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Title: Mutual
Author: Lily Elena
Pairing: VM/EW
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You find what you need in the strangest of places.
Notes: written for the contrelamontre non-songfic challenge; the song i used was elliott smith's 'needle in the hay' (lyrics underlined). beta'd by the lovely wasted_hope.


Orlando's been gone for weeks now and you've been haunting the places you and he used to visit, letting imagination do what memory's already begun to forget. You know he's with Dominic because Dominic told you, because Dominic thought it'd be better if you heard it from him than from someone else, but the fact that Elijah's on his own now too doesn't even filter into your mind until you see him one night in a tacky nightclub, smack in the middle of a throng of writhing bodies.

You watch him from the corner, eyeing him over your glass of scotch or gin or whatever it is you're drinking, you don't know, you've lost track any more. There's too much smoke in the club, too much smoke in your eyes, and even though most of it's coming from you, you're annoyed, almost to the point of anger.

He's strung out and thin, and you wonder what happened to the boy you knew, except you sort of know, so. The strobe lights flash over his skin and turn it vile, too-bright colors, but it only accentuates his pallor, heightens it, makes it that much more obvious.

In the haze and the blinking lights he looks like he's moving slow motion, and you consider saying something to him but sip your drink and continue to watch instead.

The inside of your mouth feels like cotton.

::

"Viggo," he says when he catches sight of you, and his eyes are glazed and far too blue. He stumbles, trip-falling halfway into you, and you grab his shoulders instinctively.

He giggles, and his breath smells of whiskey and drugs, and you think part of that is the club but not all of it.

Not all of it.

He's acting dumb, and that's what you've come to expect, but you can't blame him because if you were his age you'd be the same way.

You prefer to show things differently - not at all, in other words - and you guess that maybe that comes with age, or experience, or maybe, maybe that's just you.

"Elijah," you say, and tilt his chin up.

He laughs again, and then collapses, and he feels heavy in your arms.

You manage to drag him outside, where the rush of air makes him flutter back into consciousness, and you both get into the first taxi you can find.

The ride to your apartment feels interminable, and you can't help staring out of the corner of your eye at the boy with his head lolling tiredly on your shoulder.

"How much longer?" he asks, and it sounds more like the voice you remember and less like the cracked shell of the one you heard just a moment before.

"Four more blocks," you tell him, and wonder if your voice sounds any different to him, sounds any different to anyone.

::

"Haven't been here in a while," Elijah says when you step inside and flip the switch on, pulling him in with hands that are none too gentle, even though you're trying. His eyes flit over the half-finished painting propped up on your dining room table, a calculated mess of reds and greys that isn't anything, really, except catharsis.

"Yeah," you say, and shrug, because it's true, because there isn't anything else to say, because maybe talking more would lead to delving into more dangerous territory and you don't want that and you're pretty sure he doesn't etiher.

You set down a glass of water and a cracked shot glass of whiskey on the coffee table and motion for him to sit down. "Hair of the dog," you say, and push a pile of old newspapers off the couch so he has room.

He tips the shot back with ease and you watch the muscles in his throat work as he swallows.

"I thought," he says apropos of nothing, rolling the shot glass between clammy hands, "you know, I thought, 'he's gonna make it all okay'." He looks at you and his eyes unglaze. "Are you, Vig?"

"Sleep it off, Lij," you tell him, and hand him a blanket, and go to sleep it off alone, like you've been doing for the past few weeks.

::

When you wake up, early-afternoon sun shining clear and bright through the windows and warming your face, he's standing in your doorway watching you with his eyes bloodshot. He smiles a little when he sees you stir, and there's a stiffness to the way he moves that makes you wonder how long he's been standing there.

You recognize the shirt he's wearing, even though it isn't the one he wore last night and you know he didn't have anything with him because why would he? It takes you a minute or two, still sleep-hazy, to realize that he's wearing your clothes, and another few minutes to realize that you don't know what to say about that.

"You're quiet," you say instead, and dig your knuckles into your eyes. With your other hand you grope half-blindly for the mug of water you always keep by your bed, and end up spilling it onto your comforter, staining the fabric a darker blue.

"I can be quiet whenever I want," he says above your muttered curses, and you look up at him and you wonder what he's talking about, and you wonder why he's here.

::

Sometime around dusk you suggest he should maybe leave, mostly because he looks excruciatingly bored sitting in your patched-up armchair chain smoking, partly because you've found you can't keep your eyes away from the way his fingers scrabble at the package every time he pulls out a new cigarette, and you're too smart to get bitten twice.

When he stands up and speaks you're almost sure you've heard him wrong, and so you say "what?" distractedly, and it takes a few seconds before you glance up at him.

"Leave," he says, and sneers at you, and something inside you tugs and turns over at the practiced curve of his lips. "Like Orlando did, right?"

You know all he wants is a reaction, you can tell by the way the hard look on his face wavers when your eyes meet his, but you snap anyway, blood boiling, and before you even realize what you're doing you've got him trapped hard against the wall, your body flush against his. "You think you know what he did?" you snarl, teeth bared, and you can see your reflection distorted and upside-down in his overlarge eyes. "You idiot kid," and you push harder against him for emphasis, his head knocking back against the cream-colored expanse behind him, "you don't have a clue."

You shake your head and breathe deep through your nose, and then let out a sigh because he does know. "It's not my fault, Elijah. Don't take your shit out on me because he and Dominic -"

He cuts you off with a vicious, bruising kiss, hands coming up to fist in your hair so hard it hurts, and then whispers harsh against your lips, "fuck both of them, Viggo." He blinks at you, vulnerable again, and repeats himself, more insistently this time. "Fuck both of them."

One hand drops to your shoulder and his fingers curl around the worn fabric desperately, and you decide in a manner of seconds that feel like an eternity or two that you're quite frankly not about to say no to a boy who tugs and pleads and squirms under you like he's doing now, not about to say no to a boy who's pulled you out of a slump you've up-til-now refused to admit you've been in.

The needle in the hay, you think as you propel the two of you down the hallway and into the bedroom with the still-damp blankets, comes in many guises, including boys with toobright eyes and jeans you've worn three thousand times before.


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