TW: mention of suicide and/or self harm.
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Eleanor’s angel sat in the windowsill. His eyes combed her as she pondered the evening sky with it’s pricks of starlight only bright enough to see, but not touch. She was an interesting one, he thought, but at the same time, only because of her facade. She walked upright and tall and her nose parted the air for the rest of her body to glide through. Efficiency, he thought. But as soon as she reached her own doorstep, twisted the key in it’s lock, pushed the door open and then closed it behind her- suddenly her shoulders sagged and she put her smile away.
Her angel waited a moment and then opened the door himself, hopped inside, and closed it so that she wouldn’t hear him enter. If you were going to startle a girl, you had to do it right. In any case, it was time to speak with her. He’d been putting it off for awhile. He thought she’d just work through things on herself and- he also didn’t think that emotional support had been in the job description. But then, things were starting to get out of hand.
He wondered how to introduce himself. He’d never been good at introductions- well, he’d never introduced himself in the first place. Eleanor was defective, anyway, that’s what he thought and they’d assigned him to her because they thought he was defective also. Well actually, they weren’t entirely sure he was an angel. They were still caught up on what he was when they had assigned him to Eleanor.
She’d wondered into the kitchen and he’d followed her, glaring into the back of her head like it might just have the answers to what he should say. He wasn’t supposed to intervene in a way that he was revealed but- this seemed important and if he could just talk to her maybe everything would be alright.
She was rooting through the cupboard under the sink now. What was she reaching for? She pulled out a plastic jug of something, and for a minute he thought it was simply soap. Then he realized just how bad a job he’d been doing as an angel. But was he supposed to just… interrupt her? Surely she’d come to her senses, surely she’d put that jug away, surely… He closed his eyes, under his breath, he whispered over and over “put it away, put it away, put it away” But she didn’t put it away. He wanted to cry. She was crying. He heard her sobbing softly at first and then louder.
He opened his eyes and the jug wasn’t in her hands anymore, but she was sitting in a heap on the kitchen floor, her head in her hands. Her entire body was shaking. He looked around for the jug, and finally saw it up by the sink. Thank goodness, he thought. Then, reluctantly, he tiptoed closer to her. He wasn’t small or particularly graceful, but she was so caught up in her own grief that she didn’t seem to notice him until he was beside her on the floor. She wasn't startled, but it had surprised her enough that she wasn’t really paying attention to her own situation for a moment. He didn’t say anything and she didn’t ask who he was. They just sat there, looking at each other for a long time. Then she cried again, and he let her. And that’s when he realized that she wasn’t defective, and neither was she.
***
A/N: This was written for Elinor's Beatles Contest! So this story is inspired by the song Eleanor Rigby. And to explain myself a little- at the end of the music video there's a man with butterfly wings sitting on a roof, so I took it to be that he was the one looking at the world going "look at all these lonely people? Where do they all come from?" etc. So that's where I got the idea for a guardian angel who is a little lost and confused about what he's supposed to be doing, kinda like his charge; Eleanor Rigby.
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