Alec walked into Crash, scanning the many faces for the one he wanted to see. And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize. I would recognize those beautiful brown eyes anywhere, he thought. And I know that that was quite possibly the sappiest thing to ever enter my brain. Just then, Max looked up and directly at him. Attempting to pretend he wasn't staring so as not to give the game away before he actually got up the nerve to tell her he inelegantly tripped.
"Alec! Are you okay?" She called to him, weaving her way through the crowd. It warmed his heart to hear the worry in her voice. Max was worried. This was not like him at all. After witnessing his stumble first hand, she now had no doubts that what she was about to do was for the best. Luckily for her and not so luckily for him, he was so busy having his heart warmed that he failed to notice that the worry was coupled with a suspicious amount of sneakiness.
"I am fine Max." He assured her. He looked like a little boy who had gotten caught with an extra cookie. He knew that but damn it! It was just too hard to school his features into an expression projecting manly confidence at this point.
"You sure? You know you can tell me if there's anything wrong." She sounded like she doubted his 'I am fine'. He couldn't really blame her; he had been acting awkward lately.
"I'm sure. I am great! Nope, nothing's wrong here!" Alec cringed. Perhaps that was a bit overenthusiastic. And sure enough, the way Max was scrutinizing him proved that she didn't buy his response for a minute. Normally he would enjoy Max checking out his body, but something told him, it could be the 'you've lost it' vibe that she was sending out, that this was not the way he wanted her to check him out.
"Well… that's good. Uh" She hesitated. "Let's take my bike and go check up on TC. Sound good?" He might have objected to her tone of voice, but the fact that her hand was still on his arm gave him hope. It gave him enough hope that he surreptitiously slipped his arm around her shoulders. She didn't shrug him off, or hit him. Alec was ecstatic.
"Yeah Maxie, great!" Enough with the 'great's you friggin' moron! Oddly enough, his strange demeanor didn't seem to set off any alarm bells in Max. Nor did the arm-around-the-shoulder bit. It was still there. He was thinking of choosing today as his birthday.
"Uh. Yeah. Great. We just have one little errand to run first." Alec smiled.
"Anything for you Maxie." She smiled back at him. It was the tender, caring smile you gave a loved one. His heart skipped a beat. A loved one that had been off their 'special' meds for a week and were holding a cleaver. Alec frowned. Odd. Meh. She was voluntarily touching him and they were leaving Crash together. Weird looks aside, Alec figured life was good. Leaving Crash with his arm around Max's shoulder and not in great pain, he was delighted. Maybe things are looking up. Maybe she'll be glad to hear my confession. Maybe I am the luckiest non-human on this planet.