(no subject)
The seconds seem interminable, tight rope only growing tighter the more Elvis struggles, cutting off his air supply, and this - this isn't what he wanted. It isn't what he wants now, anyway, and in the moment (one more wasted spent thinking about it), that's all that really seems important, not what made him get up on a chair with a rope around his neck, but what made him change his mind. Anabelle's sunflowers are still bright enough with the sun beating down on them that the room is cast aglow, and even with his vision dimming at the edges, he tries to hold on to that as his feet kick at the broken chair, trying to find purchase on its edge, though it feels like it only gets farther away rather than closer. An eleventh hour save if there ever was one, enough to practically redefine the term, this would be utterly unbelievable if he weren't presently living it, if he weren't without time to spare on any more skepticism, if it had actually yet saved him at all, something he's becoming increasingly aware he can't count on.
(God, to die just after deciding to live - it goes beyond ironic into poetic, or like some sort of cautionary tale, the dangers of attempting suicide when you might just wind up not wanting to do so after all. He'd laugh, if there were air in his lungs with which to do so.)
In light of one miracle, it really does seem unfair to ask for a second, but all he can do is want anyway, harder than he thinks he's wanted in a long damn time, for just one more, for not just confirmation that they do exist but the opportunity to see it through this, to try to put right what he got wrong before. Things are still fucked, but that doesn't matter. These flowers, growing up out of dry, infertile dirt, they're hope, and that's all Elvis has needed. After losing everything else, it isn't like there's a lot he could have asked for anyway. This one thing, though - well, it's this one thing or nothing else, and he doesn't want to die just after finding out how wrong he was. He doesn't want to die at all. This miracle picked a hell of a time to make itself known, but then, he thinks that might be part of what makes it a miracle in the first place. A second chance, like Anabelle coming back to life on the embalming table, except hopefully, he won't go so far. That's the sort of thing that only gets to happen once.
When his foot meets the chair, steady enough to actually be worth something, it's a tenuous hold, but at least it's there, holding up enough of his weight that he can sip his fingers under the noose, barely noticing the way the rope tears at the skin on his knuckles, leaving them raw and stinging. It's only adrenaline keeping him going now, or sheer determination or some combination of the two, but go he does; little by little, the pressure is relieved, until finally, finally, he drops to the ground, rope left swinging above him, aching but mercifully alive. She was right.
His hands move to his throat as he fights for air, more difficult than it ought to be for the way he's simultaneously coughing and gasping for breath, eyes mostly shut. It hurts - fuck, everything hurts, which ought to be counterintuitive but actually isn't at all - but surprisingly enough, he finds it difficult to care just yet. Bruises and a sore throat, he can deal with, if they mean he isn't dead. Curled on his side, he continues forcing in short, shallow inhales despite his burning lungs, oblivious to the fact that the floor he's on isn't his own.