wasblindbefore | make days from the hours

Elvis isn't sure how long it's been. A day, maybe, or two or three or more, somewhere between a night and a week, most likely falling somewhere directly in the middle. Either way, he doesn't think it matters. No matter how much time passes, Anabelle is gone, she isn't coming back, their supply of her so-called miracles run dry. What he's learned is not to discredit what they got, her disappearance not changing the fact that, for a while, things were good, better than he ever expected they'd be; he isn't about to pretend like it wasn't at least miraculous, how she showed up like a vision in the field of sunflowers that saved his life. That doesn't make up for it at all, though, and it's a lot harder to try to consider how she'd have wanted him to look at things in her absence. it was worth it to have had her here while he could than not to have had her at all, but he can't sugarcoat the fact that she's gone, or act as if it doesn't hurt like few other things have in his life (which says a lot, all things considered).

However many hours, days, nights it's been, he's spent all of that time steering clear of most people. Eden has been wonderful, but there are few others he wants to bother with at all. Anabelle made most everything more tolerable, but it's like that's completely reversed in her absence, enough that he's caught himself wishing on occasion that he could go back, too, regardless of the complications being home would involve. At least he'd have her. Now, he has nothing, which carries a hell of a lot of weight for what's essentially emptiness.

He can't keep out of the way forever, though. He just chooses his timing carefully, goes to the kitchen at an hour when there are fewer people there, intent on getting, if maybe not something to eat, at least a coffee. (He'd go to one of the bars, but he doesn't feel like socializing.) It's only once he's there, cup in hand, that someone else walks in, and at first all he sees is a shock of blonde hair, enough to make his breath catch in his throat, grip loosening on the mug's handle, though he catches himself just in time. Logically, he knows better, but it's still startling. He's just relieved he came to his senses before he could react in any sort of noticeable way.

"Hey," he says, voice low and the slightest bit hoarse from how little talking he's been doing. "Caroline, right?"

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If there was ever a person who wouldn't judge someone on their reaction (or rather wouldn't judge too much) it was Caroline Forbes. It was her lot in life to always be saying or doing the wrong thing. She couldn't help it. Her mouth had this way of running off and she would say or do the wrong thing. The amount of times that she wanted to curl into a hole and die were just too many to count.

Elvis' non-reaction worked for her and she offered him up a smile. It wasn't as bright or sunny as normal, which was fine given the subject. "Thanks. And I hope so too. I mean, that's all a girl can hope for. That one day my foot-in-mouth tendencies don't haunt me to the point that no one comes to see me when I'm down."

Elvis hasn't seen any foot in mouth tendencies from her so far, not that he can think of, but he doesn't exactly see much point in saying so. She'd know better than he would, after all, and he doesn't care nearly enough to try to make her feel better just for the sake of it. That's got to be the main difference between them, anyway, he thinks: she hopes that people won't leave her when things are bad, he expects them to.

"Well, if they do, it'll be because they're assholes," he says, the closest he can come to something within the realm of comforting (at least, he thinks). He would never do something like that to someone he cares about, but it takes a lot to get him there; now more than ever, he's reluctant to. "Not because of you."

Staying wasn't something that Caroline was meant to be good at. Her mother sort of sucked when it came to the comforting department and her dad had left. Sure he called and they still saw each other, but that wasn't quite the same. She knew what it was like to go home to an empty house so quiet she could hear the clock two rooms over tick. That wasn't something that she would wish on anyone. Staying was her way of hoping that wouldn't have to be a forever sort of thing.

A sense of relief washed over her at his comment, enough that it caused her to smile despite her efforts to maintain a level of seriousness for him. Elvis was hurting. He'd sort of been kicked while he was down from what she could tell. There was no need for him to say something like that. But it was still nice. "Thanks. I know you don't have to say that, but I'm taking it anyways. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Elvis says, brows furrowing slightly. He hasn't the faintest idea what she might be apologizing for — they've already covered that his life sucks, after all, and this currently doesn't have anything to do with that — and there's nothing in the rest of it that should call for that, not that he's heard. It doesn't make him feel bad for her or pity her or sympathize with her or anything like that, not when he still has a pretty clear idea of her in his head, if one a little more three-dimensional than he originally assumed, but it does prompt something, a feeling he doesn't quite have a name for. "I don't say anything I don't mean. It's true. People just do that, they leave, and there's not a damn thing anyone else can do about it."

People leaving was something that Caroline knew about all to well. She wasn't the only one either. Back home her friends had all seemed to have lost someone. Elena had lost both her parents and had her bio parents leave her, even if they weren't exactly the epitome of well-behaved. Bonnie's mom, Matt's mom all of whom had left rather than stayed. It seemed like it was more normal to go than to stick around which was probably why she was all the more determined to stay.

"That's why we have to appreciate the ones who stay," Caroline pointed out because it was something that had to be said. It was easy to focus on the empty holes without given proper thought to everything else. "But thanks."

It's easier said than done, Elvis is pretty sure, when he can't think of anyone who has. Whether intentionally or not, it's been everyone, with the exception of maybe Eden, and around here, that's too hard to rely on, anyway. He wonders if it'll be Caroline next, who disappears and winds up working against her own point or whatever the fuck, but he manages not to say so. Tact might not be his strongest suit, mostly because he rarely cares enough to bother with it, but she's been nice enough in just sitting here that it wouldn't, he realizes, be entirely fair to push that hard. If she does go, he doesn't think she'd mean it, and that's saying enough for now.

"No need to thank me," he says with a shrug, not quite sure what to do with that. As far as he can see, he hasn't really done anything worth thanking. "I'll, uh. I'll remember to do that next time someone does."

"Good. You do that."

There might be no way of knowing who was going to vanish into the night or thin air or whatever next. She just knew whether here or at home, she had to be okay with the people that stuck it out. Who were there for her and there for other people and all of that. It had to count for something.

Taking another bite of her sandwich she wiped off her fingers as she chewed. Fixating on him once more she gave him a look of utter seriousness. "Do you know what we need? Cookies."

Elvis can't help letting out a laugh at that, a faint, dry sound, more for the absurdity of the comment than anything else. Cookies can't help anything, he knows that with even more certainty than he knows most things; they aren't going to make him feel better and they sure as hell aren't going to bring Anabelle back. There's something about the way she says it, though — maybe thoughts of Anabelle herself, whom he can easily imagine saying something similar — that makes him disinclined to point that out. Instead, he shrugs. "Do you have any, or are you suggestin' we get some?"

"Suggesting we go get some. I mean, half the people around here seem to love to bake and there's a bakery. Cookies should be no problem."

There might not be any money, but people around here definitely seemed to be rocking the baking thing. It was just as well given that Caroline only knew how to make two kinds of cookies and neither of them were the sort of thing that she just whipped up. There needed to be a preamble, a reason involved.

Getting to her feet, she picked up her plate and brought it over to the sink. "Come on. Let's go look."

Much better at following than leading, Elvis nods, an easy concession. Although he maintains that they won't actually change anything, he doesn't really have all that much reason to object, and he definitely doesn't have any cause to keep sitting around the kitchen. He could easily stay lying on his bedroom floor right now, but this might — might — be good for him. It doesn't mean he cares, it just means he's trying. Eden would probably like that, and Anabelle would have wanted him to.

"Alright," he allows, standing up to start towards the exit of the kitchen, his cup left neglected on the table. He'd feel kind of bad for it ordinarily, but someone else will pick it up, and it isn't like it does any harm there. "Let's do that."

make days from the hours

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