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Quentin Coldwater (lostinbetween) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-05-07 19:11:00

Who: Quentin Coldwater & Alex Manes
What: Bad job interview + suit = one very hot flustered Quentin
When: 6th May
Where: The Beach
Rating/Warnings: G
Status: Complete

Well, that could have gone better, a lot better, but you win some and you lose some. Or at least that was what Quentin was telling himself as he attempted to pick up the shattered pieces of ego and confidence left asunder at his feet. To be fair if that was how the company operated then he probably didn't want to work for them, he'd commit some sort of office homicide by week two or want to pitch himself off the roof.

Yeah, definitely better off without.

He blew out a frustrated breath as he tugged haphazardly at his tie until he'd loosened the knot and then with deft fingertips he set about unbuttoning his collar and letting it flop in a more relaxed fashion on either side of his throat. What he needed right now was a coffee or ice cream, either or would do at this point in time. Besides it was hot and he was in a suit so... well, ice cream it was.

Thankfully he was close to the beach so the selection wasn't slim by any means and he sidled up to join a nearby line.

Alex rubbed the side of his head and grimaced, feeling the tell-tale signs of exhaustion tugging at the edges of his mind. He'd had the same dream three nights in a row and Kyle had been avoiding him and he was sort of wanting to talk to Liz about it but if she hadn't started having these dreams yet it was probably too much to add onto any confusion she might have had around the whole... doppelganger thing that he knew she still didn't believe.

He rolled his shoulders and ignored the slight ripple of self-consicousness that was curling around him. He was dressed in a manner that was more... Alex than Captain Manes today, a bit of a trial run for a life outside of the military. His jeans were tighter than he'd worn in a long time and as the summer was coming he had on a tank top, slightly baggy but flattering enough. He had a ring on his index finger and he was getting used to the weight of having something decorative on his hands again, it wasn't unpleasant. Sunglasses perched on the top of his head and his skin was more sunkissed than it had been in years. He felt... good. Which was something.

Stepping forward when the queue moved, he made his order but got given two ice-creams instead of one which left him at a bit of a loss. He turned around and saw a guy with his shirt collar undone looking like he probably needed more than an ice-cream to cool off but in a moment of impulsive boldness he offered the guy a warm smile and held the other one out.

"You want this one?" he asked, lifting the cone of his own to his lips and licking along the edge to stop anything from dripping, eyebrows raising in question. "I got two, might as well not let this one go to waste."

Quentin looked slightly taken aback when the sunkissed bronzed to within an inch of his life handsome man who was currently basically making out with his ice-cream cone offered up a free one to him. "Uh, yeah, if you're sure. I'm not going to turn down free ice-cream." And he wasn't. That would be seriously dumb.

"Thanks," he followed with a smile as he took the offered cone and immediately caught a bit of ice-cream that was attempting to make for the ground.

Alex passed the cone off and absently cracked the knuckles of his now free hand, tipping his head to indicate that they could probably both move out of the queue. The warmth of the weather meant that his leg wasn't as sore as it could have been; the pain that rippled out of it when there was a chill in the air was almost totally eliminated and Alex was glad for the reprieve.

"Wise choice," he said after a moment, tongue chasing the taste of ice-cream off his lower lip. "Free ice-cream's pretty rare here."

Once they'd left the queue behind, Alex's lips curled up into a smile. "Alex," he added, holding out his hand.

"I just moved here so I'll take your word for it," Quentin answered before he took the offered hand in his own with an accompanying smile. "Nice to meet you, Alex. I'm Quentin." Q for sort but not many people called him that save for Julia and only when she was feeling particularly affectionate.

He licked at the edge of his cone and tipped his head at Alex.

"So, tell me, was it the suit that made you take pity on me?"

"Physically incapable of not giving ice-cream to someone who looks like a kicked puppy," Alex responded with a little grin before he lifted his shoulder. "Nice to meet you too, Quentin."

That was an unusual name, not one that Alex had heard... ever. "Does everyone call you Quentin all the time?"

Quentin ducked his head into a laugh before his long fingers vanished into the strands of his hair that was currently pulled back and secured at the base of his skull in an attempt to look more... professional or whatever it was he was going for.

"Oh God no," he said enthusiastically with a shake of his head. "Thankfully. I mean, my best friend calls me Q."

Alex laughed. "Good to know, I'm gonna join the nickname brigade, if that's okay?" Surnames tended to be Alex's go-to for nicknames; Guerin, Valenti, Jaqobis... but he supposed that was more a response to having been raised in a military family and then going into the military. Calling people by their first names was something he was still getting used to.

He dragged his gaze away from where Quentin's fingers pushed into his hair and he chuckled a little, attention returning to his ice-cream. "You always wear a suit to the beach? Not really standard beach wear."

"Yeah, that's totally okay," Quentin assured Alex with a smile. "Oh, this? Noooo." He laughed and cleared his throat as his fingers finally enclosed the back of his neck and squeezed. "I had a job interview. One that I think went really badly but... it's the trying that counts?"

He licked at his ice cream as he regarded Alex from beneath his lashes. "You definitely have the whole beach look down though."

"Definitely the trying that counts," Alex reassured, bumping Quentin's shoulder as he led the way away from the ice-cream counter and along the edge of the beach. "What makes you think it went badly?"

He caught a stray droplet of ice-cream from escaping the cone and glanced up. "I do? Oh- well, I grew up around here. I'd be a bad Californian if I didn't know how to make the most of the sun." His smile was bright as he tipped his head. "C'mon, there's some benches just down here with a decent view of the water."

"Pretty much the entire thing?" Quentin offered with a rueful smile. "From the handshake to all the questions and the whole 'we'll be in touch' thing." He shook his head and fiddled with his hair again, nervous habit. "I don't know I just got the distinct impression that I would not be hearing from them."

He trailed along beside Alex as he headed in the direction of some benches.

"Their loss," Alex said after a moment, easing himself down onto the bench and stretching his legs out in front of himself, flexing his right ankle and feeling the last residual ache disappear, or at least ease. "What was the position for? If you don't mind me asking."

Quentin scoffed quietly though caught himself and smothered the sound in a lick of his ice cream. "It was some crappy office job, you know sitting on the end of a phone and taking calls, but it would have paid the bills so..." He shrugged and sat back into the bench though not in the same way as Alex.

He was all legs out whereas Quentin was all legs in and also one drawn up towards his chest.

Alex tipped his head, watching Quentin curl up on the bench, almost hunched in on himself and he shifted his own body position a bit so that he wasn't quite so... spread out. His right leg was still outstretched, because that was more comfortable, but the left was underneath the bench.

The ring sitting on his index finger still felt weird and it was a good thing he was occupied trying to eat his ice-cream because otherwise he'd be playing with it.

"Capitalism is the worst," he muttered. "It'd be great if we could just... afford shit without needing to work."

"Alas, we don't live in a magical world," Quentin shared with a long suffering sigh because wouldn't it be amazing if magic was actually real? Not his fake magic, card tricks and sleight of hand. "Most I can do is-" He reached into his pocket to dig out a couple coins that he displayed across the back of his hand before he flipped and turned them over in his fingers, his very dextrous fingers it would seem, before in the next instant they vanished into thin air.

And with a snap of his index finger and thumb the coins reappeared rather abruptly from thin air, raining down on the bench.

To Quentin's credit, Alex looked genuinely impressed at the magic trick that was being done in front of him and his smile was bright and sincere at the display. He'd always loved magic tricks, and magicians.

"That's... still really impressive." Alex could disassemble half a dozen different weapons in less than thirty seconds but he thought that being able to make coins appear out of nowhere was a much better skill. "Is it just coins you can make disappear?"

Quentin flushed with colour as he was given a genuine compliment in response to the sleight of hand he'd only ever shown to Julia before and shook his head. "I haven't quite worked my way up to people or cars but I can do other things aside from coins."

He ducked his head and licked his way around the edge of his ice-cream cone as the ice-cream had started melting as he'd ignored it.

“Like what?” Alex asked innocently, dragging his gaze away from where Quentin was licking at his ice-cream to do the same to his own. No sense letting it melt away, after all.

“I once vanished my friend’s phone, also a dog, not just any dog. I mean obviously that would be all kinds of wrong. It belonged to somebody I knew. Oh! And there was the time I made somebody disappear.” Quentin realised he might be rambling a little in his enthusiasm for having found somebody willing to listen and ask questions about all the fake magic he knew.

It also meant he didn’t openly stare at the sort of guy he’d only ever seen in magazines and promptly told Julia that if he ever met one in real life he’d turn into a blubbering mess and so far he was right.

Alex’s eyebrows lifted as Quentin rambled excitedly in his direction which was, admittedly, adorable.

“One story at a time, Q,” he said with a chuckle, “And do you just make stuff disappear? Or can you do those... card tricks too where you find out what card I pick out of a deck?”

Quentin nodded as he licked at his ice cream. “I can do those too.” He was in fact a walking talking amateur magician but it was rare he shared that fact. Clearly this interaction and Alex were an exception.

“So you’re a magician, then?” Alex was bright-eyed and curious. Though music had always been his thing he’d have been lying if he hadn’t wished someone could snap their fingers and give him a better life.

“Not professionally,” Quentin shared with a small lift of his shoulders. “Mostly party tricks.” He bit his lower lip before he reached up and from behind Alex’s ear he pulled what looked to be a shell which was pretty damn impossible given that they weren’t actually on the beach.

“Huh, would you look at that.” He smiled slow which revealed his dimples.

Intentionally or not, Quentin has telegraphed his move when meant Alex didn’t flinch at the invasion of his space. He tilted his head a little and felt his eyebrows lifting again before he laughed, genuinely delighted at the trick.

“I would ask you to show me how it’s done but that’s probably better kept a secret.”

Yeah Quentin would have been pretty devastated that he’d given himself away so it was a good thing that Alex hadn’t said anything. “Yeah, if would kinda ruin the mystique.” He passed the shell over to Alex.

“Not in the habit of keeping things that don’t belong to me.”

Alex took the shell and turned it over in his fingers. It didn’t even look covered in sand and a part of him was definitely trying to work out where on his person he’d been keeping it.

Closing his fingers around it, Alex leaned back into the bench. “Always thought I knew how this stuff worked,” he admitted, tongue swiping up the length of his ice-cream, “clearly I don’t.”

“There’s still some mystery in the world,” Quentin offered up with a lift of his shoulders before turning his head at just the wrong moment and sure enough his brain short circuited at what Alex was doing with his tongue.

In an attempt to save what dignity he had left which admittedly wasn’t much he leaned back into the bench and licked his way round the edge of his cone again.

"I've got enough mystery," Alex told him, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from watching Quentin lick at his ice-cream. He'd had a long few days; Kyle was avoiding him, Michael was a mess and sitting eating ice-cream with a cute guy was exactly what he needed.

He tilted his head, "Maybe it's that there's still some magic out there." His smile was soft and warm, "Thank you, Quentin."