the heart of the family. // ♡

I think something fun to note is the Hauley kids on the teenage coolness / popularity scale. Eli has spent their entire lives wanting to be just like their brother, in a few more ways than they understood growing up. James seemed effortlessly cool. He was the handsome, athletic queer kid in school who didn't really let things phase him. He just seemed like he was incredibly popular without trying and always ended up as everyone's best friend and big brother. Really he was just an incredibly agreeable and nervous yes man of an athlete, and his looks certainly didn't hurt his case. Eli always thought he was this amazing badass and always followed around after him, when I think most reasonable people would find Eli higher up on the coolness factor. They're the one always wearing sunglasses and being loud about their opinions, brash and unafraid of emotions, the class clown cracking jokes in the middle of class and making dorky videos with you that have you belly laughing. Eli's the one that started the family prank war

If you had to choose either James or Eli to hang out with, people who wanted popularity would tend to go to James because of his inroads and kindness when compared to the people he's friendly to, but people who wanted to have a blast would go to Eli for goofing off.

Shit. Fuck. Damn.

Carlos is not equipped for this. For losing James, let alone for comforting Eli.

He’s just not made for this. He’s made of monster bones, he knows that now. He’d only known because James had told him, had let him know, had seen Carlos in a way that no one else ever had.

Fuck.

“I know–shit, I know, Eli. He was a good man, and a–” a good soldier, he wants to say, the words he’d say for anyone else in the business. But it doesn’t do James justice. “He was a good man.”

Carlos hugs Eli, even if it’s awkward to hold them. Because Carlos is not made for this.

But he can try anyway. For James.

IT’S ALL ELI CAN DO  to cling  h e l p l e s s l y  to Carlos’ arms as loud, broken sobs rake through their chest, held UPRIGHT by his body strength alone. Snot and tears stain his shirt as Eli WAILS out in heart-wrenching agony, unable to stand on their own two feet. They can’t look, can’t look down at their brother’s dried blood still caked on their hands as they had tried to keep him alive until help came.

She’s still breathing, and Carlos is fine,                    and the creatures responsible, they’re  d e a d ,  but . . . 

                BUT IT WAS TOO LATE.     THEY WERE TOO LATE.

“ James was ALL I HAD, ”  they cry, still begging the universe for it not to be true. 

WHY HAD ELI LEFT HIM ALL ALONE TO CLEAN UP BY HIMSELF? WHY WERE THEY SO DESPERATE TO PROVE THEMSELVES AS ONE OF THEM?

WHY WEREN’T EITHER OF THEM THERE FOR HIM WHEN HE NEEDED THEM MOST?

It’s in this moment as a crumpled mess of emotion, with swirling feelings of blame and anger and sickening grief collapsed in Carlos’ arms that they find themselves THANKFUL that James at least had him. It’s not just as he holds Eli’s trembling form  FIRMLY  &  S T I L L  ENOUGH  to find their footing once more without her brother there to ever guide them again— in however long it had even been since he dragged them away screaming from James’ body upon realizing the light in his eyes had gone out despite their best efforts— but in just realizing what an anchor that Carlos must have been for James himself. Their guarded big brother refused let them or anyone else in, no matter how much he had claimed Eli was his reason for staying sane through everything, not wanting to burden anyone else with his problems. But here in Carlos’ arms, as their tears run dry and their eyes swell up, they know that James had LOVED HIM.

“ He was so lucky to have had you,                     TO HAVE HAD SOMEONE THERE FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TALK TO, ”  they can barely manage to squeak out before the tears start again, peeling themselves off of Carlos’ side if only to wipe their tears away, hiccuping and sobbing. Death knows no bounds, and James’ life wasn’t the only thing that had been stolen from Eli that night. 

That everlasting grin they wore constantly for their idol was now LONG GONE;                       once boisterous and loud and now just shrinking down in on themselves, bitten nails fiddling together.

IT WAS ALWAYS HARD TO COME TO THE REALIZATION THAT YOUR HEROES WERE MADE OF FLESH AND BLOOD, TOO.

“ Have you, um— Have you ever done this before? With a body . . .  ”  They ask their brother’s widow of a boyfriend quietly in the dead of night, pale and shaken as they gasp out half-choked lungfuls of air in between their broken cries. “ With a body of one of the other soldiers? I just... I–I don’t know what to expect. I know the supernatural is supposed to be all secretive, but are they— Are they gonna take his body? I mean,  is  our  MOM . . .

                — IS SHE EVEN GONNA GET TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIM? 

                                          . . . James never let me stay for this part; I was always the one who was taking people BACK HOME to their families, or to safety, but . . .  I mean,  I–I don’t even have his things . . .   A-Are they just going to take EVERYTHING? ”

              THEY CAN’T DO THIS TONIGHT. THEY SHOULDN’T DO THIS TONIGHT.  

" No!  No,no,no,no,no, "                      Eli mutters to themselves sharply, their muscles freezing in their spot at the bottom of their empty bookbag. 

                       “ No, no, no, NO! ”  They continue to hiss under their breath, suddenly and frantically clawing at the mess of folded up paperwork and ripped, bloodied articles of clothes that had been previously jammed into the stuffed backpack haphazardly.

It was here. She had it in here. And she hadn't let her bag out of her sight! 

                                                                                 It was always RIGHT THERE!

But, as hard as they look through the piles, their precious hardback book is no where to be found. No musty pages of the gessoed second hand novel peak out of their messy home, regardless of the tightly bound rubber bands. No edges of charcoal reductive drawings smear the inside of her bag as its oh-so-familiar calling card of every last place her art journal it had touched.

              It's somewhere around here. It has to be . . . 

                             Eli's convinced, and it takes them another half hour of turning their motel room over before they finally slink against the door in resignment.

The journal, it’s dark & handmade cover and endless cursive inked pages, hold certain... secrets. Things they had done, paintings of the things they’d seen, descriptions of the crimes they’d all committed and supernatural cases solved all completely laid bare; the nightmarish reality Eli lived now.

Was it better or worse that they had written the number of their burner cell on the back with their name?

        They sigh.

@intheirhearts || 17: rain kiss

       “ – Just so we’re clear, I would gladly trade all of my psychic abilities for accurate weather prediction.” She heaves a sigh, nose wrinkling, as one drop of rain falls, and then another. It’s not horrific, really, as rain goes. Even when it picks up, it’s still just a mist. But it’s not ideal either. Not while they’re sitting up on a roof, and definitely not when half the sigils she’d drawn were in chalk.

Maybe she’d graduate to paint next time, but that felt like too much of a step towards vandalism, and she still wasn’t entirely certain whether or not petty crime was actually something she was down with. So she huffs, sighing as she glances at Eli for a moment, mustering a smile before she leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of their lips. “Do we have to do this tonight, or can we pack it in and try on a night that’s not so ….. damp …”

Eli opts to smoosh Liv’s cheeks together lightly with their index fingers. She pouts.

“ You’re so cute, ”  They whine, leaning forward to kiss Liv again with a huge MWUAH! Playful to get away from the seriousness of the situation, as always.            “ God, trust me, if it was my choice, yeah, we’d totally do this another time! Take a break. Go inside and get warm,  ”  They can’t help but smirk lightly at the idea. Tangle up together in the sheets giggling, go over the plan a million more times in the morning...

“  —  BUT!  This is my brother & my father we’re talking about. You’d have to kill James just to get him to relax, and my dad . . . ”

IT’S APRIL FIRST !

Today marks the beginning of the prank war. At exactly 0001 on this, the First of April, chaos begins to ensue. It’s a family tradition - ( read: a james & eli tradition, rosa too mad to be included & their innocent parents just begging to be left out but getting caught in the crosshairs ).

saran wrap central! whipped & shaving creams! pastes and shampoos! dyes and paints! airhorns & dramatics!

APRIL FOOL’S - ELI RULES !

watch out for this little shit and her camera on this, the holiest of days.