Seven Levels Below

XI

Mitch is bored. He has finished another design for a really cool leather jacket, if he does say so himself, but now he's stuck. The material he had to order for the jacket won't be ready for a few days and he's just stuck waiting and staring at a blank page. There's nothing coming to him, his brain is stuck and he is bored. He's been drumming on the side of his rickety little desk with a pencil for a solid eight and a half minutes now, and if he doesn't find some inspiration to start something new, or at least a distraction that won't get him fired, then his coworkers may actually kill him. At this rate, he wouldn't even blame them. He's annoying himself.

A commotion at the door to the studio floor catches his attention easily.

He gleefully pushes himself upright from his slumped position in his chair—which is amazing by the way, thank you Scott—and eyes the group of interns gossipping rapidly. He's all proud of himself for being relatively sneaky about his eavesdropping, but then two of them glance over at him and he knows he's been caught. Damn it.

Technically, he's done nothing wrong, but if a group of upper-city interns go talk to someone higher up about him being a creep or something, well. He may have a better job title and salary than those interns, but not for long if they decide they have a real issue with him.

He really is just so bored though. Maybe if he just... flips through his portfolio of old sketches and just listens he could get away with it. He hasn't quite figured out what the source of their gossip is yet, but it sounds good and he wants in on it.

Until he hears footsteps approaching him.

Goodbye office chair. Goodbye fancy high ceiling and echo-y walls and that one really big glass window in the lobby that is way too bright in the mornings—

"So like," the one blonde girl is staring down at him judgmentally. It kinda reminds him of high school. "This guy dropped this off in the lobby for you like ten minutes ago, so, here."

Mitch stared blankly at her as he reached out and grabbed the Starbucks cup being handed to him. Who would have—of course he did.

"Uh, thanks?" Mitch tried to smile at the girl and maybe get her to leave, but her friends just shuffled in closer behind her. They didn't appear to be leaving anytime soon, which is a shame because Mitch does not exactly consider himself an expert at quality social interactions.

One of the girls behind the first speaker cocked her hip and crossed her arms. "Was that who I think it was? The guy who delivered the coffee." She clarified at his furrowed brows.

Scott, I swear to God himself, if I get stuck dealing with your fan club or something...

"I don't really know what you're talking about, sorry. If you don't mind, I'm kinda busy..." He trailed off quickly and tried to gesture to his open portfolio, despite the fact that there was no way they wouldn't notice the lack of actual work being completed.

"Oh, really? Because I'm pretty sure—actually we all are 'cause we all saw him—that The Scott Hoying just brought you a coffee. So like, we're just curious how someone like you managed to do that," one of the other girls chimed in, accompanied by a bunch of nodding and swinging ponytails.

Is this classism or homophobia?

Either way, it made Mitch a little bit irritated. But he really did value his job, so he'll try to keep it professional.

"Look, I don't know what you want from me, but I can be friends with whoever the hell I like. So if you don't mind, I don't need your permission to hang out with Scott, and I don't need you hovering over me while I'm trying to do my job." Oops. Oh well, he might as well roll with it now. Just a touch of some Mitch Grassi Eyebrow Action, and boom. The perfect face to serve.

"So you really think you're friends with the prince?" The first girl laughed. "If you're such besties then, maybe you should invite him to the office party tomorrow. See if he doesn't mind hanging out with one of you here."

Mitch was ready to snap back at her and just possibly drag her through the mud a bit for their lovely word choice, but he deflated at her comment. There's no way he's gonna ask Scott to spend his Saturday trying to make him look cool in front of a bunch of interns. Even if it wiped that smug look off the girls' faces. They weren't even planning to hang out tomorrow—Mitch knew he'd be busy ahead of time and Kirstie apparently had a mysterious date—so Scott would definitely have made other plans already, the workaholic.

His expression must have clued them into his thought process without him needing to say anything, because the blonde girl laughed with a clear, "Yeah, that's what I thought", and flounced away with her entourage behind her.

He slumped down again and picked at the coffee cup. At least the caffeine would get his brain moving again. It may be a Friday, but it's still the morning and he needs to get something done yet, or he might possibly just feel worse about himself later.

Mitch does manage to work on an old piece more after his coffee has been drained, but other than the beginnings of the fabric being cut and pinned, not much else has gotten done. He's since dragged himself home and, well, sitting and sulking in his living room sure doesn't help him feel better, but it doesn't make it worse. At least it hasn't yet.

Scott comments on his behavior within five minutes of his arrival and asks if he's okay, but Mitch waves it off as him having a long day at work and is just meh now. Scott doesn't buy it for a second though, and dumps his reports that he brought to read through (his "homework", as they so lovingly refer to it) on Mitch's counter and turns on some music.

It only takes two songs of Scott trying to get Mitch to sing along and dance with him before somehow, Mitch's mood has improved and he's bopping and belting right along with him, doing his best to avoid getting whacked by the limbs flailing in the air near his head.

Kirstie had called Scott a keeper jokingly the first day they met, and Mitch could acknowledge to himself at least that well, she was not wrong.