2019-08-31 - Fish and Admissions

Elias ducks into the house, holding the door open for Tyler, and letting him in as the thunderstorm flashes outside, causing the lights to flicker inside. A huge rumble of thunder echoes overhead, and the entire house is mostly dim. The power isn't out, but even though it is late afternoon, the darkness of the storm outside makes it even moreso inside. He pushes damp hair back from his face with one hand as they make their way inside. "Okay, that storm came on way faster than I thought it was going to."

Tyler follows the other man inside. "It's this darned town, El. Everything here is weird and not how people think it will be." Once inside, he glances around. "Honey, we're home!" he calls out playfully. He takes a moment to pull at the front of his shirt, which the rain has plastered against his chest like a second skin. "We're gonna need a towel."

Elias chuckles at that and says, "I just thought we'd actually be able to make it inside before it got too bad." When Tyler calls out there's no response. Either there's no one home or if there is, they are being pointedly ignored. Or, if Daniel's home, he probably has headphones in and is blissfully oblivious of them. He bends over and unlaces his boots, listening for the sound of a reply, and when none comes, he chuckles "Guess it's just us." Once they are unlaced he slides them off and goes into the little downstairs bathroom, coming out with a towel to hand to Tyler. "So.. tonight, it's my turn to cook for you. Provided that the power stays on.. which it might not, given my luck, but we'll see."

Tyler catches the towel. "Really? You're cooking?" He smirks, "Chef Boyardee isn't so bad I guess." He takes a moment to peel his shirt off, ringing it out on the door mat. There's a pretty bruised welt on his chest, about two inches around. As he towels himself off, he asks, "How goes this stuff with you moving between worlds? You do any more looking into that?"

"Yes, really," Elias says and then shrugs, "If you'd rather, we can just order pizza." He frowns though as he notices the welt on Tyler's chest and asks, "What happened?" taking a step closer to eye him curiously, gaze flickering upward to study his face. Distracted somewhat by the question he says, "Oh.. I haven't really.. at all. I've been busy trying to meet some deadlines." Bookstore deadlines?

Tyler laughs, "I'm sure the ramen you make will be delicious." He looks down at his chest, "Paintball. I got shot." He rolls his eyes, "I'm apparently not very good at it." Nodding, he then asks, "Okay, I'll bite. Deadlines for what?"

"Oh," Elias says, seeming to relax whe it's only paintball. "Oh.. the police and fire paintball game, right? I heard something about that after it was over. Who won?" He makes his way toward the kitchen, then, despite the ribbing about his cooking. "Writing deadlines," he says, turning back to look at Tyler. "I'm a writer. I write books. It's not something that I really tell people."

Tyler shakes his head disappointedly, "It was definitely NOT the fire department." With a sigh, he finishes drying off and follows Elias into the kitchen, still carrying his shirt. "You write?" He smiles a little, some wonder on his face as he leans against a counter to watch Elias. "Get out. For real?"

Elias reaches over to give Tyler's shoulder a squeeze and says, "Next time. You just need to practice. To be fair, they're all supposed to be good shots.. you're supposed to put out fires." He then goes over to the fridge and starts getting out some things from inside, setting them on the counter, including some foil wrapped packages from the fridge that he must have prepared ahead of time. He sets the oven to bake and gets it going before he moves to begin taking the little stem bits off the end of some green beans. "Yeah," Elias says, "I'm actually a published author. I just really like my privacy, and I don't like making a big deal out of stuff that I do.. so.. my family knows, and Harper because she's a nosy librarian, Frankie, and now you. But yeah, for real. I just do it under a pen name."

Tyler tilts his head a little, "So, not just a writer. But a published author." He slowly folds his arms over his chest. "Did... Did you write the steampunk circus book you made me buy?" His brow lifts just a little, studying him carefully.

Elias continues to work on preparing the food while he talks. Once the beans are ready, he gets out a skillet and puts it on the stove with a little bit of olive oil, getting it hot, before tossing in some chopped garlic. Once the oven is hot, the foil wrapped packages go in on a baking sheet. Though when Tyler asks if he wrote the steampunk book he grins and shakes his head, "No. That would be super egotistical, wouldn't it? If my favorite book was one I wrote?"

"So, what kind of book DID you write?" Tyler asks, curiously. He sits his shirt on the counter and walks over to Elias, slipping his arms around the man's waist and pressing against his back. He kisses Elias' neck. "Tell me about your book, Mr. Author Man."

"I've written a few of them," Elias admits, though when Tyler wraps his arms around him, he leans back against him, and lets one hand trail along Tyler's arm, head tipping forward and eyes closig at the kiss to his neck, a little smile there. "An urban fantasy series, called Shattered Reflections. It's about this world full of mirrors that can transport people to a sort of shattered reflection of reality, where everyone has some supernatural abilities in their reflected selves." It's actually a fairly popular series in its genre.

Tyler keeps nibbling on his neck, and between kisses, he whispers, "Never heard of it. Is it any good?" He holds him a little tighter. "I couldn't help but notice, El. That sounds a lot like the world we live in..."

Elias shivers just a little bit at the continued nibbles and kisses, completely distracted from cooking for a few moments. He lets his head tip back against Tyler's shoulder, then turns it to press a kiss to his jaw before he seems to register the question, "Oh, um.. I suppose people like it. They're buying it and want me to write more." He then realizes his oil is hot, and tosses in the chopped garlic and the green beans as well as a bit of cracked pepper and a tiny bit of salt to taste. "A little bit, but not quite the same. I mean, in the reflections people can be anything, like vampires and werewolves and that sort of thing. We're just.. us. Maybe us with a bit of abilities, but us, not fantastic creatures or anything like that."

Tyler releases him so he can cook, slipping his arms from around him and making his way back to the counter he was leaning against. "If I was a reader, I'm sure I'd have heard of it, read it, loved it and wanted more of it." Shrugging, he notes, "For whatever it's worth? I think you're a pretty fantastic creature." He checks to see if his shirt is any dryer, frowning at it. "Is Frankie a fan?"

Elias sighs a little as Tyler lets him go, not quite having wanted him to step away, but it does allow him to finish getting the beans done and transferred over to a serving dish. He then pulls out a bowl of a tomato mozarrella salad with red onion and basil. He unwraps that, just in time for the oven to ding. "Can you grab me a couple of plates?" he asks Tyler as he takes the foil wrapped packets and opens them up. Inside is baked herbed fish that smells pretty good. Elias may have made this several times in a row, fucking it up each time until he got it right before trying to make it for Tyler, but he doesn't admit that part. He grin a little and says, "I think you're pretty fantastic, too." Letting everything sit for just a moment, he moves over to Tyler and cups his face, tracing fingers back into his hair, and leans into kiss him, a soft slow kiss before he draws back.

Grabbing a few plates from the cabinet, Tyler sits them down on the counter near the stove. "Here you go." He watches Elias unwrapping the fish, and he smiles, "That smells good, El." When his face is taken into his hands, he smiles, looking right into Elias' eyes. He accepts that kiss, closing his eyes for the moment, sharing his tongue with Elias' mouth, enjoying the kiss. He makes a soft, disappointed sound as Elias withdraws. "What was that for?" he asks, with a big smile.

"What? I can't kiss you without there being a reason other than I really like kissing you?" He smiles over at Tyler as he sets the fish on the plates, and then brings them over to the table along with the serving dishes before grabbing some silverware, and drinks out of the fridge. He passes a can over to Tyler and then says, "And as for Frankie, yeah, she's read them. She seemed to like them well enough."

Tyler returns the smile, "You can. I just also like hearing you say it." He unwraps his shirt and slowly slips his head through, sliding his arms in. As he finishes straightening it out and pulling it the rest of the way down, he makes his way to the table. Taking the drink, he opens it and sits it by his plate. "I can't believe you've actually written books. That's pretty incredible, you know."

"Well, then I will tell you again -- I really like kissing you," Elias says, walking over to wrap his arms around Tyler's shoulders from behind, and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck for a moment before saying, "I actually write books. Which is usually what I'm doing on my laptop at the book shop when no one is in there. I'm writing, mostly." He then reluctantly lets go of Tyler to slide into his own chair next to him, and dishes himself a bit of salad, and a bit of green beans to go with his fish before taking a bite.

Tyler takes a seat. "The most I've ever written was a grocery list." He begins filling his own plate. "Tell me about it. How you do it, I mean." He stabs some of the fish with his fork, lifting it up to his mouth. "I mean, creating like that. Where does the idea come from? How do you make it a story?" He takes the bite, chewing. "Mmm. Very good."

Elias watches Tyler closely when he eats, not trying to show how nervous he is about whether the food came out alright, even though he knows that it seems fine. There's a slight releasing of the tension in his shoulders when he seems to like it. Then, he digs into his own food. The question gives him a moment's pause and he says, "I don't know where the idea comes from, really. For me it just starts with a character, and usually I see them in a place, in the middle of some action or thought or another, and then the world just kind of fills in around them, bleeding out of them and coloring everything around them until I can see it clearly. I just tell the story as it happens, as it flows out of my head. Then, after I get it all out on paper.. I go back and edit it, take out the extra bits, add in some stuff if I feel I missed something.. start recording information about the world, and characters, so that I can reference back to it later if I need to. I have maps and drawings, family trees, and just all kinds of notes on how things relate to one another.. how the world works. Once that part was kind of set up in the first book, it was pretty easy to keep going from there. I'm sure other writers are more organized about it. I'm just kind of.. a word vomitter. It just comes out."

Tyler lifts his brow as Elias shares a bit of the process with him. "Wow." He smiles, "That's really something. I just... I don't know. I'm not creative, you know? Like, at all. That seems so incredible. You're incredible." He takes another bite of the fish. "You made good fish, El. Relax. It's delicious," he reassures him.

Elias admits, "I may have screwed it up a bunch of times before I got it good enough that I figured I could make it for you and not embarass myself," with a faint smile as he pauses between bites of his own food. He wasn't going to admit it, but now that it seems to have gone over well enough, he does, with a little chuckle. Then he says, "I just always loved reading as a kid, and after a while, that turned into wanting to make up my own worlds and my own characters, so I just started writing. My teachers in school suggested I submit my stuff, and eventually after a lot of submissions, someone liked it." He relaxes and is quiet for a little bit, just eating his meal.

Tyler laughs lightly, "Really? You practiced?" He leans over and gives him a kiss. "That's adorable." He stabs a few beans, lifting them to his lips. "I never talked to my teachers. I mean, unless they made me. I was never very good in school. I just did enough to get by." He eats the beans.

"Yeah, I did," Elias admits, before returning the kiss. "I didn't talk to a lot of mine, just the English and writing related ones, really." He finishes off his salad and chews on a bean for a moment before he says, "I didn't make dessert, though. So if we want any, we might need to go out to get it." He chuckles. "Maybe I'll try and learn that next time."