[ep 1 scene] Totally platonic kicked puppy love
It's early friday evening at Crash. The bar is quickly filling with people, the music is low enough yet so that conversations can be kept soft, especially if you lean in close, and the place has the comfortable buzz of relaxed end-of-the-week let-loose. Alec is at the bar, casually chatting up a pretty blonde who has been hanging on his ever word for half an hour or so.
Max is lounging at a table with Cindy, chatting and having a drink, pretending Alec doesn't exist. It's a nice pretension. His scene is just too typical man's man for her to be expected to keep up her constitution.
Eventually Alec finishes his drink and smiles widely at the girl, making an excuse and lingering a hand on her waist before sliding off the barstool and making his way over to the girls' table. He leans on the table and smirks with an air of satisfaction. "Evening, ladies."
Max fixes him with a dubious stare, looking past his shoulder to the blonde he'd been talking to before looking back to him. "What's up, Romeo? Your friend's gonna get lonely."
Alec throws a look over his shoulder, grinning as the girl smiles at him and looks back at Max with the smirk lingering. "Oh, Valerie? ...Vanessa -- something with a V - heh. Anyway, what are you girls up to?" He grins at Cindy, "other than general bashing of my entire gender, of course."
A winning smile. "Is there any other pasttime?" Max raises a hand in front of her, expression one of dawning realization. "Oh, it must be you who brings it out in us. " She tilts her head to one side, regarding him wryly. "So what else is on the menu tonight?"
Alec grins easily and lifts the nearest glass, which happens to be Max's own, toasting her and mirroring the headtilt. "Oh, you know, I got nothing planned yet." he gestures grandly with the glass, slushing the drink a bit and earning a grimace from Cindy, " I like to just... go with the flow. See what the evening brings me. Uh, and that cute little redhead in the corner."
He flashes Max a positively impish grins and sips the drink again, before throwing the glass a doubtful glance. "Seriously Max; apple martinis this early?"
Max rolls her eyes and snatches her glass back, shifting toward the table. "If you're planning on hanging around for much longer, I should probably ask for a vodka." Her eyes are scanning the crowded room. "Hey, isn't that your stalker girl?"
"Hey, I wouldn't say no to - " his eyes widen as Max words hit home and he drops immediately to a soldier's crouch, halfhidden by the table, "Jesus! Where? Hide me, Max, that girl is a man-eater!"
Cindy and Max share a look, and Max rests her feet on Alec's shoulders while he's down there, following the petite brunette's movements with her eyes. Rabid girl, she remembers. Tore through their workplace looking for Alec after he'd avoided her for two days.
It almost makes Max want to call her over, just because Alec kind of deserves it, but she just digs her heels into the shoulders of her new found footrest instead.
"Looks like his girl found herself a new boy toy," says Cindy, eyeing the man being pulled around by the arm. Max winces.
Alec winces and throws an indignant glance up and over his shoulder at Max, shrugging off her foot and hissing in a stage whisper, "Hey, do you mind! Trying to be take cover here!" He glances carefully around the table and breathes an audibly sigh of relief at the sight of the girl now apparently ordering the man with her to buy her a drink. "Better him than me. Though," he smirks slightly, "Hell of a cat in the sack, I'll give her that. Hey Max, how fast would you say you can get out of handcuffs? Because I tell ya - OW!"
"Next time, I'm aiming lower," Max says, shooting him a look. She sits back, taking a disinterested sip of her martini. Stalker Girl is talking her new guy's ear off at the bar; Max smirks a little. "Yeah, Alec, you sure know how to pick 'em." Her eyes dart down to the floor and -- "Will you get up, people are going to think you're crazy."
Alec glares at her, pointedly rubbing his side, and inches up unto a chair on the other side of the table, ducking behind Cindy and keeping a wary eye on the bar. "Yeah," he mutters sarcastically," because your taste is so fabulous. How's wheelchair guy doing, huh?"
Max glares at him, something like the after shocks of pain reemerging and then being forcibly contained before they can take their toll.
"Not sending me scuttling under a table, but maybe that's just a you thing," she shoots back, looking at him only for as long as it takes to say it and then turning away.
Alec fixes her with a narrow glance, keeps watching as she turns away, and purses his lips. "No, just scuttling away whenever the guy comes within three feet of you, that's sexy." He runs a hand back through his hair and adds with mock-casualness and a startlingly accurate mimicry of Max' tone "not that it matters, because you're not like that, no." He rolls his eyes in Cindy's general unsympathetic direction. "Totally platonic kicked puppy love."
And were it any other topic, Max would fight him on it, argue. But the words are too true, and it's something she doesn't want to broach, not here, not anywhere, definitely not with Alec. Her eyes harden, and she drains the rest of her martini, enjoying the feel of the stuff down her throat more than any effect it might have on her. It would take several shots of straight up vodka to get her even
a bit tipsy, thank you enhanced DNA.
"Yeah," she says, still not looking at him. "Something like that." A glance at Cindy, then toward the door. "I think I'm gonna blaze." She finally looks at Alec, looking, for the most part, annoyed. With false brightness, "Don't get gonnorhea."
"Immune," Alec murmurs, with a quirk to his mouth that isn't quite a smile. He watches Max as she throws on the short black jacket and pushes easily across the busy dance floor without a backwards glance. Cindy shakes her head at him. "Boy, you just never learn, do ya?"
Alec throws her an opaque look which is replaced seamlessly with an easy grin. "Think I'll hit the streets, too." he answers, rising, entirely ignoring her remark, "getting a bit crowded here."
"Mmmmhm. Don't hang around for my sake, boo. You're a worse brat than my girl, and that's sayin' something!"
Alec pauses and grins at her, and this time it looks genuine. "Yeah, I am. Night, Cind."
He weaves away through the crowd, inadverdently following Max' earlier path, and disappears into the night outside.