and what you lost. eli + noah blitz.

[✨ zozo.]

Things have not been good since Juliet died.

She can understand that now. That Juliet is gone. That she is dead, and Noah is not, and it is her fault. Noah was always a quiet child, until she was not. She took up the world, all of her confusion and her rage sucked up everyone else's oxygen - and then she heaved it back out of her lungs and became nothing but a whisper.

When Juliet died she just

stopped.

Everyone was growing older. Everyone was learning to live without her. But Noah stayed frozen, or at least moved slower than everyone else around her. That wasn't anything new, and she - could cope with that - but she didn't know how to cope with the fact that Juliet wasn't here. Whilst everyone else had buried her, Noah was still clinging to a corpse. Jules was gone. James all but. Sidonie was older, and Bailey, and they ran the shop. Her Mom sat quietly, still. Dad filled the space where her Mom had fallen silent, trying his best to check in with everybody. But Noah would never say good morning back.

Not then. Most certainly not now.

So she sat in her grief, staring out of the windowsill of the shop, watching people walk in and out and past. Watched the snow fall, and melt, and the grass grow. Watched flowers bloom and wilt and scorch, watched leaves turn brown and fall through the air. Now she feels winter approach once more and Juliet is still not here.

Things have not been good, and she realises they might not ever get better - her tears fall with the leaves, spilling against the windowsill like rain caught on the other side of the glass pane.

[Tom]

Sobriety was hard.

A craving beneath his fingertips with everything that continues to happen in their home. Ghosts walking throughout as if their wasn't a space missing, a piece of their hearts gone and achingly trying to be filled by all of them. The smiles never quite reaching the whites of their eyes as Elliot Monaghan bleeds himself dry trying to be someone he's never been before. A failure of an older brother who wanted to leave everything behind and be young and dumb and stupid. Live without any worries upon his own skin, but when Jules died, so did his youth. The guilt bubbling up from the drunken state he'd been in for her reaping.

Eli had always been a mess of a human being. An asshole who dared to call himself a Monaghan when his siblings risked their lives in the family business and taking care of the family because even a fuck up like himself couldn't handle that. The whites of their eyes don't shine anymore; it's a pathetic feeling that bubbles up in his chest when he looks for that same feeling as before. He's trying. That's all he can do. He's been doing much better than he had been, but he still fumbles on the best of days. Luckily, he hasn't drowned himself in a bottle since the day Jules died. Mornings in the shop were always the toughest for him, when he could see Noah's grief burning through her skin and echoing along his mind.

A cup of warmth in his palms, made by his own hands for these moments when he catches the glimpse of grief in the eyes of his siblings. James had been broken. Sidonie and Bailey had grown too fast. Mom's moved on to make sure Twelve knows of their grief. Dad's trying his best. Noah is the one he's always worried about. Noah has always been the one they all looked out for since they were kids. They protected her from everything because that's what family does, but Eli had failed them all and he knew it.

"I-I brought hot chocolate." Edging his way towards the windowsill, he gives a soft look before holding out the mug. "I figured you needed a little pick me up."

[✨ zozo.]

Everyone is trying. Trying to forget, trying to move on, trying to pick up where Jules left off. Noah is trying to understand their reasoning, but nothing makes sense. And it is infuriating, to the point where she cannot do anything except press her lips together and cry. Noah craves Jules, who would hold her tight and tell her it was going to be okay. Jules made it so. At least Sid knows how to touch her, how to talk to her, how to just let her be.

She'd learned it from Jules, Noah realised one day. Watched Jules, copied her every move. Innate, Sid had understood. She could never be Jules, her little sister. But she could be Sidonie. And some days that was enough.

Eli is trying. He never has before. Where Jules was her centre, and Sidonie close by, Eli was furthest from Noah's reach - almost as far as Jamie. She doesn't why Jamie treats them so cruelly, Noah especially. He never acted this way when Jules was here. No Jules, no excuses.

She takes the mug from Eli's hands and sips - it scalds the roof of her mouth and she winces. But then it is bearable, a warmth that makes her realise just how cold she was sitting here on the windowsill.

Noah never said thank you, not then. Not now. Without Jules there to remind her to nod and smile. Noah imagined her, remembered the way she would gently nudge her shoulder. "What do you say?" she'd ask with a smile.

Noah would smile back, and Jules would fill in her words. "Thank you Eli."

No Jules, no words, no thank you.

She manages a small smile instead.

[Tom]

Elliot doesn't cry.

Not like the rest of his siblings, he's never been one to break down the way they all have. He swore he's seen James take out all of the pain into the family business that he wasn't supposed to know about, but knew more than the twins had wanted him to know. Fake wealth is still wealth, but not to the rich folk of Twelve. Coal dust hands and anger filled faces, but he's no longer dealing with the inner works of Twelve. No, Eli has taken up being the brother he never had been.

Small things is how it started. A meal made by his own hands. A friendly reminder to drink water before heading out to James or Bailey or Sidonie. Housework done by his own hands to remind him of what he's forgotten in the haze of alcoholic drinks and pretty faces. The chill of the morning blooming from his fingertips, icicles of his own heart failing to be together once again. A moment of taking in Noah's reaction of hot chocolate against the tongue, burning and hot with the pain they all are crushed under. Eyes glancing from the window to the store behind them.

The small smile is all he gets, but there's a feeling in the pit of his stomach. The anger bubbling up of not being enough for the rest of them. A fuck up since he lost himself to a bottle and messy sheets in a bed. A mess of a human being who let his sister just die in a game of blood and tears. Noah and Jules were always close. Closer than any other siblings were, sometimes Eli can remember the strong and teasing looks of his sister in the walls. A peaceful moment where her words still sink in with blades sharper than the ones that helped kill her.

"I-I could,"

Lips closed shut as he stares at Noah with the awkwardness of knowing he's not her.

He'll never be Jules.

"We could talk about it, if you want."

[✨ zozo.]

"Talk," she repeats, mouth dry despite the drink in her hands. Noah was always terrible at that. A lifetime of Mom asking her, begging her to repeat after her, and Noah just sat there doing something else entirely.

Then Jules would toddle over, "Noah!" she'd beam. "Let's play over here!"

"Noah!" her sister would beam back, "Play!" - and their mother laughed until she cried.

It's not that she didn't want to talk, she wanted nothing more. But it never felt right to talk. And when she did it was incomplete, not enough words able to leave her mouth, and the conversation would end with a frown from her mother or kids laughing on the playground until Jules and Jamie walked up to them and kicked them in the shins. Eli was always off in his own world, never needing to help or be helped. Noah wanted to be like that but knew she was not, so she'd watch him walk in and out of her life content with simply catching a glance of her brother along the way.

"Talk," she repeats, taking another sip of her mug.

Then, hollow - "Jules?"

Perhaps Eli needed someone to listen. Noah was terribly good at that.

[Tom]

The word repeats on her lips; a blossoming of a drought to the word as if it were a poison on her tongue.

A chill runs down his spine, a reminder of the lack of knowledge he carries about being anything more than the fuck up of the family, despite what anyone else would say. A brother who played a gambling game between the rich, pretending he wasn't drowning in his own ego and losing the blend of mortality in his veins. Thoughts of feeling like he was untouchable to everyone and everything, but then Jules left and everything shattered with a crash of broken bottles and drunken messes. Sobriety was hard, but living without a piece of his family left him hollow. Deepened wounds he never would heal, but he desperately clings on to what is left of them.

Whether any of them let him hold on or not, he clings to the only pieces of his life left.

"Talk,"

A sip of his own fire burns down his throat, the pain of the heat being something he still deserves despite his trials of being someone better.

"Jules?"

The silence echoes along his eardrums, rupturing the thought process he had been carrying. Eli wanting to be the older brother that Noah or any of his siblings could go to for anything. Eli staring Noah in the eyes and hearing the hollowness to her voice that almost makes him want to reach out and hold her, letting himself break, but he can't. No, he was trying to be an ear.

"I-If you want to talk about-" A stuttering pause to his words as his hand runs through the locks of hair pushing the messy bits back to smooth over his own mind. "J-Jules."

"We can."