"Sorry," Justin mumbled, and pushed past before he could say anything. Justin thought he was probably the sort of guy who'd order hard liquor for show and wince and cough when it actually came to drinking it.
Justin met him again outside, on the dingy street behind the club. The air was crisp and alive with the sounds of the city and the club, and the sky was a light blue-grey colour, from the city lights.
He was leaning against the wall of the building, which was covered in peeling, garishly coloured insulbrick, and smoking. The action looked out of place on him, like he was too young to be doing it, like he was too young even to bethere. "Hi," he called, without even looking at Justin, and Justin thought, aren't you smooth.
"Hey," Justin replied, instead. He wanted to say, who are you, hanging around here?, because he really didn't look like he belonged, but he ended up saying, "don't I know you from somewhere?", because he was fairly certain that he did.
"No," he said, in a way that very clearly meant that yes, he did. "I'm Elijah," and Justin thought, Wood; right, and then, fuck, and, fuck, he thinks I'm trying to pick him up. Which, it occurred to him, wouldn't be such a bad idea.
"'M Justin," he muttered, and Elijah was looking up at him sort of bemusedly, contemplating and calculating, or something. His eyes were shiny and there was a faint alcoholic flush in his cheeks, and Justin decided he'd probably had more liquor than Justin, even, which was sort of an exciting thought.
"I know," Elijah said, his lips twisting in a smile. He raised his cigarette to his lips (fucking pretty things), then seemed to realise that he'd already smoked it to the filter, and dropped it. He crushed the stub with his toe, watching as the ashes scattered, and looked back up at Justin. "Hey, hey," he said blandly, after a pause, "they say it's your birthday."
"Who says?" Justin asked, and then stopped, because oh, right. "Yeah," he said.
"You get ditched?" Elijah said, and drew out another cigarette from his pocket. As he lit up, he continued, "lonely at the top, isn't it, eh?" through pursed lips. He then plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled sharply, away from Justin.
"No," Justin said, just for the sake of it, though he had been, and he supposed it was. When Elijah twisted his lips, there was a little crease formed at the corner of his mouth, that Justin sort of wanted to lick.
"Yeah," Elijah said, and grinned. "It's my birthday, too, yeah."
Justin stared at him a bit more, but Elijah's face wasn't betraying anything. "You're really trashed, man," he said, and Elijah burst out into high-pitched giggles.
"Maybe, yeah," he said, after a time. He was smoking this cigarette more slowly, savouring it more -- it wasn't a normal cigarette, Justin thought, not that he knew much about smoking anyway, but cloves, or something. That was really hot, he thought, and smooth. "Happy birthday," said Elijah suddenly.
"Um. Thank you," Justin said awkwardly. This was really not going well.
Elijah straightened a little, and leaned towards Justin. He smelled of smoke was laced with that of indistinct cologne and alcohol, but it was somehow not unpleasant -- or maybe Justin was just easy. "D'you kiss on the first date?" Elijah asked, quietly.
Justin hesitated while Elijah finished his cigarette. He said, "maybe," which was a stupid thing to say, but Elijah didn't seem to notice. He was just looking at Justin, dazedly, his head angled to one side; and then he closed the distance between them, and very carefully pressed his lips to Justin's. Justin figured that if he hadn't used enough care, he would have missed entirely.
It was a very soft and chaste kiss, kind of like Elijah, who'd probably never gotten past first base, Justin thought, and he didn't care who Elijah was. Elijah pulled away first, and lit another cigarette. This was shaping up to be a fairly uneventful seduction, Justin thought, if all Elijah was going to do was talk and give little pecks and chain-smoke.
"Do you, then?" Elijah asked, and tucked away his lighter.
"Sure," Justin said, and thought, fuck it, and wrapped one hand around Elijah's thin wrist, drawing his cigarette away from his mouth. And then he kissed Elijah, hard, tonguing at Elijah's lips until he responded, opening his mouth against Justin's. Elijah's mouth was hot and wet, but also simultaneously sort of dry, from the smoke in his breath and the alcohol on his tongue. Justin pushed him back a little, against the wall, snaking one arm around his waist (fucking tiny), so he could hold him in place.
Elijah's tongue was quick, but lacked purpose or sobriety or something, and Justin forced his mouth harder against Elijah's. He released his grip on Elijah's wrist, and slid his hands to the small of Elijah's back, and down, and fuck, Elijah had a nice ass for being so skinny. Elijah made an indeterminate sort of noise in the back of his throat.
He laid a hand on Justin's shoulder and pushed him away, carefully wiping his mouth with the back of his other hand, before taking a short puff on his cigarette. "Hey, look," he said, "if you're going to kiss me, at least do it right."
Justin looked down at him, eyes wavering a little. "What?" he said, incredulously, and stepped away from him..
Elijah didn't say anything, but rolled the cigarette between his thumb and index finger, looking fixedly at it.
"No, really," Justin said. "What d'you mean?"
Elijah finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the wall behind him before dropping it. "Fuck, did no one teach you how?" When Justin started to nod, he said, "No, actually, don't tell me. Here, just, put your hands somewhere."
Justin faltered a little, wondering if he'd heard right. He'd just stuck his tongue in Elijah's mouth and groped him, and now he was telling Justin to put his hands somewhere, like it didn't really matter. It was sort of -- "I'm not kidding," Elijah said -- inane, that was the word, but Justin slid his hands up and back around Elijah's waist anyway.
Elijah gingerly touched Justin's jaw; his fingers were cold and rough and bitten. Justin closed his eyes, and Elijah kissed him. It was open-mouthed with little tongue, just Elijah sucking at his lower lip, tongue darting out only to lick gently at the corner of Justin's mouth. It tickled a little and was a weird way to kiss, Justin thought, and not really sexy at all. He tilted his head for a different angle, touching his tongue to Elijah's, and Elijah immediately pulled away.
"Are you going to let me do this or not?" he asked, breath whispering over Justin's lips.
"I," Justin started, thrown, but didn't get any further. Elijah covered Justin's mouth with his own, and licked forcefully across Justin's palate. His lips were chapped and dry against Justin's damp ones, and tasted overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly of cloves. Elijah traced his fingers up along the curve of Justin's jaw, hooking over his ear and down the back of his neck as he kissed. Justin tightened his arm around Elijah's waist, dragging up Elijah's jacket a little, exposing a bit of his shirt, and then a line of cool skin against Justin's palm.
Elijah pressed closer to him, crushing his mouth against Justin's so that their teeth clicked, and Justin could feel his lower lip being bitten, though by whom, he couldn't really tell. Elijah's tongue was invasive and deceptively sweet, even as he fisted one hand in Justin's shirt, while the other forced Justin's head down for better access and a better angle. It was a confusing sort of thing, unreciprocal and heady and wet, angled so that it wasn't about lips at all, but tongue.
Elijah broke away suddenly, with one long swipe of tongue over Justin's lower lip, and said, "do you mind?"
"Sorry," Justin said, though he didn't know what for. Elijah released him and lit another cigarette, and his fingers weren't even shaking on the lighter, which was really not fair. Justin let his hands drop, and awkwardly stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket, watching. It was a little unsettling, the way Elijah did that, going from on to off without a thought, and without even looking like he'd just been kissing Justin mere moments before.
"Do you mind?" Elijah said again, but in an entirely different way, like an actual question. Justin sharply inhaled the acrid smell of cloves and said, "yes, my voice," but it was weak: he was beyond caring about his voice, at that point. He made to slip away from Elijah, but Elijah was faster, and curled his fingers in Justin's shirt again, stopping him.
"Wait," he said, and Justin did. Elijah's eyes were glittering in the light from the street lamps, and his lips were shiny and damp, and he smoked sort of lazily, exhaling without any sort of precision, and that was really sort of hot. But frustrating, too, because Justin could feel the moments stretching out between them, and they were supposed to go somewhere, except it didn't really look like Elijah wanted that to happen.
He was thinking that maybe when he was done waiting, he'd shove Elijah back against the wall, and feel Elijah's shoulder blades crunch roughly (but harmlessly) against the brick. Maybe he'd lean close and press his lips to the soft patch of skin just below Elijah's ear and suck hard enough to bruise, and then trail his lips up along his earlobe and say something like, "come on," and Elijah would nod and they'd get out of that fucking dark alley behind the club and Justin would be able to get somewhere beyond the realms of half-hard.
Unsurprisingly, Elijah had different ideas, which included tracing his index finger over Justin's cheekbone, and then tilting his head up to kiss Justin, long and slow and normal, cigarette still burning between his fingers. He trailed his free hand down Justin's chest to rest flat on his stomach, and pushed him away a little when the kiss came to its natural end. He blandly finished his cigarette and said, "let's get out of here."
Justin liked that idea just fine.