Barely a ficlet: ob/ew (lotrips)

[fox_confessor]

Pairing: ob/ew
Note: 01) Picture attached was supplied by kiltsandlollies and served as inspiration. 02) I've always wanted to write a Lotrips/Project Runway crossover. This isn't it. But it almost could be!





Graduate school isn't quite what Orlando had expected. Throughout his undergraduate years, he had thought of it as a kind of paradise--St. Brendan's lost island. He had looked forward to the moment when he could toss off the frat party mentality, where everyone was simply looking for the shortest way through--or at least the shortest way to get laid--and enter a bastion of higher learning, a place where he would be welcomed, embraced even, encouraged to reach a loftier intellectual height. Instead he finds it a cold and lonely place. There's been no gray headed old mastiff waiting with open arms, no brotherhood that meets for coffee in some leather chaired cafe where they argued Nietzsche into the small hours of the night. Two years in and he still fights tooth and nail for every accomplishment, to call his research his own. Everyday he becomes just a little more disillusioned by it all.

Tonight, though. Tonight is different. Tonight isn't about his thesis, or somebody else's research, or teaching for little pay and less respect. Tonight is about a boy.

"Do you consider it slumming to go out with me?"

A reluctant boy.

"No, I don't consider it slumming." Orlando's mother, his friends back home, would, he doesn't say. Looking at Elijah, they wouldn't see his kindness, his humor, the beauty in his eyes and his skin, which Orlando tries hard not to pin with cliched descriptions but all the same he finds he can't help loving. He doesn't care that Elijah has no money and less education--at least, he's pretty sure he doesn't care and that will have to be enough. Straightening in his chair and adjusting his tie, Orlando feels suddenly and ridiculously overdressed to Elijah's jeans and t shirt. "And 'm not sure who you have a worse opinion of, me or you."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know Billy likes you."

"You don't know anything about Billy."

True enough on both counts, but Orlando shakes his head, not willing to concede the point openly. "My instincts about people are very good."

Elijah tips his head back and laughs out loud. Orlando watches him, thinking his mouth opens a bit too wide and his hands flutters like hummingbirds; in fact, his entire appearance reminds Orlando of a small bird with brilliant plumage--a red breast and blue crest. Orlando likes it, likes him. Even when Elijah levels his eyes back to Orlando's, clearly challenging him. "So. You have a good feeling about me?"

"Something like that." And the intensity Elijah finds in Orlando's eyes quiets him and he feeks like maybe Orlando does know things about Elijah, things Elijah hasn't told anyone in a very long time. He turns his head--looks away--before Orlando can see too much, before Orlando sees right down to Elijah's toes.
They're quiet for a few moments, Elijah's fingers drumming on the table near Orlando's until Orlando passes his hand over like a magician's. Elijah has to force his hand still to keep from grabbing Orlando's back. He wishes he could smoke. He wishes he had suggested someplace else. He wishes he had never agreed to come even as he turns his hand and let's his knuckles drag against Orlando's soft palm.

"Tell me about your work," Orlando says just to have something to say and regrets it when Elijah's lip curls as if Orlando had said something offensive.

"I work at Gino's, there's not much to tell that you haven't seen for yourself" It had been in the small Italian place where Elijah met Orlando over orders of bruschetta and wine, marinara sauce splattered over the sleeves of his white button down Oxford. Gina, the owner, had suggested that Orlando looked more like he wanted to see what was beneath the long, black apron tied about Elijah's waist rather than the wine list. He'd laughed then, took it as a challenge when Orlando had finally asked him out, but now, catching the plea in Orlando's eyes, Elijah sits up straighter, as Orlando had and chews on his thumbnail for a moment before he adds, "And I work as a tailor for a friend of mine who has his own label."

"Is that what you want to do? Sew?"

The way Orlando says it, Elijah isn't quite sure if he means it in a bad way and he curls his fingers into a slow fist, his eyes darting around the room. "My mom was a seamstress."

"I'm not degrading the work, Elijah. I meant do you design clothes? Do you want your own label?"

"Oh." Elijah swallows, his hand searching out his glass but finds Orlando's hand again. He pushes his thumb against the soft skin, surprised to find callouses high up nearer Orlando's fingers. Elijah blushes hard but meets Orlando's eyes in apology. "Um, yeah. I'm not as good as Dominic but--"

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Drag yourself down."

Elijah looks away again and shrugs his shoulder. Picking up the straw wrapper, he begins to ball it up while looking around for their waitress with their food. With the woman no where in sight, he turns back to Orlando, who was quietly watching Elijah again. Elijah unconsciously looks down to see if he's spilt something on his shirt before he looked back at Orlando. "You know, on most first dates, people talk about their interests."

"I'm interested in you."

"Books? Movies? Favorite band? They can tell a lot about a person."

"What's your favorite book?"

"Harry Potter."

"I've read them. I really like Philip Pullman's stuff. My favorite movie is Lord of the Rings. The second one, The Two Towers. Yours?"

"Um." Elijah bites his bottom lip in thought, spitting out the first title that comes to mind. "Philadelphia Story."

"With Tom Hanks?"

"No. Carey Grant and Katherine Hepburn. My favorite band is Green Day."

"REM. Now, why don't you believe my interests are pure and my heart true?"

Elijah smiles in spite of himself.