He should've expected as much. With her here, though, inexplicably at his side when he thought he'd really lost her for good, the visible signs of what he almost did are just about the last thing on Elvis' mind until she reaches out to touch. There's a moment where it feels like he can't breathe, her hand reaching his neck and making him want, for all of a second, nothing more than to draw back. Old habits die hard, after all, and Anabelle may have brought him over to the notion of miracles being real, but there's still an extent to which he wants to think it's too much, the brush of her fingers where not all that long ago there was a noose almost killing him leaving him far more tense about it than he'd ever admit to, as if that one touch were the only thing proving that what he lived through, what he almost did to himself, was real.
By the same token, though, it makes her seem all the more real, not just some conjured up figure of his imagination, and for that alone, he can't actively pull away. He just stays tense, gaze still averted from hers, as if that alone could keep her from seeing the bruises. Illogical though it is, he doesn't want her to, nor does he want to hear what she's saying, the response well-meant, he's sure, but almost certainly untrue. While she may have apparently forgotten what she said in the jail about never wanting to see him again, Elvis hasn't, and has to physically bite his tongue to keep from reminding her of it now. Despite all of that, he has no desire to make this reunion a short-lived one any more than he wants to see the look that he imagines must be on her face, head angled away from her in an attempt at avoiding it.
"Don't," he says, quiet not out of physical necessity, but rather something like desperation. It's over, it's done, there's no fixing it, and he got his second chance, which he figures she would think more important anyway. "S'too late for that now. I changed my mind, anyway. Not your fault the chair broke." She is, instead, the reason he lived, something he should probably tell her but can't yet find the words for. Even so, he thinks this way is better. The chances of him being met with anything other than a receiver being slammed down if he tried to call are too slim, the sort of thing that would have only encouraged him. He doesn't know what's responsible for her change of heart now, but he knows he's grateful for it.
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By the same token, though, it makes her seem all the more real, not just some conjured up figure of his imagination, and for that alone, he can't actively pull away. He just stays tense, gaze still averted from hers, as if that alone could keep her from seeing the bruises. Illogical though it is, he doesn't want her to, nor does he want to hear what she's saying, the response well-meant, he's sure, but almost certainly untrue. While she may have apparently forgotten what she said in the jail about never wanting to see him again, Elvis hasn't, and has to physically bite his tongue to keep from reminding her of it now. Despite all of that, he has no desire to make this reunion a short-lived one any more than he wants to see the look that he imagines must be on her face, head angled away from her in an attempt at avoiding it.
"Don't," he says, quiet not out of physical necessity, but rather something like desperation. It's over, it's done, there's no fixing it, and he got his second chance, which he figures she would think more important anyway. "S'too late for that now. I changed my mind, anyway. Not your fault the chair broke." She is, instead, the reason he lived, something he should probably tell her but can't yet find the words for. Even so, he thinks this way is better. The chances of him being met with anything other than a receiver being slammed down if he tried to call are too slim, the sort of thing that would have only encouraged him. He doesn't know what's responsible for her change of heart now, but he knows he's grateful for it.