Alex was quite proud of herself. She knew Nic would hate her for weeks, but he'd get over it. He always did.
She sat in the break room, eyeing the sugar shaker that stood upright by the coffee maker, tall and filled to the brim with salt.
It might have been a lame prank, but Alex's sleep-addled brain was desperate for a simple bit of humor.
She'd shown up to PNWS before anyone else to pull off her master plan(it wasn't as if she was going to lose any sleep; that'd already been done several times over due to her insomnia.) She couldn't wait for everyone's faces when they dumped a shitload of salt into their coffee.
To her disappointment, Nic came in carrying a latte in tow. Disgruntled, she watched as just about everybody came in with their own heavily caffeinated beverages, except that one intern who drank their coffee black, which Alex found ultimately disgusting, but to each their own.
She was about to give up when Dr. Richard Strand himself strolled into the break room.
"There you are," he said in lieu of greeting.
"Morning to you too, Dr. Strand."
"Nic said I'd find you here. Do you mind?" Strand gestured at the coffee maker. Alex bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
"Sure, go ahead."
"I wanted to discuss that tape I gave you last time," Strand went on, pouring himself a generous measure of coffee into a Styrofoam cup.
"Yeah? What about it?" Alex wasn't really paying attention to Strand's words, rather, she was focused on the sugar shaker he'd just picked up.
"Well, what did you think of it?" Strand overturned the glass shaker, a steady stream of 'sugar' falling into the dark mixture.
Holy shit. Alex hid her laughter behind a fit of coughing.
Strand stopped pouring his undoing into his coffee. "Are you alright, Alex?"
She nodded, her cheeks flushed with mirth-induced pink that she hoped he would attribute to her 'coughing.'
He eyed her for a minute, sitting down across from her, stirring his coffee with a red-and-white-striped straw.
"I-uh, thought it was very interesting," Alex said, trying to suppress a smile as Strand lifted the cup to his lips.
Should I warn him? He might be really pissed-
Almost immediately within taking a sip, he choked.
"What in the name of-"
Alex couldn't hold back anymore. A snort escaped her, then she began laughing so hard she almost fell out of her chair.
Strand stared at her, his face a mix of annoyance and incredulity.
"Alex," he said as she gasped for breath, "why is this coffee salty?"
She couldn't answer. She couldn't even breathe.
Strand was quite at a loss for words, and sat there, waiting for her to calm down.
Finally, when her giggling abated, she wheezed, "It was supposed to be...a prank for Nic...sorry…"
His piercing eyes continued to focus on her as his lips remained still and silent.
"Dr. Strand…?"
It was her turn to stare as he lifted the cup and drained the entire thing, maintaining eye contact with her the entire time.
Through her tears of laughter, she could've sworn she saw a smile at the edges of his grimace.
He wrinkled his nose as he broke her gaze and stared down at the cup, then stood up.
"Ruby's done that before," he said absent-mindedly. Tossing the cup in the trash with the accuracy of a NBA player, he walked back out.
"I'll be in Studio A when you've contained yourself," he called.
Alex would later swear up and down to Nic that Strand had been smirking as he left.