(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

kim--hanbins asked
ironflint alex meeting eliza and trying to be good to her. Probably failing, but trying.

so his text says wear something really nice…..let me know if you dont have anything really nice. they meet at one of her favorite parks and he’s wearing a three piece suit with a piaget watch. she knows that mr. washington pays him well, but… well. that was not what she was expecting. she’s wearing a dress angelica got her, which is like all the dresses angelica gets her: flattering but not tight, with no slit up the leg. it’s quintessentially this is my little sister. she wanted to wear something else but it’s easier to wear what angelica wants than fight with her. (alex will think you look cuter in this.)

“wow,” alex says, running his hand through his hair. it’s a weird length since he last cut it all off, “you look… really good. like, really good. jesus.”

“thanks,” she says. he looks good too, but she knows compliments go to his head. so she smiles instead and he smiles too and looks the other way. runs his hand through his hair again. it’s a cute nervous tic. “so where’s this special really nice place?”

“oh, shit,” he says, and then he’s hurrying, too quick for the watch, back to the waiting black car. he opens the door. gestures. “this place is amazing. your mind is going to be blown, i swear. they have these octopus tentacle ball… things.”

she sits inside. he slides inside too, closes the door. she watches him, clear as day, gather the confidence to talk. it’s painfully endearing, and it almost soothes the old anger of showing up at her own apartment with some other person in her bed with alex.

almost. she nurtures it, just a little. nice to have a few coals burning. not bad to be warmed by it, and then also have him tripping over his own feet to make her happy.

“so um, i know that i haven’t always been the best – at – anything..but….” he swallows back his anxiety and fiddles with his watch. he could do with something less ostentatious. “but! but i’m going to try so fucking hard this time. you do not even fucking know how hard i’m going to try. with the amount of hard i am going to try, i could build another great wall. and i’d name it after you, by the way. the great wall of eliza. or betsy? elizabeth?”

she thinks, but he’s talking again before she responds.

“well whatever. anyone who doesn’t call it what you want, i’m going to round them all up and execute them.”

she must show the distaste, becuase he clears his throat.

“I mean, uh. re-educate them. on the name of your wall. shit. i mean. nevermind.”

she rolls her eyes. takes his hand. he has narrow hands, lean fingers. that shuts him up.

“how was work?”

he opens his mouth, then closes it. his face gets tight at the edges, like sometimes the way her dad does, when he doesn’t want to talk about something.

“it’s fine,” he says, one-hundred-percent forced-casual. “you know. i work a lot. lot to do and all. how about you?”

“you work too much,” she says, “haven’t you ever thought about, you know…..”

“i like working a lot,” he says, and his voice is a little sharp now, to matched the pinch at his jaw. “how’s your sister? i saw her at a conference last week.”

“oh, you know her, always accomplishing something new. she just secured some huge government grant yesterday. and i’m sure you know john won some award for his amazing logistics too,” she replies. it isn’t that she doesn’t like talking about angelica’s accomplishments, only that, well. angelica has a lot of accomplishments.

“she’s fucking brilliant,” alex says. they talk about nothing for a while. traffic and alex’s bike that he wrecked and eliza’s art class. when the car stops he gets out quick and hurries around her to open her door.

“not even my dad could get a reservation here,” she says, staring up at the understated signage. three small, tasteful michelin stars are set in the window.

alex grins a winning grin. “there’s perks for working too much,” he says, and offers her his arm, again too quickly. she takes it anyway.