Chapter 4 Elias
Elias
“I’m going, Izzy!” Elias Durand shouts from the front foyer of their apartment.
It’s a sunny little one-bedroom place, overflowing with plants and light, the perfect little slice of Elias’s heaven. And Isaac Fletcher is the rest.
“Izzy! Come kiss me goodbye!”
Isaac appears beside him in a blink, a wide grin in place and bubblegum pink hair still moving with his momentum as he comes to an abrupt stop, nearly bowling them both over with his enthusiasm.
He’s smaller than Elias by a few inches, five-foot-five in his favorite Converse, and he goes to his tippy toes to plant a sloppy, wet, tart kiss on Elias’s laughing mouth.
“That was nice,” Elias whispers against his full lips, breathing deeply through his nose so he can get the key lime pie flavor of Isaac’s scent all the way to the back of his throat. “Are you going to miss me?”
Isaac laughs and licks Elias’s lower lip again before kissing his cheeks, small hands on Elias’s plump ass with a hard squeeze.
“Nope.”
“No? Why are you so mean? I’ll be gone for hours,” Elias whines, hefting his messenger bag over his shoulder.
“I’m going to work on my day off to cook for Gideon, and you get to stay at home and…
do noth—uh, your own thing.” He’d been going to say “nothing,” but after five years, he knows better than to call his mate’s crafting frenzies nothing.
Isaac narrows his slate grey eyes in suspicion at the slip, but lets it slide. “You’re going to work to do what you love for someone you admire, in your very own kitchen.”
“Yeah, well, there is that. You know we’re closed on Mondays, and Gideon’s new place doesn’t have its soft launch until next month. Besides, Quest is still twenty-five percent his on the books.”
Elias watches as Isaac exchanges his red hairband for a lime green one covered in hot dogs from the hairband tree in the corner of the foyer.
He’d converted the rack from a thrifted sunglasses rack and filled it with hairbands he’d made or upcycled.
While clunky in size, it was truly a brilliant idea, and what made Isaac happy made Elias happy.
“Besides, Gideon has been good to me—to us, Izzy. You know we’d never have been able to own a place of our own otherwise.”
“You earned that, Eli. You and Maureen carried Quest for months, and Gideon Carnell knows it. And you improved the menu, in my opinion.”
The pride in his mate’s voice sends a jolt to his heart even after all this time.
“Yeah, well, don’t say that to Gideon.”
“Pfft. I can take him.”
No doubt. Gideon may have ten inches on Elias’s mate, but anyone with half a brain these days knows omegas are not to be messed with.
“Babe, he wouldn’t know what hit him. You’re scrappy.”
“Damn right, I am. The world isn’t ready for all this.”
All this was the absolute magnificence of one hundred and thirty pounds of chaotic-pixie-dream-boy awesomeness tied up with a backbone of steel and a genius-level brain.
It’s all wrapped in pink hair, novelty t-shirts that he makes himself, skinny jeans, and a bright turquoise cardigan with a grumpy Care Bear on the front.
He’s added an orange tulle half-skirt that bounces when he walks.
“I’m ready, let’s hit it. The bus is here in seventeen minutes.” Grabbing his new bag from the hook by the door, Isaac unhooks the chain lock on the door. The noise causes their guinea pigs, Changbin and Hyunjin, to squeak their own goodbyes.
“Where are you going?” Elias hates that the question comes out with a disapproving tone layered over it. It hasn’t been that long since Elias did everything he could to hide his sweet omega from the world, and the urge has been hard to shed.
Narrowed eyes reveal that Isaac hears the tone, but he cuts him slack for the second time, like the generous soul he is.
“With you, of course. It’s your day off, Eli.
We always spend your day off together, and I am not giving that up now, and certainly not for your old boss.
So we’ll cook for the big man, then we can do some shopping at that thrift store I like. ”
Torn between awwwww and oh fuck no, Elias lets both expressions flash across his face in a lightning-fast repeat. On one hand, there has never been a minute of his life since they met that Elias hasn’t wanted to spend with his mate. Not one.
But on the other hand, Isaac Fletcher is the antithesis of what anyone would call kitchen-friendly. And to make matters worse, he doesn’t know he’s a menace when armed with a blade, heat, or the simplest kitchen appliances.
“I can chop vegetables or stir something. Come on! Twelve minutes.” Isaac is out the door and already halfway down the two flights of stairs of their complex before Elias can mount a reasonable argument.
With a put-upon sigh, he takes the win of more time with Isaac, pulling the door shut.
“Hurry up, Eli! Ten minutes, and you walk too slow!”
Jogging, Elias finally catches up to his mate half a block away, and he’s exactly right when the blue bus pulls in ahead of them, and Isaac has to drag him the last few yards.
The door to the bus slides open, and the route’s regular driver, Diana, grins at them. “Hey, you two! Right on time today, eh, Isaac?”
“Right on time, Di. You’re getting really good,” Isaac praises the driver.
According to him, she’d not had any concept of good time management, and he’d helped her change her life over the past few months.
“Thanks! Is that your new bag? The one you were telling me about last week?” The bag in question is covered in pins and badges his mate had found, and has no fewer than three small KPOP-inspired plushies hanging from a chain.
“Yeah, it turned out so well.” He tries to get up to show her as Diana pulls into traffic, but Elias pulls him back down so he doesn’t go flying through the windshield as the bus picks up speed.
“You made it out of all the denim you got from Gloria’s shop, right?”
“Yes, and I reused all the pockets, too. I have tons left over. I’ll make you one.”
Diana grins at Elias in the rearview mirror. “That would be great! I can always use a bag with more pockets.”
“Right? Never enough pockets,” Isaac mutters, already lost in thought about the bag he’ll make for his friend. Phone in hand and notes app open, Isaac’s fingers fly over the keys, adding to what Elias can see is a long list of craft supplies.
The thing is, Isaac’s creations are…unique.
He loved creating things but hadn’t ever focused or practiced enough to perfect a skill, always on to the next thing.
Their apartment reflected his varied interests, from knitting machines to a pottery wheel, and on to a bookbinding machine.
Just this week, a vinyl cutting machine took over the last spare spot on what used to be the kitchen table.
Elias doesn’t mind. He wears whatever his mate makes like it is a badge of honor. The t-shirt he has on today has a chicken on the front with the words Are you a breast or thighs man? No matter that Elias is neither.
Yesterday’s masterpiece said, Say please.
It made sense that there would be so many hobbies to occupy his mate’s time.
Isaac had spent the six years after presenting as an omega hidden away by parents whose cultish view of the world had taught him that being seen was dangerous, and that his designation made him something to be guarded, controlled, and kept apart from ordinary life, until omegas all over the world came out almost two years ago.
Not long after he’d escaped their control, he’d had a terrible experience when several Weres followed him home from the library, fighting and shouting after him until he’d made it through the security door to his building.
They’d stayed out front for hours, until the superintendent called the police.
After that, he’d found an online job doing accounting for a small firm that specialized in small businesses, ordering everything he needed online.
“Eli, we’ll need to stop by Fabricland on the way home, too. Di, what color of zipper do you want?”
Elias tunes out the discussion of whether they need a contrasting zipper for her bag or not.
Easier to occupy his mind by running through the ingredients in the fridge at Quest. He wonders if Gideon has gotten over his intense aversion to cilantro yet, because Elias could make a beautiful pico de gallo and chicken soft taco for lunch. Simple but fresh for a hot summer day.
Five minutes later, their bus pulls up at the stop, half a block from Quest. With a last wave to Diana, Isaac has them out and on the curb with a promise to see her later in the week.
“She’s so nice,” Isaac muses as he slides his hand into Elias’s, pulling them toward Quest. “Hey, Darius.”
Waving at the owner of Cafe’o’Late, the twenty-four-hour coffee shop and patisserie-slash-used bookstore, he points to the chalkboard sign and gives the older man a thumbs up.
“Elias! Hey, Isaac! Love your bag. Finally got it finished?”
“Thanks, I did!” He does a little twirl beside Elias to show off his creation in action. “I’ll be in later for that new matcha, okay? Did you get the honey from that vendor at the market?”
“I did, it’s so good. I’ll see you later, then?”
“Will do! Have a good afternoon!”
“You, too.”
Darius waves them off as he pulls out his chalk to finish the pink unicorn holding what now looks like a cup full of green matcha instead of the coffee it had been when they walked up.
Elias can’t help his besotted look. “Izzy, you are amazing.”
“It’s just a bag, doofus.”
“Not the bag.” Nope. Definitely not the bag. “It’s you. There’s never been a person who didn’t love you, baby. Makes me proud you’re mine, is all.”
Isaac pulls him to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. A couple of women giggle when they have to split apart to go around them. One muttering under her breath, “Get it, honey.”
But Isaac isn’t listening to strangers; he’s only got eyes for Elias, the golden afternoon sun turning his pink hair into a sunset halo. “I am yours, Eli, and you’re mine.”