Gabriel remains in the corner, being extremely picky about the food he’s being offered.

After a minute, he looks up at Sasha. Not a “come here” look, just...observing, warily.

He glances up at Gabriel, then goes back to drawing. He's pretty sure that's embroidery on Odette but if he could get a closer look at it it probably has beading — whatever, he can draw up the detail work himself, that's the fun part, it's the general shapes he's looking at — he can't remember Gabriel ever putting feathers on anything and it's a little on-the-nose but it could work — he doesn't change his behavior when Gabriel's looking at him but no matter how much he focuses on his work he can't quite ignore the fact that Gabriel is looking at him. 

Something needs to be done about his new designer wearing four layers. He has never been in such agreement with himself. They don't even match properly.

For now, though, he's just going to recover himself enough that he can move on to a writing session.

Sasha keeps drawing, fills a page with plans for detail work and notes on fabric. 

...the thing about basing your design on ballet costumes is that if he's going to make this work he's going to need measurements more recent than the ones he has. 

Gabriel’s people will, when contacted, be happy to arrange an appointment to take very detailed measurements, wherever Sasha happens to do most of his work. They promise that this one won’t be cancelled unless something is on fire.

He's not sure how much he believes that but alright. Most of his work gets done in this department over here, there's a fitting room they can use if Gabriel wants to but (Sasha remembers the run-through for the first video he'd designed for) he might not want to. 

According to his people, Gabriel very much wants to.

When he arrives, he’s very much ‘off stage’, and dressed in oddly loose-fitting clothing — it’s still fashionable, but outside of his forearms you can’t see much of his shape, and those are gloved, again.

Huh. Okay. 

"I'm going to need you to take the shirt off, sorry," he says once they're in the fitting room with the door shut. 

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” he says, in the process of removing it. “I know you need measurements everywhere.”

"I can still be polite about it." Out comes the measuring tape. He does his best not to touch Gabriel except through the tape but it's not actually possible to manage that perfectly. 

He twitches a little, occasionally, when Sasha’s fingers brush him.

The longer it goes on, though, the more he seems to relax.

(It probably doesn’t need to be mentioned that he still has a weirdly flawless upper body. A little ribcage showing, but weirdly flawless all the same.)

It sure doesn't. Sasha very quietly redirects power from the part of his brain that keeps pointing this out. 

He works quietly and carefully; having Gabriel relaxed puts him less on edge. 

It’s...sort of nice. If he ignores the occasional prickling feeling from someone touching him on his bare skin.

He makes it all the way through the measurements of his torso without incident. Shocking.

"Thank you," he says when he's done. "You can put your shirt back on for the leg measurements, if you want." 

“...it’ll be fine,” he says, and reluctantly removes his pants.

Apparently, Gabriel Taylor is almost always tucking onstage, because if he hadn’t been it would definitely be noticeable.

Oh, good, so he doesn't have to account for that at all, there's just no way to make that particular measurement non-awkward. Not that any of this is non-awkward, but. 

(He shuts down the thoughts about why a performer might tuck onstage. He is so not prepared to have that conversation.) 

Stupid ugly thing ruining his body line.

He’s a little tenser, through these, especially the ones at the tops of his thighs.

He goes a little slower for these ones; he's being more careful not to make contact. 

When he's done he stands up and hands Gabriel his clothes back, still careful not to touch Gabriel. 

He steals a glance at his own measurements as he dresses himself.

Evidently, he's satisfied with what he sees, because he relaxes significantly as he pulls his shirt on.

...He kind of wishes that was a surprise. "Thank you," he says again. 

It takes him a moment before he speaks again.

"...why the layers?"

"...I get cold easily." 

It isn't, technically, a lie. 

"You know how to dress someone for that without..."

...he stops.

"Would 'as a costume designer I'm passionate about clothing and always wear lots of it' be a better answer? After that I have to start making up something about having enough pockets and you've seen me not put things in my pockets so that won't work."