#i loved and still love this man so much that he hasnt left my pea brain for almost 3 years

[skinnedred]

idk dawg, this character obsession is beating my ass

[reesewestonarchive]

EASTHALLOW | Masterpost | Project Page | Project Preview | ko-fi, if you like my work :p

tag list - ask to be added or removed ||  @forlornraven @infinitelyblankpage @writingmyassoff @theforgottencoolkid @indecentpause @moonlesbi4n @wordsbyagremlin @reining-in-the-fire-writing @chaos-reign @maximillianvalentine @kly-writes

The car trunk sounds too final to Elijah's ears as he closes it, the last of his bags tucked in haphazard amongst his books, music. Sean stands nearby, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He's followed Elijah around like a lost puppy all night, and now that Elijah's packed, seems at a loss.

"I'm sorry--"

Elijah holds up a hand, shakes his head. "Spare me the bullshit, all right? Just..." He looks around the parking lot, at the apartment he couldn't've afforded if it weren't for Sean's income, anywhere but at Sean. "You had plenty of chances to show you gave a shit about me."

A time in the past, Elijah doesn't doubt Sean did care; you don't spend this long with someone, six years of your life, without getting a little attached. Just... he has a shitty way of showing it, and Elijah's really not interested in hearing scripted apologies from a guy that's been cheating on him for the better part of a year.

"I'll be in touch for the rest of my things."

And that's that. Sean doesn't look upset; just... resigned. Like he's been waiting for this.

Fucker. Rage boils under his skin, and Elijah grips his keys in hand. Steps to the driver's door, wrenches it open, and, as Sean says, "Elijah--", his voice edged with desperation, slams the door behind him.

The drive home is a good fifteen hours, but Elijah straight shots it, running on iced coffee and espresso shots from gas stations. His bank account's barely prepared for the trip, and for the last stretch of a hundred miles he watches his gas gauge with anxiety gnawing at a pot in his stomach, but when Elijah sees the rusted EASTHALLOW, POPULATION: 203 sign swinging from it's pole off the road, tension ebbs from his every nerve.

Fog, thick and mystical, covers the entire town, and the chill to the air has him turning up his heat for the first time all trip. Trees have already shed their leaves for the season, and the place looks entirely too fucking barren. He thinks about the bustling city he just came from, the constant chatter and noise, but if he opened his window right now, he's certain the engine of his car would be the only sound for miles.

Peaceful. Fuck, Elijah didn't know he'd missed it this much. His chest feels tight, his throat dry, as he drives through the city towards his parent's home.

The farm hasn't changed, besides a fresh coat of off-white paint and a few new shrubs lining the wrap around porch. The roof needs work, some of the shutters flap in the wind, but it's home. Sturdy and stable and standing, and Elijah, suddenly exhausted, shuts his car off, rubs his hands against his face, and just... is.

Thoughts and memories of the last six years surface in Elijah's head. How many times did he call his parents to tell them he couldn't come home for the holidays? How many times did he put Sean before his family, and for what? For Sean to bring some twink home and throw it all away, proving everyone in Elijah's life right that Sean never was going to settle down.

He pounds his fist on the wheel, honking the horn in passing, and sighs when he sees his mother standing out on the porch, no hesitation.

She waves, tugs her robe tighter around her, and rushes out across the muddied grass to his car. She bounces on her heels while he unbuckles, and launches herself into his arms, her embrace tight and loving, once he stands.

The air crushed from his lungs makes him grunt, but he says nothing, just reaches around his mother's shoulders for a hug, resting his head on top of hers.

He'd missed her. So much. "Hi, Mama," he says.

Amanda's voice is tight when she says, "Don't 'Hi, Mama,' me, Elijah Andrew. You haven't been home in five years, and you show up out of the blue like this..." She pulls back. Her eyes water as she takes him in. "Oh, you're too thin. Have you even been eating? What's city life done to you?"

Elijah offers a tight smile. "Been busy. I'm sorry I haven't been home sooner."

With a smack to his arm, she says, "That's right. You're gonna make it up to me, too." Then, she peers around him, into the car, and raises an eyebrow. Elijah's heart speeds up in his chest. "And the boy?"

He knew he'd have to tell her when he got here, but... shit, he'd rather not. The longer he can avoid the pity, the better. "About that..."

But before he can continue, movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. He grips his mother's arm in hand and tugs her close, starts to say, "Someone's over there," because he doesn't recognize them--not his father, not one of the farmhands--when his mother gives a little wave to the figure limping around the side of the house.

"Josh," she says, calling to the figure, and Elijah's not sure if he feels too hot with rage or too cold with dread, "come say hello!"

"Mama," he says, under his breath as Josh makes his way across the yard, "you didn't tell me Josh was here."

Raising an eyebrow, Amanda says, "And you didn't tell me you were coming home. Don't play games with me. I'm your mother. I'll always win."

While the rest of the town stayed the same, Josh is nothing like Elijah remembers. He's changed his hair, a bright, platinum blond so unlike the black hair of his parents. His eyes are bruised, his face gaunt. His jacket looks like it went twelve rounds with a box cutter, and Josh is, inexplicably, taller. How is he taller?

Still, he steps forward, into Elijah's space, and rests a hand on Elijah's shoulder, grips him tight, and Elijah wants nothing more than to jerk out of his grasp and punch him.

A crow caws in the distance, and Josh offers a smile--not enough and too late and Elijah shakes under the weight, the expectation of it--and Josh says, "Welcome home, bro."

///

“Is it broken?” Josh asks, his voice thick and nasally, as Amanda pokes and prods at his nose. Blood oozes down the front of his shirt.

Behind them, Elijah opens the freezer, digs out a bag of peas, and rests it against his knuckles. Amanda scowls at him.

“What a nice fucking way to greet your brother,” Josh says. “Haven’t seen you in ten years. Least you could do is not punch me in the face.”

Still, Elijah says nothing. Flexes his fingers under the peas, shaking, and exhales with relief. Not broken. It’s been a while since he last decked someone. He definitely made some fucking mistakes. “Rich, coming from you.”

“Will you two stop it?”

Josh points Elijah’s way, then says, his voice taking on an amusing whine as he says, “He started it!”

Opening his mouth to retort, Elijah pauses as he hears the back screen door creak open. “Thought I heard yelling,” someone says, and—

Oh. Elijah drops his gaze to the floor, because—he’d meant to call his father. Text him, something. But the farther west he got, the more anxiety that pooled in his stomach at the idea of his father’s disappointed gaze.

Elijah’s not good with disappointment.

“Get into another fight with a bull, Josh?” his father asks; he still hasn’t noticed Elijah, leaning against the counter next to the fridge, shrinking in on himself. Amanda, at least, called. Elijah hasn’t spoken to his father since the day he left.

Josh scoffs. “Yeah fucking right,” and silence falls over the room. Elijah’s heart thumps in his throat, his ears, and he lifts his gaze, looks right into his father’s eyes.

“I’ll be damned,” Allan says, his voice soft as he shrugs his jacket off at the dining table. “Elijah."

His mouth opens on an apology, but Allan steps forward, with such intensity that Elijah'd back up, if he had anywhere to go. His tongue trips on words he should've said years ago, his fingers twitch, and he can see Josh and Amanda watching with wide eyes. Allan isn't scary, and there's no reason to be, but Elijah still shakes in his sneakers like he's bracing for impact.

But when Allan touches him, it's not with a fist, how Elijah had greeted his estranged brother, but with arms around his shoulders. Allan holds him tighter than Amanda had, and the bag of peas clatter to the floor as Elijah reaches up to grab at his father's overshirt.

Behind them, Josh mutters, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Dad welcomes him home with open arms?"

"You came home sick with withdrawal, Joshua," Amanda says, finally stepping back from her son. Quiet, Allan pulls away, wipes his eyes with the careful practice of a man who cries, and tries not to show it, and claps a hand on Elijah's shoulder before stepping back to the entry way to take his boots off.

He can't know, but Elijah's not convinced he doesn't know, somehow. Why he's here. Why he didn't call.

While Amanda and Josh argue, Elijah pocks the peas up and sets them back in the freezer, and heads upstairs.

His room sits at the end of the hall--or it did, when he left for the city. The floorboards creak under his feet, and the joints in his hand protest as he carries his bag, but he goes through, admiring the photographs on the wall as he goes. The year his soccer team made it to semi-finals. The year he and Josh were in boy scouts. Josh and his junior prom date.

They still looked identical, then, before Josh hit heroin hard, before he got his girlfriend pregnant and skipped town. Before he started bleaching his hair, before the piercings and the scars from tattoos and laser removal.  Before rehab, and relapse.

The years have been kinder to Elijah that they've been to Josh. Elijah might've worked ten hour shifts on his feet four nights a week, but stress found ways to gain weight where being a druggie turned Josh into skin and bones.

He rubs his forehead. Things used to be so much fucking easier.

"Walk down memory lane?" Josh says, grinning, as he meets Elijah at the end of the hallway. A nice, purple bruise grows on the bridge of his nose. Pride swells in Elijah's chest, seeing his handiwork. Another punch might break it. Elijah's got the muscle memory for it fresh in his mind, now.

"Fuck off," Elijah says, his voice more tired than he'd intended. If luck sides with him, Allan will save grilling him for tomorrow morning, and Elijah can spend the night tossing and turning, anxious about it.

"You don't have to be so mean," Josh says.

Elijah pushes past him, into his bedroom, and...

It's different. Not entirely, but his once overly-large room has been crammed to one side, his twin bed sitting against one wall, his desk at the end of it. Across the room, under the window, there's another bed. Messy, clothes piled on it from the closet, and--

"No." Elijah's voice goes hard, edged with anger. He just wants to sleep, and if Josh is doing fuck all across the room, there's no way he'll get any rest. He'd rather sleep in his car. "No fucking way."

"Come on, bro," Josh says, but his eyes are twinkling. Bastard knows just how to get under Elijah's skin. "It'll be just like old times. We can stay up all night watching horror movies and eating junk food!"

Elijah rubs his free hand over his face. Contemplates actually sleeping in his car, just for a second, before his neck starts to ache. Sharing his childhood room with his twin--honestly. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"You wanna explain that to mom?"

"Mom already knows we hate each other," Elijah says, surprised to see the quick flinch that passes Josh's face. "Would she really be so surprised to hear I can't stand to look at you, much less sleep in the same room?"

A beat passes, and Elijah knows he should apologize, but Josh shrugs and backs into his room. "Fine, little brother," he says, and oh, fuck him. "Sleep well."

The lock clicks into place as he shuts the door, and Elijah means to make his way back downstairs when a chill runs down his arms, either side. A quick glance at the window shows it's open, but--

There's... something out there. Elijah squints down at it, opens his mouth and takes a deep breath. He means to call for his father, let him know one of the cattle got loose, when he looks closer, and--

It's not cattle. It's not--hell, Elijah doesn't know what it is. He blinks his eyes a few times, watching the black figure make its way across the yard, slow, slow step by slow step. It pauses, about halfway to the treeline, and peers around the yard, but Elijah ducks back into the shadows to watch, and it continues on its way in short, jerky, inhuman movements towards the trees. Twice the size of a human, hunched over, and Elijah can't make out features, not well, but...

What the fuck? He blinks, once, twice, three times. Closes his eyes tight and opens them and--oh.

It's gone. No trace of it. Elijah turns the crank on the window, presses his ear to the screen, but... not a sound. Just the wind rustling leaves across the ground.

A chill spreads across Elijah's back. He's exhausted. He's got seventeen hours of car on him, and ten hours of packing before then, interspersed with arguing with Sean, and..

"Shut the window, Elijah, what're you thinking?"

Amanda stands at the top of the stairs, her head cocked to the side. Elijah closes and locks the crank, clearing his throat.

"Sorry, just..." He makes a vague gesture. How does he even begin to explain what he saw? "Thought I saw one of the cows wandering the yard."

Scowling, Amanda starts to head back downstairs. "I told your father he needed to repair that fence. We'll go out and check on it, make sure. You just get some rest."

Elijah's arm shoots out, though, and grabs her wrist. She raises her eyebrows and says, "Elijah, what has gotten into you?"

"Sorry, Mama," he says, and turns back to the window. Still clear. "Just... my eyes playing tricks on me, is all."

"You sure you don't want Dad to check?"

Elijah shakes his head. No. Fuck no. Assuming, for a second, that thing was real, Elijah doesn't want his father anywhere near it.

His mother's gaze is piercing, right through his soul, and for the first time, Elijah's relief at being home turns sour. "No. Look, Mama, I'm sure it's the drive. I'm just tired, is all." He presses a quick kiss to the side of her head. Ice crawls down his neck, with his back to the window, but he can't do much about it. He says, "Josh has my room?"

"Oh, right. Sorry, sweetie. We turned the other into a craft room." She at least looks a little ashamed. "You're welcome to the air mattress."

It sounds pretty good, but the idea of a couch, ready to go, sounds even better. So much for sleeping in his car--he'd rather not awaken with nightmares of that... thing scraping at his window.

His car. That's what he should've done. Hit the panic button on his keys, scare the thing. Elijah could've really found out if he was just making shit up.

"Can I sleep on the couch?" He shrugs, tries not to crumple under his mother's gaze. "Just... prefer sleeping alone."

The moment Amanda finally rolls her eyes seems to come too slow, and Elijah exhales a shaky breath. "Fine. Don't come crying to me when Josh wakes you up at five in the morning to go running, though." Her expression softens, and she reaches out to brush her fingers against Elijah's cheek. "I'm so glad you're home."

He smiles, small and sad, and grabs her wrist in hand. "Me too, Mama."

"How long will you be staying?"

With a laugh, Elijah says, "How long will you have me?"

"You weren't laid off, were you?"

Ouch. It shouldn't hurt, but it does. "No, no, I just had to cash in on some PTO before year end." The lie burns his tongue, a sharp spark against his teeth. If Amanda catches him, she doesn't show it.

"Hm. Maybe through the holidays, then."

He nods. "Yeah, 'course."

She stands on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on the top of his head. "I missed you so much, Elijah. It's just not the same without you here." Her voice is sad, but when she pulls back, she's smiling. "Farmer's market in the morning. Eight thirty."

He grimaces. Knows he should agree, but what comes out of his mouth is, "Mom, I hate farmer's markets. Isn't there--"

"No buts about it, Elijah. You owe your mother how many years of day trips and quality time?" She turns on her heel. "Eight thirty. Good night."

His father's asleep in the front room, downstairs, the television blaring late night talk shows. A low rumble sounds from the chair, probably the massage function, and there are ice packs on Allan's shoulder. Still, he looks comfortable, so Elijah only turns down the television a few notches, drapes a blanket over his father's lap, and makes his way toward the family room.

The family room houses the biggest window in the house, too. Elijah makes up the couch with blankets from the storage trunk, one eye on the window, but all he can see are dog slobbers on the outside. No dog, either, no bed, no bowl.

The neighbor's then, or his father's insistence on no animals in the house still applies to man's best friend.

His joints crack as he crawls onto the couch and buries his head into the pillows. Exhaustion burrows into his bones and he sighs, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders. His clothes smell like the fried food he'd picked up on his trip home, like gasoline from when he'd spilled it, and Amanda had been kind enough not to mention it.

Twenty four hours ago, he was sleeping curled up under Sean's arm, stressed but happy, and look at him now. Homeless, unemployed.

Hell. If that thing out there wanted to eat him, Elijah'd welcome it with open arms.