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Elliott is eight when he gets his first introduction.
In the very least, his first personal introduction. He’s seen people in passing, men holding hands and women exchanging kisses and someone with a blue-pink-white flag strewn over their shoulders.
But when he’s eight, one of his siblings brings him into their shared room. Elliott likes to brag that he’s strong enough to sleep on his own, but he always wimps out the darker the room gets. So, when the twins bring him into their room, at first he thinks that they’re preparing to prank him like they always do.
But, instead of a prank, Elliott sees Mateo on the top of his bunk, hunched over his guitar and strumming up there. And his twin-
“‘m going by Lyndon now.”
Elliott blinks.
“Also, I’m a guy.”
Elliott blinks again. “You can do that?”
Lyndon shrugs. It’s at that moment that Elliott realizes that his hair is no longer the chin-length hair he had earlier when he had chased Elliott around the kitchen, but rather short, crisp tufts that stick out behind his ears.
“Who’s gonna stop me? You?” Lyndon sticks out his tongue. “I’d totally get you pinned.”
“No, you wouldn’t!”
“Sure I can! You’re such a baby!”
And that was it. Lyndon was a guy now, and he had managed to twist Elliott’s arm behind his back then and mess up his hair.
Lyndon figures out the labels and everything later. Elliott’s ten when Lyndon gets his first flag, the same blue-pink-white that he saw around that person’s shoulders once. Elliott tries to help hang it up, but Lyndon picks him up with ease and tosses him onto the bed. Calls Elliott a baby again, and at that point, Elliott doesn’t want to help anymore.
But he tells him about the label (transgender, he adds to that to his vocabulary, and then Lyndon tells him about the word non-binary too), and in the very least, he doesn’t mess up his hair while he does it.
“So are you…” Elliott chews on the inside of his cheek. Lyndon makes a huffing noise and flips another page of his magazine. “Like… can you date girls then?”
“I could always date girls.”
“I mean- yeah! Yeah, you could’ve. Do- are you going to?”
Lyndon shrugs. He’s still thumbing through his magazine.
“Can you do that?”
“I can do whatever I want, stupid.”
“I’m not stupid!”
“You’re asking me if I can date girls when I’m a guy. Sounds kinda stupid, stupid,” Lyndon finally abandons his magazine and decides to toss it at Elliott. “I can date girls and guys and whoever else. I just like girls more.”
“Is there a name for that?”
“Name for my dating life?”
“For- for liking all that! For not being limited to one thing.”
“Seriously, haven’t I already mentioned it to you? You’ve got those big ears, and you’re not even using them,” Lyndon holds a snort in the back of his throat. But he’s turning towards Elliott now, and that usually indicates that he’s either about to grab him to terrorize him or actually answer his questions. “It’s called bisexual. Sometimes it’s pansexual. Depends on how you define it. Now, are you gonna get out of my room or what?”
“This is our room!”
“I’m older, so it’s mine first.”
“But what about-”
Lyndon shoves him out of the room moments later, placing one hand on his shoulder and steering him out. Elliott tries to struggle against him, but Lyndon is a strong athlete despite his longer limbs, and he ends up getting shoved out and the door slammed after him.
Elliott stands there, hands tucked behind his back, outside the door of his own room.
Well, at least I learned something?
-
Elliott idolizes Lyndon. He idolizes all his brothers, actually, and Lyndon and Mateo are the closest to his age and his personality, so he trails after them like he does the stars. His oldest brother seems to slip into more of the fatherly figure to him, helping his mother in the kitchen and being the one to tuck Elliott into bed, and he idolizes him too, just- not as much.
Not like he does Lyndon or Mateo.
He wishes he could be like Lyndon or Mateo. Being like them is a dream. They’re better at sports than him, they’re better at academics than him…
And they know who they are.
He looks up at the flags in their room. Lyndon still has his pride one that he looks up at, and he has a pin on his desk with a flag- the bisexual flag. Mateo doesn’t have any of those sorts of flags, but he seems like he knows what he’s doing. What he likes. Who he likes.
Elliott wishes he did, too.
-
Elliott is fourteen when he meets the prettiest boy that he’s ever seen.
Elliott doesn’t… do well at school. In school, at school, they’re all the same- he doesn’t do great. He’s assigned himself to that life, barely scraping by in classes because for some reason it’s difficult to focus and even harder to put his energy towards the stuff he doesn’t care about.
Which is a lot of stuff, mind you.
Makes it harder to enjoy anything, really, but here he is, picking at an eraser and poking little holes in it to make a small smiley face. He can hear his teacher outside, talking to some parent in the hallway for the first day of his second year, and he can already feel the dread starting in his stomach.
His mom is… understanding of Elliott’s struggle in school. She likes to call him my little me because she did the same thing: struggled and struggled and struggled. So he tries not to take it to heart, although something still squirms in his stomach.
He picks at the eraser, rubbing it with his thumb as he hears the scrape of a chair next to him. Elliott pauses, then, as a shadow falls over him and the desk.
“Uh… hi?”
“Hi,” a voice says, quiet but with a firm lilt, not necessarily shy but not loud and explosive.
Elliott looks up.
His breath catches a little bit in his throat; something stumbles in his chest. He’s not necessarily the greatest at first impressions, no matter how hard he tries, as he always stutters and trips over his words, but this:
Yeah, this. This is not just a matter of Elliott tripping over his own words. It’s a matter that the voice belongs to a boy who’s about the prettiest boy he’s ever seen.
Elliott opens his mouth. Closes it.
“H-Hi,” he finally manages out, shaky.
He doesn’t know why suddenly his chest feels tight, a small flutter in his stomach that reaches up into his throat and makes it a little harder to breathe evenly. The boy trails a hand against the desk, long fingers hovering over the small groove for any pens or pencils, and looks down at him.
With how he’s angled, the artificial light of the room lights up the dark hair that crowns his head. It’s an artificial light, and yet he looks angelic like that, with shreds of light highlighting his hair. It looks like he has it pulled back in a loose ponytail, but dark brown strands curl from the hold, crowding at the nape of his neck, and the light makes the curls look like they glitter.
His eyes are the same tone of brown, a softer chesnut that gleams and makes Elliott’s stomach feel. Things.
Okay. That’s new.
That’s all new.
“-here?”
Elliott realizes with a strike of horror that he had been speaking to him, and he had completely missed most of the question. “What?”
“Is someone sitting here?” The boy repeats, the words curling at the end with that rounded lilt again.
“No! No one sitting here. I mean, I’m here- but I’m at this desk, not that one. So- yeah. Yeah, that’s- no one’s sitting there.”
He wants to smack himself.
And surprisingly enough, the boy’s lips twist a bit.
“So… it’s free?”
Elliott nods, chewing on the bottom of his lip to keep himself from speaking.
He walks around, pulling out the chair and taking the seat. Surprisingly, now, the boy sets his chin on his open palm and props the elbow up on the desk, leaning towards Elliott.
His eyes seem brighter now. Elliott’s stomach does the weird thing again, so he mentally tells it to stop it.
“Asper,” the boy says without prompt. “That’s my name.”
“Oh. Uh. Nice to meet you.”
A beat. Elliott realizes that he probably should respond. “Uh! Ell- Elliott. Ell works too, if you want. But uh, yeah. That’s me. Elliott Witt.”
“Elliott,” Asper echoes. He swears that he sees him lean a bit closer, still balanced on his elbow. “I like Elliott.”
-
The weird fuzziness dissipates for a bit, as they talk over the weeks.
Asper isn’t from Solace; he’s from Talos from one of the civilizations there. He hasn’t tried a lot of the cuisine available on Solace, and Elliott witnesses how he glows when Elliott brings him one of the Dusty Boba Drinks.
He likes to tuck his hair back in his ponytail a lot, and it seems like he has the same curls Elliott has. There’s one day where he comes to school without it collected in his ponytail, and Elliott can’t stop staring at how it fans out.
Eventually, he does meet Asper’s parents- both with the same dark brown curls as him, and the same gleam in their eyes that makes it feel like they’re planning something mischievous, but they’re friendly.
(Elliott wants to bring Asper home to meet his family. But on a random day, on a good day, his family of five is reduced to a family of two, and he doesn’t want to bring Asper home anymore. The ship that William, Lyndon, and Mateo died on seems like it crashes its way into Elliott’s vision of a happy family.)
And somewhere along the way, the weird fuzziness in his stomach comes back. When their knees knock. When their hands brush. When Asper does the thing where he settles his head on Elliott’s shoulder. When he’s closer than Elliott expected.
Elliott swallows it. Swallows it all.
Because I thought I only liked...
-
Elliott is seventeen when Asper asks him out on a date.
He stutters out a “I’m straight” because he’s not sure and wishes he was more like Lyndon when he sees how Asper’s face twists.
-
Asper has the grace to stay friends. Elliott’s thankful for it despite the fear in his stomach. He squashes it all, tells himself that the guilt in his stomach is because of him rejecting Asper and feeling bad for it.
Yeah.
That’s it.
-
Elliott is twenty and trying to figure out his life when his roommate kisses him.
He can smell the alcohol around him. Elliott isn’t drinking himself, but he knows two of his roommates are. Theodore isn’t, he’s pretty sure, and he actually spots him through the crowd. Theodore lights up at the sight of him and starts to weave through, sliding through the wad of people.
“Normal life of an engineer, huh?” He calls to him, and Elliott squints as a roar starts up around him.
Yeah, he doesn’t-
Yup, nope, he can’t do this.
Elliott motions out near one of the balconies and dips away. Immediately, things come a little clearer once the breeze of the night hits him, and he lets out an audible sigh.
“Whew,” he says to no one in particular. “Lot easier to think out here.”
“Oof, you and me both,” Theodore says behind him, and Elliott whirls to see him. “Hope you don’t mind I joined you.”
“Uh… no, not at all?”
“Good, because I’m sick and tired of people grinding up against each other in there. Get a room.”
He hears the tapping of Theodore’s shoes against the balcony behind him and watches as Theodore rests his arms on the railing.
“Yeah, sounds… awkward.”
“More than,” Theodore snorts. “So I’m just glad to get a breather.”
He barely catches a whiff of Theodore’s cologne- mild cinnamon mixed with the faintest of ginger and allspice- as his roommate leans against him suddenly, head dropping on his shoulder.
“ ‘m tired,” Theodore says, and Elliott restrains a yeah, I can tell with how Theodore sags against him. “Sorry. You’re comfortable.”
“Uh. Thanks…?”
They stand like that for a bit, with the warmth of Theodore against him inviting as the temperature dips into something colder, minutes passing as the rail grows cool underneath his hand.
He likes Theodore. He’s calm, collected, and there’s a way he says things that are forward and direct and somehow always has kindness in those soft brown eyes. Someone you would want with you or looking over you.
Theodore lifts his head a little bit, and he can feel the warmth of his breath loll across his collarbone, up the planes of his neck. It makes Elliott shiver, and it has nothing to do with the cool air of the night, invited by Solace’s deserts, around them.
He knows Theodore is close. Less than a few centimeters away. He meets his eyes, regrets it nearly immediately with how his stomach flips suddenly.
“You have pretty eyes,” Theodore murmurs, almost contemplative.
Something sticks in Elliott’s throat. Thinks about Theodore’s own eyes, like caramel or warmed chestnut, and he swallows. He thinks Theodore’s eyes are prettier.
“Thanks,” he says in a mumble. His head tilts, and Elliott dips his head closer to his roommate, eyes flitting across his face, the planes of Theodore’s features. “You’re…”
The words about die in his throat when he sees the way Theodore is looking at him. He doesn’t know if it’s the hum of the party behind them, the nakedness of the night around them, the silvery sheen of the moon pooling over the two of them but-
but-
It is out of impulse, how he leans in the briefest bit, eyes fluttering shut, and Theodore meets him there to kiss him.
It feels like he’s never kissed someone before that. Everything buzzes.
-
The next day, they talk about it. Theodore apologizes for it, saying they should’ve talked about it, and all Elliott can do is sit there and nod.
(There’s one part offhandedly where Theodore mumbles that he had thought Elliott is straight- and Elliott just thinks I thought so too.)
It’s even harder to think straight (haha , so funny) when the phantom lips in his dream aren’t the same ones anymore- how he can feel a ghost of a strong jaw there, bigger hands, broader shoulders, a scruff of facial hair, the-
Sometimes he thinks about the kiss. Then digs his hand through his hair and locks the thoughts away.
-
Elliott is twenty-two when he meets the prettiest man he’s ever seen again.
The Paradise Lounge is new on the street. He knows that he doesn’t have much street credit when it comes to the crime-heavy roads of Solace, but already people are flitting in and out of the doors.
He’s happy with the success! It feels good. Great, actually, to pass his eyes over the heads of numerous people sitting down and drinking with their friends. Although there was that one time someone took a swing at him with a knife and tore off the skin on his cheek- the scab across his cheekbone burns in memory, still healing over.
(He wonders if Mateo would be happy with the amount of people coming in. He hopes so.)
He had just finished ushering out a group of six people who he’s pretty sure robbed someone earlier today and starts on washing down the glasses.
Elliott barely gets two glasses done before he hears the ding of the doorbell (he should probably replace that- he’s thinking of some recording where he says something witty) and looks up, plastering what he calls the Customer Service Smile on his face.
“Hey! Best place around, how can I help you?”
The man doesn’t respond immediately, instead glancing around. Solace’s sun had only set probably half an hour ago, if Elliott’s watch and the windows near the door are anything to go by, but still the man has dark circular shades set upon the ridge of his nose.
The man turns his head towards him as he approaches, and Elliott lets his eyes travel over the ornate thick coat the man has over his shoulders, sleeves rolled up in response to Solace’s unbearing heat, a hint of a tattoo peeking out on his bicep.
A beat. The man tilts his head.
“Elliott?”
Oh.
He definitely knows that voice. It might be a bit deeper, but he definitely knows that voice.
It’s not like he played it over in his head or anything, wondering if he had said something else if he would’ve heard it differently or heard it so close near his ear or-
“Asper?”
The man lights up in the same way he used to. His shoulders rise, his head lifts, and he reaches up to sweep off the dark sunglasses to reveal the mischievous glitter of brown eyes he knows so well.
He definitely looks different, a dust of scruff on the strong stripe of his jawline matched with a broad nose and clever eyes. His hair is shorter than it was back then, but it’s still collected in a small bun that sits at the crown of his head.
“You look-”
Elliott doesn’t even know what to say. Good? Handsome? Way better than the last time I saw you although you looked great back then? Why did you get tattoos, you look so good with them-
“-health,” is what Elliott settles on. “Healthy! That’s what I meant.”
Asper slides up to the bar then, pulls out a chair and settles his arms on top of the table. Elliott tries not to look at his biceps, especially as Asper shrugs off the large coat and drapes it over the chair next to him. It gives him a good long look at the wolf tattoo he has on his skin.
“I was unaware you started a bar,” he says, tapping a finger against the table. “I would’ve been here sooner. How have you been?”
“Good! I’ve been good. And you? I mean, clearly, you’ve been good-”
Asper raises an eyebrow. There’s that mild twist to his lips.
“You look good,” Elliott finishes, then ducks his head. “Do- do you want a drink, or something? Because I mean, the bar and everything; it’s my occupuh-occupeh- it’s my job! I make pretty good drinks.”
“Whatever the bartender wants me to have. After all, he should know me pretty well.”
“Coming right up,” Elliott says, ignoring how his stomach feels because it’s been five years, c’mon, Elliott.
He works in silence, and as Asper looks around the bar, taking the atmosphere in, he swears that for a moment, the man’s eyes linger on him, inquisitive and curious.
Sliding the drink across the bar, he watches Asper nurse it. The drink is honey gold, but Elliott’s not watching it- he’s watching how the lights of Paradise Lounge cast slips and squares of orange on Asper’s cheekbones and down the slope of his neck. Makes his skin look like honey gold. And there’s a golden tint that surrounds the edges of his hair and makes him look ethereal.
He realizes he’s staring and rips his eyes away, but not before Asper meets his eyes and raises his eyebrows. His cheeks feel warm as he stares at the floor.
“‘m just gonna. Finish this,” he gestures at the glasses. “But we can talk!”
“Talk,” Asper says, setting the glass down. He traces the rim of it with a finger. “I’d like to talk with you. It’s been a while.”
So they do. Elliott’s an expert at multitasking when it comes to talking and cleaning the glasses, and there’s something about Asper and Asper’s presence that makes him feel a little more at ease and a little warmer inside.
Asper tells him that he’s become a part of a humanitarian aid group for Talos. It makes sense, when he thinks about Asper’s kindness and concern. Asper tells him about a company called Hammond Robotics and how they’re trying to dig up materials underneath the surface of Talos, and Asper is one of the people trying to stop it before it gets worse.
“And you? What have you been doing?”
Elliott sets down the glass, sliding it with the rest of the clean ones. He then shuffles around the corner of the bar, sliding into the seat next to him. Asper’s clever eyes watch him all the while.
“Stuff,” he says, tracing a stained circle on the tabletop. “Uh. Went to college. Dropped out of college. Got into engineering, but I’ve been at home with my mom. Holotech.”
“Holotech… I always wondered what you would do with that brain of yours.”
Elliott huffs out a laugh. “It’s mostly mom’s work, not me. I sorta… tag along.”
“I doubt that.”
“What? My mom’s great, what do you m-”
“It’s not that,” Asper says as he glances at him. His eyes are filled with a soft amount of warmth. “You always underestimate yourself when it comes down to the things you love.”
A beat of silence. Elliott clears his throat and continues tracing, looking away when he catches Asper looking at him again through the frame of his lashes.
“But uh… yeah… so that happened. Got the bar a year ago, and I’ve just been… around, figuring stuff out.”
“Stuff out?” Asper repeats, and he swears he catches a note of curiosity. “Such as…”
“I-I don’t know. Things.”
Elliott’s mind flits to his roommate kissing him two years ago. The pressure and warmth of his lips on his.
“Things,” Asper echoes.
Elliott turns his head a little bit and focuses on him. Asper looks good like this, underneath the soft shred of light that makes him look comforting and warm.
His eyes drop to his mouth.
“Yeah. Things.”
Asper is studying him, and it’s moments later that his smile curves. His head tilts towards him, and he drops it onto Elliott’s shoulder, a small amount of laughter escaping him.
“Ah, how I missed you,” he says against his shoulder.
Something in his chest had tightened when he saw Asper’s smile. It draws even tighter.
“Hey, Asp-” he stops short. Falters a bit. “Can I- ask you something?”
“Mm?”
“I know this is…” Elliott pauses. Each word that comes out of his mouth makes him feel worse inside. “Bad. To ask of you. Like the more I think about it the worse I feel about it.”
“You never quite had a filter, so go on.”
“Can I kiss you?” Elliott blurts.
A pause. He recoils.
“Sorry, that was stupid, I shouldn’t of- I’m just trying to-”
“Figure ‘stuff’ out?”
Elliott stares at his face as Asper quotes him, trying to figure out if he’s mocking him. But when Asper reaches out and touches the back of his hand gently, he realizes that he’s not.
“To make things abundantly clear, I don’t have feelings for you. So if this is some sort of ploy to kiss me and not admit if you have feelings…”
“Yeah! Yeah. That’s fine. That… wasn’t my intention. I’m- yeah. Figuring things out. No unrequited feelings here!”
There’s a beat of silence as Elliott smooths his palms down his pants. He’s trying to stare a burning hole into the top of the counter, and he feels a brief touch against his cheek. His head turns, and all the breath rushes out of his lungs when he sees Asper close, fingers barely underneath the crook of his chin.
Then he waits.
Because, Elliott realizes, he wants him to take the first step. Because he’s the one that asked.
Yeah, that makes sense.
“Go on, then,” Asper says in the space between their lips, so he does.
Elliott doesn’t exactly know what to do, and it feels like all of his Kiss Knowledge™ somehow drains out of him in that exact moment, so it’s a simple press of the lips, and that’s all.
“Hm,” is all Asper says once he pulls back, hand settled against the counter now.
“Hm?” Elliott manages out, his brain a small amount of fuzz.
“If you kissed me like that in high school, I would’ve been disappointed. I would still like you, but disappointed.”
“Wh-” he sputters. “Disappointed?”
Asper’s smile is, surprisingly, what pulls a little bit of a laugh from Elliott despite his embarrassment. “Well, did that help you figure anything out? Because if you need a repeat, I’m going to need you to do more than that .”
“No, no, I’m good,” Elliott waves a hand around. It falls as he considers what he just did, the feeling in his stomach, how it felt.
Did it… feel right?
Maybe he’s overthinking it. Perhaps he should kiss Asper again, feel the shape of him underneath his mouth and see if maybe that causes the same sparks that Elliott had from the kiss with his roommate, the same one that made him sleepless for at least a few days.
“If you’re trying to figure out your sexuality, kissing me isn’t going to help.”
“That wasn’t what I was-” Elliott deflates when Asper tilts his head. “Okay, maybe I was trying to. Figure that out.”
Asper readjusts in his seat, knees bumping with his briefly as he considers his now-empty drink. “A kiss is simply an act. It can happen between friends. Between lovers. You’re looking at the wrong part of love. You need to look at the feelings. The before. ”
“I-” Elliott pauses before he chokes. “I don’t- I don’t know. I don’t know how to look at that. I want it to just… come to me. I don’t know if I like guys; I know I like girls, and for other folks I don’t even know- ”
“That’s okay,” Asper says, soothingly. “You don’t have to know. There’s no limit, no due date.”
“You know! You’ve got it figured out!”
“Actually, I don’t.”
A pause. Elliott blinks at him.
Asper shrugs as he now leans back, having twisted so that his body faces the outside of the bar, and braces all his weight on his biceps.
“I’ve known for a long time I’ve liked men. But I had no reason to label it. You don’t have to have a label.”
“But it always feels like…” Elliott trails off. “It feels like I should- get it sorted out. Because then that’s just- another thing I don’t know! Everyone around me knows, or it feels like they know, and they’re all younger than me, and-”
“Elliott,” Asper says softly, his name in his mouth soothing and warm, and it makes Elliott calm. A little bit. “As I said. There is no due date. You do not pass an age and suddenly know. You don’t have to know. You take things at your own pace, and when you’re ready, you can step into the label that you want, if you want any at all. It may not be perfect the first time, either. Give yourself time.”
Elliott inhales through his nose.
Then, he nods, stiffly. Tries to take Asper’s words to heart and shed this worry off his back.
-
They never cleaned any of his brother’s rooms.
Elliott had lived with Lyndon and Mateo, and while he knows that he should clean out their things, he really… doesn’t feel like he should. He hadn’t thought it while he was younger, and he really doesn’t think it now.
He thought it might be better for his mother, anyways, when he was younger. She seemed to like to steep herself in the memories.
It’s become abundantly clear that it’s more than just that, but Elliott doesn’t want to open up that can of worms.
He sits at one of their desks. Lyndon’s desk. He was the oldest out of the three of them, so he got the chair with wheels, Elliott remembers, testing the roll of the chair with his heels. It doesn’t seem as exciting as it was.
He starts to dig through the drawers, looking for things to set aside and donate without personal meaning. He finds a couple pens, empty notebooks, things that Evelynn bought with her spare paycheck to make sure they had enough to keep them afloat at school.
He puts them aside now and keeps digging.
Then pauses.
He thinks he’s seen this pin before. Pink, purple, blue- and he knows those colors.
The bisexual pin is smaller than he remembers in his palm, and Elliott curls his hand over it.
(“ Hey, maybe I can get one for you,” Lyndon says, waving it around, and Elliott watches the pin. He likes the colors. “You want one?”)
He has one now. He has this one.
Elliott tucks it away into his pocket, hopes that Lyndon wouldn’t have minded.
-
He’s a little bit successful at both taking Asper’s advice and keeping himself in a spot where he’s most comfortable. Elliott just… doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t think about it, carries on like normal. He dates some women, a woman from Talos and another from Gaea, has his heart broken by the both of them, and tries to both focus and ignore the weight of his mother’s worsening condition.
So. Yeah. Normal things.
His life moves on- Elliott watches as the money drains out of his paycheck for his mother’s treatment (it’s a crap treatment, too, one of the cheapest because he’s the only one keeping them afloat and wow, is it a struggle) and figures that he needs another job.
There’s the Apex Games, which is exactly where he is now.
Some sort of… interview to check out their skills or something similar. Figure out what they can bring to the table, if they can market someone new.
He’s waiting in the… waiting room, which makes sense. His legs are jogging up and down as Elliott considers the pile of his technology packed up neatly near his legs.
“You better not blow up in my face,” he says. His holotech, unsurprisingly, does not respond as Elliott leans back, watching the door with rapt attention.
The door opens, and a rather large man comes through. Broad shoulders match with the broad lines of his face and muscular arms, coupled with intricate tattoos that run up and down his arms.
The man has a kind face too, despite the almost intimidating boldness of his form and figure, with black hair attentively gathered into a bun on top of his head. Elliott watches him take easy steps across the waiting room to greet a dark-skinned girl who’s spinning drumsticks in her palms.
“Elliott Witt?” Someone calls from inside the room, and he startles.
“Uh- yeah! That’s me! Be right…” he trails off, glancing after the man, eyes tracing along the lines of his back.
C’mon, Elliott.
“Yeah! Be right there!”
He hurries to the room, then comes back instants later when he realizes he had forgotten his holotech, and shuffles in.
And throughout the interview, his mind keeps straying. Distractedly.
-
Elliott is twenty-nine when he comes to find that the man he had seen in the waiting room is not just some guy. Thirty when he meets more of the people the Apex Games reins in.
Makoa Gibraltar. S.A.R.A.S volunteer, Solace-born, and happens to be an Apex Legend that kicks Elliott’s ass several times during his first few matches. And he flips the switch easily when Elliott is on his team, lifting him like he’s nothing like a sack of grapes and slapping him hard enough on the back that Elliott chokes.
He’s loud although he’s gentle, he’s ambitious although he’s kind, and he’s a fighter like anyone else, and Elliott admires that.
Admires a lot about Makoa. Like, a lot. In particular in the areas where Elliott is more… lacking.
Maybe lacking is the right term, but he feels like that’s the only one that fits. It’s something he could easily ignore in the past few seasons, but with the new arrival of some legends who are so… unabashedly themselves (Fuse kisses someone at Paradise Lounge at the stroke of the new year with a hearty laugh; Loba bats her eyes and blows kisses to the people she picks that she likes; Valkyrie likes to drink a girl underneath the table and take her home for the night) makes certain thoughts… circulate.
Like, circulate a lot. Mostly about Makoa in a definite ‘ haha wow, that’s new ’ but also… trying to figure out himself.
Again.
And that’s how he finds himself hovering outside of Loba’s dropship room. There’s a small curtain drawn between the walls to offer the Legends a little privacy, and Elliott finds a spot to focus on, where the threading is fraying a little near the bottom (wow, Loba’d hate that), that helps settle his nerves.
… Yeah, right.
He inhales through his nose, wondering if he’s making himself nervous for no reason, and calls out, “Lo?”
An affirmative noise comes from within. Great… she’s here.
I guess I should probably sound more upbeat. Whatever.
Elliott swipes the curtain in two, parting it, and ducks underneath. He’s not exactly surprised at the ornate and sleek decor of Loba’s dropship room, nor at the sight of Loba carefully checking herself in a hand mirror as she taps a bright red nail against the corner of her lip.
She catches a glimpse of him hovering near the doorway and arches an eyebrow.
“You look as if I’ll eat you alive, Witt.”
“You might,” Elliott answers honestly, and all Loba responds with is the mild tilt of her mouth and the smaller flash of teeth.
“It’s not often you seek me out, handsome,” she says, closing her hand mirror with a click. “Let’s finish this quickly; what can I do for you?”
“Uh.”
Every word in his throat dries up, and Elliott swallows.
“Sorry, uh- cat- wolf? Wolf got my tongue,” he says around a stutter, trying not to let the anxiety get the best of him.
Loba raises an eyebrow. She looks perfect per usual, sharp to the point, and Elliott exhales.
“You’re bi, right?”
“No need in saying what we already know, darling.”
“Okay. Um,” Elliott smooths a palm down the front of his pants, and the words come out in a tumble. “How did you know that- that you’re that?”
A moment of silence before Loba tuts. “We need to work on your vocabulary, Witt; it seems in need of fine-tuning.”
“I’m nervous!” Elliott protests. “Okay, fine, whatever, I’ll just go, it was stupid any-”
Loba holds her hand up. He stops talking.
“That’s better,” she says, turning hard on her heel to walk over the expanse of her room, her boots clicking as she does. “Care for wine?”
“We have a match in-”
“That wasn’t my question, Witt.”
“Uh,” he steps a little bit more into her room, which bears in on him like he’s stepping into a predator’s den. Shuffling towards one of her couches, Elliott deposits himself on one, perched on the edge. “Sure?”
She pours him a drink in one fluid motion and hands it to him. Elliott busies himself with staring at the rim of the glass.
“It’s of the highest quality, if that’s what you’re fretting about,” Loba says, lifting the glass. “But you shouldn’t worry, not when it comes to me and my tastes.”
“That’s- that’s not the thing on my mind, but hey, it’s a reassurance to know this is good. Better than nothing. I already told you what’s on my mind, so...”
“Correct,” she hums around the rim of her glass. He swears he sees the faintest print of red against it. “Lost, are we?”
“A… little bit.”
The both of them know that he’s not just a little bit lost- Elliott looks the vaguest bit confused as it is, eyebrows scrunched and with a wrinkle forming between his brows, mouth drawn together.
“Stop that with your face, handsome. You’ll ruin it if you continue,” Elliott tries to smooth his face out as Loba taps her nail against her glass. “As for when I knew… you know I prefer to keep my eyes on the prize rather than ruminating on the past.”
“I know! I’m sorry, I just-“ he smooths his palms down the fronts of his pants. “I’m just trying to get… something. A lead, I guess? And I don’t want this to be a misunderuh-misunder-undet- that’s it! That’s all I want. I’m not tryin’ to get anything else.”
“It shows,” she says offhandedly, tossing one of her braids over her shoulder. It takes all in Elliott’s body not to blister because wow, he’s really starting to hate feeling on edge and vulnerable like this. It’s only when Loba speaks again that he calms. “It’s quite a touchy thing to maneuver.”
“Did you think it was tough?”
“Not tough, darling. But as I said… touchy.”
She examines her nails with an expert eye, hardly looking at him. Elliott thinks maybe she’ll give him some sort of anecdote, a story of when she figured it out, but instead she pins him with cutting gold eyes- sharp enough to make him audibly gulp.
“Perhaps tough for you, then. And now you need a little help…” she tuts. “Let’s start with what you know.”
Elliott shrugs. Her lip twitches.
“Not much, then. I’ve worked with worse things. But, Witt, let’s begin with women.”
“Definitely like women,” Elliott nods. “A bit of a, uh, ladies’ man, if you haven’t noticed-“
“Or so you like to think,” Loba says, still idly tracing the rim of her glass. The mild twist to her lips is amused.
“Wh- Hey!”
“And men? How do you like them?”
“Uh- like them? I mean, I dunno, I never really had-“
He stops, then, mind flipping through memories of his youth. When he had first seen Asper and thought he was the prettiest boy he had ever seen. When Theodore had kissed him, and it had felt like the first time he’s been kissed. When he had kissed Asper in his bar, and the world faded around him.
“Uncovered something, have we?”
“Uh,” Elliott rubs at the back of his neck. “I guess? I guess I like men- some men, yeah.”
“And people outside of that?”
“I haven’t exactly… had the experience? To like… I mean, I’ve met people like that, but not… in depth. More like an acquiant-acquit-acquick- not really friends, just… knowing them.”
Loba finally sets her glass down. She had been rocking it in her palm, and it clicks as it’s set against the table. “Well, handsome, it seems like you have a conclusion to arrive at yourself. Now, are you going to drink any of that wine? It is my best.”
“Oh- oh, yeah,” Elliott glances down at his hand. “I’m- uh. Yeah. Don’t know if I like wine before a game, so I’m just- gonna. Yeah. Leave you. And leave the wine that’s. Your best.”
He clears his throat as he leans over to set the glass next to her, standing and wiping off imaginary lint from his shirt and pants.
Loba gives him a small fluttery wave of her fingers as he ducks out of her room.
Elliott finds himself in front of his own room, and he can hardly find it in himself to settle, so he stands there and shifts from foot to foot.
“Okay. That’s. Okay. We’re getting somewhere.”
-
Elliott is thirty-one when he pins a pin of pink, purple, and blue stripes to his Apex gear. He keeps it right above the small fox pin he has adorning the right side of his torso, the edges just barely touched by the row of bullets he wears.
He sees how Loba’s eyes flick down to examine it. Then, she gives a nod as if she’s someone approving his choice of clothing.
He hasn’t figured it out. Not entirely, and he knows that. Another day, it would scare him. But he’s got a brief piece of the entirety of the puzzle, and you know what?
Elliott can work with bits and pieces. He’s got time.