trying.

       “  tryna  get  another  shot  at  me,   eli ? ”   off - handed  comment  accompanied  with  haughty  smirk,   large  hand  finding  home  on  top  of  other’s  head  ––  almost  teasing.   eyes  wandered  elijah’s  face,   hovering  over  petal - shaped  lips  before  returning  gaze.   “  count  me  in.   you  know  i  can’t  resist  …  a  party.  ”  

‘ i’m not busy , but …. i- i’m not really hungry. ‘ beverly’s voice is soft , trying to keep it steady , sucking in a deep breath; she pulls her coat around herself a bit tighter , as if hoping it would ease the way that her nerves are high. but , she wasn’t exactly lying , food was the last thing on her mind right now; yet , she hasn’t eaten and she feels like she should. she has trouble reminding herself to take care of herself these days , it’s been hard , but she still tries to keep going. she swallows hard , lifting her head , she looks at him and all there seems to be in a painful longing. ‘ you- you aren’t obligated to worry about me though …. not anymore. ‘

beverly looks more and more exhausted as the days go on , she pushes herself too hard , burying herself in work to cure the loneliness that has settled in her. it’s as if she is carrying the entire world on her shoulders , but she never complains , she just tries to manage. even while still grieving the lost of her mother and the end of her relationship with elijah , all she does is try to manage. she looks at him , there’s a hurt in her eyes , if he still loved her; would they even be apart to begin with ? if he couldn’t stop thinking about her , then they should be together , simple as that. but , nothing ever seems that simple , no matter how much beverly wishes it could be. she swallows hard , wishing she could reach out for him , to voice how hard it is being without him; but the words are stuck in her throat , she ducks her head as tears blur her vision , only barely managing to keep her voice steady. ‘ …… you don’t have to worry about me. ‘

      closed starter for @drippedhcney.

       TO PUT IT BLUNTLY, fox is cheating. and not the innocent kind, no, not the i’m-losing-this-board-game-so-fuck-it kind. fox is cheating, and it’s on a person: someone he’s been dating for a few months. but … he’s seemingly not at all worried or guilty about what he’s decided to do behind their back with this guy named elijah ; always searching for added thrills in his life, anyhow.

       it could be your fault, he tells elijah jokingly sometimes, you’re too pretty to resist. 

      now, it’s a few minutes after midnight and he’s with the younger, and they just hooked up – and fox is about to leave. he’s kind of lingering longer than usual, though, sheet draped across him as he sits at the edge of elijah’s bed. finds himself wanting to stay. fox sighs and drags a large hand over his face.

      ❛ look, would you mind if i crashed here ? m’too tired to drive back, ❜ he fibs, voice muffled. he’s not that tired but, for some reason, he doesn’t just want to downright ask elijah if he can spend the night with him. maybe it’s because they don’t go that far, usually. lifting the hand from his face, fox glances over at him in anticipation.

in some fucked up, slightly guilt inducing way, there was something almost validating about all of it, knowing elijah was somehow tempting enough to have fox straying away. but there’s little he knows to begin with, and maybe that’s what helped keep any guilt to a minimum, only knowing the bits and pieces he was given and too wary to go prying about for anything more. and when elijah expects little more than another hook up, did any of that matter?

but now, he finds himself perking up at the question, having been watching the other shift away from him almost sleepily from where he lies. it’s not that it’s never occurred to elijah to ask fox to stay, only that he felt it crossed some kind of unspoken line, like he’d only keep asking for more after.

               brian’s a little drunk. scratch that, brian’s a lot drunk. he’s always said his first drink was going to be with his dad on his twenty first birthday, but hey, his girlfriend is dead and now he’s seeing the ghost of his old best friend, he thinks he’s allowed to break that promise. it hadn’t exactly been hard for him to get hold of a few beers – he’s tall, though not as tall as elijah. that had always bothered him, even with the year gap between them. it feels stupid thinking about it now, but hey, he’s not exactly thinking straight. no, he’s laid on his bed with elijah beside him, thinking about what it was like when they were kids. impromptu sleepovers because they didn’t want to go home, valentine’s kisses, brian following elijah around the way flowers chase the sun.

               ❝ i know you’re not real, ❞ he says quietly, and it’s something he’s been thinking about for a while. it’s weird that he’d just suddenly appeared, especially considering they stopped talking when brian was still in high school. add in the fact that ghosts aren’t real, it’s a pretty safe assumption to make that brian’s imagined him and his presence here. ❝ i know you’re just my imagination. guilt or something. ❞ he has a lot to feel guilty about, he thinks. the fact that their last ever conversation was an argument, the fact that he reacted the way he did, the fact he couldn’t let it go long enough to even go to his funeral… yeah, that should do it. ❝ but m’glad you’re here anyway. ❞ he knows not making friends here was his own choice, but it’s a lonely choice. having elijah around makes it feel a little less lonely, even if it’s all in his head. ❝ i miss you. ❞

@snowdrcps​

there’s a part of elijah that wondered just how and why he’d found himself lingering around brian when things had left off on such a sour note between the two, but maybe it was all the distance that had himself finding his way back. everything that should have been familiar had felt anything but, and there was so little he wanted to do with what he’d left behind, but brian was something caught between all that. for all elijah knew, he could have done a complete turnaround and been nothing like the kid he’d seen last, but even then he wouldn’t be able to fully rid them both of the years they spent glued to each other’s side.