(no subject)

[e_delmar]

It gets cold, sometimes. And that would surprise Ennis if anything could, but seems there ain't much surprising anymore. Sometimes, though, he sits down and things about things that're warm. It don't help much, but it passes the time. Beds'n'blankets and people, too.

And when those days and nights and things that can't be called neither get long and lonely, sometimes he thinks about layin' there in that bed of Sallie's, and it's 'bout like he can feel it.

Comments

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie usually sleeps well -- she likes keeping herself strong, and usually has tired herself out enough over the course of the day that falling into bed equals almost-immediate REM cycles.

Usually.

Tonight, however, Sallie is up late in a chair facing the sliding glass doors with a quasi-neglected cup of tea.

[e_delmar]

Ennis c'n almost smell the way things are, the way they were. The way it's all so real, and he almost laughs at that idea, the idea that he could somehow forget that it's real and he's not. He almost laughs, and then he does, and the sound startles him so's he falls backwards and on to the floor, if you could call what he did falling.

[realmrsreynolds]

Smack.

Sallie whips around behind her.

"...Creaky old houses," she mutters disdainfully.

Even if her house isn't really that old.

[e_delmar]

There's a shuffling sound, and Ennis looks around, panicked, as he stands up and brushes dirt that ain't there from his legs that ain't really there, either. But there's dust, for sure, and that shit is all around.

[realmrsreynolds]

More sound -- scratching, movement against the floorboards, same direction as the smack -- and Sallie's out of her chair.

It's late, Sallie immediately reminds herself. Probably a mouse or some such.

There have been times where it hasn't been mice though, and what mouse makes a sound that loud?

Sallie debates going upstairs to wake Jack, but settles back down eventually.

[e_delmar]

Scratching and shuffling, and Ennis curses the door the creaks as he opens it. Out in the open, everything's the same, much's it can be, when everything's changed. And there's a wind, or maybe it's just Ennis.

[realmrsreynolds]

For not an old house, it's creaky and it's cold. Sallie let the fire burn down too low. Instead of moving toward the fireplace to rebuild it, she stands again, moving to one of the couches to pick up a spare throw to wrap around her shoulders.

Moving to claim her seat again, Sallie looks up enough in the near-dark to see the door to the spare room has cracked open.

[e_delmar]

Ennis follows her gaze and curses the door once more, and himself for good measure this time.

I'm sorry, is what he thinks, but that don't quite make it out, even as he comes closer.

[realmrsreynolds]

Jack and Sallie more or less never mess with Ennis' old room. Sallie'd even gotten pretty good about not thinking about that room, even when one of her newer employees had asked if she'd have room for another boarder.

She doesn't.

Sallie just stares at the door for another minute or so, not bothering to walk over to close it yet.

[e_delmar]

I'll close it behind me, he thinks, and that makes him let out another laugh, dry and brittle, like the call of a bird, even as he reaches out a hand to her.

[realmrsreynolds]

The silver-haired woman spins back on one heel, getting a chill up her spine mid-movement as she goes to sit back down.

She's not sleeping anytime soon.

[e_delmar]

Ennis follows, keeping close watch, and when she sits, he whispers something, not much of anything, even if he was still "real." But the blanket's shifted off her shoulder, and he reaches out to pull it back up.

[realmrsreynolds]

There. On her shoulder.

"...What the good gorram," Sallie mumbles, staring at the loosened blanket around her shoulder and the spot where she could have sworn someone had just grazed by.

[e_delmar]

And Ennis stops, then, holding his . . . hand? whatever the hell you call what used to be hid hand -- still.

Sallie?





But it's still only a thought.

[realmrsreynolds]

A thought through the mind of someone that Sallie can't see or hear.

But maybe she feels something, and she can't help but keep staring at that space -- the empty space right next to her that some secluded corner of her brain lets believe there is someone there who is not.

[e_delmar]

There, not there, even Ennis ain't too sure anymore.

But if he were there, could be he'd've leaned forward and placed a light kiss on her forehead before standing and rushing back to the room, the door swinging shut behind him.