Re: Under the trees: Elijah/Klaus
Elijah didn't feel what it was he did when he did it. Not this thing, that thing, the other thing he felt. He felt snapped bones and ripped-open skin, he felt the scream of a burn as it slid away to nothing on someone else's arm. He didn't feel the quietude as it pressed in heavily like a favorite blanket weighted warmly over shoulders. Elijah didn't know what off felt like; didn't know, wished he did. If the boy crashing through the trees did anything, felt anything, heard anything that wasn't normal, Elijah stood too close for comfort (his, someone else's) pressed the dimmer switch slowly until it blew out to nothing. Knew that people felt it, from the way they shrank, or got angry as if unnormal were a missing piece, instead of an aberration.
The boy looked ridiculous, as if he'd fallen out a haute couture magazine and through a hedge. Elijah, who wore an extremely ugly sweater shied from the crashing boy like a horse spooking at a plastic bag, as if it hadn't decided if it would bite yet, but it was only a heartbeat away from kicking. Didn't know he wasn't supposed to hear. Elijah crept backwards on worn sneakers away from the windmill of the boy's arms. "Nothing," he said, reflexively. It was an obviously risible answer. A lot was happening. Bonfire, drinking, twining.
Elijah looked at the boy, and his blue eyes were oddly direct. "What are you doing? What are you wearing?" His voice was thin, and a little creaky as if it didn't get much use.