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It takes longer than normal for Elijah to answer the door, and when he does he's clearly distracted.
"Hey. Help me find my wallet?"
He leaves Karl standing outside as he rushes back into the house, babbling with agitation as he goes. Karl tries not to laugh as he walks in and closes the door behind him.
"Where was the last place you saw it?" he shouts, wandering into the living room.
"Fuck if I know." Elijah sounds like he's on his last nerve, just managing not to scream and possibly throw a small adult tantrum.
"How can I help?"
"Look in there again, would you? Maybe the desk?"
Karl walks further into the room, casting his eyes about as he goes. He pulls open the middle drawer and rummages through it; no luck. The left drawer is a little deeper and as he lifts a folder out to see what's under it, he finds a box of glow sticks and a tangled pile of long black cords.
Somehow he can't stop looking at them, a collection he never expected to find in Elijah's house. Karl knows his friend likes to go clubbing, that he DJs from time to time and loves to dance. But somehow he never pictured him like this, glow sticks at the ready, vibrating with dozens, maybe hundreds of other people.
He can't help imagining a crush of people feeding off each other's energy, and Elijah in the middle, all rubber limbs and hungry rhythm. The sea parts slightly as the music takes hold, and he pictures Elijah spinning and twisting the glow sticks, sending the strings spiraling around him to the frenzied beat. The bass replaces the pulse of his blood, the swish of weaving sticks the air in his lungs. Karl stills as all of his thoughts are hijacked by images and sounds: Elijah's shirt soaking with sweat, Elijah's skin blushing dark pink, Elijah's heart rushing with the tempo. Lips parted, sucking in too little air, eyes almost dilated, generating more heat than all the bodies around him.
"Got it." Karl jumps about a hundred feet in the air at Elijah's voice. He looks at him, unable to hide the guilty expression on his face.
"What the fuck's up with you?" Elijah asks, crossing over to see what Karl had been looking at. Karl just swallows and tried to catch his breath, begins to sidle behind the sofa to try and hide the tightening in his jeans.
"You get worked up over glow sticks?" Elijah's looking at him like he's just grown another head.
"No, I was just surprised. I didn't know you were into club dancing like that."
"They're for my niece's majorette group. They use lighted batons during evening parades."
"And the cord?"
Elijah glances back in the drawer, pulls out a small handful as he tugs his pendant out of his shirt. "In case the one I wear breaks." He sounds like he's speaking to a child.
"Oh. Right."
"Why would it make any difference if they were for clubs?" He shoves the drawer closed again, still dangling a few cords in his hand.
"It wouldn't," Karl laughs. "Of course not. That would be weird. No I was just thinking about something and you startled me." Karl tries to casually edge around the sofa as Elijah approaches, unable to get a hot, sweaty, pulsating Elijah out of his head.
Elijah looks down at Karl's crotch - which somehow despite its owner's embarrassment is hell bent on charging rather than making a full-blown retreat - then back up at Karl's reddening face. "Thinking about what?" he asks, eyebrow cocked.
"Does it really fucking matter?" Karl chooses irritation as an escape route. "Are you ready to go or what?"
Elijah stares at him with those impossibly large eyes growing in intensity as they narrow in on their target, boring into Karl's skull. Karl wants to run, to punch, to bludgeon these unexpected thoughts and regain his equilibrium. All he can do is remember to breathe.
Finally Elijah has seen all he needs, his examination complete with a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth and an orchestrated swipe of tongue across lips.
"Yeah, I'm ready," he replies, his voice a stranger's to Karl's ears, a register Karl has never heard before. He watches as Elijah brushes past him close enough so the hairs on his arms stretch toward the electricity flowing from Elijah's skin. He hesitates for a moment - one beat, two - willing his mind and body back under control.
"Oh, I hope you took your pep pills," Elijah calls from the entrance. "I feel like dancing tonight."