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Title: Correspond
Author: Lily Elena
Pairing: Eli Cash/Chas Tenenbaum
Rating: PG
Note: Written in about 50 minutes for the Contrelamontre
'Claustrophobia' challenge. Theme used very loosely.
Summary: Breathing your air, Eli thinks, and
he hopes Chas is okay with that.
"You
know," Eli says, tapping his fingers on the loose brick and listening
to it click and clatter, "I spent six weeks in there when I was
younger." He waves one hand at Mordecai's coop, empty and so much
smaller than it was when he was younger. He pulls the brick out of its
place and runs his fingers over where the cigarettes aren't anymore,
and his fingernails scratch almost silently against the dust.
Chas blinks. "Huh. You did?" The wind pulls at errant strands of his
hair, tugging them further into disarray.
Eli
nods: once, twice. "Mm." He rubs his face absently, yellow and red
staining his fingertips. "I didn't mean to. It just sort of." He stops
and rubs his face again, because he can feel the paint on his skin and
it's starting to itch, starting to prickle like pins or bug's feet.
Beetles, he thinks, and then, fuck, not again, not this time.
It isn't about him, isn't about anything but -
he
doesn't know how to finish the thought, and so he doesn't, just leaves
it hanging there in his mind while he rubs his face and looks at Chas
through the gaps in his fingers.
"Margot's birthday party,"
he mumbles, after a moment. His voice catches in his throat and then
releases again. "Richie was asleep and I climbed out the window and up
on the roof and then I just didn't come down again."
Chas tilts
his head. "For six weeks?" He blinks again, disbelievingly, and shakes
his head a little. Eli can see a tiny line of dried blood just over his
right eye.
"Something like that, anyway." Eli sits down,
abruptly, the jagged uneven bricks scratching against the grey of his
suit as he slides to the ground. He winces a little.
"Huh,"
Chas says again. "Huh." Eli watches as he runs his hands through his
hair, fingers twisting and gripping at the curls. "I didn't know," he
says, more to his knees than to Eli, and his voice sounds clenched and
tight in a way that Eli's pretty sure he isn't imagining.
"I think Richie was the only one who did," Eli replies, and then,
almost in the same breath, "come here."
He
crawls toward the coop, years of dust and grime and dirt and everything
else rubbing onto his knees as he moves, and edges his way inside.
"Come here," he repeats, when Chas doesn't make any effort towards
getting up, just sits there with his hands tangled in his hair,
"there's enough room."
There isn't, and he knows it, and he
knows Chas knows it, and when Chas finally makes his way inside it's
cramped and the air's heavy, dense, much too close, even with the fresh
supply blowing in through the broken windowpane.
Breathing your air, Eli thinks, and he hopes Chas is okay with
that.
It's
quiet inside, too quiet, and Eli can't take the silence because it
already feels like everything's closing in and the lack of noise just
makes it worse. "I'm sorry I killed your dog," Eli mutters, tracing a
pattern on the glass beside him. He wants to say more, but then Chas
sighs, quiet and defeated, and Eli's mouth snaps shut.
The sudden exhalation is like walls crumbling, and Eli can almost feel
the scattering debris.
Chas
lets his head fall back against Eli's chest and his eyes flutter shut.
Seconds, minutes tick by, punctured by the sounds of the street below
and the occasional heavy hitch of Chas' breathing. Eli keeps as close a
watch as he can, as close as the gradual come-down he's experiencing
will let him, and slowly the tension lines etched so deep in Chas' face
seem to smooth out and fade.
Then, inexplicably, the coop seems larger, and Eli's breath comes more
easily.
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