devil inside

5th of July || Eli & Jackson

.jackson-selvaggio :

“It’s not my fault you were snoring every time I came in here,” Jackson tells him. The words are humorous, because Jackson had been in here more than he’d been anywhere else except for maybe his own bed those first few days. But it’s the next words that have him sitting up a little bit straighter, echoing his brother’s motions. Eli tells him that he can stop sitting there like he’s waiting for him to die and he lets out a slow breath.

“I lost track of you at Left Blank,” he tells him. They’d both known the other was there. He’d sat down with Ailie to enjoy the night and he’d tipped his chin at his brother, but hadn’t known if there was too much tension still between them. That maybe Eli just wanted to enjoy his night with his New York friends and Charlie. No place for a brother who he couldn’t even get along with anymore.

Then he’d gotten shot. And it all seemed idiotic. That they couldn’t get along, that they were playing any sort of politics with each other at all. That there wasn’t the very realistic possibility that the Initiative could claim either of them any day. And the he didn’t want the last interaction with his brother to be an uneasy tilt of his chin with so much distance between them. It was eye opening.

“And the next time I saw you, you’d left a pretty good bloodstain on the floor. Just like Cal. And I can’t do that again,” he shakes his head and it’s as simple as that. He’d been afraid Eli was going to go the way of Cal and neither one of them had he been able to say goodbye to. Just like their father, too. “So excuse me if I’m waiting for you to get better so we can get our shit together again.”

It’s too much, between the healing wound too close to his heart and the way his brother walked in here with bad jokes on his tongue that just make him think he was scared. Maybe that’s all it is looking back at him now, implied with every word he’s not saying and half the ones he’s finally offering him now. He wasn’t there, he didn’t see Cal die or half to try and drag his lifeless body home. But he’s not selfish enough to think that hadn’t left a void, that Jackson wasn’t terrified of feeling that all over again, and it’s stupid to think things were strained enough that they wouldn’t.

There’s no limit to the kind of vengeance he’d want to bring down on the Initiative if the situations were reversed. He might be tempted to run again, but first he’d flood every street with their blood and let himself forget what his hands looked like when they weren’t stained with red.

Instead it’s his own, and instead he’s left with enough pain in his chest and a quiet horror every time he closes his eyes that he won’t open them again. It’s only marginally better than the alternative, but it’s harder than it should be to pretend he’s unaffected, and for a moment he can only shake his head. His fingers run a path through hair that definitely needs washing, scraping at his scalp like he can claw that restlessness and frustration from his skin.

“No. I don’t fuckin’ excuse you.” He lets out a breath, ribs expanding and aching when he does, hands falling in his lap. “I don’t wanna have a bullet punched through my chest before I can fuckin’ talk to my brother again. I don’t want you to look like you just went five rounds with the Hulk, or Lia to have to risk her life just to drag my ass out of the line of fire. I’m not okay with any of that shit so you’re gonna have to excuse me if I can’t joke about it right now. And yeah. I know how rich that is coming from me.”

voices carry » eli & charlie

.runaway-hall :

All she wishes for now is a selfish act. But Eli’s hand in her own would prove an immeasurable comfort. She wouldn’t pray for the freedom and her peers or the death of the Corinthian. She would help see to that on her own. When he is out of darkness, she silently swears to throw her all into finding Ailie and the rest of them, breaking them free of the Initiative’s hold and putting another dent in their system. They dared to attack on her territory and it would not go unpunished. But, for now, all she wants is to be small and weak, holding Eli’s hand until she feels ready to unleash hell upon the Syndicate’s enemies.

They aren’t allowed that. Or rather, she isn’t. He could walk away at anytime while Charlie would always be a prisoner to this flesh. It’s unfair to trap Eli there as well. And yet he stays, using his thought to be last breath to swear to her that he loves her, a sweetness she doesn’t deserve. Because she couldn’t return that favor, couldn’t hold him when he aches just like he couldn’t touch her now as a comfort. There’s a blanket between them that feels more like an iron maiden, but it’s the best they can hope for. But it feels like relapse, it feels like the night before he ran away - the reason she worked so hard to gain control of her ability. It feels like losing him all over again.

Even if he swears he isn’t leaving her. Not this time, and there’s words echoing in her head of a dying man admitting he wants to stay. But perhaps all he meant was he wanted to stay on Earth. He wanted to live. Now with that freedom returned, she couldn’t say those affections are still the same. Maybe a living man couldn’t love her as aggressively as a dying one.

“Don’t blame yourself for that,” Charlie instructs quietly, “I know Nick wouldn’t.”

There’s a pause before a soft smile pulls at her lips. “Ryan might. But Nick wouldn’t.” But there’s more serious reasons for the injury to the man’s stomach that have her fingers splaying against the mattress like a substitute for comforting bare skin. “If it wasn’t him, it was going to be someone else. He’s alive. That’s enough.”

“I can blame myself for whatever I want.” The words are petty enough that they’re almost funny, but he can’t quite manage a smile in return, exhaustion weighing heavier on him now. That relief is preferable, the knowledge that they’re both alive, and so is the short list of other people he would take a bullet for. But he can’t stop that guilt and despair that haunts the edges of his thoughts, a thing he can’t fight off as easily when he’s been rendered as helpless as he is.

He doesn’t believe that weight is anything she can absolve him from, because he should’ve told the man to go home a while ago. They turned Los Angeles into a warzone, and he let him stay in the thick of it. Tied to one of the most dangerous men in the city, and probably one of the most wanted, or would be if they knew his name or his face. Instead they have his brother’s, and that’s been enough to set him on edge. But the potential of watching him get dragged away with a black bag over his head is less of a reality than someone putting a bullet through Nick’s stomach. A man who’s been close enough to family the last three years that he can’t suffer that loss again.

There’s still a dead kid he can’t forgive himself for, that black weight still pressing down on his shoulders, and probably always will. He can’t shed himself of his guilt, can’t get himself high enough or drown himself in enough bloodshed to ever make up for it. Some moments he just feels it with sharper clarity, even if he can’t make out the edges of his face anymore.

There’s the urge to pull her closer, to let his eyes close and find something like comfort in having her pressed against his side, like it’s days ago and she just invited him up to stay. Even if it’s just so the pads of his fingers can memorize every fate line. But her skin’s off limits, and so is she, a thing he’s trying harder to forget than he is to remember. Maybe if he pretends he never said the words, then he won’t have to remember how quickly she tried to silence them.

He tries to focus on the words she gives him now, and she’s not wrong. If it hadn’t been Nick, it could’ve been her, and just the thought of it kills the air in his lungs. It’s not a loss he thinks he could survive, and the relapse he’d suffered after Cal would’ve been child’s play compared to all the ways he’d find to destroy himself then. Or maybe it would’ve been Lia, and then maybe they both would’ve ended up bleeding out on the floor of the bar. All because she wouldn’t leave when he told her to, too stubborn and too loyal to leave him to die. If he’s grateful, it doesn’t change the thought that he’s a danger to anyone who stands too close to him. “That’s what I do, right? Get people killed.”

5th of July || Eli & Jackson

.jackson-selvaggio :

Jackson smirks at Eli’s defense towards the pony line. He was well aware it was his brother’s go to line, well aware Cal used to say it too because they’d gotten so used to each other. They’d picked up each others mannerisms and sayings, just like a true family did. There’d never been any question that they’d all been a true family.

He doesn’t say anything to the bullet hole leaving a hell of a scar on his brother. He’s sure it’s only adding to ones he already has. They all have them. There’s no doubt a gunshot scar will leave an ugly mess on his brother, but it’s better than the alternative. He’d rather his brother have a scar than a fatal wound he wouldn’t recover from. And it had almost happened that way. There’d not been a guarantee he’d be alright until a few days after he’d almost bled out in that bed.

“’Course I came in here to take a nap,” he says and even if it’s a joke, there’s the real possibility he might end up doing that. Especially if Eli falls asleep first. There’d be no reason to stay awake then and he’s too sore right now to get up and move a whole lot. “Why the hell else would I come in here?” He shifts a little bit in the chair, rolling his neck and positioning his arm so it’s less weight on the cast around his wrist. He tips his head back to look at Eli. It’s still unclear to him how much his brother’s been told and they don’t have a plan yet on what they’re going to do to get their people back, but things were just starting to settle down where they could start thinking about it.

“I assume someone’s filled you in about who we’re missing?”

His brother doesn’t say anything more about the hole in his chest, and he doesn’t know if he’s grateful for that or not. The silence is easier, ignoring that he almost died somehow safer than remembering what it felt like to lie on the floor of his father’s house feeling his life slip away. That kind of terror is a thing he’s only felt once in his life, watching the glassy eyed stare of Cal staring back up at him. He’d taken that bullet for Eli. Now he’d earned himself one of his own, and if it’s unfair that it didn’t kill him, no part of him really wants to die.

There are words he should say, some smartass comment about the bruises on his face or a happy birthday, but the way his brother came in here destroys them both. It’s exhausting keeping the smile on his face, the jokes ready on his tongue like there’s nothing wrong. It has his eyes closing for a moment, trying to tamp down every awful emotion that threatens to drown him.

When they open again he presses his hands against the mattress, trying to force himself into some kind of sitting position. The alternative makes him feel older than he is, and it’s little comfort that he isn’t the only one in the room looking at thirty anymore. His muscles protest, his chest aches, but he gets himself closer to upright, hands resting in his lap afterwards as he tries to suck in breath without letting that pain shatter him. It makes it take longer for the question to sink in, a dull nod of his head his only answer at first. He heard. He knows.

“Yeah. Charlie. Who actually comes in here to hang out with me. Unlike some people apparently.” His head lifts, focusing on his brother where he occupies too familiar a position. “I'm probably good now, you know. You can stop sitting there like you’re just waiting for me to die.”

voices carry » eli & charlie

.runaway-hall :

There’s something far more comforting about this, even if they aren’t touching. Even if it doesn’t resemble that night he requested she ask him to come up. Eli might’ve been hoping for a more physical encounter but perhaps they both accepted that simply each other’s presence had proven to be enough. Maybe that’s all they’ll ever have - a few stolen moments where she can touch him but the time limit constantly changes and she’ll never know when it’s up. They could settle close that night, fingers tracing the inside of palms and Eli played with her hands like a child might at discovering fingers exist. It felt like forever then. It felt like she had time to spare.

But there’s bedding sitting between them now, a blanket making it easier for him to hold onto her and her fingers covered with latex in case she does need to inspect the bullet wound. They don’t have time, even if that what she told him she wanted from him. Maybe he has time to give, but she doesn’t.

“Not going anywhere,” she swears, voice cracking from exhaustion and sadness. There’s no where else she’d rather be even if she could think of something to occupy her hands. And she might give over shifts to others who wanted to check on him so she could take a break to grab some food if she could muster up an appetite. But even if a task had been instructed of her, she doesn’t think she could do it. Leaving Eli is not an option.

Because even if he doesn’t truly love her like he confessed to, she loves him.

“I don’t know,” she tells him honestly about the missing member of the group, a few names on that list that they haven’t been able to locate yet, “Everyone has been instructed to meet here but a few haven’t shown. He hasn’t. Ailie.” That name is too difficult to say allowed and she stops with lips mashed into firm line. There’s an attempt to shrug it off that’s half-hearted, little ability to feign that she doesn’t care about the missing persons lists at all. If her biggest worry had been Eli, it didn’t stop others from sitting inside her skull with talons clinging to her brain.

For a moment, she buries her nose against the blankets, breathing deeply in that calming scent, that one of Eli that still clings there despite spending more time atop her own mattress than his. “Nick’s okay,” she finally states, changing a subject to someone she could at least see and could give a better update on.

The words aren’t a promise, no matter how much he’d like to pretend they are. It’s not the kind of confession he might hope for, it might not guarantee him anything but tonight, but he clings to it with selfish hands curving around her frame. There’s more armor than he ever wants separating them, but right now every second is more than he thinks he had the right to. He was dying. He felt it, blackness crowding his vision, knew it in his bones, and whatever stay of execution he was granted, he doesn’t know if there’s a better use for his hands than holding her now. And if he’s left with any regrets it’s that he’s still bound from something as simple as smoothing the hair from her face.

“Me neither.” The quiet answer might be more of a promise, but if he’s been reluctant to commit to a life here, he doesn’t see other options now. Not just for his father and his vengeance, but because at some point he crossed a line he can’t go back from. There’s nothing waiting for him in New York anymore. Nothing but an empty apartment, that life he tried to make for himself rendered an illusion he can’t cling to anymore. He can’t go back to fucking strangers or pretending he’s fine alone.

He can survive alone. But he doesn’t know if he would ever call himself fine or okay, not when all he’s left with is his guilt and his addictions. She might be the worst of them, but he doubts he’ll ever be able to get himself clean again. Not until she tells him to.

It hurts when a breath escapes him, in more ways than one. Not just the stretching of skin that reminds him of the ragged wound in his chest. That exists as a constant right now, every wrong move reminding him of a bullet punching a hole straight through him. But Rhys is gone, maybe Ailie, and they’re his people regardless of how close they stand. The girl’s too close to innocent to be in Initiative hands, and Rhys holds too much of his respect. “Shit.”

If he could he’d go after him now, start tearing apart the city to find out which rock they hid him over. But there are few guarantees he won’t bleed out before he sets foot over the threshold, and that kind of weakness is an awful thing, one he’s never had to live with before. His eyes close for a moment, fingers tracing idle patterns against the blanket, wishing he could pull that comfort straight from her skin. But she tries to offer him another kind, and he’s just as grateful for it. Nick’s okay. He might’ve dragged him into this, but at least he doesn’t have the weight of another dead brother on his soul. “Good. He shouldn’t’ve been there.”

#answered;#asks;#personal;

Do you feel you should have been better prepared for the attack?

“Sure. Next time I hit the bar I’ll be sure to wear a bulletproof vest.”

Will you ever tell Charlie you love her again?

“Why? So she can tell me to shut up again? Not that hard up for rejection, thanks.”

#answered;#asks;#personal;#charlie;

voices carry » eli & charlie

.runaway-hall :

A smile never appears on her lips at the attempt of a joke. Perhaps if it’d only been him that’d been hurt and no one went missing. Maybe if she could touch him with bare hands, run fingers through his hair as she swore to him that they’ll find their missing friends, that she loves him too. Only that is a promise that chokes her. Her brain rationalizes it quickly as the desperate words of a dying man because he couldn’t possibly love someone he couldn’t touch. Why would he bother? Especially when he’d been familiar with many beds that were not his own over the time that she’d known him. Any of those women could give him more.

And yet, he’s always returned to her in some aspect, whether to crash on her couch in a drunken daze or after years of radio silence on the east coast. Her eyes close slowly as the blanket is draped across her frame and the pressure of his hand sinks in. It’s so agonizingly familiar, a heat she’d grown too accustomed too knowing that it would be ripped away from her when they’d both need it most. But she smiles, something soft and quiet, only a flicker of the expression at all. But it’s there. Eli’s there, and that counts for something.

“I’m glad you’re okay too,” she confesses shakily, sniffing back more tears as the chokehold certain words have on her throat begins to loosen. “I’m really fucking glad you’re okay.”

There’s something like a laugh bouncing in her chest, a small glimmer of light in the darkest twenty four hours of her life. Charlie doesn’t flinch with each movement Eli makes, perhaps because everything he does is slow today, careful not to irritate a healing bullet wound. But this is a familiar place for them, fingers hovering over flesh with that heated temptation of simply what skin feels like on skin. Now his fingers hover over bandages like the mere proximity might erase the wound. He won’t touch her. He knows better.

“Rhys is among the missing,” she informs him, head settling comfortably against the pillow as her eyes drift to the white gauze covering his skin. The bandage work is a nice job. “Ryan helped out the most.”

The poor excuse for a joke doesn’t make her smile, but something does, and he doesn’t question it when it’s all he wants right now. Her next to him, warmth radiating off her skin even if he thinks he’ll burn himself if he tries to touch her right now. But he’s lost track of all the times he’s skated around those rules, and his hand curves around her frame to hold her a little tighter. That blanket serving as armor until it’s safe to touch her again. And it doesn’t occur to him this time that it won’t be.

Only that he doesn’t deserve it. He’s under no illusions that he ever has, and he can’t hate her for greeting his confessions with silence. There’s always been too much blood on his hands. This time it just happened to be his own, rendering weaker than he’s ever been in his life. It’s not a thing that can sit easily, and the only reason his breath flows so steadily in and out of his lungs now is because the people he cares most about managed to get themselves free.

It’s a selfish way to measure it, especially when he doesn’t know what the rest of the fallout looks like. He knows what the inside of the Tavern did, and if they tried to leave bodies behind he can’t believe his was the only one. It’s just not a question he’s ready to ask.

“Yeah?” There’s something quiet and hopeful echoed in his gaze, the words placed somewhere in his memory next to that I missed you he’s been holding onto.He’s not stupid enough to think she’s lying, not when she was waiting by his bed. And he doesn’t try and pretend that’s not exactly where he wants her. Even if right now that means gloves hiding her hands and a blanket between them. “Dunno about okay. I think you should stay and make sure.”

The cocky words sit easier on his tongue now, more than the taste of blood and terror as they threatened to drown him. It’s about how he always figured he’d go, but maybe he’d had himself convinced he could greet it with any kind of grace. Instead he’d scrambled desperately for something to hold him here, and he’d ended up following the red strings he thinks he tied to her fingers years ago.

“Bet she loved that.” The thoughts enough to put a smile on his lips, but it’s a short-lived thing when she gives him a name of one of the missing. “They have him? Rhys?”

5th of July || Eli & Jackson

.jackson-selvaggio :

“It’s not,” he says, though the lie is evident, at least to him. His tone and sense of humor had always been a little stunted, but he’d like to think that even after everything they’d been through, Eli could still recognize it as a joke. “I wanted a fucking pony.” It’s a line Eli’s used himself, he’s sure of it. Though the banter spewed between them was always hard to pinpoint which one of them started a joke first. It felt familiar and natural right now, something he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to do with his brother anymore.

Slouched in the chair, he eyes his brother. He’s looking better today than he had for the first few days. When it had been touch and go. They were healing and while they still had a long recovery, Jackson could start to feel that restlessness settling in. Like they needed to do something. Especially with a few of their own still missing. Taken. A few civilians too, some of which Jackson knew.

Leaning his head back, he settles in, eyes heavy because there’s still pain medication flowing in his system. It’s a sign that he doesn’t plan on leaving the chair any time soon. He’ll probably nap here for a while once his brother’s out again, but he’s not in a rush to get there. “How’s your bullet hole?” he asks, lifting his chin slightly at the words.

“Hey. That’s my line. Get your own.” His nose wrinkles in some mocking disgust, though it’s true enough. That had long been his only answer to the question, though Bruno had never followed through on it. Which was probably for the best. “Unoriginal fuck.”

It’s the best he can manage, far from a hundred percent and less willing or able to fake it. Humor had always been an easy fallback, and he clings to it now because it’s familiar and comfortable and nothing about this was. He’d been dying. There might still be a stain on the floorboards, but he hasn’t gotten far enough to see it. He hasn’t gotten much beyond the bathroom, and that in itself had been a trial some days. The world outside seems distant and far away, even knowing that they had people missing. Rhys, and that one had stung, because the man was on a short list of people he respected.

“Gonna leave a hell of a scar." He doesn’t know what else to say about it, whatever horror had swamped him when it happened shoved firmly to the back of his mind. Everyone was hurt or scared. It’s followed by a small shrug of his shoulders, a faint pulling at his muscles that mostly just feels tight today. He doesn’t ask who hooked him up with the regimen of antibiotics and painkillers, but there’s a reluctance to take the second. There’s a history of substance abuse that swears it might just lead to one more bad habit, but the hole in his chest screams louder sometimes.

“You better not’ve come in here just to take a nap.”

voices carry » eli & charlie

.runaway-hall :

It’s the last thing she wants and the last thing Eli deserves right now, but he offers her his comfort because he cares about her. Because he swore to her over the phone that he loved her, that he probably always has. It makes her feel selfish, that guilt sinking lower in her gut that she can’t even answer his question on what happened to Lia. He must move for her but her eyes are shut too tightly to block out tears she didn’t want him to see that all she catches is the hiss of pain.

It’s only then that Charlie moves, swiftly on her feet and hovering over him like she could help him in some capacity, and latex-covered hands suggest she can, even if the material makes her palms sweat. Eli eases himself back into a more relaxed position and she’s careful to tug the blanket away a bit more to check if blood has soaked through the bandage. But it doesn’t look as though he’s truly irritated the wound - just frustrated his healing skin.

“That’s not all that matters,” she states through clenched teeth as she sniffles back tears so they wouldn’t fall onto his chest, because perhaps today she’d learn they’re made of acid too. She gingerly tugs at the bandage, satisfied when nothing red sinks through and straightens her spine.

Suddenly, it’s a mistake to have attacked the Initiative, even if later she won’t believe that. Because they’ll always be in danger just because of their DNA. Each of them will experience another raid, another injury, another loss. Their greatest prayers can only be selfish ones - that this time they aren’t the ones buried six feet under, this time they aren’t the ones black-bagged. She shoves the heels of her palms against her eyes like she could erase the memory of Eli’s blood painting the wood floor a new shade of red.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats again, never clarifying what the apology is for because it could be because he’s hurt or even simply because she can’t stop these tears from falling. But it’s only the start of the war and there would be more nights like this. She doesn’t want to get used to that.

But there’s an invitation to take that all beside Eli. And if it’s still frightening to face, it’s a place she wants to belong even when her skin says she cannot. Kicking off her shoes, Charlie cautiously climbs into the bed, careful not to irritate Eli’s injury which causes her own discomfort in the pull of muscles in her arm. She winces quietly before settling beside him on the soft mattress, an expensive one and it feels like it. With arms tucked underneath her to keep them from Eli, she settles on her chest, cheek pressed against a different pillow as she watches him with all the attention of a child in awe.

After all, Eli lived.

And with a few deep breaths, she resolves to settle her nerves to grant him the conversation he needs. “Lia’s okay,” she answers finally, “A few people are still unaccounted for but Seamus is making house-calls now. How are you feeling?”

She’s quick to check on his bandages, though with enough caution to ensure she never makes any real contact with his skin. It’s a familiar game, but it had gotten so much easier to buy into the hope that it wasn’t one they’d have to play anymore. Every moment he’s stolen, every kiss or brush of fingers that he couldn’t have claimed from her years ago, right now they’re just as distant as they’ve ever been. But she settles next to him, and there’s something equally as familiar about pretending he doesn’t notice gloves or hoodie sleeves pulled down to keep them apart.

It’s no small relief when she ensures that his sister’s okay, and if it’s selfish that he doesn’t ask about more he’ll accept that title. He knows there are more he should be asking about, but his energy’s failing as quickly as it came, that constant ache in his chest a draining thing, and moving hadn’t done him any favors. It’s hard enough just to try and offer her a smile at the question.

“Like I’ve been shot.” It’s said with a familiar, dry sarcasm, as though it wasn’t one of the more terrifying moments of his life. Tomorrow it won’t be. It’ll be just one more scar, and he’ll try not to look at it and wonder why he’s still alive when it’s the same thing that had killed Cal.

For now he’s just careful when he shifts to give her space, the wound still too raw to risk more movement than that. It’s not until she settles that he says anything else, head tilting against the pillow to look over at her. He doesn’t want her apologies, uncertain what they’re even for, but especially not if it’s for her still being alive. “Alright, maybe it’s not the only thing, but it matters a lot.”

Eli has to stop himself there, because whatever else might follow sounds too much like dying confessions he’s already emptied into a bloodstained phone like some form of last rites. Only he hadn’t died, and now he can feel those words sitting between them in that space he doesn’t try to breach right now. He couldn’t take them back if he wanted to, some pacing monster settling in his chest the moment he’d admitted it to both of them. He’d put miles and years between them, and all it had done was leave him with more regrets and too many questions of what might’ve been.

Only they’re followed now by the cold realization that she hadn’t said them back. It matters less right now when she’s still settling in next to him, and there are a thousand other horrors to try and focus on. He doesn’t know who was hurt or killed in the fallout, who might’ve been taken, or what they’re going to do next. If he’s killed a Corinthian before, he’s in no shape to go after one now.

He’s hurt, his family’s hurt, and Charlie doesn’t love him back. He’ll take what comfort he can just from her presence next to him and deal with the rest when it comes.

His hand lifts, fingers hovering for a moment over the wound on her forehead that’s being held together with white tape. But there’s no healing grace in his fingers, just a regret that she’s hurt at all. If he could he’d try and quiet that pain, but he can recognize when her walls are up, and maybe it’s for a good reason. He settles himself for reaching down and tugging at his blanket instead, drawing it up over her waist before he rests his hand against the fabric. It’s close enough to holding her for now, and maybe close enough is the best he can ever hope for. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

#charlie;#aesthetic;#vanity;#photos;#personal;

elijah selvaggio + charlie hall (past) aesthetic

voices carry » eli & charlie

.runaway-hall :

He tries to to joke with her and perhaps on another day it would’ve worked. Charlie would’ve smiled, offered some sarcastic comment back but it takes all her willpower to keep her voice from cracking on the accusation that she thought he was dead, along with all her strength to keep her power from acting on, from items flying across the room and her body to be rendered untouchable. But it’s not different from now, when all she wants to do is kiss him, swear that if he could give her time then she could give him everything, every piece of her, pray so gratefully that he’s breathing. But one touch would only hurt him further and she can’t muster up the strength to take that one last leap and remove the gloves.

Charlie may not answer the sarcastic question on how her day went. Eli doesn’t need it. The evidence is a cut that might scar along her brow, a scrape from a bullet hidden behind a bandage around her bicep. Her mind feels separated from her body, two entities floating in exhaustion and this must be how cars in junkyards feel like. She’s waiting to be gutted of her more useful items and stripped of her metal; the rest of her tossed in the trash.

“Jackson’s alive, came in with Naomi and Seamus,” Charlie recounts the slight panic of when the trio burst through the door. But at least they’re alive and accounted for. “Nick got shot, but he’s gonna be okay I think. Ryan and I got him out.”

But recalling dragging the dead weight of Eli’s friend sparks fresh tears to her eyes, guilt a heavy weight upon her chest that puts pressure on her emotions to expose themselves. Her only defense is to try and breath a little more evenly, keep those abilities in line. But it’s days like this, where mere emotions could hurt someone that she thinks her life couldn’t be worth all this trouble.

“I’m so sorry, Eli,” she sniffs, head bowed in penance but mostly to hide her tears, “I should’ve gone back for you too. For everyone. I left you there.”

The answers are only so comforting when the best she can say about his brother is that he’s alive, and the thought that his friend took a bullet just for standing too close to him sits like dead weight in his stomach. He nods his head all the same, almost wishing it were harder to let his body settle back against the mattress. He’s not sure it would obey him anyway if he tried to force himself from his bed just to see they’re safe with his own eyes. But he has to ask, his sister too absent from that list, and the last he saw of her she was lying unconscious next to him. “Lia? Is she alright?”

He doesn’t know if she’s the one that’s responsible for the bandage around his chest, but he knows she’s the one responsible for his life. She hadn’t left him, despite his own orders, and if it might’ve been safer for her he can’t help but be grateful. He didn’t want to die, not really, even if he fully believes that all he’s capable of is destruction. It doesn’t change how selfish he is.

And his dying wish looks like it’s been granted, because it’s Charlie sitting in front of him now.

Only she ducks her head in the next moment, apologies spilling off her tongue that he doesn’t need. He doesn’t catch the glimmer of tears in her eyes, but he hears the way her voice fractures, and he’s quick to try and push himself upright just to get himself closer to her. “Hey, hey- ah, fuck.”

It’s a mistake, and he sucks air in between his tightly gritted teeth with a sharp hiss. It pulls at his muscles, nerves on fire and reminding him of the bullet that punched a hole straight through him. His hand’s quick to press against the wound, eyes shutting tightly as he forces himself back to stillness. The thought that follows is a shameful one, a quick and fleeting desire for something that’ll take the pain away, and he wonders if they’d even risk giving him anything.

The wave fades after a moment, and this time his motions are slower, forcing his eyes open and shaking his head. There’s an attempt at a smile, but it wears crookedly when it’s harder to force. “It’s okay. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

He stretches fingers out afterwards, tugging at the sheets next to him in invitation. “Come here.”

5th of July || Eli & Jackson

.jackson-selvaggio :

While the rest of the city had been celebrating the holiday the previous day, Jackson had been in and out of different parts of the Estate. Checking in on people, resting because his head still pounded to the drumming of his heartbeat. His face was a myriad of blacks and blues still. One arm was in a sling and he’d gotten a cast finally on his wrist. No hospitals, he’d decided. So he’d had a contact hook him up with a Veterinarian outside of the city. Late at night, after hours, with the promise of a returned favor in response to his silence about the matter.

Every day he’d been in to check on Eli, sometimes for hours. The few minutes he’d been in there yesterday with his brother, Eli had been asleep and he hadn’t bothered to wake him, taking the opportunity to get some much needed rest of his own. Today, however, he was happy to see Eli awake as he entered his room. He didn’t bother asking how he was doing or if he could come in. He simply headed over to a familiar chair he’d occupied those first couple of days after the attack and sat down, sinking low in it with his arm in a sling and stitches still in his face. Bruises a mask still across his skin, though the swelling of his eye was down.

“You missed my birthday,” he said, frown on his face but not for long, it still hurt too much to keep the look there. It was a childish, silly thing to say because they both knew Jackson didn’t celebrate birthdays unless it was Eli or Lia dragged him out for a drink. He shook his head like he was disappointed. “Thought this year would be different and I’d at least get a Happy Fucking Birthday,” he jokes. It’s humor when there’s nothing funny about this situation. But he doesn’t know how to say anything else right now, his thoughts still too scattered and that feeling of relief that Eli’s going to be okay still too fresh.

Eli’s concept of time had been fucked early on, unable to keep himself conscious for more than a few hours at a time. His body was worn and struggling to heal itself, and a conversation with Ryan had been enough to make it clear that she was most of the reason there was any blood left in his body. He’d tried to leave it all on the floor of his father’s house, and if that would’ve been a fitting way to go, it wasn’t anything he welcomed. He’d sworn a thousand times that he was too stubborn to die, but apparently there were just as many people too stubborn to let him.

Not that he was complaining. If he had any, it was the idea that he was all but confined to this bed, a thing that could only grate on him when he was conscious enough to realize it. He’d always been too reckless a soul, too active and too violent, and there was a dull awareness that he owed someone vengeance for this and couldn’t lift a finger to repay them.

The sound of footsteps has him opening his eyes, awake enough to hear someone come in, though it’s not until he focuses on his brother that it answers the question of whether it’s him or Charlie this time. But the words he greets him with just has a scoff escaping him. “Jesus. You miss your bitching quota without me conscious? I’m still here. That should be gift enough.”