Sup. Who missed me dearly? Yeah, you did, get reading babes~
It happened when he was washing down the shelves that held the packaged meats during the day. Alex was having a hot debate with himself, a shelf of cereal across the aisle as his only audience, when in between breaths he heard it. A roaring taptaptaptaptap from the ceiling. A rare sound to hear, but a sound he oh so loves regardless. Alex drops the rag and stumbles his to the front of the store to walk out the still open doors to stand out in the suddenly pouring rain.
It's raining. RAINING. Something that happened so rarely here, yet, here it was all the same. And he laughs. And laughs, and laughs out of pure happiness because it's all he can really ask for. Their final few customers of the night give him odd looks as they dash to their cars in the wet darkness, but does he care what they think? Nope. Not when this kind of weather is enough to put him in an insanely good mood.
"Hey, Alex!" Dan calls out from the door. "When you're done being crazy, could you lock the doors when you come back in?"
x-X-X-x
It stops raining long enough for that ride all the way home. But there's plenty of puddles to ride his bike through, and plenty of trees to ride under heavy with rain and dripping onto his head. And Alex just fucking loves it. He is nearly soaked to the bone by the time he slides off his bike to shove it under the stairs to his apartment. It's so worth it though.
He stomps up the stairs to his door, and as he's unlocking it, a moving wet rag follows him up to meow pathetically at him. It takes Alex a moment to realize what the rag is, and he stands there in this doorway trying to figure out what to do with it. Pale blue eyes are staring up at him pleadingly, and another few moments later, Alex holds the door open wide and Zeus zooms in ahead of him.
Inside, Alex changes out of his uniform and lets it hang to dry. He grabs a towel and oddly enough, Zeus sits still long enough for him to dry the furball off. Alex still has two hours before he needs to get back to work, so he flops on his bed and quickly falls asleep. He wakes up to find a Zeus curled up at his side. This is probably the cuddliest Zeus has gotten with someone like this.
Alex doesn't think much of it though. He lets Zeus out when he leaves for work again, and the cat zooms off to find somewhere dry to continue his nap.
x-X-X-x
Summer rolls around, the season Alex could so happily put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Summer means summer sales, and watermelon and charcoal out the wazoo. Summer means all the schools are out so all these mothers are in the store with their wild, screaming children. Alex wants to run wild and scream too but not because he can, but because he knows he's going to genuinely go insane before the summer is over.
It's an annual thing.
Speaking of kids, summer is the worst because they'll get kids without parents wandering through the store of their volition. While mommy and daddy are at work all day, their shitty children are left to their own devices, and they all end up here somehow. Thirteen year olds getting macchiatos at the Starbucks counter, ten year olds swooping in to buy ice cream, a whole gaggle of teenagers coming in to just wander the aisles, and maybe one of them will buy a candy bar in the end. One of them.
Then June rolls away into July, and then it's even crazier as everyone prepares for their Fourth of July parties. And once that madness is over, Alex feels like he can finally relax a little, it's July, families are going on vacations now, everyone is taking off.
Well maybe not relax a little, but he gets a little excited because his own co-workers are trying to take off for a week. Which means maybe he might get a little extra for pay that week to cover someone who's not there. It means spending less and less time at home and more and more time at work but he could care less, Alex needs that little overtime pay.
x-X-X-x
Between Alex leaving the graveyard and him returning for the day shift, someone (probably Greene), has left a cupcake for him in the break room. Alex stares at it blankly, his name is written on it in flowery, red icing on chocolate frosting. There are no other cupcakes in sight, just this one. But he takes it anyway to scarf it down real quick before heading into his shift.
Greene does find him a bit later, launching herself into his arms and squealing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALLY-KINS!"
Alex is too stunned to say anything as she sloppily kisses his cheek then scurries off. He stands there frozen in the condiments aisle until he musters up the will to check his phone. It's July sixteenth. It it his birthday. He hadn't noticed. He was thirty-three today. Groaning, Alex goes back to stocking pickles, he's not int he mood to deal with himself.
Throughout the day, he gets texts from his sister, he gets texts from Karen, both wishing him the same thing, have a good birthday, let's meet up later I wanna treat you. He doesn't respond to either of them, but he keeps it in mind.
It's not until a couple days later on saturday that the weekend manager gives him the night off, he doesn't need to come in at nine, he deserves a break. Alex is far too shocked to argue. He figures there's been some meddling on a certain someone's part, but he just nods and goes home. As Alex bikes home, he pulls his phone out to text Karen;
"So, you wanted to treat me?"
x-X-X-x
Karen takes him to an admittedly nice restaurant. Not nice per say, but a little pricey, the kind of place that's more of a club and bar and for kids in their twenties, not thirty somethings like them. But they haven't done anything like this in years, so Alex lets it slide.
"Happy birthday to me indeed" Alex can't help but purr as their drinks arrive, some blended fruity things that smell like sweet alcohol, but goddamn it tastes so good, reminds him of how he hasn't had a drink like this in a while.
"Just want you to feel special, old man" Karen smirks at him with a wink.
"I'm not that ollld" he whines at her. "Two more years and you can start calling me that"
She laughs, he laughs, they clink their glasses together and wait for their expensive food to come. They talk, and talk, and drink and eat, and it's such a relaxing evening knowing that some other poor sap is covering his shift right now. Alex fucking loves the weekend manager. Heller will probably throw a fit about it on monday, but fuck Heller, Alex is celebrating his birthday for the first time in five years.
The streets are practically empty by the time they leave. They go back to Karen's condo to drink more. Well, that and Alex isn't ready to go back to his box quite yet. The beer is pulled out, and they sit on her couch and make fun of B-movies on SyFy.
At some point they make their mistake. It was probably Alex. All he knows someone looked at the other, and they were kissing. They weren't as drunk as they could have hoped for, but there they were, sloppily making out on the couch, right where they should have been all along.
And they know their breaking point, lips parting from one another to stare at each other, blue eyes looking into green, and after that, they don't waste any time in taking things upstairs to the bedroom.
x-X-X-x
He awakens only slightly, shifting in bed, eyelids starting to flutter open when he's shushed and a hand is running through his hair. "Sorry" she apologizes. "It's okay, go back to sleep", and he does. When Alex awakens again, it's later in the morning, so much later, he hasn't slept in that long in a long time. Alex almost forgets where he is, looking around Karen's room in confusion until last night comes back to him.
He slips out of bed to dress, well, throw on his boxers and stumble downstairs. Karen is busy making coffee in her kitchen (the kitchen being the first thing one sees when they come down the stairs). She is just wearing a shirt, one too big for her and drapes down on her. Alex blinks at the shirt as he tries to place it, and when it dawns on him, he can't help but let out a breathy laugh.
"You still have it" he says, stepping into the kitchen to wrap his arms around her waist. "Was wondering where that had gone"
"I have a lot of your things" Karen says. "I some more of your shirts, your underwear-"
"What?"
"Some of your books, a pair of socks, and all your CDs"
"….Shit I was wondering what happened to those"
Alex didn't own very much, sure, but he didn't realize the reason was because his belongings weren't even in his own possession. "Well, thanks for holding my crap" he tells her, kissing her cheek. "You can keep it all, since you know, you've been taking such good care of it"
"At this rate I'm going to own you, Alex" Karen says as she sets the filter in the machine. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing in his opinion. In fact, he agrees to it without a second thought,
"I wouldn't mind that" he tells her and trails his lips down to her neck. "I wouldn't mind being yours again" and he keeps going down, sliding the shirt off her shoulder to kiss that too. She says his name, perhaps in an attempt to make him stop, he's not sure. He doesn't care. He slides a hand up the shirt, up her stomach and to one of her breasts.
"I forget how much of a morning person you are" Karen rolls her eyes, but does lean back into him, one of her arms coming up to reach behind them to slide around his neck. She rocks her hips back into his, and from there, they both know how this game will go and it ends exactly where anyone could hope it would.
omg spontaneous sexy times whaaaaaaaaaaat. see you all again in six months