[PRP] Denial is a River in Egypt (Oliver & Horace)

[The Semblance of Unity]

Alright, it was time. He nearly vibrated; Horace was well and truly stocked for this event. There was popcorn (the kind that came with a tub, plus refills), some random candy, a set of cupcakes, and a few movies. His backpack held three of the four and the cupcakes were carried awkwardly in his arms. No store-bought this, but home-made. Horace loved making cupcakes. But this event was about Oliver. Oliver needed to understand the beauty of romance and what better way than to make him watch utterly romantic movies? He already had that candle thing going on in his apartment - Horace suddenly wondered if those were Elliot's and felt kind of bad for the guy.

He knocked briskly on Oliver's apartment door. Briefly, he wondered if Oliver would let him create mood lighting with the candles for the movies. Probably not. The moonwalker seemed resistant to the very notion of romance and Horace had a suspicion it was tied to Elliot. At least it was raining, making the day muted. It was, in his opinion, a perfect day.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

The house was spotless. Oliver wasn't raised to be a goddamn barbarian, and the overwhelming amount of stuff that had been out and strewn was somewhat embarrassing. He had only noticed after Horace left the last time, because with just him and Elliot in the house, it wasn't really... anything he would've taken into consideration at any other time. Regardless, it looked proper now.

(Realistically, it had probably been spotless before. Now it just looked like no one lived in the place.)

He quickly made his way over to the door when he heard the knock. He wasn't exactly looking forward to this whole... experience, but Oliver Beaumont didn't half a** things. The door slowly slid open. Oliver looked... pretty normal, all things considered. Nosey trilled loudly in the background like someone was murdering her.

"Uh." He stared for a moment, still dumbfounded slightly that this was even going to take place, "Hello. Come in..." He ducked away from the door. Two sets of eyes watched the duo from the other end of the hall.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Was that... was that a cat or an alarm?" Horace peered towards Nosey. "Hi Ollie," he said, and shoved cupcakes at him. "Are you ready for romance?" He grinned and tried to flip his flip away from his eyes - a difficult task considering his hands were full.

He'd been looking forward to this, and he hoped that maybe Oliver was, too, but it didn't seem to be the case.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"Both." Oliver replied smoothly as he closed the door behind Horace, sounding a little more amused now. "They can be... a little noisy. Do you need help carrying—?" He was watching as Horace fumbled around with his hands full, and then as the cupcakes were shoved at him (he accepted them fussily).

"I'm about as ready as I'll ever be." He said with a dramatic sigh. It wasn't an easy life, living the one of Oliver Beaumont. "Let me go set these down." He started off towards the kitchen to do so.

"You really didn't have to go through the trouble." He called out after a moment.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Oh gosh, don't sound so excited." Horace followed Oliver to the kitchen, already unzipping his backpack. "Come on, I'll even let you pick the movie." It was a trap, but neither of them knew it yet. He laid Brokeback Mountain and Titanic on the counter top.

"I also brought popcorn and stuff." He kind of hoped Oliver had a spare blanket because nothing was better for watching movies. But he also thought it'd be weird to ask. "Your place is... super clean." Horace laughed a little. "Mine's never this good. Was it or uh, Elliot? I met him the other day, by the way." He chattered, filling any bit of silence for the time being.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"No, I cleaned it." He said as he settled things in, "I mean, Elliot helps around the house, but I did everything today. I felt bad." He kneaded the space between his eye with his hand, "Everything was such a mess the last time you were here. It was just awful, and— did you say you met him?"

He turned to look at Horace, eyes wide with genuine surprise.

"H-He's a uh, bit of a character, isn't he?" Suddenly he seemed a little nervous as he turned his attention back to the cupcakes. He sighed. "Hopefully it was a decent impression."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"It was fine before, though I don't remember much except candles, cats, and hands." Horace rolled his shoulders and held up his hand. His palm had steri-strips attached to it - he'd gone to a clinic the next day and, due to the mobility of a hand, they'd decided that might be best. It had kind of made work suck. It was hard enough to move dead bodies without a hurt hand.

Horace tried to surreptitiously study Oliver's face when he talked about Elliot, finding himself weirdly curious. "He acted kind of like a mom - was mad about me driving you recklessly home and stuff." Okay, so he didn't care much for Elliot, but he had a cool dog.

"No offense, but you have weird taste." He grinned. "But somebody's gotta, I guess. You'll have to learn to be extra romance-y to get him, I bet."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Under normal circumstances, Oliver would've gotten especially irate, said something snappish, tried to defend his pride or some such. Instead he just bit his lip hard enough to almost taste blood, eyes screwing shut with embarrassment. He let out the breath he had been holding in harshly through his nose, "I'm not going to try and get romance-y with him." He could feel his ears wanting to flatten against his head, but the nerves to allow that didn't exist in this form. "I told you it was really complicated!"

He huffed, some of his trademark ornery personality bleeding back to the surface. "He is a total mom though. He's kinda protective I guess." He scratched the back of his head, "Your hand still looks like s**t by the way, but better." His own hands were splendid. No weird touch bullshit going on here.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Hey, sorry - complications can resolve. Maybe you'll want to later," he said, shrugging. "Didn't you say you liked old version? Alien version - like you." Oh, he wasn't prying, not at all. Horace decided it was probably best not to push it further than that. While he desperately wanted to know (he had no idea why, but it was imperative he know), he couldn't make Oliver mad enough to kick him out. That would be just... depressing.

"I called him a mom, too. He didn't like that much." Horace huffed out a laugh, wondering if he should tell Oliver about the brunch thing. Maybe not. "Thanks for the compliment. It's healing, means I get to sometimes play the damsel in distress." He grinned. It was a fun roll for the six foot, relatively muscular man. "Are your hands good now? Annnnd... I brought beer, if you drink it."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Oliver made a face. "I... I've never drank before, no." And he had a multitude of reasons for that, the most obvious being that he wasn't twenty-two, the other being that his dad had been a raging alcoholic, and the third being that his roommate himself had trouble keeping out of the wine cabinet. Elliot at the least wasn't violent or mean, but he was still a mess, and Oliver really hated cleaning up after it.

Maybe that was where a lot of his problems with the man was coming from, actually. How insightful. The Elliot from this time still had a problem, but he worked at least and had some amount of responsibility.

It light something rebellious in him. "I'll try it though." ******** that guy, he'd get ******** up and show him what for too. Except, he sort of didn't want to get ******** up, that didn't sound fun. Well whatever. "My hands are a lot better though. Better than yours." Always making jabs, always. He turned to inspect the movies, eyebrows shooting up. Horace was trying to trick him. Sure, he'd heard about both of the movies in question, but only insofar as Titanic was a pinnacle of romantic chick-flicks and Brokeback Mountain was, for some reason or another, iconic. Sure, he knew this entire get-together was supposed to be about the 'art of romance' or whatever, but the cover on this had two men, and Ollie knew that actual content with gay relationships was far and few between. It was probably just baiting, if anything at all.

"This one then." He held the copy of the movie up diligently and then set it down, slid it across the counter. "I'm having a cupcake before we start, though." He meandered quickly to do so.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Horace grinned and pulled out a six-pack of Hell or High Watermelon. It was probably his favorite beer ever, and it was a wonder he didn't have a beer gut. "Don't be mean to my hands, I'll have you know I'm very good with them, better than you, probably. Here." He freed a can and slid it towards Ollie.

His eyebrows shot up at Oliver's pick, but he at least controlled his smile. "I'm sure you'll love it, okay. We should set the mood, though. Do you have some extra blankets? Candles?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Oliver gawked with a huff, "Oh as if. My hands are divine." He wiggled his long, delicately manicured piano fingers for emphasis. "But I don't need your low blows to know that. There's blankets in the hallway closet, candles—"

He paused.

"Why do we need candles?" He asked, deadpanned.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I have to hand it to you, Oliver. That almost sounds like a challenge." He sighed dramatically. "The world may never know whose hands are better. Wait - didn't you agree to something or other the other night? You know, when I sent you that video...?" Horace's voice trailed off because he was already scooting to the hallway closet. He wouldn't put it past Oliver to throw a cupcake at him.

"For ambiance, Oliver!"

melancholies

yeah

 

[Melancholies]

If he was gawking before, his face was flashing a hundred different shades of crimson now. "H-Hey! That's uncalled for." He busied himself with the cupcake angrily. "I told you, there are no grounds to doubt my abilities. I have nothing I need to prove to you!"

Horace was already gone though, leaving Ollie to sulk angrily in the kitchen. Whatever. Just ask his roommate if you need any confirmation, jerk. Actually, don't; now he was even more flustered. <******** idiots. At least the cupcake was delicious, but he wasn't going to admit to it anytime soon.

Instead he marched off into the hallway after him (very carefully snuck past him, no accidental shocks today) and weaseled into his room. He returned with a variety of scented candles, most of them boring scents like fresh linen and ocean breeze. "You're lighting them, though." He said this because he was still very busy with the cupcake, and also feeling a little petulant.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"That's a shame," he said, calling out from the closet. "I do dearly love to be proven wrong." The innuendo was very clear and Horace wasn't the least bit ashamed of being so ridiculous. Oliver hmphed past and he let out a small sigh of relief that the other man had made sure not to brush against him. He knew his 'quirk' was only the stupidest thing ever, but he was finally trying to work on it instead of pretending like it didn't exist and it was perfectly normal to be sent into a panic attack by a touch.

He sighed and moved into the living room where he unceremoniously dumped blankets onto the couch. There, more cozy already. And blankets were a good barrier, maybe... Horace frowned and wondered if Oliver would help him out by holding his hand again or something. Ugh, he felt all embarrassed and stupid even thinking about it. Then the man in question was back.

"Yeah, I can light them... you have a lot." He held out his arms for some without thinking. "Do you want popcorn made before the movie?"

melancholies

WC: 1,007