Alex tapped distractedly at his phone screen as he idly nibbled at some fries, giving an impatient grunt at the lack of change in the last five minutes, as his roommate sat across from him, paying little mind to Alex's troubles for the moment as he hungrily bit into his cheeseburger. After enough refreshing of his email inbox, finding no new important emails, Alex slunk back into his chair, letting out an annoyed growling sound.

Isaac, reacting to Alex's noise, finally looked up from his burger, still mid-chew, and narrowed his eyes, giving Alex a confused frown. Isaac swallowed the food he had in his mouth. "Alex, hun, are you gonna eat or what? You've barely touched your burger."

Alex gave his phone one last dirty look, as if the phone was the reason a certain email hadn't shown up yet, before giving a defeated grunt, locking his phone, and slipping it into his pocket. "Yea, yea, I will in a sec. Just... frustrated," he grumbled, resting one elbow on the hardwood table, just shy of hitting his own burger tray, and leaning forward to lean his forehead into the palm of his hand.

Isaac gave a swift exhale that Alex couldn't decipher the meaning behind. "Well you better eat soon so your burger doesn't go to waste. You were the one who wanted to drag me down here to try out this place, after all. Admittedly good as it is," he said with a small amused smirk. When Alex didn't respond immediately, Isaac's smirk shifted into a frown of mild concern. "What's got you so worked up anyway?" he asked before taking another bite of his burger.

Alex took a long breath before lifting himself off the table. "Oh just... I sent in my job application and I haven't heard anything from them yet," he muttered in a tired voice.

Isaac just blinked as Alex spoke, still chewing on his food. "Mm, ya don thing dat burgersh are a bit more impordant dan a job righ now?"

Alex gave Isaac an unamused frown.

Isaac swallowed his food. "Okay," he continued in a more serious tone as he set down his burger, "when did you send in your application?"

Alex's irritation shifted into concern. "Two days ago. In the morning."

Isaac brought a finger to his chin, briefly putting on a thoughtful look. "So basically the morning after I told you about the position?"

Alex nodded and took a tentative bite of his almost untouched burger, but was still too worried to really enjoy his food.

Isaac made a quick thoughtful humming sound before resting his arms on the table, ever so slightly leaning forwards towards Alex. "Alright, that's still fine. Chances are, they're pretty busy over there, whatever they're doing. So if I were you, I'd follow up on your application by giving them a phone call."

Alex narrowed his eyes slightly. "A phone call? How would that help?"

Isaac did a small double take, not expecting the question. "How would- I mean..," he paused mid sentence and composed himself, "Well, generally speaking, a follow-up phone call to whatever place you're applying to would help with any job. It's basically you saying 'hey, I'm super interested in this position, and I care enough and will take this seriously enough to follow up on my application because I really think I'd do well here.' It's kind of standard stuff, really," Isaac paused again and gave a confused look towards Alex, "Did you not have to do that before?"

Alex pursed his lips and averted his gaze from his roommate, suddenly feeling self conscious. "Well uh... no, not really. I mean, I've only ever had the two jobs. First at that whataburger and second at the warehouse. And both places called me back pretty much right away. I didn't know I was supposed to follow up on them," Alex paused and his expression darkened slightly as something came to mind. "Of course, that would explain why I had to wait so long after sending in several applications in between those two jobs," he added, muttering under his breath.

Isaac nodded in understanding. "Well if I'm being honest, a follow up call isn't necessarily required per se, though it does increase your chances at getting the job by a fair margin. Keeps yourself on the manager's mind when thinking of candidates," Isaac explained. He leaned back into his chair with his arms crossed, once again facing Alex with a confused frown. "Though I'm a bit surprised you didn't know about that as a possibility. Did your parents not suggest that to you when you first got into the workforce?"

Alex shook his head. "They were kinda hands-off when it came to me learning adulting stuff. I mean, they'd answer any question I'd ask and gave advice I requested, but uh... yea, actually applying and following up wasn't something I ever thought to ask about, cuz it seemed straightforward enough to me," he admitted, nervously rubbing one of his upper arms.

Isaac's gaze drifted upwards as he took in Alex's words, then gave a quick shrug. "Well that's one way to bring up your kid, I guess. Kinda feels like you'd be missing some other stuff, cuz again, you'd never think to ask about it. Just like you said. But I can't fault em too much since you seem to be doing alright as is. Mister perpetual four figure bank account," Isaac said the last sentence in a teasing tone.

Alex felt a bit of pride swell up in his chest after hearing Isaac's praise, and gave him a small smile. "So you think I should give them a call now?"

"Well not now now. Probably wait until we get home. I mean really, you can do it anytime between now and a couple days out, but the sooner the better, in my opinion," Isaac explained before returning to his food.

Alex idly nodded as he took in his roommate's advice, and began blankly staring at the table, starting to think about his approach. 'I guess I can give them a call first thing after I get home. Ugh, what am I gonna say, though? 'Hey, my name's Alex and I just wanna follow up to say I'm still interested?' ...actually, that doesn't sound too bad. Maybe if I word it a bit differently-'

"Alex."

Alex looked up, slightly startled from having his train of thought interrupted. "Y-yes?"

Isaac was giving Alex a pointed stare of amusement. "You had that look on your face again. Don't overthink it. Worst they can say is no, right? And if they do, well hey, you're not gonna die from it, right?"

Alex gave an exasperated exhale and slumped forward slightly. "Easier said than done," he muttered.

"I know it is, but at least try and relax. Remember, it's only as nerve wracking as you make it out to be. Oftentimes you feel better afterwards whether you're successful or not, right?"

After letting the question hang in the air for a couple of seconds, Alex realized Isaac left that question open for him to answer. "Right...?" he answered not too confidently at all.

Isaac gave Alex a smirk. "Then that'd mean that the worst of it is the anticipation. Meaning if you find a way to get out of your own head and just relax, you'll be fine. So that's my advice to you. Be serious when you need to be, but otherwise, relax. Take a load off. Fill your mind with other stuff. And eat your damn burger, cuz I'm totally stealing yours too if you're not even gonna touch it."

Alex's eyebrow raised at Isaac's last comment. "Boi, this is my food. You have your own," he shot back with a sudden burst of defiance. Not even taking his challenging gaze off of his roommate, he gave an indignant huff, picked up his burger with one hand, and took a large bite. Alex's playful defiance shifted into surprise, however, the moment he was able to fully process the taste of the food. "...ho-ree shi I jus rearis how gud dish ish," he muttered through his full mouth.

Isaac doubled over in laughter at the very sudden shift in tone in Alex's words. "Hahaha, see? What have I been telling you? Now hurry up. I'm almost done, and I wanna get some grocery shopping done later."

Alex, not needing any more encouragement, found the motivation to continue wolfing down his burger. All while not even giving a second thought to the follow up call he'd later have to make. Alex finished his burger in record time, barely taking time to breathe in between bites. After he swallowed his last bite, he slumped over and let out a satisfied huff, basking in the feeling of contentment.

Isaac eyed Alex with growing surprise the entire time Alex was eating. "What, are you practicing to become a speed eater or something?" Isaac paused to let out a chuckle, "I know I said to hurry up, but did you even taste what you... inhaled?"

Alex just weakly lifted his arm and swatted the air in Isaac's direction, purposefully exaggerating how lethargic he felt.

Isaac let out an amused snort and stood up from his chair. "Alright, up ya get. If you're finished, we should head out."

"Nooo, five more minutes, mom," Alex mumbled childishly.

"I will leave without you."

Alex let out an over exaggerated groan lasting several seconds, then cut himself off with a single word. "Fine." Alex inwardly snickered at his roommate's exasperated eyeroll as Alex ungracefully stood himself up. 'He makes it way too easy and fun to mess with him.' Alex trudged over to the door leading to outside the restaurant, stepping ahead of Isaac, still embellishing his motions.

"Alex?"

"Whaaat?" Alex droned out, hardly paying attention to Isaac's tone.

"Alex watch out!"

Alex snapped himself back to full attention, finally sensing the worry in Isaac's tone. He briefly glanced back to his roommate, who in turn was frantically pointing towards the door. Alex looked back towards the door in question, and made a motion to step back, but by then, it was too late. A man, who had been sprinting towards the door at full speed from the outside, shoved the door open, slamming into Alex and knocking him flat on the ground in the process.

"Oh shit!" the male voice shouted.

Alex barely had any time to process both the pain of being suddenly slammed to the ground, and what happened next. Alex grimaced in pain and and looked up to see who it was that had essentially run him over, only to be met with a small but solid object being chucked straight down and onto his chest. Alex yelled out in pain and instinctively curled into a ball, clutching the area of his chest where he was hit. "AAAHH FUCK!"

"Alex!" Isaac rapidly knelt down by Alex's side. "Are you alright, hun?"

Alex let out a groan, still slowly writhing in pain. "Not... not really. Landed right on my chest. That hurt like sshhit," he hissed out.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry about that! I didn't see you there!" the man apologized profusely.

Isaac stammered helplessly, ignoring the man for now. "B-but I thought you said your chest was better!"

"Yea, better doesn't mean completely healed!" Alex snapped, whipping around to face Isaac. In doing so, he only aggravated the problem. Alex cringed and clutched his chest again, laying himself back in a position that lessened the immediate pain. "Ugh, I've still got a pretty big bruise there that up until now was pretty manageable!"

Isaac clenched his teeth and shot a glare at the man. "The hell is your problem, dude?!"

The man, to his credit, looked very apologetic. "I'm sorry! I didn't realize he was there! I just wanted to get something of mine I left behind!"

Isaac gave him a baffled look through his anger. "So you thought the best thing to do to a guy who was in your way was slamming your phone on his chest?!"

"Bro, I swear to God I didn't do that on purpose. It slipped outta my hand and I tried to catch it."

Isaac's eyes shot daggers towards the man, who in turn began to back up nervously. "You-!"

"Ugh, Isaac stop." Alex interrupted before Isaac could continue verbally chastising the man. He grunted and leaned up from the ground, still holding onto his chest while grimacing in pain. "Just forget about it. It was an accident. Let's just get out of here and head home," he muttered, wanting to limit the drama as much as possible.

Isaac switched his gaze towards Alex for a brief moment, giving him a muted glower before letting out a scoff. "Fine." He glared back at the man and pointed in the general direction of his cell phone. "Just get what you came here for and leave."

The man shifted around uncomfortably before slowly doing as Isaac said. He collected his belongings and gave one more glance back at Alex as he was standing himself up, clutching his chest in discomfort as he stood. "Hey man, I really am sorry."

Alex just gave the man a dismissive hand wave as Isaac supported his weight while standing himself up, still wincing from the dull but heavily throbbing pain. "Forget it. It was an accident."

The man gave one more unconvinced glance of worry, but said nothing more as he left the building, running off at a similar speed as before.

Alex pulled away from Isaac after a couple seconds of standing. "Isaac, I'm fine now. I can stand on my own."

Isaac gave an indignant huff, but didn't argue. "How are you feeling, hun?"

Alex tenderly touched the bruised area of his chest and hissed in pain. "Nngh, not great... I'll probably need to take some tylenol when we get home."

"Are you okay, sir? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Isaac and Alex both looked to their left to find one of the servers of the burger bar they were in. Alex instinctively looked around. The encounter had apparently drawn a small crowd of a few onlookers. Alex cringed a bit and shook his head, waving everyone off.

"I think we'll be okay," Isaac said tiredly, "We were just about to leave anyway. Thanks for the food, though. It was very good," Isaac said with a nod, hoping to push past the tense encounter. It seemed to work. The crowd began to disperse and everyone began focusing on their own meals again.

The server gave a friendly smile and nodded back. "You're more than welcome. Tell you what, I'll tell my manager what happened and see if I can get your next meal on us to make up for this."

Alex blinked in surprise and faced the server again.

"Oh no, I couldn't ask you to do that-" Isaac started.

"I insist, though. I know it was an accident, but it still happened here. I just wanna make sure everyone is taken care of."

Alex couldn't help but smile at the server's accommodating attitude. "Thank you so much, miss."

"Not a problem! You sure there isn't anything else I can do for you?"

Isaac let out a small smile of his own. "I think we'll be fine. Thank you, though."

"Of course. You guys have a nice rest of your day!"

"We will," Alex and Isaac said in unison before slowly making their way out of the restaurant.

Isaac and Alex walked back to the car in the parking lot wordlessly, with Isaac continuously glancing at Alex, who kept wincing in pain and discomfort, but was otherwise silent. They both got in the car and Isaac began to drive them both home without any further distraction. As they rode along the road, Isaac still took several concerned glances towards Alex, who in turn was leaning against the passenger side door, idly looking out the window without any apparent emotion. Isaac pursed his lips slightly. "How's the chest, hun?"

Alex casually glanced over to his roommate before looking out the passenger window again. "...it's okay. Still hurts, but it's not debilitating like it was on day one. I'll be fine after I take some pain meds."

Isaac slowly nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. "I know you said earlier that you weren't entirely healed, but I thought pokemon moves would've healed you more than you were."

Alex shook his head. "Not this one, apparently. Found out a couple days ago that the move I was healed with is called Life Dew- it's one of the new gen eight moves I told you about- and it does heal an ally. But only by twenty-five percent. Which I guess in real life means that the healing effect is a bit more muted compared to other moves."

Isaac shook his head and gave an irritated and exasperated scoff. "Well isn't that just inconvenient..."

Alex gave a slight head nod and slunk back into the seat of the car. "Tell me about it. Not that I'm ungrateful being healed and all, but it just had to be that one, right?" His eyes then narrowed as a sudden thought occurred to him. 'Now that I think about it, I wonder if all of the pain I'm feeling now is really leftover from the explosion, or if it was something else. I did take a bullet during the rescue. Maybe the bruising could be from that. I wonder if I simply haven't noticed it because I haven't been doing anything physical during my training...'

Isaac continued glancing over to Alex for the next several seconds until he came to a stop at a traffic light. "So why didn't you say anything against that guy?"

Alex did a double take and faced Isaac with a confused stare. "What?"

"At the burger bar," Isaac elaborated, "The guy who completely knocked you over. It almost looked like assault, if I'm being honest. You could've completely laid into him and you just let it go. Why?"

"Oh that," Alex said with a shrug, "It was an accident. Plain and simple."

Isaac faced Alex more directly with a glower, clearly unsatisfied with Alex's answer. "Maybe it was, but it was still pretty negligent of him to be doing that. He could've seriously hurt someone. Hell, you already were hurt even before that."

"He didn't know that though-" Alex started in a placating tone, attempting to defuse the tension. Isaac, however, interrupted him before he could finish his thought.

"No, but that's exactly why he needed to be more careful!" he shot back, almost snapping in irritation, "Hitting someone is already bad enough on its own, but he could also hit someone like a child, or- or already had some sort of lingering pain or injury. Which he did. You." After Alex didn't respond right away, Isaac gave an annoyed huff and focused his gaze back to the road, just in time for the traffic light to turn green. Isaac resumed driving, giving a slight head shake.

Alex faced his roommate a sad frown. "Isaac, you don't need to get so heated about this whole thing. I'm still fine. Okay yea, maybe hurt a bit more than I otherwise would've been, but it's still nothing I can't handle, and nothing like how I was coming out of the hospital."

Isaac let out a scoff and muttered something under his breath that Alex didn't catch.

Alex sighed and averted his gaze from his roommate, once again opting to stare out through the windshield as Isaac steered into a turn lane to get onto their home street. After a few seconds of thought, Alex was able to find the words to explain his thought process on the situation. "You wanna know why I didn't get too upset?" he asked, leaving the question hanging for Isaac to answer.

Isaac gave a stiff nod. "Please."

Alex took his cue to continue. "It's because of all the crap that I went through in the past several weeks, a single incidental hit that was clearly unintentional just doesn't really bother me too much by comparison. I mean," Alex paused and shifted uncomfortably, thinking about the subject of his next comment, "I've just... between trying to get a new job, my friend... being where he's at, and trying to recover from that same incident myself, I already have enough to worry about to be focused on one random guy's screw up- who, by the way, really didn't mean anything by it and really didn't cause that much of a problem out of it."

Isaac's facial features softened as he considered Alex's words. He didn't say anything in response, but Alex could tell Isaac was coming to see it from Alex's perspective.

Alex offered his roommate a small smile and a gentle shoulder pat before turning his eyes back to the road. They were very nearly back home. Just a few streets ahead was their turn in. Alex glanced over at his roommate again. Seeing how melancholy he looked, Alex decided to try and break the tension with a joke. "Besides," he continued in a more lighthearted tone, "we got a free meal out of it for a future visit, right?"

Isaac, much to Alex's delight, let out a small snicker. Unfortunately for Alex, Isaac's amusement lasted a shorter time than he would've liked. Isaac frowned again as he pulled into their apartment complex. "I guess... I just- I can't help but worry about you, Alex. I mean, ever since you got hurt, I guess I feel like I need to keep my eyes out for anything dangerous. For my own sake, yea, but especially yours too."

Alex shook his head and frowned. "Look, Isaac, not that I don't appreciate it- cuz I do. I know you care about me. You're a great friend and all... but you gotta keep in mind, I'm a fully grown adult. I can handle myself just fine. Yea, I'm still hurt. And it sucks. But I can still walk, lift light shit, do all the boring adulting stuff, all that jazz, I can still do it all just fine. I'm still perfectly capable."

Isaac let out a long exhale through his nose as he parked the car in front of their apartment. He made no immediate movement to exit the vehicle, however. "I know. For heaven's sake, I know you're capable. I just- ugh... I'm sorry, hun." Isaac crossed his arms against the steering wheel, tiredly resting his head in the crook of his arms, and just sat there silently for several seconds.

Alex was slightly taken aback at his roommate's unusual reaction. "How come you're so constantly worried about me anyway? I mean, I get it. I got hurt. But it just... seems like you've been going a step further as of late. Not that I mind you having my back, cuz I appreciate it, but like, why so much, man?"

Isaac let out a low groan that Alex barely heard, and after a few seconds of silence, he finally responded. "I mean, I'll tell you, but it's uh... this is gonna sound really stupid," Isaac muttered as Alex patiently listened, also still sitting in the passenger seat. Isaac took in a deep breath, removed his head from his arms, and slunk back into the driver's seat, aimlessly looking out the windshield as he gathered his thoughts. "You remember that first day in grade school where I sat next to you at the lunch table?"

Alex gave a half smile half grimace. "Oof, yea. I was uh... not having the best day that day. Loneliness was hitting pretty hard at the time."

Isaac slowly nodded. "Mhm, I don't know if I ever told you this, but it was exactly because you looked so lonely."

Alex gave a small shrug, unsurprised to hear Isaac's sudden confession. "Yeeaa, I kinda put that together a few years after the fact."

Isaac side eye glanced at Alex with a raised eyebrow. "Did you now?"

Alex nodded and flashed a small smile. "Yup. After seeing how protective of you are towards your friends, myself included, and after seeing how naturally friendly you were, it uh... wasn't hard to put two and two together. Still, I'm really grateful you did that, so now that you bring it up... thanks, man. I really do appreciate what you did then," Alex spoke, giving Isaac a bigger more genuine smile.

Isaac couldn't help but let out a small bashful smile in return. "Yea, well... that's also kinda why I guess I'm so protective of you."

Alex blinked and narrowed his eyes in slight confusion, not quite seeing Isaac's thought process. "How do you mean?"

"Well-" Isaac started before cutting himself off with a frustrated exhale through his nose, "Again, this is gonna sound really stupid, but I guess it's cuz since I decided to be your friend that day, that, in my mind, meant that you were in some way my responsibility to look after and... well, just that."

Alex did a double take, plainly more confused than moments prior. "I'm your- wait, what?" he asked, letting more of that confusion escape through his voice than he had meant to.

Isaac just groaned and rested an elbow on the steering wheel to rest his forehead in the palm of his hand. "Urgh, I told you it'd sound stupid. Look, it- I saw you struggling socially, and there were some kids in our same class that I knew were just straight up mean spirited, so I kinda went out of my way to make sure they didn't mess with you. And I guess that thought process just kinda stuck with me through grade school."

Alex narrowed his eyes, processing the new information. "Oh... kaaay, I guess that explains a couple things. But you do realize that you don't need to do that anymore, right? I mean yea, we're roommates and we kinda have to look out for each other to some extent, but I'm not a grade schooler anymore. Unless I'm absolutely physically unable to do it on my own, I can handle myself."

Isaac gave an impatient huff and lifted his head off his hand again. "Yea, I know I know. And to be honest, I don't think it'd be a big deal for me anymore. It's just... hearing about what happened to you, seeing your condition when you got home, and seeing what those two jackoffs did to you, it... it just hurt and made me worry all over again. Honestly, I'm trying to stop myself, though. I know you're not a kid. I know you're not incapable," Isaac paused and rubbed the back of his head with an awkward chuckle, "I guess I just have the tendancy to beat myself up too much when something happens to my close friends."

Alex gave Isaac a reassuring pat on the back. "Well I don't think you have to worry about it much anymore. Sounds like the worst of it is starting to die down, and I'm slowly getting better. I'm here, I'm safe... I'm gonna be okay, man."

Isaac slowly nodded and took a deep breath to calm himself. He then pulled his car key out of the ignition and began to exit the car, with Alex shortly following close behind. As they both made their way to the front door of their apartment, Isaac flashed the smallest sign of a smirk towards Alex. "Just try not to have any more phones slammed down onto your chest, okay?"

Alex snickered and stepped inside as soon as his roommate unlocked the door for both of them. "Right, I'll make sure the next time someone runs into me, it isn't a guy who happens to be a massive klutz. My bad."

Alex thought he saw a strained smile from Isaac, but it melted quickly into another chuckle so fast that Alex thought he imagined it. Isaac walked over to the dining room table, moving to a plastic wrap-covered plate, and took a cookie from under the plastic. "Ah, so he can be taught. Good to know," he shot with a cheesy grin. The only response Isaac got from Alex was him rolling his eyes and also grabbing a cookie from the plate. Isaac chuckled and started making his way towards his room. "I'm gonna go do more computer work, then swing by the HEB in a couple hours. You probably ought to call them back. If not now, then very soon."

Alex let out an exaggerated groan. "I was already gonna do that, mom." Isaac just lifted his hands in a halfhearted defensive gesture in response before stepping into his room, leaving the door open, and picking up his laptop.

Alex let out an amused exhale at his roommate's reactions until a twinge of pain in his chest cause him to wince and remember why they were having such a discussion in the first place. Still casually chewing away on his cookie, Alex made a stop to the hallway bathroom to fish out a couple of pain pills from a mostly empty tylenol bottle, before he too returned to his room, electing to shut his door behind him as he knew what he had to do next.

Alex leaned against his bedroom door with a gentle thud and let out a nervous exhale as he mentally prepared himself to make a certain phone call. Alex could sense how worked up he was getting, and forced himself to shut his eyes and take a few deep breaths. "It's only in my head. It's only in my head. I can do it. The worst part is just the anticipation," he slowly muttered to himself over the course of over a minute, remembering what Isaac had told him at the burger bar. Alex opened his eyes again, feeling notably less nervous than moments prior, finished the rest of his cookie, quickly downed the pain pills as well as a quick drink of water from a glass by his bedside, and fished his phone out of his pocket.

Alex unlocked his phone and tapped on Isaac's text with all of the job information that had been sent to him. After a couple of moments of tapping on links, Alex found the number of the research office and quickly jotted it down. He then locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket, before deciding to use the next couple of moments to think about his approach. Alex started to pace back and forth in his bedroom as he got his thoughts together. 'Okay, so something along the lines of 'Hi my name is Alex and I wanted to follow up on my application,' right? Maybe I should bring up the application first and then say I wanted to follow up on it. Sounds a bit more natural that way, right?' Alex paused for a moment and shook his head. '...jeez, maybe Isaac was right. I may be overthinking it a bit. I guess as long as I stick to what's most natural and true, I'll be fine.' Alex fished his phone back out of his pocket and began to dial the number that he copied down from earlier.

Alex took one more breath before he hovered over the 'call' button. 'Whelp... no time like the present.' Alex pressed the button, brought his phone to his ear, and anxiously waited as the dial tone sounded over and over again, still pacing at a more rapid pace than before in the meantime. It felt like the time of the wait for someone on the other end to pick up was being stretched into an eternity. A nerve wracking, anxiety building eternity. After enough time had passed to where Alex started to think no one on the other end was going to answer, Alex finally heard a dull click, followed shortly by a young male voice. "University of Texas Biology department. How can I help you today?"

Alex's heart did a flip. He nervously swallowed and pressed onward before he could second guess himself. "Hi, yes, this is Alexander Lawrence. I sent in a job application for your new research assistant position a couple days ago and I just wanted to follow up on it. Am I uh, speaking to someone who could help out with that?" Alex grimaced and internally facepalmed at how awkward the question he asked sounded.

Fortunately, it didn't appear to affect the response he got. "Certainly! Uumm okay so do you have any free time you could stop by today or tomorrow?"

Alex blinked in surprise and almost forgot to respond. "Um- for an interview?"

The voice on the other end made a noise of confirmation. "Well sort of. It would be more like an informal meet and greet. Apologies for any inconvenience, but we've been fairly busy this past month as you can imagine, and with the fall semester starting again, we haven't been able to reach out towards any applicants, ourselves. Now if you were to stop by in person, that would be another thing. We could have someone come out to the office to meet up with you, give you a basic rundown of everything that's required for this position and what all it will include, and then if things go well enough we'll set up a date for a formal interview from there. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

Alex almost let out a relieved exhale. It was going a lot smoother than he thought it would. At least for the moment. "Yea, that uh- that sounds great. So-" Alex paused to swallow again, "...you said I could stop by at any point today or tomorrow, right?"

"Well any time during office hours. Normal office hours start at eight am and end at five pm, but with recent events taking place, we've extended the end time to seven pm every evening. So if you show up at any point between now and seven, we can make it happen."

Alex glanced over to the clock. It was barely past two pm. "Sounds good. I can uh," another pause as Alex emotionally readied himself for what he was about to commit to, "I can stop by sometime this evening."

"Perfect. We'll see you then. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

Alex, starting to slow down his nervous pacing, spoke with a touch more confidence. "I think that's it for now. Thank you so much for the help."

"No problem at all. You have a nice rest of your day and we hope to see you later."

"You too. Bye." Alex ended the call and took a seat at the foot of his bed, letting out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. 'Well. Alright, then. Might not have been what I was expecting, but it seemed to go over pretty well.' Alex fiddled with his phone, still thinking about his plans. 'Let's see, it's just past two now. If I start getting ready now, I can be out of here by four and beat most of the traffic on my way to downtown.' Alex nodded to himself and went to his closet, picking out a white polo and a pair of light brown slacks to change into, before making his way to the bathroom.

Alex slipped on a pair of black dress shoes and made sure he had his phone, keys, and wallet with him. "Isaac! I'm heading out! I'll be back in a couple hours or so!" he called out to his roommate, who had been lounging in his bed, lost in his laptop. Upon hearing Alex's voice, however, Isaac looked up, set his laptop to the side, and walked out of his room, quickly taking notice of Alex's outfit.

"Woah, that was fast. Did you get an interview already?" Isaac asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.

Alex gave a sheepish shrug. "Sorta but not exactly. They wanted to do a little in person meet and greet first. Then I guess if they like me enough, that's when a formal interview will happen." Alex pulled out his phone to check the time. It was barely half past three. Alex had more time than he thought.

Isaac raised an eyebrow. "They couldn't just do that over the phone?"

Alex blinked and pursed his lips into a slight frown, thinking about Isaac's point for a moment. "Hmm... well maybe they just want the phone lines to be as free as possible for the next few days? Just a guess, but I'd imagine they'd be doing a ton of collaborating between other universities and biology labs since this is kind of an emergency scenario."

Isaac made a humming sound as if to consider Alex's suggestion. "A bit of an unusual way to manage your hiring process... but then again, these are very unusual times we live in. Alright, fair enough. Best of luck, hun!" Isaac went in to give Alex a quick but firm hug, which Alex reciprocated, and gave him a couple of pats on the back for good measure.

Alex broke away from the hug feeling ever so slightly more confident and comfortable, flashed his roommate a smile, and started to step out of the apartment. "Thanks a bunch, man. I'll text you later and let you know how it goes."

Alex shut the door behind him and quickly made his way to his car, starting the ignition in an instant in order to get away from the sweltering heat as fast as possible, and set the air conditioner to full blast. Alex took a breath, steeled his nerves, and began backing out of the apartment complex parking lot. After double checking that he had everything that he needed, Alex sat up tall in his seat, gave a confident smile, and made his way towards the highway, once again making his way towards downtown Austin.

((Less of an action chapter and more of a character development/exploring one. Fun fact, Isaac was not originally going to be a major character in my story, but the more I wrote, the more I kinda fleshed out the world around Alex, which happened to include the person he's currently living with.

Also had to cut out something that was going to happen in this chapter, cuz it would've made it too long and I don't believe it would've fit with everything else here, so I'm adding it in the next one. As always, please let me know what you think!))