#grayboxed

if he wanted to, kerry could gnash his teeth a little at that. it feels strange to hear that from elliot. wrong, almost. as if he thinks kerry doesn’t know that, or otherwise can’t figure it out by himself. he knows elliot doesn’t mean it that way, that it’s not so much advice as it is commentary. something known and shared between them. still, he bristles a little. the set of his shoulders tenses fractionally. easy to miss, if someone isn’t looking for it first. kerry doubts elliot is.

elliot may not deserve it. probably he doesn’t. it’s hard to know what your head will pick and choose to not take kindly towards before you know it might even be said though. the thin insulation of hope that on some level elliot gets it is flimsy but finds footing for itself. they both know what it’s like to have a brain that so very often turns on you in all ways, after all. even if, in the long run, that passing offensive-defensive reaction is so small it hardly matters at all.

a gentle breeze rustles the plants dotted in lush islands and long tracts through the villa's yard. the neighborhood is quiet, as it almost always is - a lawn mower drones at the property next door, a helicopter churns a slow path further down the road, and a wireless speaker pumps out quiet satellite radio somewhere near them, a meandering mix of rock and talk segments by a trio of hosts.

kerry ghosts his hands across the smooth counter of the outside bar and makes a low, noncommital noise. hold on, i'm thinking, it says. a bead of condensation rolls slowly down the side of his glass of ice water, and he stares at that instead of elliot.

"uh, well... i, i guess was hopin' you might be willin' to stay a while. hang out. i mean, no pressure, just," he clears his throat, shrugs. he seems awkward, or maybe he's just unsure. "feeling a little lonely."

kerry has other friends. he could have called them. he'd called elliot, though, under the guise of unearthing another poster he thought he might want. he had, but he'd had other motives, too.

with caine gone at a funeral overseas he'd asked kerry not to accompany him for, an aimless restlessness had settled into him. the first day, he'd slowly gone through some of a list of household tasks. the second, he’d spent mostly binging movies. the third, he's called elliot.

kerry runs a hand through his hair and sighs as he looks down at the backpack set at elliot's feet. it's small, something fit for an overnight bag, which is maybe what it's supposed to be. self-explanatory, really. he doesn't care what's in the bag; he does care about if elliot might need anything.

it's just a night, though. elliot's spent the night before. sometimes for reasons that are best for kerry not to know, sometimes for the sake of staying elsewhere than his small studio apartment for reasons kerry could understand without even knowing them.

questioning elliot in moments like that - or now, for that matter - isn't something he feels he has to do all that often, nor wants to. providing him a safe, quiet space for the night seems like the least he can do. elliot doesn't ask for it often, either.

he won't deny him that. can't. doesn't want to. how could he?

kerry thinks back on the dizzying stretch of his life and wonders if elliot knows just how painfully, intimately, deeply, sweetly aware of that he is. he does, he suspects. he thinks of the countless moments that have slipped by like so many infinitesimal grains of sand, and all the moments that have yet to come.

innumerable moments, innumerable changes. a lifetime of them, too many to try to recall or imagine, an impossibility.

unsurprisingly, elliot knows that well himself, something kerry had never needed to ask to know, obvious as it is and can be. it is a bridge between them, for better or worse. both, sometimes.

the spectrum of experience between them is wide-fanned. it could simply be an inevitability, given their lives' meandering and twisted branched deviations and the gulf between them in direction and experience, the good and the bad. not every moment is awful just as not every change is calamitous, though the same could be said for its opposite just as anything else could be said about everything else.

there is, in any case, an understanding. elliot doesn't need to say much more.

he’s on his second cigarette of the day, which means he’s broken his adopted rule of only one. held loosely between his fingers kerry watches as it burns slowly towards the filter, and though it means nothing to elliot - just another cigarette smoked - it bothers kerry. he turns and stubs it out in an ashtray nearby, then wedges it into one of the notches along the rim. he’ll put it back into his pack later, or more than likely just throw it away.

it's easy to light up again when you're distracted. kerry sighs unhappily to himself and fixes elliot with a sidelong look.

he can't tell if elliot's truly concerned and then supposes it probably doesn't matter, that he said something at all that does instead.

they had made an agreement to be more open with one another. a good thing in theory, much fucking harder than it feels like it ought to be sometimes in application. kerry wonders if it's a hangup on his part, or a consequence of the nature of vulnerability when to be so at all can feel like an agonizing effort.

the latter, he hopes. he doesn’t care for the former.

"my therapist says, like - well, this isn’t exact, but like, 'the job of knowing yourself is a gift,' or… something like that. i mean, it feels like bullshit to me sometimes."

i don’t know myself too well today might be a statement that’d make most other people give you a wide berth. he thinks elliot understands, though, with no further explanations needing given. just as well - finding the words for any deeper clarification seems herculean. too much. he doubts elliot expects it, anyway.

"but… i can see the logic in it. gifts don’t always have to be appreciated, you know? hmph."

not many people know about the space beneath villa eurodyne. it isn't well-hidden, but the stairs and pathway that lead to it are unassuming; most people think nothing of them when they see them. the dull rush of the five westwardly facing waterfalls that close it in is the only indication there's anything there at all.

elliot knows about it though. kerry had mentioned it in passing and shown it to him once. it seems to have been enough for him to remember it, this cubby beneath the living room, closed in by recycled water, by boulder, sand, ivy, bush, and fern. half-organic, half stone, steel plates and beams, and rich dark wood.

it's quiet. not quite a haven. something like one. it's a good place to slip away to, to give in to the sound of the water and let everything pass by.

he hadn't been expecting elliot so soon, though. but he hadn't been paying attention to the time, which he supposes is no one's fault but his own.