Chapter Text
It was well-known that Elliott's way with words wasn't just restricted to pen and paper. He had the gift of gab, so to speak, both in terms of his vocabulary and his... long-windedness. Often enough, he'd caught some poor innocent bystander unawares and ended up just talking their ear off; much of the time, that wasn't even his intent. That was just the way he went about things.
Just about everyone in Pelican Town had been subject to some of Elliott's rambling at one point or another since he had moved in. Leah and the farmer most often, but anyone who happened to cross paths with him in the library on the occasions that he didn't have his nose buried in a book, whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting closest to him when he had a drink or two too many at Gus's, someone just strolling along minding their own business while he gazed out over the sea or across the river... anyone was fair game, really. Even Alex.
Alex, who at this very moment, was watching Elliott yammer on with an expression that started out bemused but was slowly becoming faintly distressed the longer he went. One would be hard-pressed to guess whether it was whatever arcane literary topic Elliott was discussing that concerned Alex, or maybe just the thought of how long Elliott had been going on without seeming to pause for breath. Maybe he was impressed by Elliott's apparent lung capacity.
All things had to come to an end though, and eventually biology won out and Elliott was forced to stop and breathe in, breaking the endless flow of words. Alex punctuated the momentary pause with a faint, embarrassed chuckle and scratched at the back of his head. It would be obvious to anyone passing by, except probably Elliott himself, that Alex had lost the thread of the conversation one time ago and was just trying to fill the space and hope that he wasn't asked for any real input.
"I do hope I'm not boring you," Elliott said, obliviously contributing a hope of his own. "I just get a bit carried away sometimes, you know." His manner was perfectly cheerful in a way that was just a bit too lacking in self-awareness.
Alex just awkwardly laughed again. "I'll be honest, dude, I understood like maybe half of what you said just now."
"Oh!" Elliott blinked, apparently finally realizing that he had in fact been overly self-indulgent, not to mention not giving Alex the chance to get in a word edgewise. "I do apologize, that was discourteous of me."
Alex looked slightly pained at Elliott's use of more words that were over three syllables in length, but he powered through it. "No, man, it's okay. I like listening to you talk."
That hadn't come out exactly the way he meant it to. It seemed to be all the encouragement Elliott needed to beam at him and launch right back into another monologue, though, so maybe it had been the right thing to say.