(no subject)
Some days are harder than others.
Elvis has spent enough time around death and those it leaves behind to know that it's just the way of things, even if his business was really only ever in its immediate aftermath. In a way, he supposes that makes sense, too. Nothing can be at the forefront of one's mind all the time, even something so heavy as a loss, and it isn't like he hasn't experienced them before. It's been two months to the day since he showed up here, stopping just short of making an irreversible mistake, which means it's been two months and as many days since he came home to find his father's body out in the yard, and he can never quite tell if it seems like a lifetime or as if it were just yesterday. Probably it's both. It was different when it was his mother (a transition, maybe, the beginning of a change), years ago, still difficult but leaving him with his dad to look after, something else to focus on. Here, he has Anabelle, but just about nothing else, and while things are a hell of a lot better for him here than they would have been back home, that doesn't always mean much.
Right now, it doesn't. It's a feeling that he couldn't put a name to if he tried, and not an unfamiliar one, but he woke up with it and it has yet to go anywhere. Days like this, he'd sit around the hut and do nothing if it were entirely up to him, but he has a feeling that Anabelle wouldn't let him if he so much as tried. Rather than waiting to find out, then, he's beaten her to it and dragged himself to the Compound. Even just the walk isn't an easy thing when he finds it difficult to think about anything other than his dad and the fact that he's gone now, and he's pretty sure it's written all over his face, but at least he's done something. Comparatively speaking, it's progress.
Of course, as soon as he gets there, he regrets it. He wouldn't really have expected anything different (he rarely does, even now), but that doesn't make it any less frustrating, the way so-called magical objects here seem so deliberately cruel. One stop at the bookshelf - where he'd been hoping to find something on home improvement to bring back to Anabelle, who's so hell-bent on fixing up their hut - yields nothing but books on coping with grief, and its five stages, and shit like that, ones that are remarkably relevant but that he absolutely doesn't need. He copes just fine, and he would do so even better without this thing to torture him.
The last straw, however, isn't the bookshelf, but the jukebox. Elvis doesn't notice it the first time around, preoccupied with the thoughts in his own head and ignoring the books, but when "Jailhouse Rock" loops back to the beginning and starts playing again, it's more than he wants to have to take. Yes, he shares a name with a famous singer, and yes, he's been in jail, but that doesn't make this remotely fucking funny. He tries to ignore it, he does, it just doesn't work. Still standing by the shelf, he sighs heavily, then whirls around. "Will you shut up already?" he snaps, meaning it to be at the jukebox. It's a moment too late when he realizes there's actually another person there, and then he has the good sense to seem apologetic, wincing slightly. "Not you. Uh, that thing."
[Timed to late morning/early afternoon on Friday. Despite his mood, it's still a fine time to meet him. ST/LT/whatever fine, open to new tags until this says otherwise.]
Elvis has spent enough time around death and those it leaves behind to know that it's just the way of things, even if his business was really only ever in its immediate aftermath. In a way, he supposes that makes sense, too. Nothing can be at the forefront of one's mind all the time, even something so heavy as a loss, and it isn't like he hasn't experienced them before. It's been two months to the day since he showed up here, stopping just short of making an irreversible mistake, which means it's been two months and as many days since he came home to find his father's body out in the yard, and he can never quite tell if it seems like a lifetime or as if it were just yesterday. Probably it's both. It was different when it was his mother (a transition, maybe, the beginning of a change), years ago, still difficult but leaving him with his dad to look after, something else to focus on. Here, he has Anabelle, but just about nothing else, and while things are a hell of a lot better for him here than they would have been back home, that doesn't always mean much.
Right now, it doesn't. It's a feeling that he couldn't put a name to if he tried, and not an unfamiliar one, but he woke up with it and it has yet to go anywhere. Days like this, he'd sit around the hut and do nothing if it were entirely up to him, but he has a feeling that Anabelle wouldn't let him if he so much as tried. Rather than waiting to find out, then, he's beaten her to it and dragged himself to the Compound. Even just the walk isn't an easy thing when he finds it difficult to think about anything other than his dad and the fact that he's gone now, and he's pretty sure it's written all over his face, but at least he's done something. Comparatively speaking, it's progress.
Of course, as soon as he gets there, he regrets it. He wouldn't really have expected anything different (he rarely does, even now), but that doesn't make it any less frustrating, the way so-called magical objects here seem so deliberately cruel. One stop at the bookshelf - where he'd been hoping to find something on home improvement to bring back to Anabelle, who's so hell-bent on fixing up their hut - yields nothing but books on coping with grief, and its five stages, and shit like that, ones that are remarkably relevant but that he absolutely doesn't need. He copes just fine, and he would do so even better without this thing to torture him.
The last straw, however, isn't the bookshelf, but the jukebox. Elvis doesn't notice it the first time around, preoccupied with the thoughts in his own head and ignoring the books, but when "Jailhouse Rock" loops back to the beginning and starts playing again, it's more than he wants to have to take. Yes, he shares a name with a famous singer, and yes, he's been in jail, but that doesn't make this remotely fucking funny. He tries to ignore it, he does, it just doesn't work. Still standing by the shelf, he sighs heavily, then whirls around. "Will you shut up already?" he snaps, meaning it to be at the jukebox. It's a moment too late when he realizes there's actually another person there, and then he has the good sense to seem apologetic, wincing slightly. "Not you. Uh, that thing."
[Timed to late morning/early afternoon on Friday. Despite his mood, it's still a fine time to meet him. ST/LT/whatever fine, open to new tags until this says otherwise.]