✵

Desperately searching his brain for all of the various things he could have said wrong, Elliot made the block trip back to the diner, not entirely the biggest fan of the disappointment he felt prodding at his insides. Maybe not disappointment so much as confusion.

Val and Winn were still arguing in the booth by the time he got back, though the mood was, admittedly, much different than before.

“Yo, where’s Danny?” Val asked, pulling her long blonde hair into a bun.

Elliot shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine. There was some commotion a few blocks down and he just kind of...ran off.”

“Fuck.” Val said, nearly spitting as she fumbled out of the booth, shoving a handful of french fries in her mouth as she did so, “Win, can you meet me back at my place in a sec? I need to go check this out.”

“Sure, but check what out?” Winn asked, feeling the shock of mood whiplash.

“Awesome! See you later!” Val said as she practically ran out of the diner, avoiding both Winn and the question.

Elliot sat down, his expression blank, “What the hell was that about?”

Winn blinked in the direction that the two had run off in, “Beats me.”

They sat there in stunned silence for a moment, listening as the sound of sirens grew louder and seemingly closer.

“We should get home before this gets any worse.” Winn said, waving absently in the direction of the streets.

Elliot stared blankly at nothing in particular, no fan of crowds unless he was in the center of them, “I couldn’t agree more.”

The two of them paid for the entirety of the meal, something Elliot struggled not to whine about, and made their way out of the diner relatively quickly.

Not quickly enough, however, to avoid the people who were slowly piling around the scene to witness the fight that was breaking out in the street.

Curiosity overpowered Elliot’s desire to go home, if only for a moment, as he rocked forward on the tips of his toes, craning his neck to see if he could get a glimpse of the assumed chaos. If he was lucky, he could make out just enough to bullshit an InfoBYTE article out of it.

Some idiot clad in a ridiculous mask that looked similar to the head of a praying Mantis lept on top of the building adjacent to where Elliot stood. Quickly, he reached for his phone, holding it up to get what was about to be a relatively decent picture.

Certainly better than any InfoBYTE presently had of this nonsense, at least.

He was right about to snap the picture when a passerby’s elbow thrust itself into Elliot’s gut, causing a sharp and sudden pain and his phone to fall to the pavement below.

“Watch it, asshole!” Elliot screamed at no one in particular as the mass of people was shifting and moving, making it impossible to identify his assailant. He picked up his phone, brushing it off on his shirt before looking at the crack across the screen in absolute dismay.

Great. Just peachy, “You know, if you’re going to commit a crime I don’t see why you’d hide your face like that.” Elliot frowned, turning away from the crowd to head towards sanctuary.

Winn raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, “What do you mean? They don’t want to get caught, obviously.”

Elliot rolled his eyes, “Homeboy can fly, and half of those other freaks have laser vision and shit. They’re not really at risk for getting caught, they just need to learn how to scare people into submission.”

Winn shivered dramatically, “Thank god you don’t have superpowers, I’d have to have someone kill you.”

“I’d sure look better than whatever the hell his deal is,” Elliot said as he gestured at the two masked figures fighting it out in the city skyline, “Actually, both of them. God, has no one read a comic book? What even are those costumes supposed to be?”

“Practical?” Winn offered with an amused shrug.

There was nothing practical Elliot could imagine with looking like a bug. Not that the “hero” was faring much better. If Elliot’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, although ,dear god, had he hoped they were, the other idiot was attempting to hold his own in sweatpants and a ski mask.

At least the bug was creative.

“Well, they’re hideous. Great super-villains know how to rock a cape. If you want to succeed in that business you need a cape.” Elliot offered instead.

“Like Inferno?” Winn asked, knowing Elliot was nothing if not shallow in that regard, “He’s such a-”

“Beautiful man with the decency to let us all witness his glorious face?” Elliot finished for her, “And a superb villain! Precisely what I mean.”

Winn cringed, “You’re disgusting. What about The Magician?”

Was that his name? Ew, Elliot frowned, “You can’t call yourself that and then have an outfit that’s essentially sweatpants. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“He has a cute aura to him.” Winn said with a sigh that meant Elliot, your taste in men is horrifying, “Speaking of cute…”

“What?” Elliot shot, immediately knowing where she was going with this and immediately knowing he didn’t want this line of conversation to continue.

“Daniel Chae. You guys seemed to vibe really well.” She grinned, “And like...you’re an intolerable twat so that’s a rare sight.”

“Thanks.” Elliot retorted flatly.

“Well?” Winn prodded, “What did you think?”

“I think he ran out in the middle of a blind date and I’m ready to go home.” Elliot snapped, not liking the odd sensation of insecurity.

Elliot Edison did not feel insecure. He was basically God’s gift to gay-mankind.

Then again, he had told him to get his number from Valerie- “Oh, son of a bitch.” Elliot huffed, the memory flooding back about several minutes too late, “Your idiot not-girlfriend ran off before I could get his number!”

Winn gave him a knowing and obnoxiously smug look, “His number, huh?”

Elliot flummoxed, feeling heat rush to his face, “Don’t you have to go somewhere? I can make it home fine on my own, go to Val’s so you two can have not-sex.”

“I just wanted you to make it back safely. We definitely aren’t having not-sex.” Winn frowned, unsure of what that even meant.

“I just assumed not-girlfriends have not-sex” Elliot said plainly.

Winn wanted to retort, but decided against it. Mostly because she couldn’t.

Elliot successfully brushed away the topic of Daniel Chae, embarrassed by the fact he cared so much, until they made it back to his apartment. Winn was in a hurry, for reasons that were obvious, so Elliot helped to rush her out of the door.

It was as much to avoid the conversation as it was to help her, he assured himself.

Except that he wasn’t entirely that assured.

                                                                     ✵

Elliot was not unaccustomed to being alone.

In fact, it was much more the opposite. Winn worked long hours, he worked much more than he acted like he did, and the schedules didn’t synchronize quite as often as he wished they did.

And if Elliot were being self-aware for the briefest of moments, he’d admit that he didn’t have any other friends.

Didn’t see the need, really. If you’ve got one any more than that is just...excess.

None of this solitude even factoring in his upbringing, which was spent primarily in isolation as well.

Although, if he thought about it, that was lonely for a whole myriad of other reasons. Most of them didn’t even factor in the isolation bits.

But as desperate as he was to not think about Daniel Chae or the bizarre date that they had or how cute his eyes were, Elliot was not desperate enough to lament on his childhood instead.

He wasn’t sure anyone would ever be that desperate.

Elliot paced his apartment, shrugging out of his jeans before falling face down onto the couch. He nested himself into the position, only moving his face enough to breathe easier.

He only hated being left alone when he was left alone with something on his mind. Which was presently a toxic montage of all of the stupid shit he told himself he said wrong.

But...he hadn’t said anything wrong. No more than usual, at least.

He wondered if the usual amount of wrong things said was enough to deter Daniel Chae.

Elliot wiggled himself free from his awkward position just enough that he could grab his phone from where he had tossed it onto coffee table, frowning sharply at the crack it had gotten earlier.

He hated bubbles in the screen protector whenever he put it on, this was something else entirely.

Elliot also hated it quite a bit that there wasn’t a single missed call or text, but that wasn’t anything new.

He hadn’t been expecting anything.

Or at least, that's what he told himself.

He set his phone down before wiggling himself slightly more comfortably into the couch, deciding in that moment that he would sleep there tonight. Winn wasn’t home to tell him it was ridiculous and if there was nothing else in the world he could claim to love, it was breaking monotony.

Sometimes a man must sleep on his own couch for no reason in order to feel alive.

It could be worse, after all, (a fact he constantly reminded Winn of-) he could be on serious drugs.

As Elliot stretched his hand out towards the TV remote, his phone buzzed besides it.

Once.

Twice.

A third time.

I swear if Winn forgot her keys again, Elliot huffed, swiping to answer it without even checking the caller ID, “I’m not getting up so if you don’t have your keys just stay at Val’s.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line that seemed to last far longer than what Elliot deemed normal, before he heard a distinctively not-Win voice clear his throat, “I, uh… I don’t think you could pay me to go there tonight. If they’re anything in private like they are in public it’s going to be a nice hard pass for me.”

Elliot nearly fell as he quickly contorted himself to a sitting position, “Danny?”

“Val just told me she forgot to pass my number on, so I figured I’d...you know...do the uh….thing.” He mumbled, either more awkward than Elliot had previously given him credit for or distracted by something else.

“Oh.” Elliot said briefly, trying to ignore that he felt even the slightest bit excited by his sudden phone companion, “Cool.”

Say something else, moron! Elliot internally screamed at himself, but his mind kept sticking to the noise in the background.

“Are...Are you alright?” He asked, pressing the phone closer in an attempt to gain some context.

“Me?” Danny sounded almost offended, “Yeah. Fine as a fiddle. Just wrapping something up, which is why I didn’t text.”

Elliot decided to lean into some bravado for comfort, “I’m flattered you were in such a hurry.”

“I wasn’t-” He heard Danny start before clearing his throat loudly, “I...N-Nevermind. Do you..uh...coffee?”

“Is that some sort of new drug?” Elliot asked with a snicker, unable to debate if that were the proper response, “Or the newest dance craze? If it’s a sport the answer is definitely no.”

He could practically hear the hum of blood rushing to Danny’s cheeks, “I meant do you get coffee, shit- that’s wrong too.” Danny groaned loudly and Elliot struggled not to laugh, fearing it may dampen what little courage the poor guy had left, “What I meant to ask was, Do you want to get coffee? With me. For the uh, as a...you know…”

“I would love to get coffee with you tomorrow morning.” Elliot clarified, ending Danny’s suffering kindly, “There’s a really nice place close to that stupid diner, actually. We can go there. If you're not busy serial killing.”

“Morning?” Danny asked, practically with a wheeze.

“Is...morning a problem?” Elliot wondered with amusement, “I have a job that’s pretty insistent I do it during the daytime for some reason, but there’s always after the fact.”

Danny answered a bit too quickly, “No! I mean… no. Morning is fine. Just...uh...text me what time. I gotta run.”

“Alright then.” Elliot asked, happy that Danny couldn’t see the confused look on his face, “I’ll text you when-”

Elliot heard a click as the line went dead, pulling the phone away and looking down at the screen.

He stared down in surprise before saving the number, setting the phone down and laying back down on the couch, this time in a much more normal fashion.

Elliot Edison was not the type of person to get infatuated. Not anymore….or at least, not this quickly.