#thestalkerangel

[katmats]

It's been a while,

and I've almost become desensitized to the chaos that is this website. What gives? This is what I get for using different passwords with slight variations in them. Hooray for my backup e-mail?

I keep half-expecting some sort of notification to pop up on my screen, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting my social networking platforms mixed up.

Hi?

[katmats]

Memories of a life passed on.

Takes place way back when. Elijah takes Katie on a trip and meets an old friend of his.

Katie kept a firm hand on the steering wheel, her free one clasped in Elijah’s grasp as she gave him a reassuring squeeze, the pad of her thumb drawing idle circles on the crooked of his middle and index finger, her azure orbs curiously locked on the window. The brunette sighed inwardly and squirmed in her seat as she let her foot ease off the gas pedal, taking a quick left as she glanced at her boyfriend with a fleeting fixation, a thoughtful expression etched on the ivory panes of her face, though her eyes were knitted in a tight line, her lips curled to one of mute deliberation. Though Elijah hadn’t divulged where they would be going that would incidentally be able to tell her another piece of him—another story she’d gladly stick around to listen for, there was a momentary lurch in her stomach that had grown to apprehension, but eventually squandered to silent reflection, a partition between her irrational unease and contemplation occupying her thoughts for the time being. Katie pursed her lips and ran quick fingers through her tousled waves as she stepped idly at a stop sign, checking both roads before she ventured down the road, her eyes still repeatedly scanning the area for a sign, a store that would perhaps give her an inclination of where they were headed. With an exasperated sigh to herself that she had hoped the being that sat in her passenger seat hadn’t heard, she nodded, and inquired promptly, “Am I going the right way?” and added with a softer tone, “I don’t want to get lost,” she murmured, her fingers tensing on the steering wheel. The brunette once again glanced at the side view of the mirror, not wanting to look at Elijah directly in the eyes. The granite pavement that snaked through the outskirts of Toronto under the gloomy canvas of the sky, painted with dreadful blotches of grays and murky whites only reiterated the stillness that loomed above the two in the sleek car. “Are you okay?” Katie asked again after a brief moment, her eyes fixated on the road.

The iridescent blur beyond the sleek glass of the passenger window, though existing within a minute space of nothing more than a dreary, darkened haze of numerous smudges and strokes that when joined formed unfocused, incomprehensible shapes and angles, seemed to harbor the anchoring thoughts that were slowly seeping into the very fabric of Elijah's tender limbs, muddling the exasperated contents of his bloodstream. The detour was one of its own that plucked at the very filament that strung the raven-haired boy's being together in careless patchwork, frayed and thinning as the blackened pavement wore on beneath them, and registered in Eli's narrowed gaze as reduced flickers of light that thrived above the dulling nature of his eyes, nothing more than a foundation for such recollection to overwhelm his senses. Running his thumb along the curved slope of her palm in a similar gesture, Elijah didn't have to reevaluate his own fleeting sense of direction in order to assure Katie that she was in fact following the most efficient route to their destination, though he would make sure to have her make a rather unimportant stop along the way when the time came. "Four more lights on this street before a left," he answered in a neutral tone, a smooth, even stream of language that wasn't of his typical nature, but Eli didn't think much of his pending mood and hoped she wouldn't either. His thumb still moving against her skin, Eli nodded slowly, offering her a modest grin as if to express his current state in more reassuring terms. "I'm okay," he murmured, whatever hints of a smile that he had once withheld moments ago softening upon his face as he retreated his gaze the familiar scene beyond the passenger window.  The canopy of obscure grays and whites that clung to the shell of the sky provided a gleaming and incomprehensible blur against the crystals of Katie’s eyes, the barren surface of the atmosphere a blemish overhung the foreign streets with alien names as the brunette attempted to decipher the area and its implication to the boy beside her, to no avail. She gazed outside the uniform houses, each brick and segment of concrete that adorned each dwelling identical as the one before it, the homogeneous lawns and cars of similar colors distorted into an unfathomable whirlwind of color, swimming in Katie’s unknowing eyes. The dreary trees with their branches like bleeding veins lacked their leaves, their limbs naked and bare as they suspended above the cold pavement against the undressed canvas of the sky. Katie sighed again at Elijah’s impartial tone, noting his demeanor as he followed his instruction, a few more stoplights away from the street before taking a left. The brunette parted her lips to voice her muddled thoughts, though her counterparts dazed expression out the passenger window hinted at her not to push further, so she ended the conversation with a subtle ‘okay’ before she settled in the hushed stillness between the two, the blur of houses and streets plunging into an unfamiliar, indefinite smears of lackluster color. Katie swallowed and squirmed in her seat once again, readjusting her tender hold on Elijah’s hand before she maneuvered the car to a quick left, approaching a small divulge in the street, various independent shops among the litter of block and cement, a small flurry of silhouettes; small and large in the midst of it. She narrowed her eyes slightly and parked the car by a nearby lane nearby the plethora of stores and put the car in ‘park,’ gritting her teeth before glancing at the raven-haired boy across from her. “There,” she voiced aloud, adding, “What are we doing here?” She inquired, her voice softening as her curious azure eyes noted the glass windows of the various shops and boutiques, biting the inside of her cheeks as she contemplated the significance of such a location to the boy beside her.

Elijah took brief notes of the canopy of barren trees that littered the furthest extents of the blurring granite pavement beneath them, the grainy surface now smooth and residing beneath a thick layer of a lazy haze that an unfocused scope provided, Eli's emerald orbs tracing over the willowy appendages streaking the dreary sky overhead in stark slopes of unadorned branches instead. As they left any traces of a previous lone highway behind, the stretch of naked appendages, neglected in the former hints of Scarborough's wintery darkness, grew even more copious, speckling the architecture of the first town with its own unique stature amongst the flurry of uniform houses, all thriving beneath an identical palette of warmer browns and oranges despite the weather that dared to contrast it. A few entities other than their own were beginning to voice their own presence aloud within the scene beyond the two's physical means of comprehension, their roaming contributions to the canvas abroad riddling the town's still fixation, forcing their life and existences upon it. Pulling his critical gaze from the window's expanse to meet Katie's crystal glance, Elijah merely blinked elaborately at her inquiry, the unfazed expression scrawled into his features as if set in marble stone, unscathed and passive to what she could voice aloud beyond that moment. He held her eyes for several drawled seconds before squeezing her hand one final time, turning his body away from her probing questions as he pushed the passenger door open, leisurely stepping out of the sleek vehicle to request her to knowingly do the same inaudibly. Sighing, the extents of his limbs seeming to tremble along to his inner dread to be revisiting the true outskirts of his troubled mind, Elijah kicked at an insignificant crack in the granite pavement beneath his scuffed sneakers, wandering a few steps along the course of it before turning to offer Katie a beckoning open hand. 

Katie didn’t make an effort to veil a disconcerted expression that subjugated the understated panes of her ivory visage as her lips curled into a confounded outline, the folds of her lips tucking into half crescent moons that held back another probing question about the choice of location. Katie sighed and instead slouched her shoulders when Elijah had exited the car noiselessly, her unsatisfied orbs tracing the silhouette of his back and eyeing his shoulder blades before she leaned back in the leather seat. The brunette angled her head to the side, her sapphire eyes narrowing challengingly, though he wasn’t there to note it. With a click of her tongue and her arms thrown in the air before they harmlessly rested on her lap with an undisruptive gesture, she withdrew the keys in the ignition and twirled it in her fingers as her sneakers landed on the pavement with a single movement. Katie didn’t bother setting the alarm as she put the metal objects in the pocket of her jeans, advancing towards Elijah with an outstretched arm before clasping his hand in hers. The teeming buzz of conversation bubbled in Katie’s ears as a plethora of various discussions, laughter, and the buzz of nearby cars broke her from idle thought, her conical gaze landing on Elijah’s marble features, though he made no effort to speak. With a shrug, Katie inched closer to his frame, an attentive expression painted on her features as she gave him an encouraging grin as she followed his lead down the winding trail of finite pavement that housed various shops, the perceptible sound of their stride against the coarse pavement almost in unison as they did so.

Elijah led the interlocked beings, swimming within the other's settling aura that resembled the very scene that bore itself to their unfocused shifts in glance, uneven temperatures, the audible cue that their leisurely strides emitted from beneath their paced steps yet another muted pulsation coursing throughout the numerous realms of his stature. Tightening his clasp on Katie's hand at his side within the same shaky breath that bred the tightening in his throat, halting any further thoughts that were trickling up the barren walls of aforementioned orifice for the amount of time necessary to regain the hold that Elijah had once had on his own composure, he never once released his grip on her as they wove in between the occupied beings within their mix, their bubbly laughter and unknowing chatter registering to him several layers beneath his conscious mind. As soon as they had parted through the sudden stream of people littering their desired path, Eli slowed his pace to match Katie's own, gently squeezing her hand when she neared his side once more. Breaking his silence for the time being, he sighed softly. "We're in Scarborough for what it's worth," he murmured in a low voice, glancing her way as if to judge her reaction before continuing. 

Katie scrutinized her immediate environment, the hollow of the pavement and the meandering avenue beneath her watchful feet carried out calculatingly as her eyes leisurely examined the animated boutiques and independent shops that bore unidentifiable faces, an inexplicable smudge of silhouettes that didn’t register in her psyche. With a determined expression as if observing her surroundings with a more attentive eye would give her the answers that reared at the back of her mind, she was heaved out of her reflection as Elijah’s intentional, light tone settled to her awareness, causing her to direct her attention towards her boyfriend with a thoughtful expression. With a single, deliberate movement, Katie nodded once, taking his comment fully for what it offered as she didn’t question his words for the time being, a strangely solemn expression drawn on the features of her face as she glanced at her setting once more, wondering how this specific locale in the upbringing of the boy whom she had grown to adore. Though the atmosphere that skittered among the streets of Scarborough was meticulously lively despite the murky grays that teased the canvas of the sky, there seemed to be an ominous disposition that settled at the very core of Katie’s limbs that even she couldn’t overlook. The brunette parted her lips unhurriedly, a somber demeanor overtaking her aura as she asked gently, “Scarborough? What is this place’s importance to you?” Her tone of voice had taken one that of a much lower pitch as she momentarily fixated her azure orbs sideways, noting his manner.

Elijah ran the former hints of his tongue over the folds of his lips before parting them to speak absently, his gaze far from the spoken matter at hand as he craned his neck to make out the more distant approaching figures littering the course of the paved path where their unhurried strides resided, his emerald orbs catching on the familiar shell of a flower shop that he had visited far too many times in his own opinion, all resting upon an identical purpose. Tracing over the numerous chips of yellowing paint that clung to the wooden boards of the establishment somewhat contentedly, a modest grin plucking at the vast expanse of his curling mouth already, Eli merely shook his head at Katie's verbal curiosity, the smile trickling into the outskirts of his expanding facial features riddling the repetitive motion with its odd hues. "I'll show you later," he disregarded the introductory topic, although he knew that he would have to elaborate as time wore on that particular afternoon, opting for a quickened pace instead, the male finding the chilled surface of the door knob beneath his scarred palm before he had assured his rational half that this was in fact the correct building, adorned with bouquets that bore the more vibrant portions of the colour spectrum in its own appendages and outstretching limbs, lining the ledges of filmed windows and the outermost extents of the wavering building, seated upon the pavement at the couple's darkened feet. Glancing back at his counterpart as he twisted the knob with his free hand, the smooth gesture weaving into him holding the door open for her behind him as well, Eli offered her a slight squeeze of their interlocked hands before meekly tugging her behind his wandering figure within the store's bounds. "What's your favorite kind of flower?" Eli inquired, the lengths of his fingers curling around a single petal of a lily, the frayed tip, speckled in gracious spots of auburn, tickling the worn fabric of his ivory skin as he glanced over at the brunette nearing his side once more. 

Katie  scrutinized the edifice before her with curious, azure eyes that were narrowed like a cat’s as she noted the clear glass windows that enclosed what seemed to be a flower shop—she was able to distinguish the vibrant tinges of effervescent reds, yellows, and pinks that stemmed from fields of green in her line of vision before she read the sign that indicated she was correct. Katie pursed her lips for a moment more as she allowed Elijah to lead them in the building, her still inquisitive crystal orbs examining the exterior of the shop once more as if it’d give her a slight indication of the place’s location to her counterpart before noting the quaint chime of a bell overhead as they entered. The brunette shrugged her shoulders and inched closer towards the boy whom she still intertwined fingers with, her hushed gaze mapping out the store’s pathway, adorned with lively overabundance of flowers, buckets housing different families of blossoms as she moved sideways as they progressed deeper and deeper into the heart of the store. The atmosphere that had resided presently had taken on one that of a fleeting sense of cheeriness, the flowers somehow implementing a noiseless disposition of merriment as soon as Katie and Elijah had entered the environment. Katie gently tugged on a white petal of a bouquet of roses nearby, the supple surface of the flower tickling at the undersides of her thumb and index finger as she raised her head at her boyfriend’s inquiry. “White peonies,” she began, though there was a single eyebrow lifted from the contours of her face as she answered, not knowing why her choice of flowers were of interest to Eli, but continued on regardless, “They were esteemed flowers in China—they’re associated with high value, honor, and nobility,” she replied, a wave of her hand dismissing his question. The brunette lifted her head as if to find them, but shook her head, shrugging once more, a disconcerted expression drawn on the delicate panes of her face as her lips curled into an ‘o’ shape before she added, more softly, “It symbolizes romance and peace when in full bloom,” giving Eli a soft squeeze of his hand. Katie opened her mouth to speak once more, to ask the raven-haired boy who seemed to be engrossed in a particular bouquet before him (a lily, she deduced—the star-shaped flower and the recognizable center with delicate buds in its core), but noted the unusually thoughtful expression evident on his marble face and decided against it. “Lilies are pretty,” she remarked considerately, nodding her head so that her waves bounced at the sides of her face.

Elijah allowed his gentle caress to linger about the yellowing fabric of the lily petal for a few prolonged moments, running the pad of his thumb across the expanse of the silk tissue before lowering his hand to the illuminated base of the bouquet, the crinkling of the decorative wrapping somewhat muffled by his forming grip. "Ah," Eli articulated in an even voice in regards to Katie's answer of peonies, almost as if orally expressing his active participation in the conversation, though his glittering, emerald orbs were far from the spoken topic as he examined the bouquet with a careful eye. The amber petals, molded into a droplet-esque shape from the stretches of stamen that visually solidified the true core of the flowers, extended outwards towards the accompanying abundance and then curled inwards toward the green stem. The inner fabric of each petal were specked in bleeding, blurred patches of auburn and thrived upon a burnt orange sheen where the inner organs resided. Not able to find any apparent flaws after several short seconds, Elijah relaxed his hold on the collaborative stem of the bouquet, returning his full attention to his girlfriend's spoken words, though he still led the two towards the very heart of the shop in their leisurely pace while doing so. "What do they look like when they're in full bloom?" Elijah asked, a grin teasing his crooked mouth even more so, a lone corner of his lips curling upwards at Katie beside him. The two made their way around the corner and into the next impression of a conventional aisle, though much narrower than most and littered with the overgrown limbs of some that brushed past them as they walked, and Eli raised his eyebrows as he came across what he believed to be peonies, motioning towards the numerous bouquets, all bearing a different vibrant shade, with his own. "Show me," he requested, the smile stretching out across his facial features softening as his thumb grazed her palm once more. 

Katie carefully eyed the white peonies with a cautious and deliberate crystal gaze as it rested harmlessly in a bucket, diminutive folds of cream congregating at the center of the blossom before it broadened outwards in exquisite creases of silk, revealing the heart of the flower; faint yellow teasing at the inverted crown as small buds rested at the center. The delicate collapses of petals that comprised the fragile peony held her attention for a moment more before she directed her attention to Elijah, who had expected an answer. Though a flower shop of all places was the least expected and still provided no explanation for their trip overall, she made no effort to push and decided that the ultimate meaning (whatever it would be) of the trip would resurface eventually, and probing would have done either any good. With a shrug of the shoulders, the brunette articulated knowingly, “Typically, when you can see the heart of the flower,” her finger pointed at the center of a single peony in a bunch that had seemed to be in full bloom already, “And the insides are yellow, and the petals closest to the center have spaced evenly enough,” she continued, her fingers idly touching the underbelly of the flower, it’s silk fabric cool to the touch, “It’s in full bloom,” she concluded, her azure orbs still observing the yellow flowers in Elijah’s hand, the petals shaped as teardrops overhanging from its material wrap. Katie pulled her boyfriend’s frame closer to hers, giving him a small smile before she asked politely, “What occasion might yellow lilies call for?” She inquired, her cerulean orbs holding Eli’s jade ones. “Show me,” she echoed.

Elijah feigned a deeply perplexed expression as Katie gladly elaborated, drawing a single, slender finger against the collaborative scene of peonies in various stages of development before the couple's critiquing gaze, all the while adorned by the other breeds of flowers plucking at the furthest outskirts of their specific orientation within the display stand. The first glimpse he caught of a peony in full bloom, withholding every minute detail that Katie verbalized within its own stature, Elijah couldn't help but allow his thoughts to wander back to the correlation of her words to the symbolism that he was being graced with at that very moment, his emerald orbs following a similar unrestrained tune as he carefully traced over Katie's angled profile, the slight connotations of their flourishing romance not too far from the strokes that he left upon her face. Mirroring her movements against the silk fabric of the flower a few steady counts of breath following her own, Eli drew his fingers across the smooth surface of the petals, savoring the contact before claiming the collaborative stem, bound and wrapped in a similar material to the lilies, in his other newly released hand, devoid of Katie's embrace. Seemingly satisfied with his decisions, Elijah paused mid-autonomous stride to face the brunette, any hints of a smile that had once clung to his outer facade melting away, leaving the dark-haired boy with a particular thought process that he had been avoiding the entire afternoon looming over his head and a probing gaze that he couldn't disregard from his counterpart. The flashes of her once dark hair against a backdrop of a timeless scene, one of which that constantly hosted said thought process were engrained on the back of his closing eyelids as Elijah moved forward towards Katie, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips to momentarily satiating her longing for answers that he couldn't yet provide. Turning to face a withering old man that had seemed to have lingered about the frontal portion of the shop for their entire visit, the greater expanse of his skull barren, lacking any significant patches of hair, but the grin that struggled to make itself known underneath the numerous folds of spotted skin making up for it in an oddly endearing fashion, Elijah offered him a polite grin, exchanging greetings with him as he approached the occupied cash register with the bouquets in hand. Laughing slightly at the elder's hurried motions as he inquired about the breed, fixated away from the two bouquets, Elijah was quick to continue his spoken thoughts, "White peonies and yellow lillies--a dozen each, I believe," he articulated, reaching into his back pant pocket for his wallet as he glanced back at Katie, offering his hand to her once more. 

Katie elevated a single, lone eyebrow that protruded from its original fixated position on the delicate panes of her face, her cerulean orbs curiously dissecting Elijah’s demeanor once he had taken the bouquet of cream-colored peonies from its home and grasping it carefully in his hands. There was a disconcerted expression painted on her lips, her crystal gaze shifting from the silk peonies in his hand and the yellow lilies in the other, her mind calculating the possible significance of the latter, and drawing up a blank. The brunette mentally computed the couple’s entrance in the flower store, realizing that her counterpart most likely already had the intention of the yellow lilies—the manner in which Elijah had approached them wasn’t by mere coincidence. She shook her head jadedly and followed his lead; she paused her stance mid-stride when he angled his body towards her, an odd expression evident in the color of his eyes, and though he pressed a modest kiss to her lips, his thoughts seemed to be somewhere else. Katie blinked and nodded slowly, waving her hands in the air facetiously at her previous inquiry, knowing he wouldn’t tell her until he felt it was right. She rubbed her arms absentmindedly as she noiselessly trailed her boyfriend’s lead towards the crown of the flower shop, giving the owner a meek smile as he rang up the bouquet of flowers in Eli’s hands.  The brunette glanced at the ostensibly barren street outside--though there were various silhouettes passing through the partition of the frame of the glass windows, she noted the murky smears caressing the gloomy canvas of the sky, as it had gotten noticeably darker than it had been formerly. Katie bit the inside of her cheeks as she craned her head towards the direction of the light conversation between the florist and her boyfriend, not hesitating as she once again tenderly clasped hands with him as she lightly caressed the base of his thumb with hers, a docile appearance drawn on her features as she commented shyly, “You didn’t have to get me the peonies, you know,” her face hiding in the crooked of his shoulders so that he couldn’t see her expression. “Thank you,” she murmured, giving him a kiss on his cheek as she eyed the silk flowers on the counter, her crystal orbs fixated on the golden blossoms in the paper bag. Katie once again gave the florist a polite smile and directed her attention on Elijah as he effortlessly carried the carrier of flowers in his free grasp. “Where to?” She asked gently, her frame inching towards his once again, noting the distance conveyed in his emerald fixation as they walked out the store, hands once again interlocked.

Elijah merely maneuvered the tightening mass of his jaws against Katie's gentle embrace to flash the florist a polite smile as their exchanged drew to a close, raising the outermost extents of his loitering fingers to loosely grasp onto the carrier's bounds before curling them into his palms in a much more secure hold, turning away from the crown of the flower shop with Katie's hand still enclosed in his own. "You're welcome, love," Eli softly returned, bracing his forearm, clad in a bunched portion of his dark shirt, against the propped door as it wavered from its initial position, allowing Katie to momentarily lead the couple back out onto the street before closing the door behind them in faint memory of the impending cold. Nibbling on the inner tissue of his cheek in contemplative thought, the visions of her hair curling against the most fleeting of backdrops still plaguing the most insignificant aspects of his thought process, Elijah directed his attention towards Katie's seemingly passive demeanor, having disregarded all of his previous attempts of avoiding their ultimate destination from all angles. Not wanting to deprive her any further, Elijah shrugged, still tugging at the rosy fabric with his teeth. "We're going to Pine Hills. Do you know what that is?" He added curiously, catching a minute glimpse of the lilies at his side, much to his dismay. Not waiting for a reply, Elijah led her down the remainder of the granite pavement, never once hesitating within a single stride as he guided the two into the more barren heart of the town where the canvas of a sky overhead only seemed to darken, rippled with the greyest of hues. 

Katie deviated her crystal orbs towards the shadowy smears of gray that dawdled on the awning that loomed above them, the ancient sandstone beneath their feet parallel to the lack of color above, causing an ominous mood to settle at the core of her limbs.  Exhaling air through her mouth and giving Elijah a supportive squeeze of his hand as they progressed down the course of the pavement, the brunette continued to survey her environment with meticulous gaze, every now and then glancing to her side to note her boyfriend’s demeanor. Though Katie paraded a flippant exterior, her inner thoughts seemed to exude one that of an unremitting buzz of incomprehensible thoughts—where were the going, and what was the connotation of the flowers that seemed to have bore more importance than they let on? Why weren’t they walking towards the car, and instead, away from it? Katie bit the tissue of the walls of her cheeks; her nose wrinkled as she pondered the possibilities of the day’s events, and once again drew a blank. The brunette opened her mouth to speak, but Elijah’s harmless inquiry caused her to pause, her dark eyebrows knitting in a firm line as she contemplated their destination—Pine Hills. Katie repeated the site a few times in her mind before she concluded with tangible definiteness that she didn’t know of it, or the magnitude it seemed to have held. Licking her lips slowly, she replied cautiously,” No,” she shook her head unhurriedly, her mouth drawing out the vowel with a precise feat, “I don’t. What’s at Pine Hills?” She asked guardedly, her gaze noting minute changes in his expression.

Elijah wasn't surprised to hear that she had never heard of the specific location until he had cared to mention it, a muted stream of what resembled relief trickling into the contents of his veins as he relaxed his increasingly tense, though masked in a neutral facade to an untrained eye, stature within her grasp, settling into the fibers of his being for as long as he could possibly hold onto the change in demeanor. While he watched the distant hints of greying sky ripple with outlandish streaks of accentuating purples and blues where the lack of saturation hadn't yet reached the surface of the canvas, briefly noting how the outstretched limbs of barren trees that littered the cracking pavement contrasted the collective scene above, bringing out the more unapparent patches of color that constantly went unnoticed without a stark aspect to differentiate the collaborative atmosphere. Pondering aloud a response to her cautious inquiry in return to his own, Elijah ran his thumb across the smooth course of her hand, his emerald orbs shifting to fixate on the speck of a cross in the distance, the center of the intersection adorned in a thick ring of stone against the surface of the sky. "Everything," he answered simply, though conscious of how his reply would still bear no obvious value to her in the moments that followed, but Eli squeezed her hand enclosed in his own encouragingly anyway as they continued their pace towards the growing figure in the distance. "I want you to meet someone," he added somewhat somberly, the expression etched into his set facial features softening as he glanced towards his counterpart, judging her reaction to his words. 

Katie tapered her cerulean orbs together so that her expression bore one comparable to that of a feline’s, her fixation still directed at Elijah for a moment’s more before she shrugged, and raised a rogue eyebrow when he had indicated they were going to meet someone. She appeased her expression slightly and grazed the curvature of her nail across the flesh of her counterpart’s patch of skin uncertainly, and shook a foreboding sentiment that laced the air, an unseen force that she couldn’t evade. Katie assessed the immediate area once more, the granite roadway elongating farther down the street from what she noted as the canopy of muddled shades of indistinct blues, purples, and blacks swirled in an impenetrable blur, making it difficult to decipher where one flush of color started and the other began. Katie and Elijah’s steps were nearly in unison as their steps battered evenly on the sidewalk, and though there was a moment of stillness that dawned amid the couple, she felt as if the two were residing in an undisclosed disc of silent understanding, and although she didn’t recognize the proceedings that were unfolding before her, a response that settled in the pit of her stomach told her that she would soon. Shivering as she bit her bottom lip in deliberation, she chatted cautiously, “Tell me about them,” and focused her vision at the fragment of what seemed to be perhaps an edifice they seemed to be approaching, though it was too remote for her to make any solid verdicts about what their destination was. Katie caught sight of Eli’s raven-colored hair in the midst of what seemed to be a lackluster setting braced with the dreary canvas of the sky and the never-ending stretch of pavement as she glanced sideways and offered him a small smile, her azure orbs encouraging his jade ones.

Elijah didn't hesitate to oblige to her wishes, though the apprehensive bout within her own demeanor required a second, more probing glance, eyebrows furrowed and stitched into a troubling line above the narrowed gaze and all. Laughing suddenly as the fleeting motions within his recollection gradually began to surface once more, claiming the outermost layer of his conscious mind, as if to persuade himself to think otherwise of their particular significance, Elijah's teeth sunk into the rosy tissue of his lower lip mercilessly, the fabric bearing a more yellow shade underneath his secured grasp. He lowered his eyes to trace over the blurring motions underneath him, the darker portions of the pavement from an earlier rain also fashioning the numerous cracks in the pavement that he had been so drawn to, the rise and sink of the granite never too far from home, contemplating where he could begin to explain the contents of his being, the nostalgic content coursing through his veins. "Well, you already know them--in a way, I suppose," he began without any sense of direction, exhaling deeply soon after. "It's Julia," Elijah elaborated abruptly, offering Katie a small glance. "Do you remember her?" 

Katie pursed her lips in a hushed moment of deliberation, though she knew instantaneously that Julia was his first girlfriend, from eighth grade, from what she recalled from a conversation with him a while back. Nodding slowly before she stayed noiseless for a little while longer, Katie articulated, “Yes,” she paused, to survey his demeanor before she continued nonchalantly, “I remember her.”  The brunette deviated her attention to the pavement beneath her shoes which had grown to become more extensively jagged, causing her to take a few large steps around the cracks on the granite that resembled bleeding veins that invaded the smooth surface before she averted her attention to Elijah beside her who seemed to be curiously eyeing her. With a shrug of her shoulders to veil the countless questions that threatened to bubble from her lips, she casually asked, “Does she live around here?” Katie pursed her lips and caught prospect of the bright golden blossoms Elijah carried at his side and mulled the connection to Julia and the flowers, fighting an irrational, inward groan as she failed to piece the answers together, though she oddly felt the explanations were as clear as day.

Elijah didn't know how to feel when Katie confirmed his jolted beliefs, stating that she did in fact remember Julia, and based on the facade that she chose to bear as he narrowed his emerald orbs suspiciously, clad in her own everlasting significance to him as well--his first girlfriend. Frowning slightly but doing nothing whatsoever to pause and address Katie's suddenly quiet presence within his own, Elijah refocused his gaze on the curvature of the marker in the distance that bore the name of the location, Pine Hills Cemetery, in neat, uniform lettering--Elijah capable of comprehending the blurred acknowledgment from such a distance, some meters away, due to his perpetual visits, or so he presumed before returning his attention to the spoken matter once more. Eli swallowed the monument of a lump forming in the back of his throat, the hand of the embrace tightening around the unseen interior of his flickering eyelids as well, before answering in the best way that he could while his wandering gaze murmured of another alternative reply. "Something like that," he regretfully inhaled, attempting to calm himself before such a trial presented itself to him, but it quickly proved futile as the marker grew more and more apparent as the couple approached the lot, distinguishable against an assortment of shrubbery that claimed similar hues to the canvas overhead for their collective self, a meek lining of burnt brick cast underneath it to contain the abundance of ironic life. His thumb still working over the course of her hand, Elijah briefly took note of the change in pavement beneath their feet, the transition of cracked, greying pavement to a warmer pattern of red and beige stones against the lush grass that clung to the expanse of the lot not going unnoticed beneath them before Elijah slowed to a stop, expecting a reaction from Katie before continuing on, bouquets in hand. "Pine Hills," he announced in an even tone, motioning towards the sign that was now much too clear in his opinion with the carrier. 

/me shrugged nonchalantly at Elijah’s indistinct reply, her thoughts settling on nothing in particular as she eyed the serrated fissures that infiltrated the barren surface of the pavement, previous bouts of rain darkening blotches of the granite beneath her feet. She sought odd comfort in the silence that had inhabited the atmosphere between the two with mute tenacity, though she had a momentary sentiment that the eerie stillness would be a mere fleeting moment. Katie shook her head jadedly, the lack of words amid the two unexpectedly irking her, causing her to part the folds of her mouth in a demanding stance, but knit her eyebrows together in clear confusion when the comprehensible sight of a lot adorned in bottle green shrubs and trees with specks of red and pinks embellishing the branches caused her to pause midstride. Wrinkling her nose in taciturn bewilderment, she instinctively followed Elijah’s lead as she impulsively clutched onto his hand, though her crystal fixation was analyzing her unpredicted neighboring environment, her orbs dancing on some sort of an indication that verified her beliefs as the extensive open area of land hid behind metal gates. The brunette failed to repress a startling shiver as the sight of outsized, golden lettering behind a backdrop of russet brick and concrete read, “Pine Hills Cemetery,” encasing the open area of road that presumably the cemetery had enclosed. Katie swallowed a hasty spell of nausea as she evaluated the precise, even lettering of the marker and read it three times before she surveyed the rest of the locale, the expanse of the cemetery elongating to either sides of the vicinity. Clearing her throat as the dull pavement previously beneath her feet transitioned to the blatant surface of block and concrete, she gave Elijah a feeble squeeze of his hand before her orbs glanced at the golden trim of flowers at his side: the flowers were for Julia. Julia was at the cemetery. Another eerie shiver plagued Katie’s spine as a chilly wind wisped past her arms as a knowing expression dawned on the ivory contours of her face, her cerulean fixation staring into Elijah’s emerald orbs, though her thoughts reconciled elsewhere. Gritting her teeth and sensing the odd awareness of an invisible bristling that teased the sides of her face and her arms, Katie murmured, “Julia’s here,” though it was posed in a form of a clear statement rather than a question as  she quietly added, “Can I see her?” The brunette’s azure gaze maneuvered about as she mutely observed the environment, the bright green grass overhung the crooked metal of the fence, and the identical shrubs to the one next to it lined evenly next to the marker that overlooked the adjacent street. Though there was an obvious façade that masked Katie’s authentic expression, and in this case—sheer consternation, her thoughts managed to piece together what little parts she already knew. Julia, being Elijah’s first girlfriend had clearly meant a lot to him—what had happened to her? Why was the cemetery within a decent distance from Elijah’s home? The churn of unanswered questions with little answers plagued her mind so much that the regions at the sides of her temples started to ache and she groaned inwardly. Katie hastily inhaled to ask her counterpart another question, but split her train of thought when there was a conspicuous expression of sedateness that overtook the marble panes of Elijah’s face. Nodding calculatingly as she bit the bottom tissue of her lips, she emitted tenderly, “I’m right here,” and offered him a feeble smile.

Elijah’s dizzying spell of nostalgia coursing through his veins only wavered beneath Katie's mute deliberation, the repetitive motions of her crystal gaze never once going unnoticed as she attempted to solidify her own pegging beliefs, or so he presumed from where he stood beside the brunette, the hints of recollection tickling the marrow of his bones where it had escaped the rusting confines of his mind and prospered, meekly tugging at the very filament that lined his being, corner to corner, ashes to ashes. Licking over the folds of his lips before speaking, Elijah exhaled his tense curvature in a single, drawled breath, his thumb still moving against the curve of Katie's hand as he drew in yet another dreaded breath. "Serving Scarborough since 1928," he continued, hoping that the insignificant details that he spoke of would allow her the moments necessary to recompose herself and determine whether or not she wanted to enter the bounds of the cemetery with him. "Fully functional with a Veterans' section, a Visitation Centre that includes a chapel among other necessities, and the Mausoleum of the Risen Christ. Any questions?" Elijah continued somewhat inappropriately, stretching into a dramatic, emphasizing tone as soon as he had mentioned the mausoleum, releasing Katie's hand in exchange for loosely wrapping his unoccupied arm around her shoulders. Pausing to stitch his eyebrows together into a tight, yet still furrowed line at Katie's reiterating statement of Julia's location, the raven-haired boy's demeanor softened as he absorbed the subtle reasoning as to why she would feel the need to ask when he had so brazenly invited her without much of an explanation threading the two's mutual understanding of the situation to one another. His hand traveling back up the expanse of her figure to trace over the chilled skin that her neck had wrought, Elijah retraced his movements to gently place his palm against the curve of her neck as he nodded slowly, his gaze flickering to ghost over the folds of her lips before he moved forward to claim them in a gradual kiss that, as per usual, never lasted as long as Eli would have liked it to. "I want you to," he murmured against her mouth, savoring the provincial aura that Elijah had grown so fond of while it lingered about the tip of his tongue, the blushing fabric of his lips, before reluctantly pulling back from her embrace once more, though still entangled in her own existence beside him and within his hold.  Elijah silently urged her willingness to progress further into the lot to surface with a shift in glance, assuming that such inquiries were confirmation enough in regards to his pressing, gradual stride. The lush stretches of grass that illuminated the outermost extents of the pathway, diverging at a common point some feet away from the two to the areas that Elijah had earlier specified aloud, were decorated in a much more somber abundance of flowers in an irregular pattern upon the flourishing beds where grey was already beginning to show through, monumental slabs of granite protruding through the leveled ground at nonspecific points throughout the cemetery abroad. Glancing Katie's way once more, a facade that bore neutrality to their surroundings no longer apparent and clinging to his progressing figure, Elijah pulled the brunette a little closer into his side, offering her a small smile to compensate for the unsettling atmosphere. "You're the first person that I've ever brought here," he admitted in a quiet voice, sighing soon after. 

Katie distractedly eyed the bouquet of flowers with an oddly methodical gaze as the golden and creamy silk petals stood in austere contrast to the tedious backdrop that the provinces of the cemetery had wrought, the cloudy canvas of the sky ostensibly gloomier than had she had previously perceived it, the dismal composites of bleak grays with patches of rare color providing a more eerie atmosphere. The profound vicinity situated at the heart of the cemetery had demonstrated to exude a monotonous atmosphere, and though there were signs of life that peeked from under the wedges of salt and pepper colored concrete and the historical brick edifices that uprooted from the moist dirt and bright green grass underneath it, the looming, ominous mood was palpable as the couple progressed the remaining trail that presumably led to Julia. Katie parted the folds of her lips to murmur something to Elijah that held no specific importance, but paused as he went on to introduce the confines of the cemetery, a weary tone hinted at his voice initially but his preface to the historical monuments and locales in the cemetery grew to be dramatic, and almost amused and nonchalant manner tugging at his seemingly harmless words. The brunette bit the base of her mouth, knitting her eyebrows in silent agitation for his behavior at hand—they were at a cemetery of all places; the undamaging dramatic conduct he paraded wasn’t helping her alleviate her unease that seemed to seep through her veins and percolate to the pores of her sinew. Instead of snapping at him, she exhaled cool air through her nose and lifted her chin towards the sky, the ageless streaks of the sky still dreary as it was before. Katie shook her head no, her thoughts still muddled and unconsciously piecing back the unanswered questions that protruded from the most conscious portions of her mind, her body still adjusting to being in the presence of such an eerie atmosphere. She drew semicircles on the barren flesh of Elijah’s patches of skin with the camber of her nail, her cerulean gaze angled at the ground, though she wasn’t staring at anything in particular. “You’ve been here a lot,” she affirmed, though the statement didn’t have very much meaning to it, as she was verbalizing her internal thoughts. “Enough to give me a historic background on the monuments here,” she articulated, her free hand idly grazing the surface of a lone marble edifice, swirls of cream-colored marble constructed from the moist ground beneath her sneakers. “How often do you visit?” She asked; her tone much softer and cautious than it had been prior. Katie appeased her expression as Elijah gently traced the outward panes that her collarbone had fashioned, his emerald gaze locked on her cerulean ones as he leaned in to claim her lips in a quick kiss, and though the movements of their lips against one another in a tender embrace was enough for her to feebly fight a silent moan, it wasn’t enough. So when he murmured against the flushed canvas of her lips that she wanted her to see Julia, she couldn’t help but sigh and nod as their lips brushed, her tousled curls of hair cascading down her back freely as a lone gush of wind surged past the open area of the cemetery. The brunette dazedly followed her counterparts lead through the lush grass, swirls of concrete, granite, and brick edifices manifesting themselves at every turn, her lithe legs half a step behind Eli, who seemed to have had better luck maneuvering himself through the meandering pathway. The ashen colored headstones shaped in different heights and widths that littered the outskirts of the path the couple had taken were faced with crisp blades of grass, the barren segment of concrete peeking from underneath the endless threads of green. Katie recoiled into herself at the sight of the disquieting setting, the crowns of either sides of her mouth curling into a slight, modest smile as Eli’s frame inched closer towards hers, his quiet comment residing at the utmost conscious partition between awareness and subliminal as she nodded unwearyingly, replying, “You trust me enough to bring me here when you didn’t have to,” she expressed, her voice breaking slightly towards the end of her words. “Thank you,” she articulated, inwardly debating the topic of Julia and her possible impact on Eli’s life. The brunette averted her attention to the bright green beneath her feet, the outwardly only source of constantly color between the murky shell of the sky and the dreary slabs of concrete and brick surrounding them, the small specks of color that fashioned from the flowers next to the headstones visible ever so often.  Katie licked the folds of her lips before she paused mid-stride, her free hand on either side of her to stop their stride as she voiced, “You know whatever you say, I’ll listen, right?” She inquired, a childlike expression painted on the facets of her face as she added, “That no matter what happens, I’ll just be here?” She gave him a small, reassuring nod as she didn’t wait for a reply, continuing on the snaking path the concrete underneath them had wrought.

Elijah found himself imitating the own stretch in expression upon his own face as Katie flashed a humble grin his way, outwardly pleased with his honest confession, as the two wandered down the extent of the stone path, their dreary surroundings acting as nothing but a blurred, insignificant backdrop to the words that would follow for as long as they could drawl each and every syllable, lost in the other's gravitational force that merely pleaded with their straying limbs to remain. Elijah bore a furrowed shift in demeanor once more, not able to comprehend the particular instance of the moment that the brunette beside him had briefly grasped herself (or so she had thought) as their pace slowed. "Of course I trust you that much. Was that not obvious?" He inquired in return to her soft-spoken words of thanks, puzzled as to why such a thing would be up for a debate, at least in her own mind as she voiced her inner thoughts and concerns aloud. Not wanting to disrupt what transition to the gloomy heart of the cemetery that they had already established, Elijah allowed the topic to pass without any further prodding from himself, allowing his emerald green gaze to stray from her synced figure lingering about the space within his arms to instead take note of the variety of grave markers and headstones that adorned the slab of land they were currently making their way through, the overgrown appendages of various plants wrapping around the more solidified aspects of each and every grave as if it was necessity, granite cowering beneath the staggering hold of a collaborative vein clutching onto the surface of the material everywhere he glanced.  Elijah was quick to oblige to Katie's halting motion, though still fashioning a confused expression etched into his facial features, darkening what the dreary sky above had already illuminated in the various contours and shallow indents his ivory skin typically wore, curiously eyeing her as she questioned the content of his consciousness and understanding of how the following moments would proceed. "Of course, yeah," he said in what he had hoped to come across as a neutral tone, paired with a just as leveled voice, but his hopes proved futile. An abrupt crumbling of what resided as the outermost shell of his composure, a typical feat of every visit to that particular ground that he wasn't fond of in the slightest, Elijah offered her a small, polite grin before they continued down the path, narrowing as it diverged into several paths once again, the latter thirds of the split of the pavement leading to the Visitation Centre and the Veterans' Section. Swallowing the lump that had announced its presence once more within the bounds of his throat, Elijah directed the couple towards the farthest path on the left that, accounting for the curling slope of the terrain beneath their shuffling feet as well, provided an excellent view of the section in which Julia rested, the raven-haired boy's gaze already settling on her particular marker in the distance from memory. He couldn't be sure if he was simply humoring himself or not, but he could have sworn to see a fresh abundance of flowers strewn across the expanse of her plot, a rare occurrence. Julia's father was the only other person that visited her other than Elijah, he was sure of that--her stepmother had never once shown her honorary daughter an ounce of sympathy for as long as she and Julia's father had been together, which wasn't long--the man had divorced her within the same week that Julia had passed, a bittersweet truth that Eli had never been sure how to feel towards. Averting his gaze from their fixation on the blurred pavement running beneath her feet, Elijah glanced towards Katie once more, softly inquiring, "Are you alright?" 

Katie advanced towards the meandering pathway, wedges of concrete shielded by overgrown patches of green thistle and weed underneath her shoes, various crowns of headstones peeking beyond the head of the soil as the assorted tinge of ancient rock and concrete littered the wide expanse of the cemetery, a momentary flurry of breeze causing the snaking daggers of grass to eerily sway grimly, the elastic limbs caressing the bare surface of the concrete. The brunette’s gem gaze trailed the varied silhouette of the many headstones engraved with uniform print, wondering what nature of the stories each plot of land had held, and suddenly valued the essence of human life for an ephemeral moment before she inched her frame towards Elijah, her hands seeking relief in his own. Biting the inside of her cheeks before mutely surveying the surrounding segments of dark colored slate with a wary eye, she nodded encouragingly at his inquiry and gave him a light clasp of his hand to reiterate this notion, her cerulean gaze dancing on the dissimilar wedges of concrete as she followed her counterpart’s general line of sight, his emerald orbs fixated on a certain headstone. Katie set her teeth so hard that her jaws began to ache, her free hand clenched to alleviate her winding apprehension, to no avail—she narrowed her eyes to focus on the profile of a dark marble gravestone out in the distance. Elijah’s emerald orbs, speckled with minuscule fragments of charcoal, held an introverted expression, the marble contours of his face flushed of color beneath the lackluster canopy of dye above them. “Are you alright?” Katie raised, concern drawn palpably drawn on the lines of her face. “I’m right here,” she repeated, her orbs gazing at the remote headstone a few paces away as she speculated the nature of her story, the desolate backdrop giving her another shudder. 

Elijah nodded slowly as if to reiterate his own capability to continue, though his emerald orbs remained fixated on the slab of granite in the distance as the repetitive motions rolled onward, unmistakably familiar and distinguishable from the orientation alone upon the bed of lush grass, swaying against the winter chill accordingly and plucking at the very outskirts of the particular plot of land. The blades of grass danced about the assortment of flowers that were perched on her curve of the grounds, the fresh (Elijah had deduced, due to their vibrant nature) variety of colors and hues contrasting the bleak canvas of a sky overhead that trickled down the outer walls of the dome enclosing the resting place with dark blotches of grey. Elijah merely tugged at Katie's hand as he had been for the better part of the afternoon, clad in an engrossed demeanor that pushed graciously against the fleshy strips of his heels, propelling him forward with the brunette's hand still in his own, leading the two from the pavement to the finely-trimmed grass that bent and curled away from their heavy, intruding steps. The nostalgia that had once settled within the marrow of his bones gradually began to stir within him as the headstone expanded before his eyes, clarifying underneath his narrowed scope as they moved closer. The spell that was dizzying the contents of his mind plucked at the course of his scarred palm abruptly, Elijah swiftly obliging to its silent urging and setting the carrier down beside the width of the filmed granite slab, his hand instantly enclosing the upper rounded curve of the material without a hint of hesitation plaguing the aching filament of his being. "Hey," he breathed, the slightest of grins already teasing the folds of his lips as he crouched down besides the marker, all sense seeming to have left him as the smile upon his marble face broadened. 

Katie  scanned the rounded contours of the headstone with calculated pairs of azure eyes, the salt and pepper colored granite facing her, unvarying rows of letters indicating Julia’s name, birth date, among other pieces of information the brunette mulled over before crouching on the immediate, untouched soil of earth underneath her, her fingers still interlocked with Eli’s as he clasped his hold on the smooth concrete, offering a small smile that toyed on his lips without faltering.  She blinked her crystal fixation on the tombstone once more, the uttermost awareness that resided in the farthest remnants of her brain preoccupied with reflection that pertained to Julia, and how deep her love ran for the boy who nonchalantly spoke to the marker as if it were a real person. Though there was an attentive demeanor in which the brunette’s body had implicated, her thoughts were in a wild flurry that it was difficult to identify where one thought had commenced and where the other had concluded. Though answers were divulged in the short time span of the couple finally arriving at their destination, such as the importance of the flowers and the relevance of the cemetery, there were fissures that pertained to Julia and Elijah’s relationship, and how the relevance of the location they currently inhabited had anything to do with Eli’s upbringing and the impact on the person that sat before her presently. Katie bit the inside of her mouth and distractedly tugged on the blades of grass that littered the patch of ground underneath her willowy frame before she gave her counterpart a gentle squeeze of his hand. “Hi,” she chimed in submissively, a meek expression painted on the delicate panes of her face as she lowered her head, her fingers toying with the terrain beneath her.

[katmats]

It’s time like these where I wish Maya had a talent in speed reading, instead of playing that deafening cello of hers.

Say, if I tell her she's adopted, what are my chances of her leaving the house for...forever?

[katmats]

This is your nightly reminder that you're absolutely perfect.

Is this your way of buttering me up so that I’ll kiss you and lose the bet? If so, it’s not happening.

If not, I may or may not be blushing as we speak.

You’re missing from me.

[katmats]

I think it's an understatement to say that I'm beyond confused.

[katmats]

Text to Eli:

Katie: Elijah. Hey.

[katmats]

There is a light that never goes out.

co-written by thestalkerangel & katmats

takes place...a few weeks ago.

 “She?” Cece questioned, but the chain of knocks pulsating throughout the modest home abruptly halted their conversation, only tugging at the corners of a frown painted across her round face. Eli offered his mother a small, but conservative smile, as if he was silently apologizing for the lack of notice beforehand, before starting off towards the front of the house, his large, scarred hands tucked away into the far depths of his pant pockets. As soon as he approached the oak door Eli sucked in a quick breath, attempting to calm the nerves that were plucking at the vast canvas that his ivory skin acted as, a layer of static muting his nervous actions, almost numbing him on the surface as he trembled internally. Wrapping his long fingers around the cool metal of the door knob and catching a firm grip on the round exterior, Eli pulled open the door to face his girlfriend—a term that he still had yet to absorb in its full entirety—a cheery grin stretching out across her face the moment her sapphire orbs locked on his own, the brunette girl illuminated with the slight rays of light that were cast over her petite figure. 

“Hey,” Elijah breathed before he could properly greet Katie on his doorstep, disregarding any standard formalities as he reached out to gently tuck her perfect curls behind her ear, something that he had been longing to do ever since he had last seen her. Placing a chaste kiss upon her lips, Eli pulled back from his gorgeous counterpart, still aware of the notion that his mother would be watching the two’s every exchange with curious eyes. “Come in,” he grinned, stepping to the side so she could enter the residence. His scarred hand, now bandaged and healing much more pleasantly compared to how it had once been neglected, still lingered near Katie’s stature as he guided her towards his mother’s figure in the kitchen, thriving upon the darker hues that adorned every contour and angle of their home. “Mom,” Eli boldly shattered the imaginary line that separated his personal life from the days that revolved around the girl at his side, wrapping his arm around Katie’s waist, but checking her face for any hints of hesitation or reluctance before doing so. “This is my girlfriend, Katie. Katie, this is Cece,” he introduced the two, his hand resting on the protruding, rounded plan of her hip and slowly moving against the fabric of her shirt to ease any uncertainty that was most likely settling into the depths of her mind.

Katie bit the inside of her cheek as she elaborately blinked against the russet brick surface that made up the outer surface of the Goldsworthy house, narrowing her eyes, as if staring long and concentrated enough on it would somehow alleviate the knot that had formed in her stomach. The brunette glanced back at the sleek car that was parallel parked on the curb and debated entering the car to ease the pounding in her ears that persisted with a comprehensible resonance. With a loud exhale, she shook her head, her brunette waves cascading down her back as she stubbornly approached the porch, her shoes making clicks against the barren pavement as she wondered how the events today would unfold. Naturally, Katie had made sure that Eli had gained approval from both of his parents that she could come over, though she didn’t know what to imagine he would introduce her as—girlfriend, friend, physics lab partner? Fighting the urge to scream irrationally, she flickered her eyes closed for a fraction of a second longer, telling herself that this was Eli of all people—and besides, parents were typically inclined to like her more often than most. With a calm smile painted on her pink lips, she raised her hand on the oak door before her, tapping a few times before letting her hand to drop at her side swiftly.

The hefty door opened, revealing a dark haired boy with familiar green eyes that she had spent the last two weeks imagining, and it took Katie almost all of her willpower not to throw her arms around him and shower him with kisses right there. There seemed to be a formal atmosphere that descended on the both of them, and she seemed to catch onto this.

Katie bit her bottom lip in modest embarrassment as Eli snaked his hand around the planes her hips, pulling his marble frame closer to her smaller one. Her thoughts were staggering, though she couldn’t pinpoint where one deliberation ended and other began—to ease her tenseness, she unknowingly inclined one side of her body against his, searching for support as her azure eyes met Cece’s kind ones. Eli’s mother had golden hair that framed her round face and smiled at Katie with a type of gentleness that almost at once relaxed Katie’s worries. She almost at once noticed that Eli had introduced her as his girlfriend and she fought a warm rosy hue in her cheeks as gave the boy next to her a small smile, recovering almost instantly. “Mrs. Goldsworthy—hello!” The brunette radiated, the corners of her eyes pulling upwards, giving her the appearance of a sly cat’s. “Thank you so much for inviting me to your home,” she began, noting her surroundings. The exterior of the Goldsworthy house was grand as it was, but the interior was a different story. The various pictures of Cece and what she deduced to be Eli’s dad (who wasn’t home at the moment, she realized) and other family photos decorated the main room, and as she stood in the kitchen, a cozy, welcoming atmosphere loomed above all three of them, causing the brunette to admire in silence.

Glad that Eli had given her the opportunity to see his house, she didn’t know what she was anticipating initially. The entire car ride to Eli’s house was Katie’s internal battle between what to say to his parents and debating if her attire was suitable. The brunette cleared her throat, ridding her idle thoughts from her mind as she continued her conversation with Cece. “The interior definitely outshines the exterior,” she stated about the Goldsworthy house, amused. “It’s cozy—stop me, I’m already getting comfortable,” Katie laughed, pulling herself closer to Eli, catching his gaze a few times before biting her lip. She blinked slowly as she traced Eli’s jaw with curious eyes, fighting the urge to kiss him again and wondering what was going on in his head—had she made a good impression? “Your son means a lot to me,” she concluded, her voice a few octaves lower than it typically was. For a second, Katie wasn’t sure if that was appropriate to say, and was about to quickly cover it up before the woman across from her curved her lips into a kind smile and noted the fact that her and Eli’s bodies were in such close proximity to each other and possessed little restriction.

Instantly taking note of the way that her meek stature seemed to drift off within the bounds of his own, blurring whatever physical boundaries that they had once upheld as Katie molded into his side, Eli offered a reassuring grin, the round indents in his ivory skin inaudibly urging her on with her formal greeting. He chuckled at her seemingly confident hello, sensing from what she referred to his mother as that she was just as nervous as he assumed that she was upon entering the residence. The calloused pads of his fingers sunk into the sea of fabric that adored her figure, rubbing gentle circles into the plane of her hip that his heavy palm was perched on to comfort her. “It’s just Cece,” Eli murmured softly, taking to the familiar tone that he typically used around Katie unbeknownst to him, lovingly gazing down at her profile underneath his long eyelashes. It had been so long since he had seen her in a light that he was comfortable enough with to fully step into and quietly admire Katie, or find solace in the delicate eyes that he completely and utterly adored. Knowing that it was hardly the time to get lost in her beauty, Eli’s gaze flickered back to hold his mother’s light eyes for a brief moment as Katie thanked her for inviting her over, the pools of a cloudy light blue still speckled with the particles of reluctance that had clung to her expression prior to Katie’s arrival.

She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly at Elijah, and Eli only shook his head in response, insisting that she didn’t comment on that sour portion of the introductory statements exchanged. Cece obliged, the look in her eyes never shifting, but the numerous contours that adorned them shifting and changing with every new expression she offered the two teenagers. Katie still busily glanced around the interior of their home, taking note of the mementos that decorated every shelf, every open bit of space within the open room, oblivious to the two’s physical cues and silent conversation. Though her last murmured confession hadn’t been expected by either of the two, Cece’s grin only brightened before them, her eyes narrowing into half-moons of grand glee as she moved forward towards Katie with open arms. Eli let out a small laugh, reluctantly releasing his comforting hold on the brunette girl at his side so Cece could sweep her into a welcoming hug, one of the many signatures that resided in his mother’s friendly nature. “Oh, I can tell he does, baby girl,” she cooed, her usually bubbly voice lowering into her famous maternal tone that only wrought bright smiles and gentle laughter in response from other parties. Assuring her son that she put every bit of herself into the hug with a loving hum, Cece pulled back from Katie, her hands moving from her back to gently take her by the shoulders, and she cocked her head to the side so she could properly admire the girl.  “It’s so nice to meet you, Katie! We’ve heard so much about you!” She added, and only then would the dusty specks of anything remotely negative leave without any former trace in her eyes, the mother now thriving on this welcomed source of blushing light in their home. Off to the side of their embrace, Eli was trying his best to suppress the sheepish grin that was slowly but surely working its way onto the canvas of his face, his emerald orbs lowering to his sneaker-clad feet, and he wallowed in his own self-imposed embarrassment for the time being. Removing one hand from the sharp incline that wandered away from Katie’s neck and to the furthest depths of her shoulder to wave off Eli’s behavior, Cece sighed, a loving tremble of her bones within the cavity of her chest. “You’re so gorgeous,” she gushed, finally releasing the meek girl from her hold. “I don’t think Eli did your looks any justice when he was going on about you the other day,” Cece laughed, one of the most enchanting feats of Eli’s daily life ringing in his ears and making him groan, unwillingly stepping forward to give his mother an unappreciative look.

“Mom!” Eli interjected quickly, but the impact of her words were already creeping into his cheeks in the form of a gentle blush, a thick sheet of various warm shades springing up beneath a layer of tinted ivory. “I think we’re acquainted now. Katie?” He snaked his hand back into her own, carefully guiding her slender fingers along the rough lengths of his own before interlacing them. Eli gestured towards the shadowed hall some feet away with his free hand, his eyes still piercing his mother’s joyous expression with a sarcastic look of thanks within its grip, but Cece was oblivious to it.

The tender circles that Eli idly massaged into the frames of Katie’s hips caused an animated smile to pull at the corners of her lips, and she narrowed her eyes playfully when Eli had murmured softly to call his mother by her first name. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, not quite registering the implication that there was little to no formal atmosphere that was present between Katie and Cece, though she wasn’t sure how to handle it. Prior, whenever Katie would visit Marisol’s parents, it was strictly Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, despite their pleas to call them by their first name. However, in this case, the brunette felt obliged—eager even—to establish a casual mood amongst the two. Curling her lips into an amused grin, she glanced at Eli, giving him a thank-you look before she softened her expression and took a moment to admire him fully—her nerves had prevented her from having a right mind from the instant she entered the house, but due to the relaxed direction the events had been steered towards, she didn’t mind veering off the conversation slightly to look at her boyfriend. Elijah’s hair was mussed at the top of his head, naturally, a few stray locks projecting into his eyes from his forehead and Katie made no hesitation as she lightly pushed the raven-haired strands away from his emerald pools of liquid green eyes. Though it had been two weeks of them being apart, the brunette noticed a different and inflexible mode in which Eli carried himself, as if he was holding back whilst being in the presence of her and his mother—perhaps it was the two weeks that had put a strain on their relationship, but simply being in the same room with Eli was enough to alleviate her present distresses, though she didn’t know if that applied to her counterpart. Ignoring the fleeting thought, she stuck out her tongue out at him quickly, and murmured, “Cece then,” and directed her attention towards the golden-haired Goldsworthy who had curious and gushing eyes at the two.

Katie smiled effortlessly as Cece told her Eli had told his family about her prior—what had he said, and was it of any importance? Did she know that she was editor of the Degrassi Daily and next in line to become the school’s valedictorian? The brunette debated delving into a conversation of extracurriculars and academics, but she had the impression that Eli was eager to go to his room—after all, their conversation last night had gotten pretty enthusiastic, impatience for today’s events felt on both sides. Tightening her eyes together as if wondering how annoyed Eli would be and how much amusement Katie would gain from the sight of such his reaction, she honestly deliberated staying where she was to talk to Cece. Rolling her eyes subtly in spite of herself, she simply inquired, “Heard things already?” she mused innocently, “Only the good I hope,” she commented, and gave Cece an equally kind and embracing hug, averting her azure eyes on the floorboard as she complimented her, failing to suppress another blush on her cheeks. “Thank you, Mrs. G—Cece,” she stopped herself, entertained, rather than embarrassed by her slipup. “At least now I know where Eli gets his dashing good looks from,” she teased, and glanced at Eli, who seemed to mockingly exasperated.

The brunette beamed and tucked a stray wave of hair behind her ear, lacing her hands back with Eli’s with ease as he motioned the two down the hall, towards his room. She peeked down the hall, as if making sure it was an adequate walkway and murmured softly so that he could hear, “Eager much? I’m having fun with your mom,” she mused, teasing him. Katie fought the embarrassment that welled in her chest as she realized that she was visibly allowing Eli to lead her up to his room—what would his mother think? She bit the bottom tissue in her lip, absentmindedly glancing in the kitchen as if debating if it was appropriate to follow him to his room. With an unsure squeeze of his hand, she articulated, “Thank you for being so welcoming, Cece. We really do need to talk, when Eli isn’t so impatient,” she mocked innocently and leaned towards him slightly. Katie followed his stride towards the end of the hallway, still silent and looked back, towards the kitchen, but it was evident that Cece didn’t follow. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her eyebrows at Eli’s general direction, shaking her head in amusement, knitting her eyebrows together. She leaned in to kiss him, but a few inches towards him, she paused, teasing, placing a single index finger on the soft flesh of his lips. “Save it for your room,” and veered a quick right, but realized she didn’t have any idea where his room was. Shaking her head in spite of herself clearly amused and much too happy to what she was typically subjected to, she stepped towards the other side of the hallway, and paused, confused. “”Where’s your room again?” Katie asked modestly, ignoring Eli’s smug expression.

Rolling his eyes at Katie’s playful reluctance to part with his cheery-eyed mother, much too joyous for him to be comfortable around for more than moments at a time, Eli readjusted his position at the brunette’s side, the underside of his sneakers lifting from his previous stance and sinking into another portion of the beige carpet as he waited for the two to bid each other goodbye. The rational portion of his conscience was grateful that Cece had shown Katie such a great welcome that would surely lead into other pleasant exchanges between the two parties, Goldsworthy and Matlin, but the boyfriend part of himself wanted to take every moment that he possibly could to spend some quality time with Katie after the two weeks that they had been apart, bickering and not. Still able to acknowledge the copious amounts of longing that was still apparent within the far depths of his being, Eli pulled at Katie’s hand as he slowly retreated from blond-haired mother, his fingers still interlocked with hers in an affectionate embrace. “Sue me for missing you,” he replied, the comment rolling off of his tongue and past the cover of his curling mouth without much difficulty. “Yeah, thanks, Cece,” Eli half-mocked Katie, giving his grinning mother yet another unappreciative look as he led the brunette from the living area and towards the hall in the distance.

Katie, being her typically determined self, veered off on her own course for a brief moment or two before returning to Eli’s presence once more, requesting his guidance. “First door, love,” he chuckled lightly, his muffled laughter lingering a few layers above his adoring murmur, a welcomed addition to the demeanor he took residence of whenever she was near. Offering his hand to Katie once more and resting still in his stride until she claimed it, Eli used his bandaged hand to tuck the lock that adorned one of the abandoned notches of the door knob frame into his pant pocket, slowly pushing his bedroom door open.

“Welcome to Hotel Eli,” Eli exhaled deeply, a faint smile clinging to his lips and every feature and contour that lit up and broadened along with his gentle grin. Exchanging his modest, interweaved hold on her slender fingers for a few paces away from the only thing that mattered to him anymore, the stubborn girl that possessed as much, if not more, venom as he did, but would rather exchange soft words and lingering kisses with him instead of ammunition. Eli had yet to wrap his mind around the concept of her being his and his alone in its full entirety, whispering the term to himself when things didn’t seem like they could get any better and being left with only a childish grin to remember the fleeting thought by. She was his, he was hers, and there was nothing in between to separate one from the other, no distance between the two. They were as close as they could possibly be, and yet that wasn’t constant close proximity wasn’t enough to satisfy him. To quote her in a sense, he needed her so much closer, but at times, like then, the distance almost acted as an equal counterpart to being immediately beside her.

Parting through the thick layer that his thoughts cast over his stature and surfacing once more, Eli took a glass dome paperweight into his heavy hands, the calloused pads of his fingertips gradually rolling over the chilled surface of the object. Encased was a preserved carcass of bat for all to observe as they skimmed the contents of his messy room, the translucent material only serving to enhance the intricate details embedded into the vast span of the bat’s figure, withered wings riddled with shallows counters and all.  “Filled to the brim with the dead,” he also noted, glancing Katie’s way to briefly judge her reaction to his words, his sudden outburst boldly disrupting the silence that had fallen over the spacious room. “Kidding, of course,” he continued, replacing the paperweight on his desk before moving away from where all of his belongings cluttered every inch of every attainable surface in sight.

Not knowing what else there was to say and unsure of what he should do with his hands, Eli clasped his rough hands together and started back towards his bed crouching away in the far corner of his room, uneasily sitting down on the edge of his comforter, adorned in various sizes and shades of your standard ivory skull.

To say that he was nervous about what his girlfriend—he still couldn’t wrap his mind around it—would think of his room, where he would spend every moment of every day if he had been given the chance to would have been an understatement. This cramped room that he had been assigned to years before was riddled with small, sometimes insignificant aspects to his personality that most weren’t aware of, from the modest collection of various flags that were pinned to his walls to the oddities, not much more than an inch by an inch wide, that adorned every shelf protruding out from the layer of dull olive clinging to the furthest bounds of what he called home. His past thrived between every sheet carelessly strewn across his mattress, and his present were the dust particles twirling about in the air in the space between the two independent beings that were typically better as a single whole. Here, gazing after the girl that he could now call his own, he was exposed for her and only her to observe. This was him opening up to her. After some time had passed and Eli’s excessively active nerves had crawled towards the tips of his fingers, smudged in black, and every other restless limb, now drawing curve after curve in the carpet beneath his sneakers as he shifted in his place on the edge of his bed, Eli cleared his throat slightly, hoping to lift Katie from her curious state. “What do you think?” He inquired, the jagged edges of his fingernails worming their way underneath the stained bandage on his right hand.

The dull olive green walls that encased Eli’s rather spacious room (though this fact didn’t register with her afterwards—her eyes were still sifting through the clutter and disorganization that swept the entire locale) was plastered with band and movie posters, the majority of them were written in large and elaborate fonts and titles that Katie wasn’t familiar with. The neighboring walls held flags with solid colors that were stark in comparison to the surrounding dreary lamps and bills and images that were chaotically tacked to the stockades. Off to the side of the room, she noticed with curious eyes, was an outsized bed draped with dark covers clad in ornate skulls with matching pillowcases. Katie rolled her eyes, fighting the hint of heat in her cheeks when she realized that was where he spent his nights, fighting sleep to talk to her, where he slept, where he had laid his body to rest when they weren’t talking. Her facial expression softened as she allowed her gaze to trail the rest of the room, noting the various trinkets and objects that presumably held significance to him, though she wasn’t sure how painted skulls and foam fingers held any of his past, but she knew that it must have taken a great deal on his part to be able to open up to this degree and literally let her in his room, and his life.

Biting the inside of her cheek in voiceless interest, she knew her back was turned to him, with what the room was structured. Nodding her head, as if realizing this small but seemingly important fact, she idly strode towards a nearby bookshelf that held a disorderly array of different sized books, skimming the various titles and ornaments that littered the top of the shelf. Katie idly trailed a stray finger across the surface of the oak perimeter, her nails absentmindedly drumming the planes of the wood as she observed with a quiet gaze the posters on the walls and the noted the calm that had loomed above the two in his room. As if reacting to this for the first time, she turned around and noted that he had made his way towards the edge of the bed, his frame ostensibly uneasy as he noted her every move. She unhinged her hand off the shelf and exhaled, giving him a small smile, reassuring him. “I would ask you where my complimentary chocolates are for this supposed hotel,” she mused, the corners of her lips pulling into a smile, “But I’m afraid it would have gotten lost in the black hole that’s your room,” she concluded, shaking her head, trying at once not get overwhelmed with the excess junk and debris that seemed to envelop the general vicinity.

With another inward exhale, the brunette put her hands loosely in the pockets of her dark jeans as she blinked her eyes in amusement, a scoff escaping her lips as she contemplated how popcorn buckets managed to be kept in his room, but the smile slowly dissipated into a frown as she narrowed her eyes at a picture frame. Nonchalantly taking a step towards the object, her back towards Eli (she had made sure of this) she had gazed towards the frame that was a good angle and distance away from her so that it was unclear what she was engrossed with. Swallowing and ignoring the glare that had inconveniently clouded a small portion of the glass surface, Katie had made out a dark haired girl, her raven-haired locks (much like Eli’s only longer and her bangs evenly covered all of a quarter of her forehead) in wild disarray around her round face with a calculating smile—however, what caught her attention was the girls eyes. Her dark jade eyes, almost silvery, almost seemed to pierce Katie’s azure orbs, and though it was only a picture, it caused a desolate shiver to snake down her spine as she tore her gaze away from the frame. With a swallow and clenching her hands at her fists, she took another quick one over of the picture frame, noting where it was and how similar her hair resembled Eli’s—who was she? She shook her head, disconcerted, but didn’t want to push the matter any further. Katie pursed her lips and replied to Eli’s previous inquiry—“Interesting, to say the least,” she addressed; a slight harshness in her tone that tinged her retort more than she intended it to. Softening her expression and noting the way Eli nervously picked at his fingers whilst on the bed, she angled her head to the side, giving him a meek smile. “Definitely not what I expected—but what about you is predictable, really?” she mused, shaking her head. Pursing her lips, a sudden idea in mind, she averted her eyes to the ground, then towards Eli again, her azure gaze teasing his emerald ones. “But,” she began, taking steps towards her counterpart, who was still on the bed, “I can also play the spontaneity card, too,” she murmured, a sly tone playing on her words. By this time, she was beside Eli with a lithe stance and with a gentle push of her hand on his shoulder; she used her upper body to advance on his. She had felt the bed beneath her quake slightly as his back inaudibly hit the bed, where the two were so close that Katie could pinpoint how far his chest rose and fell against hers. Readjusting her hold on him, and ignoring the playful smile painted on her lips, her hands claimed the sides of his face as she murmured softly against his lips, “You wanted to beg, right?”

The irregular ridges of his chipping fingernails, specks of his black nail polish crowding around his cuticle in disarray, were inching towards the crusted blood and other foreign materials that had managed to sneak its way into the bounds that the bandaged extended outward to, already disrupting the healing process with its jagged woes. Anxiously picking at the bruised and distraught patches of skin that clung to his knuckles, Eli inaudibly counted every breath up until she reclaimed her voice amidst the suffocating silence that clung to every inch of his skin, souring the taste of him with its putrid presence filling in the spaces the two lingered about it, too far for his liking.  Eli fought the urge to roll his eyes at her response—as naïve as he may have been, anyone in their right mind knew that “interesting” was never a promising one-word description to be faced with. He knew that the contents of his bedroom had always been peculiar to those whom had been allowed to drawl out the very fibers of his being in a much more casual, hushed sense. He hadn’t presumed that Katie would have been any different, but he still held out the hope that the clutters workings of his mind wouldn’t hinder their relationship significantly.

Eli finally lifted his narrowed, slightly amused gaze to meet Katie’s own when she spoke up a second time, revising her previous statement as she slowly moved towards the raven-haired boy. Again, suppressing the urge to spit back a sarcastic retort in reply to her carefully-selected words, Eli relaxed his shoulders as she approached him, obviously with an ulterior motive lingering beneath her shifting demeanor, the way she moved flickering between various auras that emanated out from each and every gesture she offered him puzzling him.

Only allowing himself to raise his eyebrows at the mention of her undisclosed means of being spontaneous, releasing them from their previously furrowed state in order to display the sense of disbelief he upheld towards her abrupt intentions with him. His flushed lips, the very contours that crafted them into its strange appearance of finality inching along to his request as they drew to one lone side, a single corner of his mouth curling upwards into a lopsided smirk at what was to come, though he wasn’t sure just what the future held at that moment. Eli didn’t hesitate to oblige to the request of her small hand clamping down on his shoulder, his facial features still thriving upon the skeptical sense that was quieting any thoughts that had once inhabited his mind, which was now completely devoid of any significant conclusions or comments regarding Katie’s face merely inches away from his own, her soft whisper seeping into every shallow indent in his lips, softening any trace of emotion within him to nothing more than a muted coat of static. “I want you—all of you,” Eli corrected her in a similarly hushed tone, though his mouth was tinted with the pleasant remnants of their conversation the night before, Eli disregarded any trace of her teasing words that clung to his gentle grin as he connected their lips in a feverish kiss, eager to close the space between their two figures for as long as he was allowed to.

 His hollow limbs ached for any means of contact with the girl pressed against his chest, seemingly at ease with this particular feat in their evening, and soon enough Eli found his rough fingers grazing the exposed strips of porcelain skin that desperately clung to the protruding planes of her hips, but that did nothing whatsoever to ease his need to be near her, be completely and utterly connected with her. Their lips moving perfectly against one another’s, Eli could feel the yearning residing in the very depths of his being, embracing every facet of his being, only growing more intense as the seconds ticked on, each minute driving them further and further apart. Reluctantly pulling away to check her face for any sort of hesitation towards what they were both currently taking part in, Eli blinked, but his gaze only fell back into its narrowed scope, peering back into her sapphire orbs for a few moments, deliberating the tone of the words that were forming on his tongue. “I don’t think your beauty will ever cease to amaze me,” Eli admitted honestly, his voice much quieter than it had once been prior to the desperate kisses exchanged between the couple.

 He offered her a small smile, searching her face for some unknown truth for several counts of his own breath before readjusting his hold on her waist, much firmer than it had once been. Tucking his leg into the epicenter of where their distraught tangle of limbs sprouted out from, Eli used his face of his heel and his knee to slowly ease them into a different position on his bed, their paths disregarding various imprints that had once embedded in the ornate skull pattern they were perched on, wrinkling his comforter in several places as they shifted within the wide span of their embrace. Eli laughed, the raucous sound pulsating throughout the confines of his tucked away bedroom derailing the creak of the mattress beneath their entanglement. “Should I start begging now for good measure?” He chuckled, steadying himself above her body with the face of his forearms, disrupting the pattern they were currently spread out across even more so. Leaning forward to ghost his lips over Katie’s, Eli took note of the way that her eyelashes fluttered against her porcelain skin when she peered away from him, though she was always quick to return his silently admiring gaze. “More,” he murmured against her mouth, the single, urging syllable scarcely edging above a mere whisper. Brushing over her mouth once more, a slight grin tickling the blushing canvas his lips acted as, Eli repeated, “More.”

Katie’s body hovered generously above Eli’s body, the palms of her hands pushed on the face of the outsized bed.  Softening her expression, she breathed, “You already have me,” she assured. The self-effacing stillness that emerged above Katie and Elijah was palpable, though the brunette didn’t consider the immobility between the two to be tense; she sought it more as an opportunity for her to silently admire the boy was beneath her. With a swift movement, she lifted the underbelly of her right hand from the plush dark sheets and she noted the planes of Eli’s face, lithe fingers as light as a moth’s wing tracing the frame of his jaw, towards the apples of his cheeks, subsequently followed by her hands interweaving with his raven-haired locks, pushing this bangs away from his eyes. The boy underneath her gazed peered at her with curious jade eyes through substantial dark eyelashes, and she responded with an equally commendable smile, the curves of her lips tugged considerably into a dazzling beam, her brunette waves of hair cascading down her back. Katie exhaled inwardly, blinking her azure orbs against his emerald ones as he gradually closed what little space she had put between them, her chest in treacherous proximity to his, and she gazed at his lips, and back to his eyes, blinking artfully. Smiling into the kiss, she had felt complete again, even if it was for a moment. With their lips still pressed against each other, their soft, susceptible flesh moving in perfect unison with one another, the brunette’s eyes fluttered as they kissed, causing her eyelashes to lightly browse against his; as her fingers explored his hair, she chuckled to herself as she was subconsciously reminded of his defensiveness with such a topic. While she constantly teased him about his thick hair, she always liked the lush feel underneath her curious fingers, which were still entangled among his strands of dark locks. Their lips parted and Katie reluctantly opened her eyes only to divulge Eli, who had a thoughtful expression on his face, causing her to counter with a witty response to veil the fluster that was noticeable on her features— instead, Eli’s voice had torn her from inclinations towards her playful mockery, his voice taking on an unusual husky tone, unlike his typical sarcastic retorts that she was so used to.

Though their faces were only a mere inches away from each other, Katie recognized that she needed him much closer—the fleeting expression ‘all-consuming’ came to mind, and she frowned at this, solemnly attentive to the ache in her chest that shook her to the core. Every fiber of her frame yearned to embrace her counterpart with insatiable hands, though she had a sentiment that it would never be enough—no matter how much they’d spend with each other, there would always be the brief thought that it was never sufficient to satisfy either’s need for their other half. The brunette pursed her lips as she angled her head to the side, silently tracing the contours of Eli’s face—she noted the planes of his jaw, the way his collarbones protruded from his neck, and the specks of color that painted his eyes—all previous thoughts of negation surrounding their relationship a mere echo as she absentmindedly swept his bangs out of his face.

Katie averted her eyes towards the sheets below the both of them as she pondered the extent of his words with a meek expression. She propped up her elbow on the side of her bed slightly, her hands stationary as her cheeks rested on her clenched fists. She articulated her words carefully, trying her best to veil her curiosity as she drew at leisure circles on the underbelly of his arm. “Do you ever think that—” she paused, biting on the internal tissue of her mouth, “—that I could ever be imperfect to you?” Katie questioned, a raw nature manifested in her voice. Though it was an unreasonable question, and she knew more than anyone else that she was full of flaws much to her distaste, there was always a protruding question at the back of her mind about what he must have thought about her—she was vaguely aware under the adoring gaze of her boyfriend that he could have very well thought that she perfect, though her recurring insecurities currently prohibited the thought.

 An involuntary audible cry escaped Katie’s lips as Eli skillfully swayed his legs so that the face of his heel dug into the covers of the bed beneath the both of them, his leg maneuvering both of their bodies so that his agile body now hovered over hers, a playful laugh filling her ears as he teased her pursuits of making him beg. The brunette lifted her eyebrows, as if challenging him, a smug expression painted on her delicate features as she humored him, lifting her chest with ease towards his as he alluringly grazed his lips lightly on hers, causing a slight tremble to snake down her spine as he murmured, “More” repeated again, this time, his voice huskier with a more pleading tone. Katie swallowed, fighting the urge to kiss him (she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, anyways) and instead lifted her head towards his lips once more as she bit the bottom tissue of his lip, swaying her head lightly so that she pulled the soft flesh with her nimble lips, teasing him. “The only time I want you to beg,” she sucked in air faintly, steadying her breath, fighting another tremble in her joints that ached for Eli. “Is when you actually mean it,” she mused against his lips, the syllables that escaped her lips resonating as she spoke against the soft flesh of his skin. “Do you mean it yet?” She asked; her tone significantly lower, vulnerable. Katie idly smiled against his lips, realizing that Eli had pinned her down so that it would be presumably harder for her to escape his grip like he did to her. With a swift motion, she snaked her hands to his sides and used skillful fingers to find the soft flesh of his neck, drawing playful circles on the curvature of his collar, then down to his collarbone with deliberate movements.

 His dark eyelashes scarcely grazed the outermost layer of his ivory skin, the gentle, gradual fluttering of his eyelids in regards to his shifting gaze obliging to his emerald green eyes’ request, searching Katie’s face, merely inches away from his own, for an identical brand of longing that was currently surfacing in his preserved stare, speckling his adoring orbs with various shades of vibrant oranges and yellows beneath the slight darkness that clung to the olive green walls of his room. Widening his visual scope insubstantially in anticipation of her nearing being, Elijah patiently waited for her kiss as Katie tilted her head upward to mirror the angle of his own, the brunette pulling back her flushed lips, though still preserving any of her inward intentions, in order to latch her teeth onto the soft tissue of his lower lip. The rounded, protruding portions of her teeth tugged at the depths of the chestnut-tinted vermillion, and Eli uttered a hushed groan, his narrowed gaze lowering to watch the content grin pull at the shallow indents embedded in her porcelain skin, corners of her mouth inching upwards into a smile. Katie’s hold on his lower lip quickly slackened, as did Eli’s jaw as his eyelids fluttered completely shut, a peaceful aura emanating out from his resting facial features, all leading into one another, from his cheekbones to the softening shadows that lingered about the course of his now unclenched jaw. 

Her delicate coo did nothing to ease the aching that was plucking at the very fibers of his being, the splitting threads that strung him together in a mess of limbs and naïve, child-like delusions trembling beneath its heavy stare. Her breath tickling the span of his mouth drew a silent quaver down the course of his spine, and Eli grinned against the smile that she was currently fighting herself, bringing his parted lips to skim the tune of Katie’s instructive words still lingering in the minute distance between their inching frames. “Not yet,” he whispered in response, his right hand shifting amidst the disarrayed portion of the dark sheets that it was settled into, and using the pads of his fingers, Eli drew them across the exposed portion of her neck that wasn’t covered by the fabric of her shirt, the gentle caress barely edging above a slight breeze kissing the lengths of her light skin. Curling his fingers around the spherical planes of her retreating neck and using his thumb to brush back any stray strands of her brunette hair still clinging to her porcelain skin, Eli’s eyes flickered back up to meet her own before angling his head to the side, his eyelids fluttering shut once more as he pressed a delicate kiss against the corner of her mouth. 

His full lips lingering on the grazed portion of her skin for only a few moments following the gesture before moving on towards a patch below the previous and so on, his kisses grew more and more apparent as he drew close to the shadows lining the underside of her jaw, where he consciously lingered over her blushing skin, savoring her taste on the tip of his tongue, the surface of his mind, the far depths of his limbs. Eli drew slow circles over the course of her neck with his thumb, his autonomous motions pausing with every kiss planted along her skin before veering off on their own path once more. Still drunk on the copious amounts of her floral scent that intoxicated him completely, Eli felt himself smirk against her skin, though he quickly fought off any smug connotations lingering on his sluggish grin in order to murmur against the adoring curl of his tone, “You could never be imperfect to me, bel.” His current train of thought hitching as he pulled back from her warm skin in order to reclaim her sapphire orbs, his face was devoid of any hesitation towards voicing his internal drabbles aloud. In fact, the loving look in his eyes only seemed to encourage this endearing sincerity welling up inside of his chest and clouding his mind with its gentle hues. “Everything about you,” Eli quickly continued, lifting his hand resting on her shoulder, still tinted with the warmth of his lips, and carefully curled the tips of his fingers in towards his palm, not wanting to disrupt the rare serenity that his bruised knuckles had recently found with his lone endeavors.

 Putting the majority of his weight on his left arm, Eli brushed the soft surface of the functioning joints that sprouted out from his hand against her cheek, sighing softly at the beauty that he had come to long for at any given moment of the day, considered to be the only memory worth withholding in his hollow chamber of a mind. “Is perfect,” he finished softly moments later.

Taking a final note of the way that she looked from his position above her, her long eyelashes clearly visible beneath the dim light that adorned the far corners of his bedroom, the faintest of shadows against her slightly flushed skin, and the way she pursed her ruby lips every so often as if she was contemplating thought while returning his curious gaze, Eli sighed, pushing himself up from the wrinkled bedspread the impact points of his stature had once wrought. He returned to his previous position, perched on the edge of his dark bedspread, his scuffed sneakers finding their familiar paths in the beige carpet once more, though his eyes were still locked on Katie’s own. 

Offering her a small smile that would hopefully explain his sudden actions without his reasoning having to be voiced aloud, Eli rubbed his dry palms together, the grin plucking at his facial features ever so slightly as he did so. “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know yet.” Taking to his usual tone, much more casual than it had once been moments prior to his interruption to the impending silence hanging over their heads, Eli could almost physically feel the shift in the atmosphere the two were wallowing in, but the newfound sensation smoothed over his being without much difficulty, so he didn’t think much of it. Before she could respond to his abrupt request, Eli asked for a second and quickly made his way across the vast span of his bedroom, rummaging through a large trunk pushed against the far dull olive green wall for a brightly-colored afghan blanket, a stark contrast to the dreary hues that resided within the room.

Each square that had been stitched together with a royal blue skein of yarn varied in the different shades that lingered in between the extremities of the color spectrum, the contents of each said square being a specific arrangement of trapezoids and triangles, every accessible tip of each angular figure leading into the next with ease. Tucking the blanket underneath his arm, Eli made his way back over to Katie, lying down on the comforter once more, but with his back against the headboard this time, his scarred hands instantly going to unfold the afghan settled comfortably in his lap. “Come here,” he motioned for her to join him at the head of his skull-clad comforter and matching array of pillows he was gradually but surely drifting off into, both his stature and the unfolded blanket lingering about his abdomen anticipating her company.

 Katie’s eyes widened with a childlike naivety that hastily dissoluted into simple desire for the raven-haired boy who’s lips curved perfectly with the contours of her jaw. The brunette blinked her eyes ornately, her mouth parted as she swallowed, feeling the rosy blush that seeped into her warm skin, almost sure that Eli had felt the effect of his charm on her, the structure of the bed quaking as he took her nerves as his source amusement. Her hands reflexively drew to the sides of his neck, her lithe fingers entangling in his hair as she was becoming more and more drunk of his intoxicating kisses, a suppressed moan escaping her pink lips reluctantly as his thumb gently massaged the curve of her neck, a more audible moan escaping her lips. Katie’s mind was reeling, and her thoughts only centered around one, fleeting meditation—Elijah, and how to please him. Not standing it anymore, her fingers gently maneuvered his head so that she was able to find his lips with hers, parting hers only slightly so that the crown of her tongue grazed his lips faintly, ignoring the ragged breathing from her mouth. “You have no idea what you do to me,” the brunette murmured weakly against his lips, afraid that if she were to speak any louder, she’d devastate the moment. Kissing the perimeter of his lips, Katie kissed the boundaries of his jaw slowly, her lips exploring his warm skin, towards the base of his collarbone.

The tender earnestness that knit Elijah’s kind words was enough to send Katie’s mind reeling—he seemed to know exactly what to say, how to hold her, and how close enough to be to send her thoughts in a frenzy—though she was sure the latter was her fault for not protesting to how dangerously their faces were—while she had no objections. The dull olive green walls and the assorted movie and music posters that engulfed the both of them seemed to dissipate into the background as she gazed in soundless admiration, tracing the planes and the contours of his face, noting how his collarbones protruded from the rest of the flesh from his neck. The brunette privately inhaled to herself as she soaked in his words, giving herself a few moments for his words to linger and realize how much affection was held in his emerald eyes. Licking her lips and pursing them slightly, she parted the skin of her pink lips to tell Eli how glad she was that they were here, together—to tell him that while she was with him, she felt a little less insignificant, more whole, complete.

 Eli’s curious inquiry had pulled the brunette from her internal admiration, causing her to angle her head slightly to the side, pulling her eyebrows in a probing manner. Blinking elaborately, mulling the question to herself before she parted her lips once again to answer his question, he had excused himself off the bed to rummage for something on the other side of the room. Before Katie could ask him what he was up to, his back was faced to her and all she could distinguish was a shock of dark hair paired with an equally dark shirt kneeling on the floor slightly in front of an off-brown trunk, pulling out an outsized afghan, the bright hues of the yarn that wove throughout the blanket in stark contrast to his pale skin and dark clothing.

The brunette pursed her lips and readjusted her place on Eli’s bed, squirming slightly as she her body reacted faintly to not being near her counterpart after being in such close proximity to him. Exhaling, she craned her head around her, as if reminding herself that she was indeed on her boyfriend’s bed, and she bit her bottom lip, her willowy fingers gently grazing the exterior of the dark sheets of his bed, the ivory heads of skulls staring back her eerily. Her slender fingers delicately trailed the contours of the ridges and the crests of the folds of the covers on the sheets, as if disrupting the crumpling the already wrinkled covers would somehow disrupt the equilibrium of the bed. Katie shrugged and blinked ornately, smiling at nothing in particular. She craned her head upwards when the bed moved slightly as she peered at Elijah through curious, wide azure eyes, partially hidden by her thick eyelashes that acted as curtains that shielded her bright colored orbs. Katie had noted that he had sat at the head of the bed, a few feet away from her as she sat on the opposite side, the bright afghan tucked securely in his hands as his precise movements indicated that he had draped the cover over his lap, a single shift of his hand signaling her to sit next to him.

Biting her bottom lip in enthusiasm she animatedly nodded slightly to herself, the curve of her lips pulling into a teasing smile as her lithe body carefully moved across the surface of the bed, the palms of her hands trekking towards the dark-haired boy, her brunette waves spilled at the sides of her face as she did so. With an exact advancement, Katie had adjusted her slender body so that the silhouette of her body molded perfectly against Eli’s, the curve of her back in a perfect contour with his abdomen, as they were so close it was difficult to determine where one body embarked and where the other concluded. The brunette adjusted her body, her head resting just slightly underneath his chin as her back lay aligned on his abdomen. Lifting her gaze towards his direction, her sapphire eyes met his emerald ones as her fingers idly toyed with the soft material the afghan was made of. Biting the bottom tissue of her lips, she parted her mouth and found Eli’s with simplicity, moaning slightly as her hands touched his chin, her fingers grazing the outline of his face. Sighing, content, she found his hands as it rested on the bed and held them graciously, her fingers nonchalantly tracing the rings he had adorned on his thumbs and the chipped shades of black on his nails. Bringing his fingers to her lips, she kissed them leisurely, the tenderness of her lips pressing against the contours of his skin. Smiling, she gave his hands a quick squeeze and transported the intertwining of their hands on the base of her stomach, her eyes giving a quick survey of the room.

 It was disorganized, of course, for lack of a better word. There were various items that Katie had questioned as she wondered what the significance of figurines and paperweights had held in his life—there were parts of him that she hadn’t figured out yet. Items upon items that had been hidden in trunks of hidden behind other objects seemed to be never ending, and though the movie posters and the other few items could be explained by his abnormal personality, there would always be the feeling that she would never know him enough—that all of the items could never be fully explained (like the picture of the girl, Katie reasoned) in the time allotted for the both of them. Frowning slightly, her head angled towards the face of the room and not Eli, she sighed, bringing his hands to her lips again, moving slightly so that the top of her head felt the edge of his chin. As of reassuring herself, she nuzzled closer to his body, saturating in the warmth his body and the afghan wrought, as she searched for the words to articulate her answer with enough dignity.

 “My middle name is Marie,” the brunette murmured, not sure how to go about the question, as it was so open-ended. Remembering his mention of Eli’s own middle name, Katie failed to suppress a giggle. “Though it pales in comparison to yours: Leslie,” she mused, her body shaking the bed with her amused chuckles. Exhaling air, she bit her bottom lip as she continued, “I currently have an obsession with photography—I only just now started using my camera that my dad got me for me 16th birthday,” she sighed against Eli’s marble body, holding his hands, tracing the underbelly of his hands with the her forefingers. “What do I need to do to so I could photograph you?” She asked, amused. Though her fascination for the camera and its creative freedom, the brunette had always wanted to take pictures of her boyfriend—she just never had the opportunity to ask.

 “What are you thinking about right now?” she murmured.

[katmats]

Text to Eli:

Katie: Hi, princess. Your carriage awaits: I’m outside.