wasblindbefore | this is for the ones who stand, for the ones who try again

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effy stonem

this is for the ones who stand, for the ones who try again

It's a strange thing. Elvis isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed when the island changes back to normal, or whatever approximation of that it usually is; he just knows that things keep going, the way they always have, the way they always do, even when that seems impossible. It takes a little of the weight off, at least at first, but he finds that he misses having a bridge to stand on, a ledge that he could hypothetically throw himself off even if he knows he never would. All that Victorian shit was weird, there are no two ways around that, but at least there was something fitting about the cold weather and the dark shapes of buildings against a slate grey sky. Though it's what he grew up around, he has no idea what to do with all the sunlight and the warmth. It reminds him too much of Anabelle, like she's in all of it, though he thinks it's been actual months since he last laid eyes on her. He's not even sure now if he can remember what she looks like, if the image printed on the back of his eyelids even begins to do her justice (it probably doesn't).

If there is something to be said for all of this, it's the so-called gifts that have supposedly shown up at random, personalized for their recipients. He has yet to really touch the typewriter that appeared on his desk, has barely even written a word since before Anabelle disappeared, but at least it's there, something to use when he works up the energy to put together a story again. In the meantime, the case of clove cigarettes has definitely proved useful. He's always preferred them to regular ones, including from the tobacco grown here on the island, and though he's been willing to settle for whatever he can get, these, he's grateful for. He means to be making them last, but he has one lit now, held absently between index and middle finger, as he sits on a swing, not caring that he probably shouldn't be smoking where kids usually play. For now, it's as good a place to sit as any, somewhere a good distance from his hut. It's too difficult to think there, but he can't bring himself to move.

He's been sitting for he doesn't know quite how long when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, head turning in its direction. Only when he realizes it's Effy — someone thankfully familiar, and still around — does he smile, a slight thing, but genuine all the same. It's something. That's all he can ask for these days. "Hey."

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She's stopped smoking months ago, feels like ages already, in an effort to clear up the space that always danced by her eyes, whorls and wisps of emotion, thought, feeling obscuring her vision, up until it was almost impossible to walk forward at all. But the scent of smoke in the air isn't one that she shies from, nor one that she fears, because the choices of others have always been out of her control, and she doesn't mind having them remain just that. When she has to pick her own path, inevitably she looks to the others, wondering these days if she's chosen correctly, stepping too often on the precipice and realizing that she's gone too far, broken and battered by the time she reaches a foothold. This, though, is Elvis' calm, and she breathes it in to allay her nerves, so often bunched these days. Tony is only ever going to be a storm in her life, Effy's come to realize, and she can't hope for the harbor to stay standing for long.

It's almost a disappointment when he catches sight of her before she's quite at her destination, but it doesn't stop Effy from sliding easy arms around his shoulders from behind. The swing gives way in the same fashion that Elvis does, and if she were to liken him to any plant, it'd be the ivy creeping up the side of the older buildings in town, stretching towards the sun. He gives way, easily. But he hangs on, always within her reach. Effy drops her lips briefly to the nape of his neck, chaste, before laughing at how she can't quite get him in a still hold. Back and forth they swing, but the motion is steady.

"'lo," she greets, the word hanging on an exhale as she leans forward, thin arms resting lightly, her chin on his slightly bony shoulder. The sun's shining overhead, the wind rustles through the trees, and everything is alive and moving, never stopping, all but the two of them, nestled behind glass.

"Need a push?"

There's something about this easy sort of affection that Elvis can't help but find unfamiliar. Anabelle was like this, all open and warm touches, but that was different, too; there was a sort of intent behind that which places it a world away, in a category of its own, as if she wouldn't have already been in one anyway. With Effy, it has less significance, but it means even more because of it. From just about anyone else, he would probably have shrugged it off, dismissed it as disingenuous or unnecessary, but the two of them, they've been practically on the same page since day one. From her, he trusts it. She's one of the few people here, one of the few people ever, for whom that would be the case.

"Sure," he says, turning his head just enough to catch her gaze. He hadn't planned on doing anything more than sitting on the swing, but he can't see any harm in using it for what it's here for. It's childish, maybe, but it's the sort of thing Anabelle would have encouraged him to do, and as shitty as the idea of living his entire life under that filter is, for the time being, it's the best he's got. "Why not, right?"

She hated being a child at the time, all those years ago, too weak and fragile to play with Tony and the boys as they roughed about. Not that she was a sickly child, but without using her voice, somehow people never had any other impression of her. The inability to use that voice was perceived as a weakness, a danger for how she refused to cry when hurt, or argue when upset, save for a quick, fleeting, and frustrated shake of her head. Swings remind Effy of those years now, but where she hated it at the time, now she finds herself longing to go back to those years. Because people didn't depend on her, and in that way, she never could let anyone down.

Hands sliding down the swing and tugging back with all her strength, Effy laughs, feet sliding slightly against the mulch. She should let go. She should, but she doesn't, instead running straight ahead with Elvis as his weight takes him forward— it's almost pathetic how little she's able to move him, but it brightens her laughter, easier when self-deprecating.

"I'm fucking awful at this," she exclaims, breath catching in her throat as she jumps out of the way to prepare to give him another push.

Elvis can't help but laugh in turn, a sound that's rare these days, so much so that it almost feels unnatural, as if it were coming from someone else instead of him. Most of the time, he tries, he does, but that's only enough to go from day to day, to talk him down from the metaphorical ledge. Any real enthusiasm is more difficult to come by. For the moment, though, there's nothing, like the rest of the world has fallen away, that split-second of weightlessness before gravity tugs him backwards again. They might be doing this wrong, but he doesn't give a shit. At least they're doing it at all.

"Yeah, me too," he says when he's close enough to her that he doesn't think the words will get lost, half-watching her all the while to make sure he doesn't veer into her. One hand keeping himself steady, he brings his cigarette back to his mouth with the other, exhaling a slow cloud of smoke. "Couldn't even tell you the last time I did this."

Once she's able to work into a rhythm, Effy finds that it isn't so hard to give Elvis a push, knowing exactly where on his back to press, palms pressing against his shoulder blades. As he falls back, she watches him pass through the smoke in the air, cutting through, forcing it to fade away. And it's beautiful. His laughter lingers longer than the smoke does, and that's beautiful too, something that she's learned not to expect from Elvis, though she wonders if she can now. It's hard to laugh in the wake of someone's disappearance, the hollow in one's heart rending one to the point of collapse; she's felt it before, if not over a lover, then certainly over her father.

That he can laugh and smile on occasion, no matter how rare, feels like a victory.

"I used to swing with Tone," she reminisces, breathless as she delivers another push. "Go high, until I was soaring, laughing, felt like I'd never come down."

"I don't remember when I used to, if I ever did," Elvis says, glancing at her when he can. It's hard to hold a real conversation like this, but for these few moments of the world falling away, leaving nothing but the two of them, her hands against his back and the wind carrying him forward, it's worth it. To feel like he's flying instead of falling, or even teetering on the edge of a precipice, like he so often finds himself. The rush of air mingled with smoke, the way Effy sounds, happy and out of breath, they're things to hold on to, to make the darkness a little less overwhelming.

Trying to think back now, he still can't come up with anything, though he's sure he, like so many other children, used to do this at some point or another. His life's been divided into sections for a long time, though, the before and the after, and it's usually difficult to recall anything specific before the day they found his mother's body in the water. She probably used to push him. It seems like the sort of thing she'd do. "S'kinda nice, though."

"This can't be your first fucking time," Effy points out once he's close enough for another push, her voice lingering by his ear as he takes off again, growing smaller as he soars into the air, then larger as he returns. That's the important part, though. That he always returns. Effy doesn't have the right to think about the people on the island under such terms, hardly having known them at all and certainly not having done anything that leaves a claim on them, but still she thinks of them as her own. Doesn't keep a leash on each so much as she holds onto the strings.

He swings back, and it tells her that she has enough of a hold on him for now. She hopes it'll always be enough.

"It's lovely," she adds, using Cassie's words. Cassie, who shines like the sun, breezes through life and enchants others without really needing to try. "And you owe me next time."

"I'm sure it's not," Elvis says, head turning back even as he swings forward. There's probably some metaphor to be found in that, but he's better at them when they involve words on a page and characters of his own creation, people whose lives he manufactures and maneuvers the way he's never been able to with himself. Applying it to real life, at least when doing something other than observing, seems somehow crude. This is hardly the time for it, anyway, when he feels lighter, less burdened, than he's grown so accustomed to. "I just can't remember back that far. An' we can switch at some point, whenever you want."

"You can't?" Effy replies, finding herself surprised somehow, ignoring the offer to switch— not yet, she thinks, not while she still has strength in her arms and the will to push him higher, higher, to force him to release his burdens in a way that she isn't sure that she can herself— in favor of focusing on the differences that separate the two of them. Some of the brightest memories that Effy has, after all, are from that age, earlier even than when she finally began learning the meaning of words, earlier than she knew how to walk on her own, seeing all of the faces around her and feeling every single time their reached out to her, picking her up, raising her above the glances of all of her peers.

She remembers being a child better than she remembers being an adult, even if the latter's been the case for far longer than it's had a right to.

"How far back do you remember, then? You didn't pop out of your father's brow or something like that, yeah?"

A ridiculous question, she thinks, but on an island like this, not necessarily an impossible one.

"No," Elvis says, a short, dry laugh despite the subject he knows is at hand. It isn't something he thinks he's told anyone here, not Effy, not Caroline, not even Eden, who's easily the closest thing he has to family. Anabelle knew, but that was different, and she's gone now anyway. Reluctant though he typically is to talk about it, however, even with a mood that's better than he's grown accustomed to, he can't really find a reason to shy away from it. Effy's here, and he might as well let her know, especially with how close he's come to letting this particular piece of history repeat itself with him. "Everything kind of got turned on its head when I was twelve, a lot of what came before that is... hazy now, just bits and pieces of things."

He remembers what his mother looked like, moments caught on camera like the one with the kite she made that Anabelle found. The day to day, though, the mundane, that's mostly become a fog, maybe out of necessity. In her absence, with what became of his father, he couldn't dwell on that for long.

He doesn't mention names. He doesn't mention what happened, really, although somehow, that makes it feel all the clearer to Effy, her voice momentarily drawing into the same quiet that she knew for all those years, comfortable only in that she never had to force herself to find the right words. Never had to hold herself to the standard of saving someone with them, or making the smile. A girl without words is powerless, but in some ways, Effy thinks, such a girl ends up all the more powerful for it. He doesn't say what happened, and she has no way of knowing without that confirmation, yet Effy doesn't need it.

She understands implicitly.

"They made me forget once," Effy wonders aloud, and it's the swing that forces her to remain strong now, because she's not sure her voice would maintain such calm without hands busied. "Everything. My brother, Cook, the people who mattered more to me than my parents. They made me forget, because it was supposed to be easier."

Elvis raises his eyebrows, unseen with his head turned briefly out in front of him, rather than over his shoulder at her. It shouldn't be possible, he wants to say, but he knows that isn't true, which makes it seem that much worse. A lot of things that seem impossible aren't, and people can be terrible when given half the chance. He's seen too much cruelty to ever ignore that. Here with Effy, however well-intentioned, he can't see the sense in that at all. Maybe forgetting would be easier, but life's a bitch, and forgetting doesn't change the past. He can barely recall most of his childhood, but at least he knows that it happened. That, once upon a time, everything wasn't so goddamn miserable, even if knowing that he was happy once almost makes all the rest of it seem that much worse.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he says, quiet as opposed to heated, though he can't help the surge of anger he feels at the thought of it. He has no right to be protective of Effy and he knows it, but it's like when people would make fun of his father when they were out; the notion of someone fucking with her isn't one he can stomach easily. "How'd you get it all back?"

Edited 2012-02-15 02:05 (UTC)

The pushes grow softer as the conversation seems to take that shadowed turn. It seems appropriate, with the sun gradually slipping into that quieter shade of late afternoon, tinging the trees with honeyed gold and russet tones. The sun will be up tomorrow, Effy can see that these days and more clearly than she ever has before, and so she folds into the conversation, hand wrapping around the chain and pressing her cheek against it, cool to the touch. Today, her life is like a storybook to her eyes, and all she needs to do is read from the pages. It's a distance that she appreciates, even as the voice in the back of her mind asks how long it'll stay, how long until the next breakdown.

She ignores that voice entirely.

"Stood in the middle of a highway," she tells him now, and she remembers the burning of tears at the corner of her eyes more than the oncoming headlights, the whiz of cars by her side. She remembers the rending of her heart, rather than the slip of death and fear. "Asked the world to make me scared again. And... someone saved me."

Effy doesn't bother to mention Cook's name. Sometimes, she wonders if he cares to remember that night at all.

It should probably surprise him, but it doesn't. He's felt since the day they met that he and Effy had some sort of understanding, even a connection, though he'd have been hard-pressed to ever put into words what that was. Now, though, Elvis thinks he really gets it. There's a darkness in both of them, and that scares him as much as it puts him at ease. With her, he doesn't have to pretend. He's never really had to, but he has confirmation of it now. It hurts, he won't act like it doesn't, but it makes him love her all the more, too, to know that they both came back from it.

He drops the butt of his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out, legs long enough for his feet to brush the ground on these swings designed for children, then lifts his hand to cover hers. Holding on is fucking difficult, but they can both do it. A month ago, he stood on a bridge and decided not to throw himself over. People like them, they keep going.

"The day I showed up here, I stood on a chair with a rope around my neck," he says, voice low, just loud enough for her to hear. He doesn't turn his head, but he keeps holding on. Most days, that's all there is. "I get it."

Her brow furrows quick, the shadow drawn over her eyes, because there are more memories drudged to the surface now. The evening on the road had been numb, all frenetic movement with emotions trailing too far behind and impossible to claim, but the mention of a chair and a rope takes her elsewhere, to the cold tiled floor of a bathroom, to the feeling of futility and needing to escape. The choice had seemed so easy then, and her hands too quick to let go. She remembers the sight of red spreading over the floor, and of a pounding barely hitting the shell of her ear.

That was different, she mouths, but yanks herself away from that line of thought quickly, because it's still too soon, and there's that part of her that still can't stand who she is. Would give anything to change it. Be someone other than Effy. Elizabeth, the girl who sits on the bench by the lake, notices it for the first time, draws in boys she doesn't know at all.

"Won't happen again," she says instead, voice breaking for the difficulty there is in getting the words out, but they feel more like a promise this way. Whether she's referring to herself or Elvis doesn't matter; both will happen if one does, she thinks. She can keep herself safe if he does the same.

Elvis doesn't know what she means, which one of them she's talking about, but then, he's not sure it makes any difference, either. For his part, he knows it won't, remembers too well the glow of golden flowers behind him — a miracle, though he's reluctant to admit it even to this day. He's not sure he believes in them, not like Anabelle did, at least, but it would have been a mistake if he'd died then, and one second chance is already more than most people get. It's not worth taking the chance and changing his mind again, no matter how tempting it may be some days.

That Effy gets it isn't something he likes, but he thinks maybe it helps anyway, the two of them one hell of a pair if ever there were one. Though he stays seated on the swing, he twists towards her, wanting to see her now, not caring if she can recognize the darkness in his own expression. "It won't," he agrees, his own voice a little steadier than hers (she's been that for him, so he can be that for her, too). On a whim, he reaches up to touch her cheek, backs of his fingers barely brushing against skin, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, an unnameable sort of affection. At least it's there. When some days he feels utterly drained dry, it's almost relieving to know that isn't so, like this caring so strongly about someone has brought something forgotten back in him. "It won't."

The brush of a hand has always been more comfortable to Effy than anything else. Fingers need not interlace, the touch doesn't have to be too lengthy or obvious, but hands are among the easiest parts to control, reaching out just so, or reaching back as though burned. There's no need to deny that Elvis means to comfort her now, or to reassure himself somehow, and so Effy accepts that choice in full, no need for fumbling words, just two that sum all their emotions in a breath. It won't. It won't happen again, and couldn't hope to while they're like this, together. Her lips curve just so when she turns around the swing, bumps her knuckles against his side.

"Budge over," she says, lips pursed. It might be a tight fit, but the both of them are slight enough to fit on one swing, Effy knows. She's managed with Tony before, and there's always been a part of Tony somehow greater in presence, taking up more space in everyone's hearts. Elvis, by contrast, sneaks into all of the corners and crevices, until he occupies just as much as a person is capable of doing without really taking much at all. "We'll make this fucking work."

It feels like something she might've done with Panda. Elvis doesn't have the same sunshine about him, but maybe whatever Pandora's left with Effy, she can pass on.

For just a moment, Elvis looks up at her like he doesn't know what she's going on about, but it doesn't take him long to oblige, inching to the side as much as he can to make room for her on the swing beside him. These probably aren't built for more than one person, but he's sure they'll fit without making the thing break. She probably weighs hardly anything. (He thinks of Anabelle, perhaps the first time he's ever done so in direct relation to Effy, all her sharp angles, but he doesn't let himself linger. Nothing good would come of it, and in Effy he sees more of himself, anyway.)

"Alright," he says, not quite a laugh but something close to it, amusement evident in his voice all the same. "Here, sit, we'll give it a shot." Either it will work or it will fail miserably, and if it's the latter, at least they'll have tried, and it will probably be entertaining, anyway, the two of them trying to keep their balance. It's something, and any reminder that he has someone at his side is a good one.

In all honesty, Effy's not too concerned about getting to swing. Fun as it is, she'll always be able to come right back to this place, take off on her own, be free and chained all at once and believing at intervals that she might be able to take off into the sky for as long as her heart lurches. Right now, it's being grounded that she seeks, wincing with a laugh as the side of the swing pinches her thigh before she frees her jeans from the hook of the chain, leaning over until her temple rests gently against Elvis' shoulder. They, just barely, not comfortably, but maybe that's best, having a constant reminder of the other's presence and no way to easily entangle themselves from where they sit.

"Looks like we've won," she remarks with a raised brow, head tilting back until she can stare up at the vast expanse of the sky above.

"Barely, but I think we did," Elvis laughs, shaking his head before he turns it on a whim to press a kiss to Effy's temple, quietly affectionate. It says a hell of a lot more than he could on his own, that's for sure; he works with words, but when it comes to using them for himself, he's never been that skilled. Letting them spill from his fingers is easier than letting them spill from his mouth, than trying to explain how much this means, having here beside him, one person who hasn't given up or walked away or disappeared, to be able to laugh at all. Not many people could prompt it from him at all, but with Effy, it comes naturally, like a long-forgotten instinct being dusted off for reuse. "Not bad."

The kiss to her temple comes as a surprise, and the smile on her lips freezes as her eyes widen. For all that being with him here is the most comfortable thing in the world, she's not expecting such a show of affection, undeniable and clear. It isn't that he hasn't been kind before. It isn't even that she thinks he's any place better to be than here, with her, with the world golden and bright around them both. But there's always a part of Effy that feels very strongly that she's no longer the loved one, no longer the one that people turn to because they want her embedded somewhere in their lives.

It's the part of her that thinks everyone will leave in time, by choice or by fate, but with that blink and that moment, he washes that mark away with the tide.

Soon, it'll burrow its way into her side again, but not before she turns to press a kiss back to his cheek in return.

It makes Elvis smile, a faint ghost of a thing, a little surprised but knowing that he shouldn't be. He's never really been the openly affectionate sort, only with the few people who've mattered enough to be, his father and Anabelle the only ones that come to mind. With Effy, he thinks it's the same. Whatever he sees in her that reminds him of himself, that inexplicable sense of kinship he's felt since practically they met, he wonders if she could use something like this as much as he could, just the reassurance that someone won't leave like all the others inevitably do. That someone cares, against all odds.

"I don't think we could actually swing like this," he tells her, leaning sideways against her. "Probably wouldn't work."

"We'd fucking fall off the swing," Effy imagines, and if she wanted to look deeper into it, perhaps that would've been a source for more melancholy, to know that even in the smallest ways, the movement of one can't be followed by the other. For the time being, however, Effy thinks that it isn't bad to stop and hold still for those one cares the most about; she's more than happy to stop now, simply sitting on the swing, head tilting back and forth as the breeze picks up around them, strands of hair writhing by her cheeks as her arm snakes out around Elvis' waist.

He reminds her of everyone from home, and yet no one at all. Hope always ran short in Bristol.

Elvis doesn't need any more prompting than that to lean in close, though it barely makes a difference with their barely fitting on the swing in the first place. She's right, they would probably fall off, or at least wind up motionless despite any efforts, but the point was never about swinging anyway. He'd rather have her company than any feeling of being airborne. No matter how good it feels for a moment, there's always a descent, after all. This way, instead, he has an anchor, something keeping him tethered here. That's all he's ever needed, one person, one reason to stick around. Effy is that and more.

"Better to stay put," he says, half a question, shoulders lifting in a shrug, even the one that's pressed against hers, very nearly level. "Had enough of falling."

She tries to conjure up a smile, but it's almost impossible, Effy thinks to herself, given the images that his words call forth in her mind. Falling can be nothing short of exhilarating, breathless when without a single anchor to hold one down, but with him, and between the two of them, her mind can only turn to the darker possibilities that loom. Turning towards him, Effy rests her chin on his shoulder, eyes closed as the swing moves slightly with every swing of her leg or shift of her weight.

"You'll see her again someday," she decides, picturing the spill of golden hair over his shoulder and a laugh lingering in the air. "Don't let yourself fall until then."

Elvis would like to believe she's right. In a way, he knows she is; Anabelle herself is proof that no one stays here forever, and one day he'll be back home, with her the way he spent a time thinking he was supposed to be. If there's one thing he's starting to learn, though, it's that life can't shut down with one person's absence. He tried that before and nearly made the biggest mistake of his life. Anabelle would want him to keep going, to be happy; he doesn't really give a fuck and he knows that the latter is nearly impossible, but he's got to do something sometime. Mostly, he just doesn't want to wind up where he was before.

"I can't hold my breath waitin' for her to show up again," he says, a heavy exhale, head turning slightly in Effy's direction. "Easiest way to wind up hurt."

"Didn't say that you wait for her to get here," Effy points out, an obvious look directed in Elvis' direction, lightly tolerant but— more so than that— deeply understanding at the same time. Being on the island means letting things from the past go. Means not holding one's heart and hopes on their lives back home or the paths that were meant for them, because there's only so much that they can do on the island. "Mean that you'll see her again, here, or home, or wherever the fuck fate takes you, but that's worth keeping on for, right? Be like..."

She purses her lips, trying to think of an example, before snorting at the one that comes first to mind.

"Like fucking Titanic."

"Like Titanic," Elvis echoes with a short laugh, halfway between a question and outright skepticism. It's a front and a weak one, and he suspects — hell, he counts on — Effy seeing through it. He knows what she means, of course. He just doesn't have it in him to admit that it could really be on so grand a scale, his and Anabelle's story, that it's easy to imagine wanting to be with her that far down the line. What's more difficult is trying to hold on to any sense of certainty that there might be something after this, or to know if he would even want there to be. Life in itself is hard enough without the idea of it being followed by an eternity, or moving on only to be catapulted back to the past again.

Drawing in a deep breath, he glances at her thoughtfully. "You really think it works like that?"

"Sometimes," Effy replies, glancing over to him with all of the certainties in her eyes, bright blue and sure, so sure in that moment, even if a small voice in the back of her mind sounds and says that it'll only ever last so long, this confidence. Effy comes and goes with more frequency than the tides, and sometimes she thinks that it's because she doesn't fight against the world and all its torrents in the way that the rest of her friends do. But for this moment, she can, sinking her foot far enough into the sand to fight the cresting foam.

"We're not meant to stay here. I know that. Ten years from now... none of us will be here," she murmurs, eyes skirting over the horizon. "But you'd wait longer than that for her."

"Of course I would," Elvis murmurs, as much to himself as to her. She wouldn't want him to, but he would, no matter how much it hurt, just spend day in and day out waiting to be able to be with her again. The trouble is knowing if it would even be for a purpose. He's long since given up on having people around, life's shit that way, and there's no sense in getting his hopes up if it will just end in his being let down again. Anabelle wouldn't want him to be saying that, either, but she never seemed to understand that that's just the way life is. "I'd wait forever if I had to."

Forever.

Forever.

The word is drawn so easily to the front of Effy's eyes, where it's been practically burned into her line of sight for some time now. She's had it murmured into her ear, she's had it folded carefully into a paper crane, she's had it displayed repeatedly over seemingly endless pages of a notebook, scrawled in any number of manners, sometimes desperate, sometimes all too ordered.

Freddie says that he'll love her forever, but Effy doesn't deserve that. Anabelle, however. Anabelle may very well.

"Nothing's forever," she replies. "But that's how you know you'll find her again."

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this is for the ones who stand, for the ones who try again

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