тнιngѕ we loѕт тo тнe ғlaмeѕ ➶ - Stri and Socks

“Oh,” Elijah murmured, brow creasing in sympathy. It didn’t seem like it was anyone Cara was close with, so that was good. Still… having mortality shoved in your face like that wasn’t easy. Elijah couldn’t help the way his mind drifted to his mother. Her failing health reminded him every day of how easy it was to take life away. How ephemeral it really was.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He wasn’t the best at comfort, but Cara had come all this way for him, so he might as well try to do the best he could to help her. He couldn’t quite read her tone, but… she was upset. And she seemed to think he might have the ability to help.
“It’s not an inconvenience,” he added quickly, his smile widening just a bit. “I haven’t prepared dinner yet, so we can have whatever you want… I guess, as long as I have the ingredients. Ruth’s probably already put some vegetables on to cook, or maybe some bread – make sure to compliment her on it – but… you’re more than welcome to stay for as long as you’d like tonight.”

“We’ll find something to make, then,” Elijah replied, starting to head towards his door. “Is there anything you don’t eat? I mean… allergies or anything?” He pulled open the door, holding it open for Cara for a few moments.
“I hope you don’t mind that I’ll have to spend some time cooking. There’s a chair we can put right outside the kitchen so I can keep you company while I do it. And I’m sure Ruth would be happy to meet you. She’s a bit shy at first, and you don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to.” He gave Cara a small smile, trying to make her feel as welcome as possible. He took the stairs to his apartment, then pulled that door open for her as well.
“It’s… not much, but it’s home,” he said, well aware that it was a bit of a cliché. Well… it was the truth. It was small, and cramped, and it was barely enough for the four people that lived there, but it was a place to live. It was a roof over their head. And if there wasn’t an extra chair for a visitor, they could always pull something else over to sit on. They may not have had guests often, but they were familiar with hospitality.
The room they entered seemed to serve as a living room and a kitchen combined, with a small hallway leading to the three cramped bedrooms.

Elijah didn’t know what Cara was thinking. He didn’t know what she had done, and if he had… the way he was looking at her might have changed just a little bit. Not much, but a little bit. Even more if she didn’t have a good explanation. But he didn’t know, and he probably wasn’t going to find out unless Cara told him. And he might not believe her even if she did tell him.
“It does,” he added after a long moment, letting himself smile in return. He may not have played host very often, but his mother and father had high expectations for their children’s futures. They had been taught to be good hosts, even if it was a skill they would rarely ever use. They just didn’t have time to be good hosts. Well… Ruth and Benjamin would, if Elijah had his way. He was carrying on his parents’ dream for them, even if he knew he would never reach that goal himself. He would work as hard as he needed to in order to make sure that his siblings were set up for the future. In order to ensure that they would be high enough up in society that they’d have a reason to entertain and be good hosts.
He pulled the chair into the kitchen and gave Cara a warm smile as he started to preheat the pan. He dropped a little bit of butter in, noting that they were running low. He’d have to see if he could find someone who would sell it to them cheap. Butter wasn’t easy to come by in the city.
“Hi.” A quiet voice sounded behind Cara as Ruth peered around the corner. “Are you one of Elijah’s friends?”

Ruth glanced at Elijah for a long moment to make sure it was alright for her to speak with the guest, then grinned when Elijah gave her the affirming nod. Her gaze immediately flickered back up to Cara and she nodded, carefully smoothing down her dress to appear just a little bit more presentable.
“Well… Elijah doesn’t invite very many people for dinner, so… so if you’re here, you must be a friend!” Her smile broke out just a little wider at that. “I’m Ruth. It’s nice to meet you! I don’t… I don’t sorry, welcome to our home.” She blushed a little, realizing she had gotten the pleasantries out of order. There was an order people expecred things to be done in, and she was very, very bad at keeping it straight at times. Hopefully, Cara wouldn’t mind much.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she went on, her voice just a little quieter now. She was silent for a long moment before the smile broke back across her face.
“I helped chop the vegetables!” she announced proudly, puffing out her chest just enough to be noticeable. “So when Elijah brings out dinner, you’ll know that I helped, a little!”

Elijah didn’t know that there would be anything upsetting about using a fire. He carefully turned on the burner, beginning to roast the vegetables that Ruth had chopped. He threw in some beans, trying to make sure that there was protein in the dish. They didn’t really have enough chicken to spare, especially not if they were going to have guests. It was easier to just make the beans – there was a larger quantity of them, so everyone would (hopefully) have enough, even with an extra mouth to feed. He didn’t mind Cara’s presence – he welcomed it, in fact. And he was glad that Ruth was beginning to entertain their guests, if only because it was somewhat difficult to simultaneously cook and give Cara the attention she deserved. Distantly, he wondered how they expected women to both cook and play the perfect host. Elijah doubted he could pull that off, even if he spent the rest of his life trying.
Ruth grinned, nodding eagerly. “I’m learning to do it really quickly, so that I can help do more stuff for dinner, too!” she said, practically beaming. “I hope you enjoy them! I didn’t quite get all of the knife cuts even, but I think I was pretty close. It makes me happy to be able to help Elijah. He works really hard.” Her eyes were wide and earnest, though she didn’t turn back to watch Elijah cook.
“Elijah’s mentioned you, too!” Ruth added, not even stopping to think if that was technically acceptable to say. “I… well, I like a lot of things! I don’t like some of the things I have to learn, but… embroidery is fun. And I like playing in Central Park, but I’m not really allowed to do that anymore. They say I’m getting too old to play, so now I only get to stroll.”

Ruth didn’t notice anything wrong. She did, however, think it was rather sweet that Cara had shifted herself to better see Elijah, but she kept that comment to herself. It wasn’t that she was trying to play matchmaker (the idea of Elijah dating anyone was weird and she wasn’t sure she really liked it), but she did think her brother needed more friends. Even she had more friends than he did, and she didn’t have that many at all. Just the other girls who studied with her and were learning to cook and clean and embroider and just generally be proper young ladies. Even though most of them were probably just going to end up as serving girls. It was better work than factory work, that was for sure.
“No,” Ruth replied after a long moment, tilting her head a little bit. “I think people just like to eat things that look nicer. And if it’s all uneven, Ms. Smith told me that your guests will know you don’t take very much care while cooking, and it will give them a bad impression.” Ruth didn’t really know why so much of playing host was making sure to give the other person the best possible impression, but if that was what she had to do, she would do it to the absolute best of her abilities. “I think it would taste just as good if you didn’t care at all how it was chopped. Although… I think it might cook weird if some of the pieces were a lot smaller than others.”
She broke that thought off, blushing a little as she realized she had probably been rambling. That wasn’t very proper, but hopefully Cara didn’t mind.
“Right now we’re learning how to embroider in cursive. I haven’t picked out what mine is going to say yet, though. I want to try to find a quote from a book, but I don’t even know what book. We don’t have that many here. What do you think I should embroider? If you suggest something and I do it well, then maybe I can give it to you!”

Ruth thought about that for a long moment, trying to take Cara’s words into account. She didn’t know, which… was the issue. She didn’t know what was important enough to be embroidered that wasn’t also personal enough that she wouldn’t really want other people to see it embroidered on a pillow or something.
“That’s a good question,” she murmured, looking at Elijah as though he would have any advice. He gave a small shrug, then dipped his head to Cara. It was charming to him, to see how the two of them were getting along. And the vegetables were almost done, so he saw nothing wrong with encouraging their conversation at least until there was dinner to be served.
“Okay,” Ruth murmured, scooting a little bit closer to Cara. “I’ll try to think of something like that,” she added, nodding eagerly. “What… what kinds of things has your family or friends said that you would put in embroidery, if you could? I… wish I remembered more of the things my father said when I was little, but… I was too little to remember, and if it’s personal like that then I should probably do something I was actually told. But… if you have a good quote, I could give it as a gift. I mean it. So you could always remember whatever nice thing your friend said, and you could always remember that you were really nice when we had you over for dinner, so I made you a pillow with embroidery!” She was getting a little bit ahead of herself, but Elijah didn’t stop it. She deserved the opportunity to get carried away like that. Children didn’t have it nearly often enough.

“I’m happy to be your friend!” Ruth exclaimed, a dazzling smile crossing her features. “I just… well, it’s hard to make friends sometimes, so I’m glad that we get to be friends, as long as Elijah is okay with it!” She cast a quick glance into the kitchen at Elijah, who gave a firm nod as he started getting out plates for the food. Ruth’s smile widened, if possible. “Then we’re friends!” she exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down, though she did her best to conceal her excitement.
“I’ll make sure the pillow says something really nice, and I will put that on the back so you know that you… that you deserve good thoughts from friends, ‘cause everyone deserves that. And you’re nice.” Okay, so maybe she didn’t know Cara well enough to be saying that, but… she trusted Elijah’s judgement, and since Elijah had brought Cara home, she assumed that she must be nice. Elijah wouldn’t bring someone mean home.
“Dinner’s ready,” Elijah said from inside the kitchen, setting four plates on the table and disappearing into a different room with a fifth. He reappeared a few moments later, a careful mask pulled over his expression. Ruth seemed to notice, carefully not looking as she sat down at the table and pat the seat next to her should Cara wish to take it.

“I hope so,” Elijah replied, giving Cara a small smile. He was going to try to make this enjoyable for all of them, so they wouldn’t have to think about any of the bad things that were happening. So Cara wouldn’t have to think about the fire, so he wouldn’t have to think about his mother’s failing health… he took his place and closed his eyes for a quick moment before he gave Ruth a small nod. She grinned, then began to dig in, hoping to indicate that it was alright for Cara to start eating to.
Elijah was a little bit slower to begin eating, wanting to keep himself free to go fix something else up for Cara on the off chance she didn’t like what he had made. He didn’t have very many options, but he wanted to make sure she had something to eat that she actually wanted to eat.
“It’s not much,” he said after a moment, a little bit apologetically. “We don’t have very much to add flavor, but we make do with what we can. Like everyone else does, I suppose.”

Elijah didn’t notice anything wrong, and Ruth didn’t seem to either. He wasn’t expecting anything to be wrong, and if he thought Cara slightly reluctant to eat, he would have chalked it up to worry and anxiety ruining her appetite. Elijah knew well enough that it ruined his own when he came home and didn’t know if he had made enough to feed his family. At least a lack of appetite made skipping meals to feed his family a little bit easier. He pushed the thoughts away, instead offering Cara a small smile.
“Well, then I’m glad I didn’t put too much in the way of spices here. I’ll keep that in mind if you ever feel like visiting again. You’re… you’re more than welcome, whenever you need a friendly face or a place to stay.” He didn’t know all of Cara’s situation, but if he could do anything to make it easier… well, he was in a position to help, and he found that he wanted to.
“And… if you ever need a place where you don’t have to keep it together… you’re a friend, Cara.” Elijah knew it was a big offer, but it was the truth. They may not have known each other very well, but he didn’t have much in the way of friends. Technically, Cara was his closest.

Elijah glanced over, perplexed by the expression on Cara’s face for a long moment before he decided that ultimately, it wasn’t any of his business. She would tell him what she wanted to share, and until then his job was to just be a good host and make sure she was as okay as she could be while here. He frowned a little bit, realizing that he didn’t have any desert to offer her. Well… they might have some challah left over, which wasn’t dessert but might be something sweeter than dinner was, if Cara wanted. He wasn’t going to offer right away – she hadn’t even finished her food yet.
Oh, he realized as he glanced back. It seemed she had, actually.
“There’s more if you’re still hungry,” he told her, taking a bite of his own meal. “But please don’t be pressured to take more if you aren’t. Just… whatever you need. Or want.”
He was silent for another few moments before offering a tiny smile and setting his own portion aside. “It’s good to have friends,” he murmured, hoping his intent was clear enough. Sometimes… you couldn’t do everything by yourself. Elijah often had a hard time admitting that, but it was true. And knowing that he could lean on Cara if he needed, as she was leaning on his family now… it was a comforting thought.

Elijah gave a small smile, hoping he had done enough to help. He didn’t know what more he could do, he just knew that Cara was a friend and she had gone through something stressful. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to take a little bit of the weight off her shoulders when he was in a position to do so. He had a feeling she would probably do the same for him, if it came down to it.
“Would you like an escort home?” Elijah asked after a moment, searching her expression. He hoped she wouldn’t take offense to the suggestion – it was just that it was getting dark out, and traversing the streets with people was safer than walking alone. And Elijah knew from experience that people were less likely to bother someone like him than they were someone they saw as ‘easy prey,’ whether that statement was true or not.
“If… not… then I hope you’ll come by again soon. It was lovely to see you.”

--
Benjamin had found nothing. It was frustrating, but he supposed… well, he supposed he was going to find more if he kept looking. The sun was going down, though, and he didn’t want to get caught at the site of a fire after dark, when he really had no good reason to be there. He knew he should go home, knew he should make sure Elijah knew he was alright, but… he had a feeling he needed to go back to Percival to at least show him he was actively trying. To tell him exactly where he had looked and what he had done, and to tell him that he had been unsuccessful so far… but he was going to find something. He was going to help keep his home safe.
He took a breath, raising a hand to knock at Percival’s door. He didn’t know if the man would be pleased to see him, but… but he was trying. And he needed Percival to know.

Benjamin frowned a little bit at how unchanged Percival was from the last time he had seen him. It was undeniable that something was wrong, undeniable that whatever had happened, it probably involved Marcus, because he wasn’t here. But Ben knew it wasn’t his place to ask. He knew that unwanted questions from little kids could end up with tiny bodies in the streets that nobody noticed until days later. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust Percival, it was that he had a hard time trusting anyone who wasn’t his family. But he was here on a job for Percival, so he was going to do that.
“Nothing today,” he admitted reluctantly, shaking his head. “I poked around a little bit, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I’m… I’m sorry. But I’ll keep looking, I promise. And I won’t stop until I find something.”