They say (and by they, I mean fancy white-lab-coat science people with big glasses and pocket protectors and a constant supply of Erlenmeyer flasks just for holding) that the first thing you notice after regaining consciousness is sound.
"Dude, she's fine . Don't be such an anxious annie, jeez."
(You vaguely recognise the voice, a voice that rose loud in laughter and a whole lot of yelling across from the confining wooden panels of your booth.)
The second thing you notice after regaining consciousness holds much greater significance. You see light for the first time.
(A face with dark eyes and even darker hair.)
"Oh yes, of course, she's totally fine , I should've known from the whole going-unconcious-thing! "
"Well, someone's got their sassy pants on today!"
"DUDE! SHE FELL UNCONSIOUS! SHE LITERALLY LEFT THIS PLAIN OF EXSISTENCE! DOES THAT NOT STRIKE YOU AS EVEN SLIGHTLY WORRYING?"
"WELL EXCUUUUUUSE ME -"
You began to fear that if the possible head trauma you were suffering from didn't kill you where you lay, the venomous sass in the air would.
Your voice sheepishly climbed back up your throat from its hiding place, words tumbling from your mouth like an upturned scrabble board.
"Hey, look, I'm fine!" The voice that emerged was croaky and harsh, unfamiliar - you waved your hand in the air as if to say Yeah hey okay I actually am alive!
Your vision slowly began to reset and the perpetual fuzz fades to a watery blur. You can just about make out two guys in front of you - One, standing and arms crossed, clad in the sickly but slightly comforting bright orange spots and pale blue of the Official Employee Success-Inducing Uniform of The Alley. His face is still a little out of focus, but the streak of blonde against the deep brown of his hair is pretty noticeable, even after the whole skipping-out-on-being-conscious shebang. The owner of the blonde streaks and the grumpy barks was undoubtedly familiar – you'd had no choice in hearing the endless stream of dick jokes and admirable puns he'd practically yelled from the Kingdom of Old Gross Used Bowling Shoes. Listening to him now, fiercely argue with the face that still remained frustratingly out of vision, you notice a strange soothing quality to his voice – rough, sure, but with a kind of rare refinement and deep tone that reminded you of the booming timbres in film trailers, tinged with explosions and gun fire.
It's then, while squinting your eyes at the grumpy dude with the blonde streak in attempt to make out any of his features, you notice a light but sturdy grip on your shoulder, warmth pushing through through the threads of your uniform and sparking on your chill skin.
And you suddenly plummet back into your body as if from the pinnacle of some impossibly high (and nausea-inducing) funfair ride - everything else before was just the steep, painfully slow climb and now, now , you'd finally reached the top and the fall and you weren't alone.
A face peers down from your left, cautious and curious, and you feel a blush spread unwillingly across your slightly numb face, causing your eyes to widen rather dramatically. (you internally kick yourself for blushing – you're pretty sure you're not some rose-tinged period-drama fragile flower waiting for her love to save her)
"Dude, woah, you okay?"
You looked up (ignoring the intense protest of probably the smarter of your brain) and found it pretty impossible to look in any other direction.
A few seconds of intense Mr-Wilson-style staring felt like several long stubborn years - the new data flooding into your brain had decided it too wanted to stop and look at the slightly puzzled face peering down at you, resulting in several traffic jams around your cerebrum. Only a few words had thought to use the much quicker but increasingly dimmer side lanes. These words were:
curly hair (lots wow)
stubble yes uh
eyebrow scar(?)
As well as multitudes of question marks.
"Ah, dude, she's not answering, WHAT DO I DO?!"
Shoe guy now had a voice to fit with the scarecrow smile, and holy wow did it fit - a little scratchy when competing with stubborn laughter - like a record competing with a few nicks, but with a sweet melody and intonation and pace - slow like ripples and lazy rain down windows.
You find yourself picturing him sing, muscles moving and winding, long low notes spiralling and settling into some sweet deep place between your ribs.
"Well, first, you might wanna help her up before she spews on the carpet..." The other voice, the grumpy guy.
A hand slips into yours, hesitant but grounding.
You take a solemn vow, by all that is holy and good on this small orbiting mass in the middle of the infinite pinball machine some dude called the Cosmos, that you would not throw up.
This would be a much easier solemn vow to make if only the carpet beneath you would stop endlessly spinning like some kind of sick fairground ride.
You clung to the solidarity of long fingers and even breaths and began to stumble in an upwards fashion, pushing feeling back into numb feet.
"See, she's fine, dude! Fine and dandy! Look at the sheer strength in her...arms. What a trooper. What a damn trooper." The rattle of liquid bouncing up a straw. You could practically hear Shoe Guy's eye roll, coupled with a stubborn little smile that kickstarted your heart into a higher gear which you didn't particularly enjoy because you really did think you were going to throw up.
You were almost righted, perhaps a little off-kilter and colour but still mostly functioning. The nausea ever-so-slowly began to fade to a weak ache, causing you to reach a cautious hand to your forehead to assess the damage, half expecting to find an ominous bowling ball shaped dent. Instead you find a bump (surprise surprise!) slowly beginning to form, coupled with a small cut.
You exhale through your teeth as a finger brushes it – and catch the concerned (and extraordinarily guilty) eyes of Shoe Guy. A little blood glistens on a fingertip, nothing too death inducing. Just swell.
In a somewhat upright position (like a tray-table with a truly inordinate amount of varied food wrappers stuffed in it) you are stricken by Shoe Guy's height – he must be, what, 6ft something? Either the world was still spinning and you'd just gotten used to it or Shoe Guy was the height of a small block of flats. Probably the lesser. Definitely the lesser.
"Hey. I'm Arin." He pointed at his name badge proudly, then the click of a finger gun followed by another straw rattle, strangely loud. (Now streak-guy had a name, being shoved to the back of the queue for your highly desirable long term memory, being handed a ticket number. Probably 100-something. The threat of imminent brain malfunction was real.)
Silence.
A somehow offended-sounding gasp, followed by the motherly placing of hands on hips, still holding his drink in one hand.
"You should apologise right this instance, mister!"
You liked Arin. He was a goof.
A screwed-eyes-hardy-har kind of look from Shoe Guy's side of the ring. An evil-eyebrows-arin-wins kind of look from the opposing side.
"Uh, yeah, dude, I am seriously so sorry. Like, I didn't see you and if I had I definitely would've ...not...hit you..." His right hand extended to the back of his neck halfway through his apology - eyebrows down above a small smile - in a painfully guilty fashion.
You found it fiercely cute. Like, run-into-the-mountains-and-scream-into-the-endless -wilderness cute.
Your voice decided to once again make an appearance, having previously been under maintenance in your throat (new and improved, with added cool witty comebacks! Get yours today!) and managed to form words. Solid evidence of the marvels of the human body, considering the day you'd had.
"It's cool, just a minor case of major brain damage! Nothing a varied diet can't fix!" You practically spewed sarcasm.
You look down to the floor to counteract another flood of nausea – only to find the weapon of your almost-murder. A black shape, worn leather partly sheathed in silver metal, vaguely shiny in the dim overhead light.
You had really had a long day.
"A BOOT. A METAL TIPPED BOOT. YOU HIT ME. A PERSON. WITH A GODDAMN METAL TIPPED BOOT?!"
Shoe Guy held a finger up to answer, mouth open-
"A METAL TIPPED GODDAMN BOOT?! WHERE DID YOU EVEN FIND IT, I MEAN, WHAT!? DO YOU JUST HAVE THEM LYING AROUND?!"
You , weakness forgotten in the burst of hard fierce adrenaline, while Arin chuckled into his straw like a kid watching his sibling getting scolded and loving every minute of it.
"I really am sorr-"
"AND ANOTHER THING-"
You reach your hand up to flourish it wildly in the air only to find a forgotten weight still lay in it. His hand, Shoe Guy's hand, held in place by yours, as innocuous and natural as a viral cat video.
Oh boy.
You caught Shoe Guy's eyes, the nausea plummeting back as you suddenly felt more like the deer in the headlights than the one behind the wheel.
Arin continued to snort into his drink.
You pulled your hand away in a swift contraction and chuckled awkwardly into the floor, raring and ready to just shrug and let the rarely-cleaned floors (truly iconic of The Alley) swallow and digest you.
You blush like a bonfire has been lit beneath you. Your consciousness salutes you for a final time and jumps into a shark tank.
Shoe Guy laughs, sweet and short, and the adrenaline fades, replaced by something lasting, and it catalogues itself somewhere in-between oh my god wow and oh my god no.
"Why did you enter the firing zone anyway? Isn't it quicker to Bowler's Fantasy round the other side?" (The unfortunately named 'Bowler's Fantasy' was what you had previously called 'The cramped stinky booth where people yell at you'. You preferred the latter.) He went to slam dunk his empty drink into a nearby customer trash can, but paused and turned to you knowingly - offering his cup to you with a shake, rattling the ice still inside.
You take it with a little kind smile and place it gently on your bump, tensing – a sigh escapes, a release, a sarcastic puff of hot air.
"I've been offered 'an employment opportunity in the textiles department'. Wherever that is."
"Well, you've arrived!" Shoe Guy piped up again after a penitent silence, with a wide sweep of the blocky half sheltered desk of his and Arin's habitat - "Mi casa es su casa, dude."
Okay. Today has been a long day. You decided to make a mental list, because no one can hit you in the head with a mental list.
You became a stalker (sort of)
You lost your job.
You got a new job! (with a sweet $5 raise)
You were almost killed with a large metal-tipped murder boot.
You met Grumpy streak guy and Not So Grumpy Shoe Guy.
You were now working together for the foreseeable future.
"C'mon, I'll show you where the magic happens.." quipped Arin, casually flipping up the panel on the desk and sliding through to lean suggestively on a shoe shelf. (The shoe booth can easily fit 4 people with space to spare, which is like a damn palace compared to you crappy booth)
"By magic, you mean Shoe magic? Dude, colour me intrigued.." You slide through as well, still pressing Arin's now half-melted ice cup to your bump. You were getting the hang of things. It felt natural, to be cracking dumb jokes among the used bowling shoes and various kinds of disinfectant with names like Funky Freshalicious! And Sayonara Stink! with some intense looking Japanese printed under it.
Arin nonchalantly wanders to the small hidden corner of the Shoe Booth, catching Shoe Guy's eyes for split second and raising his eyebrows as he strides through the shoe counter.
Shoe Guy then splays his arms wide, spinning in a tight circle.
"Welcome to the the Sexatorium! The ladies flock likes bees to honey, dude! It's a natural phenomenon, like the Bermuda Triangle. Its up there."
A laugh jumps out your throat and you let it carry you. It feels good, new but familiar.
"Dude, that is the lamest thing I have ever heard."
"Just wait and see."
He winks directly at you and you avert your gaze to avoid simultaneous combustion, bravely saving the lives of a few passionate bowlers in the process.
"Uh yeah, I'm Danny! Most people can me Dan. Or Galactic President."
He reached out a hand, pleased and optimistic. You smiled as if you were stifling a laugh, more of an urge than a thing willed.
No more Shoe Guy. Now it was Dan, an actual name. Huh. You liked the way the letters fit and the shape they formed on your tongue, short and content.
You took his hand in your own, an echo of the generous minute of accidental hand-holding of before. You pushed the embarrassed shiver down, and focused on the way it felt now, warm and innocent with a pleasant weight, heat and safety.
"Hey, Galactic President Dan, I'm (Y/N). Most people call me (Y/N)."
He laughed at that, a small chuckle, but still a laugh nonetheless, and for a few seconds the only action your brain deemed as necessary for functioning was cataloguing that laugh for later recollection.
A few moments of silence filled with the warmth of great happiness condensed into small smiles and shy eyes.
Oh, man. This was going to be interesting.