Work Text:
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Elio asks when he steps into the living room. His roommate is snuggled up on the sofa, staring at him with a disappointed look on her face. “What?”
“Didn’t you say the job was at some medieval fair?” Marzia asks. “Then what’s with the outfit?”
“I’m working security. I’m not dressing up as a… I don’t know… a king? What do these people dress us as?”
“Really, Elio?”
“What?”
Marzia rolls her eyes, already looking back at her movie.
“I’ll be back in the morning, okay?” Elio asks, putting on his jacket and grabbing his keys. Already struggling to suppress a yawn and it’s not even midnight yet.
“Bring me some mead, will you?” Marzia asks without looking up – giving a wave as Elio leaves the apartment. Ignoring her request. Certain that none of the stalls will be open during the night.
“Nothing much happens during the night,” a woman dressed as a queen – or possibly a witch – shrugs as she shows Elio around the fair. Most of the people closing their stalls by now or standing by the fire having a final drink before going home.
“So we’re just meant to keep an eye on the stalls… make sure nothing gets stolen?” Elio checks. Not sure who is meant to steal anything if everyone is supposed to leave for the night.
“Pretty much. There’s coffee and snacks if you want, but the guy who used to do security for this, he usually walked around for a bit and then he just sat around and watched some Netflix on his phone,” the woman admits. “There’s not much to do here at night, you know? But we have to have security, just in case.”
“Mhm.” Elio nods, trying to suppress another yawn. Not sure how he’s going to get through a whole night of sitting around doing nothing, when he’s already struggling to keep his eyes open.
“So… that was everything, I guess. The coffee is in there,” the queen or witch says, pointing at the hotel. “Bathrooms too. Anything I’ve missed?”
“I was supposed to work with someone else?”
“Oh, of course! Oliver.”
Elio cringes when he hears the name, having repeated it in his mind at least a hundred times over the last week. But he pushes down his awkwardness, not wanting to scare off the stranger with whom he’ll have to spend the next two nights.
“Elio, this is…”
“Oliver,” Elio blurts out, shocked to find his Oliver standing there, chatting to a man dressed as a pirate. Well, perhaps not so much his Oliver. But definitely the Oliver he had met in the club the other week, and with whom he had gone home before they had spent hours… well, best not to let his thoughts go back there.
Oliver keeps a straight face as they get introduced to each other, the queen or possibly witch saying her goodbyes before ringing a large bell to announce that the fair is closing.
Within minutes the place has cleared out and she is gone too – leaving just Elio and Oliver standing there, the silence more than just a little tense.
“So…”
“It’s midnight,” Oliver point out, checking his watch. “I guess we have to ehm…” He gestures around the fair.
“Make sure no one stayed behind?” Elio suggests, still trying to find some sign of recognition in the other man’s face. Sure, they had been drinking and there may or may not have been some drugs involved, but surely Oliver hasn’t forgotten about him already?
“Have you ever been here before?” Oliver asks after an uncomfortable silence where Elio hadn’t done much work at all – unless you count checking out Oliver as part of the job.
“No, it’s my first time. You?”
“No,” Oliver chuckles. “It’s not exactly my thing. This whole…” He gestures at a stall selling swords and daggers.
“No? What do you usually do?” Elio asks, hoping this will be the perfect opportunity for Oliver to bring up the other week. But Oliver just gives a small shrug before leading him onto a dark path, most of the fires by now having gone out.
“So… how did you get this job?” Elio tries again – if only to break the silence that is starting to freak him out. He can hear an owl, there is something moving in the trees, and he swears that he felt something touch his back just a minute ago.
“Probably the same way you did.” Oliver shrugs. “I saw the ad, replied… now we’re here.”
“Right…”
Elio wishes he felt as brave or as cool as he had done the other week. But the Oliver he had met at the club had flirted with him, he had kissed him. It had been easy to get along with him and to chat to him. But this guy seems polite – if a little distant – and although Elio is convinced that he’s the same person, he just doesn’t seem the same. And being surrounded by complete darkness and a ton of medieval weapons doesn’t exactly make things easier either.
They had walked around twice before getting themselves a coffee and some left-over pie and sitting down on the very uncomfortable seats around the now died-down fire. Oliver had gotten his phone out to either chat to someone or watch Netflix as the queen or witch had suggested, while Elio had awkwardly sat there staring out at the dark – having forgotten to charge his phone before he left.
The night had seemed to go on forever, and although they had done a quick round every couple of hours, they had shared no more than two words. Elio by morning even starting to doubt whether this Oliver was the Oliver from last week at all.
By the time he had gotten home he was exhausted and all he wanted to do was get into bed and sleep right through the day. But Marzia had just woken up, and she wanted to hear all about Elio’s medieval midnight adventures.
“So… how did it go?”
“That was probably the longest night of my life,” Elio groans, taking the mug of coffee from Marzia and almost burning his mouth as he takes a sip.
“Yeah? Even longer than that night you spent with… what was his name? The guy with the… you know who I mean, right? The one with the hair,” Marzia laughs, resulting in her best friend glaring at her. “Oh come on, it can’t have been that bad.”
“Remember the guy I went home with the other week?”
“How could I forget? Oliver. You’ve only been going on and on about him ever since…”
“He’s the guy I had to work with.”
“Seriously?”
“I think so.” Elio nods, his exhaustion making him doubt everything. Is Oliver from last even called Oliver or did he imagine that because he had been tired and obsessing over actual Oliver all week?
“You think? Didn’t you spend the whole night with this guy?” Marzia asks. “Twice now, I guess?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“He didn’t seem to recognize me.”
“Ouch.”
“Or maybe he was just trying to be professional,” Elio suggests. “It was only meant to be a one-time thing, and he probably doesn’t want to make things awkward, so…”
“Right…”
Elio glares at Marzia, wanting to slap that know-it-all look right off her face, but to be honest, he is too tired to really care. So he gives a shrug before heading off to his room, not even the coffee enough to stop him from crashing onto bed and falling asleep within seconds.
“You finally got…”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Elio asks, still trying to button up his shirt – ignoring the fact that none of the buttons are lining up. “I have to start at midnight. If I’m late…”
“Whoa. Not my fault. Besides, what’s going to happen if you’re a few minutes late? They’re going to throw you in the dungeons? Put you in the stocks?”
“That’s funny,” Elio grits through his teeth. “If I lose this job…”
“You lose one night of work. Relax.” Marzia rolls her eyes. “Unless this isn’t about the job at all, but about a certain…”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Of course not.” Marzia grins – Elio already halfway out the door. “Bring me some mead!”
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Elio blurts out as soon as he runs into Oliver – literally. Most of the people gone by now. Just a few knights still hanging around flirting with a couple of half-naked unicorns. “I forgot to set my alarm and then I just…”
“Relax,” Oliver laughs. “It’s not even midnight yet.”
“It’s not?” Elio asks, getting out his phone to check, but quickly realizing that he still hasn’t charged it.
They hear the loud bell, and the smile on Oliver’s face grows bigger.
“Now it’s midnight. So you were right on time.”
“Oh… right… sorry,” Elio mumbles awkwardly – the conversation with Marzia from this morning still on his mind. What if Oliver is pretending not to recognize him because he doesn’t want to be reminded of the night they had spent together? Or worse, what if he really doesn’t recognize him.
He doesn’t have long to think about it though, because within minutes they are busy trying to get the knights and unicorns to leave. The people in the costumes too drunk to realize that they don’t actually have to break up the party and that they could take it just outside the gates if they’d want to. Or to the hotel across the street, really. But instead, they choose to make a fuss, and it takes ages before they’re gone.
“Well… that was more excitement than I thought we would see tonight,” Oliver chuckles uncomfortably now that they’re all alone in the darkness again.
“It must be all that mead.”
“Is it any good?”
“Not a clue,” Elio admits. “My roommate wants me to bring her some, but I don’t think she realizes that the stalls aren’t actually open at night.”
“We could…” Oliver shrugs, a mischievous grin on his face. “You know… see if they have forgotten to put away any of the samples.”
“What? We’re here to make sure nothing gets stolen and you want us to…”
“Sample some. Not steal.” Oliver grins, but just as they are making their way over to one of the mead stalls, they hear a voice in the darkness.
“Did you…,” Elio begins, but Oliver grabs his arm and gestures for him to keep quiet. He keeps hold of him, making sure to walk in front of him to protect him from whatever or whoever they are about to find. Elio finds it sweet – a little hot even – but when they find two young witches making out in the grass, he quickly steps away from Oliver. Turning around to give the women some privacy.
“Ehm… ladies?” Oliver chuckles, the women only now noticing him and Elio. They quickly jump up, adjusting their clothes – giggling nervously. “You realize you’re not supposed to be here, don’t you? The fair closed some time ago.”
“I know, sir,” one of the witches says – Elio trying really hard not to laugh at the look on Oliver’s face at the woman calling him ‘sir’.
“We met here at the fair last year,” the other witch explains. “It’s our anniversary and so we thought… well…”
“You thought you’d celebrate?” Oliver suggests.
“Sorry. Are we in trouble?”
“No, you’re….” Oliver shares a look with Elio, a sympathetic smile on his face. “It’s fine. But you’re not meant to be here.”
“We’re not going to steal anything,” the first witch quickly says, grabbing a bag off the ground. “Look, we already bought everything we wanted.”
“Maybe…,” Elio begins, Oliver giving a nod as though he can read his mind.
“Come see us at the mead stand when you've... when you're done celebrating, okay?” Oliver says. “We’ll walk you out… make sure you’ve really left this time.”
“Oh…,” the second witch laughs awkwardly. “Really?”
“Really. Just don’t tell anyone, or we’ll get into trouble.”
“Of course. Thank you, sir.”
The two young men walk off – leaving the two witches to it – and they go back to the mead stand. Relieved to find the sample bottles still standing out on the stall.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Yeah, well…” Oliver shrugs, handing Elio a bottle of peach-flavored mead.
Elio knows he shouldn’t, but after spending a week thinking about his night with Oliver, ending up having to work with him – only for Oliver not to recognize him – it does make him want to drink. So he pours himself a cup of mead, pulling a face when he actually tastes it.
“Good?”
“Sweet.”
For a moment Elio detects a hint of a smile on Oliver’s face, but then he grabs himself a bottle, before pouring himself a cup and chugging it down.
“I ehm…,” Elio begins, wondering if he should let it go – seeing as how they are meant to spend the rest of the night together. But he knows he can’t just keep pretending. “I don’t know if you remember, but we actually met before.”
“Ah…”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d remember. It was stupid anyway,” Elio chuckles uncomfortably, taking another sip of the sweet peachy drink.
“I remember.” Oliver nods. “You really thought I didn’t remember you?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t say anything, so I thought that…”
“You didn’t say anything either,” Oliver points out, before sighing and looking down into his cup. “Look, Elio…”
“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s keep it professional.”
“I didn’t bring it up because we were meant to go out for breakfast,” Oliver admits. “Then when I got out of the shower, you were gone.”
“Oh…”
“You forgot that bit?”
“No, I just… I thought you were just being nice when you mentioned breakfast,” Elio mumbles, before chugging down the rest of his mead. Kicking himself for having spent the week thinking of what he could have done to make Oliver call him, when all he had to do was not sneak out in the morning.
“I wasn’t just being nice, Elio.” Oliver shrugs. “I had a really nice time with you. Then when you left… and I saw you here…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Maybe we could…,” Oliver begins, but before he can finish his sentence, they hear twigs cracking behind them. They quickly set down the mead, the young witches coming over to them – whispering and laughing with each other.
“Ready to leave?”
“Thanks, for ehm…”
“Don’t mention it,” Oliver laughs. “I mean it, don’t.”
“We won’t,” one of the witches laughs as the two men lead her and her girlfriend towards the fair exit. And even as they are making their way towards their car, they can still be heard laughing.
“You made their night.” Elio smiles as they make their way back to the mead stall – not sure if he should bring up their earlier conversation.
“I ehm… I’m not sure if it’s against the rules of this job to ask,” Oliver begins. “But seeing as it’s our last night here anyway… what are you doing after we finish here?”
Elio remembers passing out from exhaustion after last night, but he isn’t going to tell Oliver that, is he?
“Nothing.”
“Want to go out for breakfast? After we survive the rest of the night here,” Oliver chuckles nervously, pointing at a dangerous-looking sword.
“For real?”
“Unless you’re going to sneak out on me again?”