[thd] help, i need somebody [elias]

september 2001

“Portus.” Edith grinned as she watched the crumbled bit of newspaper glow blue for a few brief seconds before returning to its regular, drab, black-and-white self. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence to create an illegal portkey, but it was certainly necessary. Drinking while apparating was probably not the greatest idea, even if she had done it successfully a few weeks ago with her new friend Emily. This situation was different: she wasn’t after an old book this time, rather more on a quest to find Elias’s mouth with her mouth. It was crucial that she didn’t splice her lips off.

Her apartment wasn’t nice enough to have a fireplace, so that ruled out floo travel. The last option was walking, and seriously, who had time for that? Edith glanced quickly at the mirror propped up on her dresser, carefully smoothing down a couple flyaway hairs and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. It wasn’t much, but it was more care for her appearance than she gave when she wasn’t planning on seeing Elias.

She kept her hand on the newspaper and gulped as she felt that invisible hook pull her forward into nothingness. It wasn’t too late, at least she didn’t think, so she reappeared in an alley just down the block from her intended destination. Throwing the paper in the nearest bin, Edith walked as quickly as she possibly could without stumbling to get to the door, timing it perfectly to follow someone else into the building, but not timing it perfectly to get into the actual apartment without having to knock on the door loudly and repeatedly. “Eeeh-leee-aaaas—“

@Elias Dörfler

Practice had run a bit late, and Elias was starved. His right shoulder was already getting a bit stiff, and he rotated it gently as he cooked, trying to loosen some of the tension he had built up from the last few hours of beating. He usually went through a whole cool-down routine after putting away the heavy black balls and apparating back to his apartment that included stretches and a quick shower, but not tonight. The extra 45 minutes of practice, in combination with the rather small lunch he had eaten at the office, meant that Elias had headed straight for the kitchen to fry up green and red bell peppers and a few eggs.

Elias had just sat down to eat when he heard a loud crash in the hall, as though someone had fallen into the door. He looked over in alarm, setting his utensils down at once to investigate. Before he could even cross the room, he heard a familiar voice calling his name through the door. Had they had plans that he had forgotten, somehow? Elias hurried over and pulled the door open and extended his arm just in time to catch Edith as she tripped over the threshold.

"Are you alright?" he asked her, supporting her as best he could while also ushering her inside, not wanting the neighbors to notice anything odd. It was lucky Oliver was out. He knew he had a tendency to worry, but he couldn't help looking down at his girlfriend with concern. It was a Tuesday night, not even that late yet, and she smelled strongly of beer. "What have you been doing?"

Edith forgot how to walk as soon the door opened. She was glad it was Elias that answered the door, and not his roommate or that other quidditch girl. Names weren’t coming very easily to her right now, but it didn’t really matter. “Ooh yes,” she confirmed, immediately wrapping her arms around his torso and not minding at all that much that he was helping her inside. “Much better now,” she added with a nod.

She hadn’t really thought through her plan, still so thrilled with herself for traveling unscathed. “Brilliant, really,” she continued, even though he hadn’t asked her to reiterate. She figured out how to move her feet evenly again and she took a step back from Elias, a bit disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm at seeing her. “We had some Department team building activities after work.” She shrugged, clearly talking about drinking with coworkers. It was a somewhat common occurrence, really, and shouldn’t come as too much of a shock. It was good to celebrate a job well done and could she really help it if she did all her jobs well? She didn’t think so.

Nodding again, Edith moved past Elias into the apartment and towards the smell of cooked food, pulling her red, black, and white United jacket off and throwing it over the back of the couch. “That smells good,” she offered over her shoulder. “Better than you do, anyway.” She turned just enough to offer him a grin before continuing her investigation into the food.

She didn't seem brilliant, but Elias didn't argue. At least she had come to his apartment rather than stayed out -- he was thankful for that much. He liked being able to keep an eye on her. At times, Edith's unpredictability made her exciting and fascinating, but at others, it made her a major source of worry. He was on the brink of directing her toward the sofa when she decided she was back in control of her feet and stepped away. He released her against his own inclinations, but she seemed steady enough. Maybe he had been overreacting, as he was prone to do when it came to Edith.

"Of course," he responded immediately, though her answer was hardly the detail he had been looking for. Were all the Obliviators a little wild? He supposed he didn't know many of them other than the one or two in their immediate group of friends. Maybe this was just how their department operated. Elias bent down to pick up the red jacket she had tossed down, hanging it on a black iron hook by the door before following her into the kitchen. "Should I cook you something?" he asked, moving automatically toward the stove. His decision not to shower after practice was already high up on his list of regrets, and keeping a bit of distance was probably a good idea if Edith was going to comment on it. He ran a hand through his brown waves, trying to at least get his hair a bit more presentable. "Do you want to just eat that? I can make more."

“Of course,” she repeated him, nodding again. “I’m alright, I think.” She wasn’t really positive that she wanted food, especially now that she was thinking about it, and she was almost certain that she had eaten something at the pub. Like, nearly sixty percent sure, anyway. Close enough. “You should eat, though.” She nodded again, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms across her chest. “Sorry I kind of just showed up.” Edith waved her hands in the air a bit dramatically. “I thought you would have been a tiny bit happier to see me, sorry.” She smirked as she shrugged, not actually too upset, but she didn’t mind letting him think that if that meant he would make up for it with kisses.

And now that her mind had flashed back to her original reason for showing up at all, her cheeks flushed red and she averted her eyes quickly, focusing instead on a blue and white egg timer on the counter. “I can leave if you had plans or an early night or something or I can wait while you eat or shower or something, I don’t mind.” She said everything very quickly, her mouth much farther ahead of her brain but they were definitely in agreement with each other.

She straightened up and closed the space between them again, not minding the post-practice-pre-shower aroma, maybe almost drunk enough to find it somewhat attractive, and wrapped her arms around him again. “I just wanted to see you,” she offered quickly before stretching up on her toes to give him a kiss.

Edith's words had the desired effect: Elias' expression at once softened and he moved over closer to her, anxious to show that he wasn't unhappy in the least to see her. "You just surprised me," he assured her, hoping the once-again-closed distance between them would put her at ease. She had been tripping all over him only a moment before, but she seemed a bit more in control of herself now. "Are you sure you don't want to eat?" At her confirmation, he grabbed his plate off the table and moved it over to the counter, choosing to eat standing up so that she wouldn't be hurt by his abandonment.

"Don't leave," he said in surprise, looking up at her mid-bite. Her blush took him by surprise, and it took him a moment to realize what she was implying. He kissed her back gently, more distracted than he wanted to admit by her sudden approach. "I'm glad to see you, too," he reminded her, keeping her close with his hand on her lower back. It was hard to worry about her at times like this. "I will just rinse off quickly," he assured her. Abandoning his plate, feeling he could clean the kitchen later when he didn't have a guest, he gave her a quick squeeze before running upstairs.

He was in and out of the shower in a few short minutes, and had nearly toweled off when banging noises erupted from downstairs. Feeling that he had been in such a situation far too often over the last few days, Elias ran back out in just his towel, thankful once again that Quinn and Oliver weren't at home. His mouth opened in shock and he froze halfway down the steps at the sight of fireworks exploding in his living room.

She nodded thoughtfully as Elias exited the kitchen and slowly followed him out to settle down in the living room. But she was rather anxious, ready for Elias to come back already though it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds since he had left. Edith perched on the arm of the couch, drumming her fingertips nervously in her lap. She glanced around the room, as tidy as ever, and frowned realizing just how disorderly her own apartment was, especially now that she wasn’t living with Claudine any more, a muggle woman who was practically her gran.

A plain brown bag caught her eye across the room and she was up and moving towards it in an instant. Things had places in this apartment she had come to realize, and this bag was out of place for sure. She extended a thing finger to peer inside the bag, her face lighting up when she saw what was in it. Fireworks seemed like an exciting purchase, probably not Elias’s, and the roommate wasn’t here, so where was the harm in looking closer?

Edith pulled one out of the bag and expected the label more closely, grinning like a kid in a candy shop when she saw that they were magical fireworks. Everything happened very quickly in the next instant: Edith sneezed, covering her face with the crook of her elbow, the same arm that was holding onto the firework, and it shot off from her hand. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, no.” She pulled her wand from her pocket and pointed it at the trailing firework, blooming red and blue around the living room.

She didn’t have a chance to successfully get rid of the thing before Elias appeared, and once she took a look at him she became thoroughly distracted. How was she supposed to focus on the task at hand when Elias had the genius idea to show up in nothing but a towel? She averted her eyes, but it took her a good few seconds longer than it would have if he had been wearing pants. Clearing her throat she pointed her wand at the firework once more, successfully vanishing it, probably with partial thanks to the fact that it was slowing down.

“Oops,” she said rather sheepishly, but she grinned again, doing her best to keep her focus on Elias’s face.

Apparently witches could not be trusted to be left unattended in his apartment. In the few short minutes that he had been upstairs, Edith had discovered fireworks that no doubt belonged to Oliver and decided to set them off. Wondering why he had thought it a good idea to come rushing out of the shower with nothing but a towel he didn't know, especially considering that he hadn't even had the foresight to grab his wand as he went, Elias hesitated, not sure if he ought to go pull Edith out of danger (and away from the ridiculous things) or if his best bet was to dash back up to the bathroom and grab his wand.

Fortunately, she made the choice for him before he could linger in a state of indecision for too long, and with a wave of her wand the firework was gone. Elias eyed the paper bag that was still sitting on the table next to her apprehensively, worried that she might think it a good idea to pull another firework out. With that frightening thought in mind, he hurried down the rest of the stairs and lifted the bag at once, placing it carefully on a shelf on the other side of the room that was well out of her current reach. He turned back to her and any tension in his body that still remained melted away. She was smiling at him in that embarrassed way that made it clear she hadn't meant to set the thing off, though how she had managed to do it on accident was beyond him.

"Do you mean you were not trying to burn down my house?" he asked her, crossing the room toward her again without thinking. It was just impossible to stay unhappy with her for long; she was too distracting. "How ever did you manage that?" His arms were around her before he was even aware of the decision to close the gap between them, and he kissed her forehead to let her know he wasn't upset. "I think I will have to watch you more closely in the future."

Now that she was in his arms, he was hardly inclined to let go, but the fact remained that he was in a shared space in the apartment with hardly anything on. Oliver -- or, even worse, Quinn -- could turn up at any moment. He allowed himself to steal one kiss before steering Edith to the stairs and up to his bedroom, where he could be sure both that she wouldn't mistakenly light anything else on fire, and that they wouldn't be disturbed.

[[the enddd]]

Edith fixed on her face a look of shock as Elias moved the unlit fireworks out of her reach, though it was far from sincere. It was taking all the focus she had to keep her gaze locked firmly above the waist. She didn’t want to point out that she was a rather capable witch and would be able to grab the bag if she really wanted to -- she was pretty sure she saw one firework in the mix that flew through the sky shaped like a ghost, after all -- but then he talking and smiling and getting closer to her and any desire she had for anything that wasn’t Elias was swept from her mind.

“I don’t think I was, no,” she grinned, finding it nearly impossible to keep her eyes on his face, especially as he pulled her into a hug. She was very aware of just how undressed he was, but all the alcohol she had consumed the past few hours kept any embarrassment she would normally have in this situation far, far away. “Not important,” she said quietly, trying not to laugh as his lips found her forehead and she felt that now familiar tickle of his facial hair against her skin.

She tightened her grip around his waist, suddenly feeling that Elias was either extremely underdressed or that Edith was incredibly overdressed and that she hoped to high heaven that it was the latter. Thankfully Elias didn’t want to talk about things anymore, nor discuss what they ought to do next, and she leaned into his kiss to show her appreciation before moving up the stairs as quickly as she could.

[[d-d-d-done]]