Repair

Character short. Larry watches Alexos work.

350 words, just a snippet of Alexos being mooned over.

Larry sits on the nearby table as he watches Alexos work — he’s taken off his jacket and has folded his sleeves back to the elbows, showing off the shape of his forearms as he delves into into the bowels of the sewing machine from downstairs.

When Felix had brought it up, he’d brought up a big white cloth too, on which there are various stains in red and black from various oils and such forth, so that as Alexos works, he doesn’t stain the table wood.

He really doesn’t have the slightest idea what it is he’s doing — he’s taken the shell off of the machine as deftly as though the thing were a lobster, and has been carefully scrubbing at the little engine that drives the needle, which looks very almost like two screwdrivers bound together, not that Larry’s an expert, nor wants to be.

He doesn’t need to know about the precise nature of the machine to know that Alexos is very clever for knowing it himself, and he can’t look away, really, looks greedily at the delicate shift and movement of the flesh in Alexos’ forearms, the twitch and shift of the tendons on the back of his hands, the clever movement of his long fingers.

Larry can smell the oil clinging to his skin and a sort of metallig smell off of the machine as he cleans out all sorts of horrid dirt that’s somehow accrued inside it.

“How does it get up there?” asks Larry.

“Repairing hunting clothes under duress, if I had to take a guess,” mutters Alexos, not looking up. “Anything one sews should be clean, but if there’s a quick tear that needs repairing like for muddy things worn on the hunt, you know…”

He’s concentrated on the work, a sort of severe look on his features, the furrow of his brow, the twist of his lips.

“You look really quite devilishly handsome like this, you know,” purrs Larry, more for the pleasure of saying it than because he thinks it will get him anywhere. “All that fierce concentration. Not to mention the appeal of those long, clever fingers of yours.”

“Shut up, Larry,” says Alexos absently, but Larry’s scored a point — his lips twitch with the threat of might easily be a smile.