Take It Easy ((Elias))

[Damien Lennox S7]

“You shaved.” Carlin grasped his face, passing her thumb over his chin in bemusement. “You actually shaved. I never thought I’d see the day my cousin stopped looking like an unkempt vagabond. Perhaps I should thank Hunter for this miracle.”

Damien batted at her tight grip lightly, pulling his head away until she had no choice but to release him. “Of course I shaved.” Damien rolled his eyes at her pointedly. “Elias said that he wouldn’t kiss me if I didn’t. If he won’t even kiss me then I highly doubt he’ll have sex with me. It made sense for me to shave.” Carlin was being remarkably obtuse, Damien chuckled to himself quietly. His cousin was probably still bitter that she would have to hand over three conquests to him when he had only bedded one person. He would have to make a similar offer to her in a few months to even out the score, but he wouldn’t be generous enough to assign her someone as easy as Elias was proving to be. He would give her more of a challenge, someone like Donahue. Damien smirked at the thought. He didn’t know Stephen well but he had talked to him enough to feel secure in a bet that Donahue would balance out even Carlin’s determination and stubborn nature. That would be a sight he would love to see but he was going to be late if he allowed Carlin to delay him any further.

“Don’t wait up,” he teased, pausing at the door of the sixth year boys’ dorm to send a mocking smirk over his shoulder. He and Carlin did most of their plotting and conquest talk in there since it gave them a little bit more privacy than the Common Room. It probably helped that Carlin had slept with most of the boys who slept in those beds so she could still send them away with a few flirtatious words that seemed to hold a promise of things to come.

A few people wanted his attention for something or other on his way down to the Great Hall but Damien waved them off absent-mindedly. He would deal with other conquests after he had signed this one off as complete. Unlike Carlin, he didn’t juggle three or four conquests at a time; Damien limited himself to one at a time, unless someone appeared who was clearly going to fall into his bed with very little effort. He wasn’t going to pass up an effortless conquest; Damien wasn’t that magnanimous, or at all actually. He was a Lennox. Maybe it didn’t mean much to anyone but them but none of them held any illusions about the intrinsic nature of their family. Each of them, save perhaps Cyn since she was so young still, were corrupted and twisted and hedonistic. It suited them. It made them successful and wealthy. Who was Damien to deny that part of him?

He hadn’t dressed up as extravagantly as he could have for the date, preferring to stick to a simpler, less ridiculously pricey restaurant for various reasons so he was just in a new pair of black jeans paired with a grey button-down shirt; he looked good, as ever, but not too formal. After all, he hadn’t told Elias to dress up to absurd standards and, well, he didn’t know how the Hunter family’s finances stood. There was little point in bankrupting his virgin conquest on their first date. It didn’t make him seem thoughtful or considerate, which Damien had somewhat become after figuring out that Elias was more than likely completely inexperienced when it came to sex. The poor Gryffindor must have either really good or really bad luck to be targeted as a Lennox conquest when he was so innocent. It could always be worse though; he could have been straight and noticed first by Carlin. Then Elias really would have been in trouble. Carlin had no patience for virginal hesitance. Damien would at least let Elias set the pace for the most part, only pushing when he thought the other boy was comfortable.

“Hey.” Elias was there before Damien but he made no apologies; he wasn’t late so Elias must have been early. It just showed more of those nerves that he had sensed, in Damien’s eyes. “You look great. Nice shirt.” Damien stepped closer, feathering a light kiss across his date’s mouth before grasping his hand and starting the walk down to Hogsmeade. “It’s not far to walk; is that alright? I figured it wasn’t practical to lug around brooms all night, especially if you want to go to a club or something after dinner.”

[Elias Hunter G7]

Vest, or no vest? Grace had insisted that Elias wore it, but she had also insisted that he skipped the date entirely. If he'd been counting how many times the words 'bad reputation' and 'be careful' fell from her lips, he might have spent half the afternoon making tally marks while Grace spouted off one reason after another why his date with Damien was a bad idea. "Look, Grace," he had told her, "I appreciate your concern, but I'm not twelve anymore. I'm sixteen. We're sixteen, and soon to be seventeen. Give me some credit." He had shot her a pleading look. "I promise I won't do anything stupid. Plus, Damien's not all that his reputation paints him to be." Elias realized the irony in his choice of words, considering that it had been a can of spilled paint that had initiated their first meeting.

Eventually, Grace's protests had died down, leaving Elias with an hour or so to get ready. It was in her last few minutes with him that she told him he should wear the black satin vest, but Eli was still debating. It was cute, as Grace had said, but he wasn't sure he was going for cute. So far, he had layered a white oxford over a deep red t-shirt with a pair of dark denim jeans and black shoes. In the end, he decided on the vest, figuring he could always take it off later if he wanted.

Glancing at his watch, Eli saw that it was twenty minutes until he was to meet Damien. That was plenty of time to make his way toward the edge of the grounds where they would meet for Hogsmeade. He still wasn't sure what the night's plans were entirely, but he knew Damien would have the agenda under control. Perhaps that left him a little nervous as well, but he hardly had any experience when it came to planning dates, so it was probably best this way.

Arriving a few minutes early, Eli was able to see Damien coming from a distance. He arrived on time, and was dressed in clothes similar to Elias', which made Eli feel that much more at ease. They had never discussed the night's attire, but it seemed Eli's instincts were spot on.

"Hi," Elias replied, smiling as Damien drew nearer. "Thanks, you too." Another wave of doubt washed through him as Damien mentioned the shirt and not the vest. Damnit, Grace, he thought.

Without much notice, Damien displayed no hesitation as his lips met Elias' in a quick kiss. It was so quick that Elias barely had the time to notice Damien's smooth face, a sign that he did in fact take the time to shave. After it was over, Eli did his best to hide the disappointment that his first kiss was now over and hardly long enough to be memorable. But, perhaps it didn't count since it was just a peck after all. Still, it was his first peck, and more importantly, the first physical intimacy he had shared with any boy, even if it was small and completely harmless.

Damien's forthright manners continued as he, without question, grabbed Eli's hand and began walking toward the village. Still, Eli didn't protest. He figured a lot of tonight would be following Damien's lead, at least until the point where he no longer felt comfortable doing so, but that hadn't been the case just yet. "Walking is fine," Eli said nonchalantly. Really, he was bound to agree with almost anything Damien suggested. His nerves had piqued again, despite his best efforts to keep them sedated.

As they walked, some of Damien's first thoughts were to mention some of the things Carlin had told him about earlier that day. First, he wanted to know why Damien would question his desire to follow through on the date, and second, he was curious to know more about Damien's first date. In fact, there was a lot that Eli wanted to ask Damien, but it seemed rude to bombard him with questions. Maybe once their conversation had progressed a little farther, perhaps even over dinner.

"So how was your day so far?" he asked, half wondering if Damien might answer some of his questions without much prodding, and half looking for something simple to keep things light-hearted for the time being.

[Damien Lennox S7]

As they started waking, Damien ran over the plan for the night in his head, just as he did every single time he had found himself in the slow and steady process of coaxing an unsure, inexperienced conquest into his bed. He had already made a reservation at the restaurant; it wasn’t required for the one he had chosen but Damien hated standing in queues, and he especially hated the idea of being turned away from a restaurant because there were no tables left. It was far easier and quicker just to reserve one and breeze right in. After dinner, it would be time to hand Elias a small choice, to put him at ease without pressuring him to make a huge decision. Whether they went to a loud club, a quieter bar where they could talk for a while or somewhere else entirely would be left up to Elias. Confident in his own ability as he ever was, Damien had reserved a room in a small inn he often frequented for the night but decided to leave the key in the capable hands of the night manager, whom he was on good terms with. It wouldn’t do to let Elias realise just how secure Damien was in his predictions of how the night would carry out.

After a flick of his eyes to the left, where Elias was walking, Damien laughed quietly, reaching out to pull the other boy closer. He had an instinctual sense for when his dates were nervous; with his reputation splashed over the school as it was, it came in handy to know when to falsely reassure his conquests that they meant more to him than any of his past dates had. As long as he phrased it right (which he had quickly developed a knack for doing after a few almost-conquests had lost their nerve and walked out on him), everything worked out fine for the night. “Don’t be so nervous,” Damien murmured, lowering his head to place his lips close to Elias’ ear. “I promise I won’t bite, and you won’t enjoy yourself at all unless you relax. Trust me.”

“It was pretty much the same as every other day, to be honest,” Damien answered truthfully, a slight shrug accentuating his words. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except perhaps that he had quickly scrawled down the rest of his Potions essay when he would normally leave it until the morning it was due to be handed in. A letter from Cyn had arrived for him and Carlin but Elias couldn’t want to hear about that because he didn’t even know that Carlin had a younger sister, as far as Damien was aware, let alone that she idolised the two of them like no young child should. He and Carlin were hardly the ideal role-models for an impressionable young girl but neither had complained. It was better by far that Cyn act like them than her rebellious, disowned older brother. He had tormented Carlin for a while about the fact that he was going to win their little bet and then...oh. Damien smirked, one hand lifting to his face and the now smooth skin. “I shaved, as you may have noticed. Does that mean that you’ll kiss me now?”