ambrose scoffs. he might be insufferable, but people like insufferable. they like knowing they're better than others, or they like him because he's better than them, and they're blessed to have a piece of him, even if it's never all of him.

he does notice how good his little mushroom picker is with his hands.

his laugh is a petty and pretty and vicious bite. "oh, my darling little mushroom, as dense as the shit in these walls, it seems." and pityingly, he drawls, "i don't think you'd even know a good date if it, mm, bit you on the ass."

elijah gardner

☉

"that's right."[break][break]

elijah hands the bag over, the mesh swinging back and forth from the sheer health of his produce. a robust promise of his expertise. a sweetness of skill behind the crude.[break][break]

"i wouldn't. who'd want to date during this shithole of an era?"[break][break]

he shakes the bag for ambrose, knuckles white from his tightening, frustrating grip.[break][break]

"it'd be a fucking mistake."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

[break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-gogoat"]

no bristling. not even a rolling of the eyes. just a hard, cool truth, and it makes ambrose narrows his eyes. he's got skin skin, this mushroom man, and damn if it doesn't burn him to know he can't get under it. 

me, snaps the lonely part of him inside, but he gobbles that up quickly, lashes fluttering away thoughts of cold sheets and vapid texts, half a dozen dicks and tits by way of pixels on his phone, but nothing more than that. never more than that. 

"dating? nah. a mistake would be having a kid," he says with a forced roll of his eyes. "but eh, what's a better meet-cute story than, 'he saved me when i was drowning from a god whale' or 'a building fell on top of me and now i'm a paraplegic, but at least i got one good - . okay, maybe you're right."

gaudy hands adorned with a neat array of gemstone rings reach for the bag.

"bad date recently?" he says with a smile, fingertips brushing tensed, whitened knuckles. 

elijah gardner

☉

"yeah, i know i'm right and no, no bad dates."[break][break]

though he wonders if he's just dense. oblivious to propositions. ignorant of the flowers of romance, the birds and the bees and everything in between his green thumbs, no, hands.[break][break]

his brain envisages nabi park. benji sawyer. incensed by his brain's random, uninvited suggestions, elijah's face wrinkles like a wound up fuse.[break][break]

"no dates at all. i'm celibate."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

[break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-gogoat"]

he's going to age poorly. well, more poorly than he already has. there's no doubt about that. ambrose would bet his entire livelihood on where exactly all of his wrinkle lines will chisel, and it starts right with that exact squirrely expression on his face. 

ambrose blinks and then laughs. 

"you can be celibate and still go on dates, moron, but what a pity. such a sour grape you are. no wonder no one wants you." he fishes out bills in exchange and crumples them into his scarred hand. 

"thanks for the mushrooms, truffle. enjoy the rest of those tabloids for me, yeah? you'll see this pretty face on the front of them soon."

and with one last cruel, charming smile, he's gone.

elijah gardner

☉

sour grape.[break][break]

that's a new one, but somehow the insult works. elijah's already a fermented mucilage of resentment after all.[break][break]

he snatches the crumpled bills. eyes the scarred hand with a swift slice to avert unwanted notice.[break][break]

"good luck with that." elijah attempts to bark—but his thrown retort simply paws the cold wood of his door. [break][break]

"i fucking hate pretty people."[break][break]

his gogoat bleats as if to say me too.
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"]

ambrose orion

[break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-gogoat"]