AN: Oh, to be y̶o̶u̶n̶g̶ fully grown, in love, and terrified to admit it. Be still, my actual beating heart, when they finally do something about it. (Also, if anyone gets story alerts, the email has somehow categorised this fic as 'humour' - it isn't. I put it under 'romance'. That might just have been a glitch, but I thought it's worth mentioning.)
Alex Romero was dressed sharply today, his uniform crisp. It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and he was on his way to the town hall meeting that took place once a month. His polished shoes clicked against the yellowed flooring, and then his footsteps came to a halt as he arrived at the lift. He pressed the button and waited for it to come back down from the tenth floor, and checked his watch.
It was two minutes past four and he was running a little late, but he did not fret. Even for a man of discipline like himself, he thought these meetings were a bit of a chore. The same things were discussed each month, followed by a promise of resolution that never ever came, and then a myriad of comments and complaints about this or that. The only other thing keeping him present still, apart from it being his duty as sheriff, was that Norma Bates attended these meetings sometimes, and she always brought a witty twist to the otherwise dull atmosphere.
Alex knew that some people in town thought Norma rude for so readily speaking her mind, but he had always admired her for it, more than she knew.
Standing sideways, he spotted someone coming in from the far end of the corridor, someone who quickened their pace when they noticed the lift doors part.
Alex stepped inside the lift and turned to see that the person approaching was Norma. His heart leapt; he had hoped she would come today. He had no way of predicting her movements, and her capriciousness made his life exciting. He was glad that it was really her, and that they were alone. He held the door open for her, all the while thinking of what to say. He had not seen her in a few days, and the week had felt like a bit of a drag because of that. Now, he had brightened up by a notch.
She came closer and he thought she looked splendid, but he said nothing. She was wearing her pale pink dress with a singular ribbon on the front, under a thin beige trench coat. He smiled to himself because it was the dress that he loved. She smiled to herself because she knew, and she noticed the way he had looked at her, as though he could not quite believe she was real.
They exchanged greetings as she stepped inside the lift. She was just here to ask a question about Norman's high school schedule, and she would clear off as soon as it was answered. She checked her watch and discovered she was late. She had been late once, and the thought of having to absorb the gaze of forty pairs of eyes on her again made her feel queasy, but she felt better knowing Alex was there with her. It meant, in the very least, that she would not have to walk into the conference room alone. This knowledge soothed her.
Meanwhile, Alex had been on edge the moment Norma entered the lift and stood next to him.
He had always harboured a tenderness for her; that was no secret, but it was not something he considered saying aloud. He knew that, as life trotted on, feelings were apt to creep in the crevices. It had happened before with other women, but all those other times, he had always gotten over them when he really put his mind to do so.
Yet he knew it was different with Norma this time round. He had argued with himself for weeks on end, reproached himself, and preoccupied himself with paperwork; all to no avail. His heart raced when he saw her, and that was a fact he could neither conceal nor change. His internal conflict had not lessened his affection for her at all.
As the weeks passed, he found himself driving by the motel for no reason. No reason, other than to catch a glimpse of her. Sometimes she was standing out in the open, and other times she was nowhere to be seen. Whenever he saw her through his car window, he would put his foot down on the accelerator and go a little faster, speeding away in case she spotted him. He was certain she had never noticed him. He didn't know why he could not just bring himself to admit that he had fallen for her. Maybe it felt too scary to admit, or that it left him too vulnerable.
So the sheriff's fondness for her persisted through his days and invaded his sleep, until it was now reaching a point where he could not quite figure out how to act with this living and breathing person standing only inches from him.
Alex was in such a daze that he had forgotten to press the lift button, and now Norma leaned over towards the panel. This jolted him into consciousness, and he reached for it too hurriedly, hoping she did not think him weird. Their hands bumped against each other clumsily and they both let out a small sheepish exhale, and then he withdrew his arm and she pressed the button for the tenth floor.
The doors shut quietly. There was a whir of machinery as the lift heaved itself upwards. They stood still, listening to the sound of the elevator music, and neither said a word for a moment.
Then Norma looked up at Alex and smiled warmly, because she was glad to see him.
He saw the old familiar glint in her eye that indicated kinship, and then some more. Perhaps this additional thing he saw now was love that she radiated. He did not know, but she did.
Love, the peculiar thing, had blossomed in Norma too, gradually. The truth was that she had seen Alex drive by her motel for a few weeks; it had been that painfully obvious. She noticed him from behind the blinds in the motel office, the sheriff's car that lingered on the dusty road a little too long, and she saw the brooding silhouette of the man who sat inside. All the while, she imagined him sweeping the grounds for a wisp of blonde hair to poke out from the office or one of the motel rooms.
Sometimes she would appear as a gesture of goodwill to amuse them both, and when she was certain he had seen her, she would take her exit as though she was following stage directions. Then she would hear the sound of his car engine grow smaller, until at last he had disappeared down the bend of the road and all was silent in her world again.
It was romantic, and she did not have to ask anybody to be sure that it was so. She had been wondering when either of them would do something about it, because she could not keep on pining after him when she knew he felt the same.
Alone with Alex, Norma realised their love had been unattended to for too long and now demanded to be acknowledged. So she would be glad and relieved to make the first move, even if it meant she had to skirt past her pride to get ahold of this strange and wonderful thing that had fostered between them.
She did not stop to ask why when she turned to him. She wanted to know what it would be like to be with him, and she knew the only way she would find out was through action.
Alex caught a whiff of her perfume and saw the upward curl of her lips out of the corner of his eye; perhaps they were all the affirmation he needed, and the next thing he knew, he had shifted sideways and began to kiss her tenderly. She kissed him back fervently, and it was different to what either of them had expected. But what was it again, that they had expected? They had forgotten.
Norma felt an electric jolt down her spine as soon as their lips met. She was a little nervous and tentative at first, and she thought she felt a breeze sweep through her even as they were in the sealed lift. Her knees felt weak, almost buckling and giving way, and she was fairly certain she would have collapsed if Alex was not now holding her tight against him, his arm clasped around her waist protectively.
And when had he slipped his arm around her? She had not noticed, but it seemed that there was nothing in the world that felt as good. She put her own arm around his neck to pull him closer still, and her other hand had lost grip on her handbag. It sank to the floor as though it was wilting, and stayed there obediently while she rested her free hand on his warm back.
The lift was moving, moving... yet time seemed to have come to a standstill. There was something magnetic about Alex, she thought, something that felt good and right that she had never felt with anybody else before. She couldn't hear the elevator music anymore, and everything that had been troubling her dissolved into the background, gliding away noiselessly like quicksilver.
There were no words, big or small, that were enough to capture this singular kiss. The rest of the world sloughed away until they were the only people, and their arms were intertwined like a helix, neither wanting to pull away from the other before they had to.
It was when his grip on her had loosened and they had opened their eyes that they realised what had just taken place.
Norma thought she had known what intimacy was, but she knew nothing of it. She had always pictured titillating and carnal desire, a rough ripping off of clothes and an urgent tumbling into bed, but all of that only felt bland and performative when matched against what they had just shared.
Alex held Norma's face in his hands and looked into her clear eyes. He found it impossible that he could keep a straight face, and he let out a smile before he could stop himself.
So this was what kissing Norma Bates was like, he thought happily.
It was as though somebody had just, in the course of ten floors, knocked him unconscious and rearranged every cell in his body in the true order they should have been in all along. And they had done so swimmingly, for now he felt free, and there was a calmness in him that he had never felt before. He was not resisting it, partly because it was no use, and partly because he did not want to anyway.
The lift doors opened, and Alex and Norma were reluctant to pull apart. But the meeting had already begun, and too much of a good thing was bound to spoil it. So she picked up her bag and they stepped onto the tenth floor. They were received in sunshine that streamed in through the ceiling-to-floor windows, and heard the cacophony of voices spilling out from the conference room at the end of the hallway that grounded them to reality.
They knew they were going to have to talk about the kiss sooner or later, and for perhaps the first time, they both hoped it would be sooner.