’t go away.
“My taxes are not important!!” Eli insisted, frustrated, voice rising above the sound of the snow and hail beating at the windows. “I want to share life, Preston. Not bloody taxes!”
Preston was annoyed that taxes were such a minimal thing, but he knew enough to realize his own prejudice and pushed that aside. “What does that mean?” he demanded.
“It means you won’t discuss anything of import with me, Preston. Screw the fact that you’re in love with another man. That is, amazingly, secondary to this.” Eli had turned, hand on the doorknob.
Preston couldn’t believe the disparity between what he thought of intimacy and Eli’s. He stood up, too angry for the hurt to set in yet. “You know more about me than anyone besides my own brother, do you realize that?”
“What do I know?” Eli asked, hand still on the knob, attention entirely on the man across the room from him. “Tell me that. What do I know?”
“You know about how it was in school. You know about my family.” More than anyone else did, anyway. “You know about Poe, about my work. You know about the people I’ve been with before, and you know what I like and what I don’t like.” He wasn’t talking about the bedroom. Angrily, he jerked his hand to the side and dropped ash into an old coffee cup left cold.
“Yes, I know because I was there,” Eli said in response to the claim that he knew about Preston’s school and family. “I know about Poe because I was there, and I know about your work for the selfsame reason. What I don’t know, Preston, are the things I am not required to pry from you with my mere presence. You don’t tell me what you’re feeling, thinking, want. Nothing of import, if you can help it. And, in return, you do not ask about anything. Has it ever occurred to you that I might need to discuss things, to have your input and your advice? That I wish to come home and not hide everything that is happening beyond coffee and my preference in cigarettes?”
“You don’t have to hide things from me. There’s nothing stopping you from telling me whatever you want.” Preston didn’t like where this was heading. He now had something he couldn’t tell Eli, not ever, and it troubled him that he could not offer whatever dark secrets Eli wanted. For the most part Preston just wanted to appease Eli’s temper, but the way this was going that wasn’t likely to happen. There was the great physical distance between them, for example. When Eli was really angry he got closer, not farther away.
“Oh, yes, won’t that be lovely? Me telling you everything in my heart, all of my secret thoughts, the things I share with no one. And you telling me what soup you had for lunch, or what papers you filed that day?” Eli paced quicker, the distances shorter. “It’s not enough you love another man, no. You’ve a million things in your head you don’t say.” He pointed the cigarette accusingly. “Such as now. What is troubling you, Preston?”
“Maybe the fact that we’re arguing,” Preston retorted, not wanting to talk about his brother or the horrible thing he had done to his son and all the people that never got off that flight. Preston’s eyes turned away. He knew in his heart that Eli would ask him for this thing he could not now give. “And I told you that I love you, and you didn’t believe me. Why should I try to tell you anything else?”
“You told me that because I bloody well cornered you by demanding to know about the dream you had,” Eli insisted. He let go of the doorknob for a moment, cigarette still between his fingers. “Have you discussed this dream with Anton?” he asked, changing subjects quickly, as he was wont to do.
Preston wavered back, on the retreat already. “It was just a dream,” he said, belying obvious discomfort. “He doesn’t think it means anything.” Preston turned his chin up to the ceiling, as if dismissing the thought. “What do you care?”
“What do I care?” Eli asked, a disbelieving demand. “I was under the impression we were in a relationship, Preston.” Icy and distant. “Or was I mistaken?”
Preston knew that cold tone, and in a quick shift of approach, he leaned his weight forward instead of back, and took a couple steps toward Eli, reaching a hand out. “No. You weren’t.”
Eli glanced at that hand, and then he looked up at Preston’s face. “I am going to sleep off a million problems I’ve not shared with you, and I recommend you do the same,” he said, still distant, tired of arguing and not getting anywhere at all before Preston began giving in without compunction. “Do, please, promise me you won’t do anything self-destructive.”
Preston refused to give up immediately and he took a step forward to barely touch Eli’s forearm with his fingers. “You can talk to me. I’ve never betrayed that trust, have I?”
“It needs to go two ways, love,” Eli said, sounding hurt instead of angry for the first time in the conversation. “And you can’t love two men, not really, and I’ll always come second.” He was sure of that, too, as sure as he was of anything. He leaned forward, and he pressed his lips to Preston’s, kissing him hard, demanding in his own way. His hand slid over the other man’s cheek, and he stepped back. “I love no one save you.”
The kiss was reassuring, as Preston felt secure when he was needed, but the step back dispelled that sensation. He reached out and dug his fingers into Eli’s side, clinging to his shirt and pulling a little to keep him from retreating. “It can go two ways. What do you want to know?” He could talk around Shiloh, he was sure.
Eli reached down for Preston’s hands, and he unwound them from the fabric. “We fell right back into this without discussing any of our problems,” he said, sounding sad, sounding sorry. “Sleep. We’ll discuss it further tomorrow,” and he was intentionally buying distance. He knew that look on Preston’s face, knew the desperation in that touch. Whatever he said now, Preston would agree to, but not out of love, no, out of a need not to be left alone.
Preston didn’t want to be needy, but he also didn’t know how better to bridge the gap he’d made. Reluctantly he let Eli push his hands away, and Preston pulled his shoulders upright, reflecting that hurt and a sudden desolation. The keeping of secrets and the ensuing loneliness was a familiar thing. “I don’t think it will be any better tomorrow, Eli,” Preston said quietly.
Eli didn’t want to hear that, and he didn’t want to believe that. He leaned in, forehead against Preston’s. “We need to talk. Calmly. We can’t keep on like this, love,” he said, and he sounded like heartache when he said it. “If you’re in love with another man, one you’re willing to share things with, then you need to pursue that. And I need to be someone’s first choice, not their consolation prize.”
Preston brushed his lips over Eli’s eyebrow, but a second later, he pulled back, as if struck. “You are not a prize. Anton is nothing like you. What I feel is not the same, Eli.” He pulled his palms around Eli’s neck and pulled his eyes to his. “Why don’t you believe me?”
"Because I've seen no indication of it, Preston, and I've seen countless examples of your feelings for him. You're pulling away from me, a little more every day that passes," Eli said, voice hurt, pride shattered.
"No," Preston said, and then, with more strength, "no." It was only today, only Shiloh, that he did not want to discuss. His loyalty to his brother, however, would always come first, even though it would likely cost him dearly. "Today was just a bad day. Tomorrow will be better for us."
"This is not about today, Preston," Eli said, hand slipping to Preston's jaw as he stood back. "In saying that, you've minimized my concerns," he explained, voice gaining strength in that moment.
By his expression, that was not what Preston had meant to do, but he hadn’t any idea how to fix it. In the back of his mind, something dark and quiet whispered that maybe he wouldn’t be able to, and this was doomed from the start. “You’re really going to leave?” Preston asked, eyes pleading. “There’s nothing I can do?”
Eli began to turn again, began to leave, as if he was going to say nothing at all. Then, quietly. “Have I seen my sister, Preston? The one who recently crossed? Has anything happened recently with Isobel? The moral dilemma I told you I was having, did we ever discuss it?” He was making a point, of course, and he didn’t need to raise his voice or turn to the other man to make it.
“You said you didn’t want to see your sister.” Preston felt like this was a test he was failing. “I thought if you wanted to discuss those things you would bring them up.” Preston had no more than a handful of people that might potentially discuss private affairs with them, and he never pushed for information, not even from Anton. The opposite, in fact.
Eli had no idea how to make Preston understand. He didn’t even know where to begin. “Equally, I know nothing you’ve been going through as of late. Nothing, Preston.” He sounded like this was very dire indeed, more dire than cheating or being in love with someone else. “We’re not part of each other’s lives. We talk on occasion about inconsequential things, and we have sex, but that is all.” And perhaps he wanted Preston to argue with him about it, but he wasn’t counting on it.
“There’s just work,” Preston said, not because he actually thought anything he could do to save the situation, but out of foolish desperation. “And I just told you about my nephew, even after we just shouted at each other for an hour over the phone. There isn’t anything else.” And there hadn’t been, at least until ten minutes ago. “Can’t you just stay tonight? You said we could talk in the morning. Stay now.”
“And in the morning?” Eli asked, not turning. “What then?”
“Then I’ll ask you how you are, and we can... we can talk then. Please?”
“And why can’t we have that discussion now? Why in the morning? Because I’ll be lulled from sex, and we’ll both be in a hurry to get to our workplaces, and we won’t have time for it?” Eli shook his head. “No, love. I’ve fallen for that one too many times already.”
That hurt. Preston took a step back. “You make it sound like a trick.”
“Not intentional,” Eli said, looking over his shoulder at the man behind him. He looked hurt, tired, lonely. “I need more. Can you give it?” he asked, quite plain, quite honest.
Preston would give Eli anything he wanted to make the man stay, but the problem here was that he didn’t exactly know what the man wanted besides the secrets Preston couldn’t give him. Preston didn’t want to talk about Anton, and now he couldn’t talk about Shiloh. There wasn’t anyone else in his life, not really, and nothing besides work, which didn’t seem adequate. “If there’s something I can give you, I will,” Preston said, helplessly. “And I’ve never tried to deceive you into staying... or going.”
Eli came back, a flurry movement and then his lips were on Preston’s. “Figure out what you bloody want, Preston, then get back to me,” he said, pulling away again.
No, he wouldn’t let him retreat this time. Every time he left it felt like he wouldn’t ever come back again. A hard grip wrapped around Eli’s arm as he tried to go back to the door. “I told you that already. I want you to stay.”
Eli yanked his arm from Preston’s grip, though his blue eyes widened with something like surprise. He glanced down at Preston’s hand, and a smile tipped just the corner of his lips. Feeling, that was something, at least. “I’ll talk to you come morning.”
Preston didn’t believe him. The distrust mirrored back in his eyes, but he didn’t make another grab for Eli. He took a breath as if to say something but he didn’t manage it, in the end. The cigarette was now mostly ash, and, with a visible attempt to harden his features, Preston turned away for the couch, the ashtray, and probably another to replace it.
Eli watched him, and it was all he could do to remain where he was, grounded. He closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, and then he turned the doorknob and opened the door, slipping into the hall beyond with a herculean effort. This would either work or it wouldn’t, but he loved Preston enough to risk it.
Now alone, Preston dropped back on the couch. He abandoned the cigarette, but the lighter never made it to the replacement. He just turned it over in his fingers and stared blankly at the inky black screen Poe had watched a few weeks ago, wondering at his own reflection.