Re: Under the trees: Elijah/Klaus
Discomfort was something Elijah recognized well. It was an intimate friend, a hand-holding acquaintance that sidled in and whispered in the ear. He recognized the gesture, the tug at the coat as if it were protective shell. Elijah understood in a dim way but it receded underneath his own cantankerous dislike for being put ill at ease.
"Nothing. Nothing-nothing," Elijah repeated several time over. He had withdrawn his hands inside the sleeves of his sweater (under which he wore a white cotton undershirt, which provided little physical protection from accidental brushes of contact but he hadn't meant to collide with anyone. Intention was seldom sufficient to do anything or remember anything or avoid anything, stupid to think otherwise). Nothing it was, because the man gently spinning in a circle and looking down at himself seemed utterly mad. Elijah curled his fingers into his palm with the delicacy of surgeon; touching mad was awful. Mad was worst of all, all those synapses and chemical imbalances, he roiled with disgust at the thought.
"You're in the woods. At a party," Elijah informed him without any sensibility at all. "Drugs. Why would you put a spider on drugs? Spiders are useful," and his tone implied that drugs, at least psychedelic ones, were not.