Eli Pride is Elizabeth Bennet (![]() ![]() @ 2010-12-21 04:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | elizabeth bennet, viola |
Who: Eli and Preston Elijah and Ash
What: It all goes to hell / Elijah screws up
Where: Their private school in Boston
When: The mid nineties, a week after this, and the day before Elijah transfers schools.
Warnings: Language from Wayne's World, teen angst, awkward kisses.
Notes: We're done spamming. We promise.
It was the day before the Christmas holiday began, and Elijah had been in school three weeks. It had been a week since the sleepover, a week since he’d kissed Ash, a week since Ash had kissed him. A week since he’d realized maybe he hadn’t liked Jessica Burns as much as he thought he had.
He was a fifteen-year-old boy, and so he didn’t have butterflies, and he wasn’t gay. No. It was cool. He and Ash were friends, and yeah, maybe he liked kissing him, but that didn’t mean anything. He hadn’t exactly justified it in his head, not so much as he’d ignored it for a week, and at fifteen a week felt like forever.
They had final exams all week, and his aunt kept dragging him shopping after school, and he’d been starting at Ash across auditorium all morning that Friday. He’d spent a week talking Ash up to his friends, talking Hoser down, and he’d watched the fruits of his labors from across the schoolyard with the smug smile of a kid who knows things other people don’t. When the girls tried to talk to Ash, he didn’t even get jealous, not much, because he was going to get him alone before the week was over, and he knew it.
By Friday, by the assembly in the auditorium, though, he was getting antsy, and Karen Giler had angled to sit on one side of Ash and Sandy Evans had sat on the other side, and maybe Elijah felt a little jealous. Okay, a lot jealous, and if Sandy Evans managed to convince Ash she was cold and needed his jacket, he might have to kill her or something.
Ash didn’t have any idea what to do with the situation. If he thought about it too hard, he realized all the things that could go horribly, horribly wrong, and that gave him cold nightmares that interrupted the amazingly embarrassing dreams, so he tried not to think about it too hard. His usual tactic of keeping his head down and passing unnoticed wasn’t working like it usually did, either, thanks to an unprecedented amount of attention from people he didn’t even know. It took him half the week to figure out that Elijah was talking about him, and after he quashed a thrill, he started to get uncomfortable--and after uncomfortable, he started to get angry.
Sandy Evans talked so much that Ash could only nod and smile weakly. Karen was even worse, because all she did was stare at him like she’d die if he didn’t pay attention to her right that second. The auditorium was quickly filling, and getting warm with the loud, shifting number of bodies, but Sandy said she had a cold and wasn’t it freezing, and both girls stared at him for so long that he was working his arms out of his sleeves to everyone’s approval. The tactic backfired a second later, however, as Ash muttered something about going to get an extra coat, and he worked his way over knees out of the aisle. He caught Elijah’s gaze on his way up, and it was so hard and intense that it should have hit him like the blow Ash was saving up for some time when they were alone. He stalked up the carpeted aisle and disappeared into the hallway beyond.
Yeah, Elijah was jealous.
He didn’t even wait a full minute before he stood and made his way out of the auditorium. He was on the corner of the aisle, so it didn’t attract as much attention as it could have, but it was still a stupid, unthinking thing to do. But he wasn’t thinking, not really. He pushed the auditorium doors open, and he turned toward the bathroom, assuming that’s where Ash had gone. He assumed that, because he didn’t know Ash was angry about the attention, didn’t know what that hard stare had meant. He only knew that he hated jean jackets, and he felt sick in his stomach, and he thought Sandy Evans had the ugliest, horsey face he had ever seen on a girl.
Ash was a few steps down the hallway ahead, not really expecting Elijah to follow because he didn’t estimate himself as highly as he should have. He turned around when he heard a step, and he shot Elijah that glare again and then looked around for somewhere they could have a private conversation. The nearest at hand was one of the chem classrooms, which smelled like vinegar but was conveniently unlocked. He veered to one side, looking strangely pale without his school jacket in his white oxford shirt.
As soon as Elijah came in after him Ash wheeled around and pushed his chest close to his. “What is your problem, man?” All the frustration was in his face and he didn’t hold anything back from his voice, either.
On some level, Elijah registered that anger, he did. But he was too envy-filled to care, and he’d wanted to touch Ash for a solid week, and he was close now, and the only thing in his way was white oxford, and his fingers dragged the shirt free of his pants even as his lips ground against his in a kiss that was all boy, nothing like a girl, teeth and hands that yanked at fabric, and chapped lips, and too much of his uncle’s cologne.
Kissing was still a new thing for Ash. He’d never been in a relationship that lasted very long, and he hadn’t kissed a male at all before Elijah. He was taken by surprise, therefore, despite the almost desperate nature of the kisses at Elijah’s, the ones that tasted like pizza and secrets at the same time. This--at school--was a new kind of kiss, a now and (Ash thought) an I don’t care what they think kind of kiss. Unlike the other boy, Ash knew this wasn’t just some weird once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was an amazing thrill in direct contrast to years of hiding his gaze and keeping his thoughts to himself. For about two seconds, Ash froze, and then reacted, pushing back into the kiss with his mouth and losing some of the frustration in the heady whirl of being wanted.
It only lasted two seconds, though. Ash shoved Elijah away, hands on his chest, pulling his own shirt down defensively. “Stop it!”
Elijah did stop, but it was a reluctant, fast-breath, adrenaline kind of stop. The kind that said he wasn’t going to actually stop for very long, if he had his way, and Ash better say whatever he wanted to say before momentum started up again. “Why?!” he demanded. “Because stupid Sandy Evans is wearing your stupid jacket?” he asked, and yeah, it was obvious that he was jealous. He stared hard at Ash, blue eyes skating along his torso and - he hadn’t actually managed to look below the waist yet without turning bright red - “Or did you change your mind about me?” Demanding, and entirely hormones and no logic behind the question. He’d started this, after all, these girls following Ash around.
“You’re the one throwing girls at me!” Ash shouted, forgetting they were supposed to be meeting in secret and the whole James Bond shit didn’t work when you were arguing at the top of your lungs. All the staring just made the hair go up on the back of his neck and he pushed impatiently at him again to get him to listen. “And now she’s got my damn jacket, and I’m cold. They all left me alone up until now--why didn’t you listen? I told you no!” Push.
“No one beat you up this week, did they?” Elijah asked, and there was a distinct, if unspoken duh in the question. “Do you like her?” he asked, because he was young enough that he needed confirmation that no, Ash didn’t like her, and he needed that confirmation in spades. They were boys, and so there was another shove, this time Elijah’s hands against Ash’s chest. Shove, and then an angry meeting of mouths again as Elijah’s shove pressed Ash back against the nearest desk in the chem lab, sending beakers teetering and crashing loudly.
“Only because Maura got back with Stevey and he made his stupid point. Now you’re just going to piss them all off again and--” Ash experienced that weird, nightmarish sensation when you put your hand back and it doesn’t catch you, so you keep falling even though your heart stays where you were a second ago. He shoved Elijah off again, and there was more glass shattering, but he pushed through it to get a grip on his shirt and take control of the kiss.
Elijah might have moaned, he wasn’t sure. The change of control, Ash’s anger, the gripping hands, they’re all enough to amplify everything he’s feeling, and right then he’s feeling everything. “Do you like her?” he demands again, voice raising, mouth against Ash’s jaw, and this is more than a kiss, because it isn’t mouth to mouth, and it’s somehow more intimate because of it.
“No!” Ash almost felt like hitting him, but the kissing felt better, so he’d stick with that. He wasn’t all that strong, since the most exercise he got was usually running in P.E. or running from Millhouser, but he hauled Elijah back up so he could get his head straight. “If I did, it would be your fault.” That didn’t make any sense. He didn’t care.
Oh, Elijah didn’t like that answer at all. He tried not to wig out, really he did, but his brain wasn’t really working as good as it normally did. He heard yes, I really dig Sandy in Ash’s response, and he couldn’t see past the envy-green that completely obliterated his vision. He shoved, shoved, shoved. Through, the door and into the hall, completely unthinking that anyone might be there. And he shoved Ash straight into the opposing wall and ground his mouth against his in a hard, hard kiss. Out in the open. Where anyone could see.
Ash hit the back of his head on a locker but he barely felt it, barely heard the bang. He’d never been wanted before, not like this, and nobody had ever been jealous of him--not like this. Ash caught himself as his knee bent and pushed back in a way that was becoming increasingly, thrillingly familiar, and it wasn’t until his mouth was open to meet Elijah’s that he heard a different, very different sound. It sounded like a gasp; a female gasp.
Despite the fact that Elijah was pressing Ash into the locker, the fact that Ash was leaning in to meet Elijah’s mouth, the fact that Ash was the one pushing back, made it appear that Ash was advancing. Elijah heard the gasp, and he reacted immediately, fear rising sharp in his throat with bile and panic. He shoved, as if he’d been doing that all along, as if Ash was against the lockers because Elijah was pushing him away, and he jumped back. His blue eyes were wild with panic, and all his assurances flew away as the crowd neared and the whispers crescendo-ed. He was fifteen, and in that moment the reality of what they’d been caught doing almost brought him to his knees.
A horribly familiar expression of utter terror took over Ash’s expression, and red flush swept up his neck from under his loose collar. Sandy looked literally ill, and her friend was whispering in her ear as fast as she could without taking her eyes from either of them. At a total loss, caught in the headlights, Ash clung to the lockers to keep from falling and froze there. Cries of “gross!” and “get a room!” were now mounting over the whispers. Abruptly Ash tore his eyes away from the crowd and looked at Elijah, asking for help. What should he say?
Elijah was too scared to help. He was on autopilot, self-preservation the only thing running through his veins. “What the fuck, mate?” he asked, and oh, God, he couldn’t stay there. He heard what they were saying, and he was going to throw up. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t. He wasn’t gross, he couldn’t be. He thought of home, of Musings, of the things people had said there, and he knew he was going to flee a second before he did, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Nothing. He turned, and he shoved through the crowd, and he felt like Judas, and that made him move even faster. Stevey grabbed his jacket sleeve, and he shoved him off. “Man, get off me!” he yelled. “I had nothing to do with that!” he insisted, and his stomach fell as he said the words.
“Elijah...” It wasn’t loud, though. Ash didn’t have it in him to be loud in that moment, not when Elijah, the only person to ever make him feel normal in years, was disappearing into the crowd, blending in with them, until he wasn’t Elijah at all, just one of the horrified faces staring back at him. He didn’t know anything could hurt that bad, all at once, without warning. Ash stumbled back as Stevey turned in the crowd to face him, a look of absolute triumph on his face. A split-second more to look for help that did not come, and Ash turned around and ran. He ran the other way, knowing it wouldn’t ever be fast enough.