(Untitled)

[wasblindbefore]

Bruises fade. It's a simple fact, of course, just the way of the world, nature doing its job or some shit like that, but in this case, it's proven to be a fascination, too. Elvis has watched carefully as they've faded, the marks at his throat, the places where his knuckles went raw from pulling at coarse, unyielding rope. Now, it would be

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[behindtheskin]

The sky above seems suddenly heavy with the threat of rain, and the clouds that whirl around draw Effy's eyes to the stretch of blue above, shadowed. For an island with whims more numerous than stars in the sky, the idea that the weather might cater to emotions that float on the current doesn't seem far-fetched at all, and instead gives her the sensation of arms welcoming her back, albeit cold, albeit distant. Her eyes close, brows knitting together in gratitude, for the sun hiding away, for the rays not exposing her to the bone today. It's been two weeks since she's spent that night in the caves, two weeks since she's been home, and yet everywhere still feels foreign and familiar at once. (Never quite home.)

The same can be said for the boy crouched near her feet now. There's something about him. Something that lingers in the flecks of color in his eyes, visible even in that brief glance up towards her. The same entity that remains in her closet most days, smiling, waiting to pull her in with the brush of long fingers.

But he looks so kind.

Wordlessly, Effy lets the wind brush her to, hair in a tangle as she chases after the rest of the looseleaf pages, ignoring the way her steps sound on the boardwalk, and the way she feels so alone this time, knowing Freddie isn't about to come.

Maybe it's that which enables her to snatch the pages out of the air, every last one, silent as she smooths out the folds.

[wasblindbefore]

It's Elvis' instinct - an old one, probably, older than most of the shit that's gone on in his life more recently - to just let the pages go once they stray too far in the breeze that's picked up. They wouldn't have been any good anyway, he's increasingly certain of that the farther from his grasp they get, and it isn't as if he doesn't remember what happened in them, even if he'd be losing a couple turns of phrase it would be hard to recreate. Hell, for all he knows, with the way this place is, it's some kind of sign or something that he ought to just give it up. Anabelle would almost certainly disagree, but who's to say this sort of magic doesn't work both ways?

The girl grabs them all, though, each one that gets away from him, leaving Elvis to do nothing but blink a few times, eyebrows raised, somewhere between surprised and expectant. In that ensuing silence, some pages held half-crumpled in his own hands, he'd have thought she might say something, but it finally becomes obvious that she won't. Whatever works, then. "Uh, thanks," he says, standing straight once more on the boardwalk, shifting his weight. "For your help with those."

[behindtheskin]

"Don't like words getting away from me," she answers first, her eyes narrowed as she watches the boy approach, something about his posture seeming to hide parts of him, a hint of insecurity that keeps his shoulders from standing as tall as they probably ought. Effy knows plenty of people like that. Used to surround herself with them, resting her hand carefully on each one, never relinquishing her hold. It isn't precisely that she enjoys taking advantage of people whose steps always fall unsure. But there are people who need a leader, who need a hand to guide them, and having been that person for so long, it's hard for Effy to fight the impulse to take the other role, especially when a person appears so stranded.

Loved, though, she thinks to herself. He's probably loved.

She holds them out with a slow sweep of her arm, brow raising as her lips curve in the smallest of smiles, tentative and lacking strength, though she tries. "Should be more careful."

[wasblindbefore]

It speaks for itself, of course. Maybe he's had to learn the hard way in this instance, but Elvis is well aware now that he should be more careful, to not take any chances with his writing, no matter how pointless it may be. He nearly rolls his eyes for it, given just how very obvious it is, but it's the first comment that he gets stuck on instead, trying to work out what she means no matter how self-explanatory the words themselves are. It's like they should make sense but they don't, like there's something she knows that he doesn't, something he's missing. In a way, it's unsettling, but hypnotically so, instead of just making him not want to bother.

"I plan to be," he says after a moment, carefully shuffling some of the papers, not caring so much what order they're in so long as they're all straight. He can figure all that out later; he's lost his train of thought, anyway. "Do you, uh - write, or?"

[behindtheskin]

A smile ghosts her lips immediately. No, she doesn't write. She doesn't put the voices to paper, doesn't give them even more of a chance to materialize, and the fact that she keeps herself so narrowly from this is, Effy knows, one of her few saving graces. To put a pen to madness would be to lose herself entirely, to push her own true thoughts back in favor of those that looked better on paper, that spoke more clearly, and in those days, sanity seemed to be the thinnest layer indeed, brittle as it settled on her skin. "No," she replies, words leaving her lips in a soft breath. "No, I leave that to people who... have the right words."

Walking to the edge of the boardwalk, she sits on the edge. "You don't always need to write them to keep them from slipping away. Sometimes they... linger, and you remember the voice behind them, or the way that a person looked." She casts a heavy gaze over her shoulder, and it can't seem to lift off the ground. "Sometimes, the more you write it on paper, the less you remember everything else."

[wasblindbefore]

The more she speaks, the more Elvis finds that he can't quite make sense of it - like it's something he should know but it unable to pin down exactly, close but just out of his grasp - and the more he finds himself something like entranced. Were it not for the mess of papers in his hands, he'd be tempted to write down her words themselves, to see if that offers any clarity or just to have them, but the first he thinks would be unsuccessful anyway, and it's already too late for that. He'll just have to try to do it on his own, impossible a task though he already suspects that will be.

"I'm just... writing fiction," he says with a shrug, aiming for dismissive, but not quite pulling it off. He doesn't know what else to say, though, how else to address it. He isn't trying to remember anything; he has more than enough to remember as it is. If anything, this is meant to accomplish the opposite. "Nothin' to remember here."

[behindtheskin]

There's something pulling under the flippant tone of his words, and in spite of herself, Effy finds herself watching. Her eyes brush over his hands, before she steps closer and reaches for one, her fingers not quite making contact, but instead lingering in the air just around the skin. There's warmth there, and it makes the corner of her lips turn up and brings a touch of clarity back to her eyes as her gaze rises again, meeting his fully, not shying away. Whether or not she knows why, she feels something kindred with this young man, right down to the hesitation, one which used to be so foreign to the young girl.

Now, it's always there, at home in her chest.

"Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it isn't a memory," she points out, feeling her weight shift from one foot to the other as the wind teases at them from behind. "What's the story about?"

[wasblindbefore]

"Oh, it's a, a horror story," Elvis says, a little sheepish, or at least as close to it as he gets. He doesn't understand this, not in the slightest, doesn't understand her at all, but it's fascinating rather than off-putting, keeps him talking rather than walking away. Where his writing is concerned, there are far more interesting subjects - there's nothing to be proud of in the kind of writing he does, anyway - but if she wants to know, he isn't going to not tell her. That would be dumb. The number of people whose opinion of him he cares about is small, anyway, amounting to only Anabelle. He doesn't need anyone else (not anyone it's possible to have, at least).

Glancing down at where her hand is so near his, he prepares to draw back, thinks about it, but no contact is made, leaving him without reason to. It's just as well. "Boy and girl go traveling, get lost in a deserted town, turns out it's deserted for a reason. Nothin' really original about it."

[behindtheskin]

She used to get lost in stories. Stories that her brother red to her, by the side of her bed. This isn't quite the same, but it has the potential of becoming like that, and the brush of his words is so familiar that Effy's eyes fall shortly to a close, almost lulled to sleep. And in that moment, she breathes, bare feet feeling the boardwalk before she leans back and lets the sun gaze down at her in full, hair splayed over the bleached panels, eyes impossibly bright as they gaze over and ask, wordlessly, for him to join.

"Life's not really original," she tells him. People are born, they live, and sometimes they love, but ultimately it all comes to end, to a close, and they leave in the same way that they arrived, intangible. "Getting lost isn't really original. So who are they? The boy and the girl."

[wasblindbefore]

"Two people who need a fresh start," Elvis says almost without thinking, an instinct deeper than what's even been established in the few shitty pages he's written thus far. Shifting his weight carefully, he glances in each direction down the boardwalk to ensure that they won't be in anyone's way, then stretches out beside her, pages under his leg so they don't blow away again. "They go on the run and it winds up bein' the time of their lives - of course, until it all comes crashin' down around them." That much isn't really original either, but he still looks at it as purely fiction. It's just that there's history to tell that such things do actually happen, aren't just some contrived notion of a plot device. That's the way life works, always. Just because it's been okay in the couple weeks since he showed up here doesn't mean his whole outlook has shifted, or anything else so earth-shattering has happened.

[behindtheskin]

It takes some time before she can muster up a reply. She could almost... reach out, she thinks, try to grab those words with her own two hands and make them stick. Give herself a fresh start, all memories washed away- or no, not memories, but emotions. To be able to feel is still something that Effy can't imagine being without, but if she could only let go of the pain that binds around her chest, held there by love and hatred and everything in between, then maybe, maybe there could be something in life that's beautiful for her again. Her eyes slide to a close, and she hears the wind picking up around the pages again, dealing out words in spades, flushing them into the air. She can imagine it. Running. Never looking back.

She never would have taken him for that kind of boy, but she sees it now, a longing that surfaces in spite of the shackles that hold him down.

"Is it... fiction, really," she begins to ask at last, voice rough. "If you've been there before?"

[wasblindbefore]

"Who's to say I've been there before?" Elvis asks, though he might as well be doing so himself for the tone he takes on, softer, a little bemused, though not displeased. If anything, he's pretty sure all he's been saying would imply the opposite, and he usually is good at keeping such things to himself, but then, there's something about her - about the way she looks at him, and seems to actually see him - that leaves him not as surprised as he could be. Easily this is the weirdest thing to happen to him since he's shown up here, something about the whole interaction and the girl herself that strikes him as surreal, but not in any way he minds. She's different from most people. Given that he tends to think the worst of most people, that's probably a good thing, even if he doesn't understand her at all. Lack of understanding is far from the worst thing in the world.

[behindtheskin]

"Because," she begins, letting her voice trail until there's hardly anything at all, eyes flickering over to meet his gaze, empathy brushing along the winds and warm against her skin. There's so much that she could try to put into words now, but she's never been good at it. Can't imagine how exactly she'd explain that there's a similar shadow in his eyes, one that probably matches her own. That there's that foolish hope that remains inside their chests, warm, but so small, threatening to burn out with every passing second. Can't explain that there's a worn quality to him, like a person who's seen both the best and the worst of adventure. Can't explain that death seems to hold him in its grasp, nor her desire to yank it away altogether, keep him safe, keep him whole. (He's probably doing a better job of it than she is, anyway, but that doesn't stop the worry, nor the yearning.)

Because, she says with her eyes.

"The good writers start with what they know."

[wasblindbefore]

Elvis smiles at that despite himself, well aware that she's got to just be saying things or joking around but liking the sound of it anyway. It isn't like she's wrong, this is what he knows, both in theory of the idea itself and in the story he's chosen to write. The horror-themed plots for novels he comes up with aren't drawn at all from real life, unlike the characters sometimes are, but even they come from somewhere: the sort of fiction that he's always enjoyed most. There's nothing original about this, nothing at all, and whether she's just making excuses or playing games or genuinely believes it, he can't object.

It's kind of refreshing, when he's thus far found few people here whose company he cared about either way.

"Who says I'm any good?" he prompts with a slight smile, eyebrows raising, mostly just to see how she'll answer, if she has something else lined up or if she hadn't thought he would call her on it. "'less you're some kind of master at speed-readin', I don't think you had those papers long enough to take in any of it."

[behindtheskin]

"All stories are shared first. Word against word, from here," Effy points out, raising her index finger to her lip and pressing lightly there, stifling her words with that gentle touch, until they linger in her eyes with purpose unrealized. "Or maybe here," she amends, reaching out to trace around the corner of his eye with the barest touch of her fingertip, feather light. Before script, there were words. Before words, touch. Before touch, just the glance of a pair of eyes across space, across a distance, tying two people together before anything else becomes remotely possible. There are days when Effy Stonem tries not to find too much in another person's eyes, knowing that whatever's there isn't meant to be touched by her. Isn't hers to toy with.

There's something calm about this young man, however. Not necessarily confident, but sure nonetheless.

"All of the story's already there. And in case I'm shit at reading it, your words say a lot," she exhales softly, brushing her hair out of the way where the breeze has picked a few strands up, then reaching for the actual papers he's mentioned.

[wasblindbefore]

Ask Elvis what she means and he's sure he wouldn't have the first idea. Somehow, though, on some level that goes beyond the words she's saying, he can't shake the sense that she gets it, that she sees in a way that most people don't. Whatever story he's told, he wouldn't have thought it would be much of one, but she speaks as if she can read his entire history in a single gaze. It's unsettling and hypnotizing at once, something he can't even begin to describe but doesn't want to walk away from. He doesn't even know her goddamn name.

"You're welcome to read what there is," he offers, the best he's got, not knowing where else to even begin to respond. He doubts anything would stop her anyway, but that's beside the point. That he'd be okay with it, it's not trust, necessarily, but some kind of understanding, a show of the two of them being on the same wavelength or whatever. "Not much yet."