Work Text:
Alex leans back in his chair, fingers folded in front of him, and he props one foot up on the edge of the desk. The candidate, some busty little blonde with too much makeup and not enough clothes, raises an eyebrow at him before she smiles her too white smile, talking again.
Jesus Christ, her teeth are fucking huge, Alex thinks, cocking his head to one side while he listens to her – he thinks her name might be Cary, or Cory, or maybe Kelsi? He doesn’t really remember – even though whatever she’s saying goes in one ear and out the other, something about top of her class and graduated with honors and other things he should probably be paying attention to but obviously isn’t, given the way she isn’t even surprised when he stops her.
“Look, Kelsi,” and she doesn’t correct him, so Alex assumes that’s her name, “Thank you for your interest, but I think you’re too qualified for this position.”
Kelsi huffs, folding her arms over her chest and emphasizing her prominent chest, which would maybe turn Alex on if he was into that, but dicks are more his style, so he just shakes his head and lowers his chair back down to all fours. He closes her portfolio and slides it across the desk towards her.
“I’m not interested,” and maybe Alex is a bit more snappish than he intended, but Kelsi gets the hint easily enough.
When the door closes behind her, Alex rubs a hand over his eyes and sighs loudly. There’s a headache brewing in his temples, sending little pulses of pain sparking through his head every time he moves, which is probably not helped by the really uncomfortable chair he’s sitting on. He thinks it might have been one Derek took from his kitchen table or something, but it’s hard as hell and he hadn’t even thought to bring a cushion or anything.
The sunlight is beginning to fade in the tiny office, and considering he’s been here since the sun came up this morning, getting everything ready for the walk in interviews, Alex is ready to just go home; he doesn’t know what he was expecting when he opened his own business, but it certainly wasn’t this.
There’s a knock at the door, and Alex is really considering telling whoever it is on the other side that he’s done for the day, because his ass hurts and he just wants to leave.
But then a decidedly male voice hesitantly says, “Uh, Mr. Rodriguez?” and there’s more than just a hint of a southern accent and Alex is suddenly interested.
“Come in,” he calls, trying not to sound as tired as he feels, and the door swings open.
The man that stands on the other side of the doorway is tall, is the first thing Alex notices. And Alex isn’t short himself, but he can tell that the man is taller than him, with a chiseled jaw and cropped short dark hair and Jesus Christ, he’s built like a truck, with wide shoulders and a broad chest pressing at the fabric of his dress shirt.
“Um,” the man says, and Alex blinks, shaking himself out of his thoughts.
“Please, sit,” Alex gestures at the chair in front of him, on the other side of the desk, and the man shifts his weight on his feet before he steps forward and sits gingerly on the edge of the chair. The wood creaks under him, and the man makes a face, cheeks lighting up pink.
Oh. Well. That’s… interesting.
The man slides a portfolio across the desk almost shyly, and Alex glances at it – Andy Pettitte, it says on the front cover – before he smiles.
“So, Andy, tell me about yourself.”
--
Alex rolls over in bed when his alarm clock goes off, and he buries his face in the pillow after he chucks his phone across the room. The light hasn’t even started filtering through the cracks in his blinds yet, and he doesn’t even realize that he’s fallen back asleep.
--
The next time Alex wakes up, it’s blinding bright in his room, and he’s groggy for a second before his eyes go wide and he’s tearing out of his bed.
“Shit shit shit!” he curses when he locates his phone in the pile of laundry on the other side of the room. There’s a crack in the screen from where he’d tossed it and it had hit the wall, but it turns on easily enough, and after a few long seconds, 7:42 happily blares on the screen.
It’s nearly 45 minutes past the time he needed to actually be at work, and he’d told Andy to be there at 7.
He skips breakfast, gives a perfunctory brush of his teeth and barely manages to remember getting dressed before he’s running out the door as fast as he can.
--
“Fuck, Andy, I am so sorry,” is the first thing out of Alex’s mouth when he gets out of the cab and sees Andy standing there on the sidewalk, bundled up in a scarf – a bright red one that Alex is pretty sure he has – and a coat, cheeks flushed from the cold. “I turned my alarm clock off on accident when I threw my phone and I overslept and I came as soon as I could—”
He’s fussing with the key to unlock the door to the office when a large hand presses against his forearm and he looks up to find Andy grinning crookedly at him, eyes warm.
“I bought coffee,” is all Andy says in response, and Alex is barely aware of the sound he makes when he catches sight of the two tall Starbucks cups Andy is carrying, nearly dropping the keys in his rush to open the door as soon as he can.
It’s still cold inside the building – of course it is, he hasn’t turned the heater on yet – and he flicks the lights on when he grabs the cup labeled ALEX with a tired, grateful smile.
Not exactly the way he wanted their first day working together to start, but he’s good at rolling with the punches, and apparently so is Andy, judging by the way he stayed waiting for nearly an hour after Alex told him to get there.
“You’re the best, Andy,” he sighs after taking a sip of the coffee, which is a bit too sweet for him but it sends warmth flowing through him, and Andy flushes at the compliment, so Alex will count it as a win.
But it’s all business after that, getting Andy’s desk – which is another hand-me-down from Derek, and it’s almost too small for Andy’s tall frame but it works for now – set up and connecting the internet cables and phone lines and all sorts of other things that take a lot fucking longer than Alex thought they would have.
Andy helps when he can, which is pretty much all of the time, except when Alex is cursing at the heater because it’s still only like 50° in the office and Andy just stands by apologizing and looking really fucking adorable.
--
If the first day is long, then the second day of business is even longer, because Alex actually wakes up on time – well, earlier than he did yesterday – and manages to grab a shower and a bite of breakfast before he’s running out the door.
It’s only 7:15 when he gets to the office, pulling his keys out of his pocket, and Andy’s there already with a soft smile, holding another cup of coffee with Alex’s name on it.
This time the coffee’s too bitter, and he debates just telling Andy what kind of coffee he drinks before he shakes his head and takes another sip, because he’s sure Andy will figure out eventually that Alex takes it with cream, not sugar.
--
The first week passes with relatively little troubles, besides the fact that the damn heater still isn’t working and the frigid New York winter is rapidly approaching.
But there are no freak accidents, no busted water pipes in the ceiling or crazy mold spores in any corners, and if it’s only him and Andy in the office the entire time, well. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
--
“Alex?”
Alex doesn’t even glance up from his paperwork for a few seconds, but he does hum in the back of his throat to let Andy know that he’s listening; they’d gotten past the whole “Mr. Rodriguez” thing within minutes of the start of the interview, which is good because if Alex wants Andy to call him anything other than his name, it would be “sir,” but he isn’t going to think about that right now.
“I’m headin’ out to lunch, you want anythin’?”
Even during the course of only a week, they’ve already begun to fall into a really nice routine of Andy bringing Alex coffee in the morning – he’s getting closer now; only one shot of espresso, and he got cinnamon last time, which was a nice touch that Alex appreciated – and then going out to lunch and picking something up for Alex, even if Alex says no.Alex always pays Andy back, even though there must be a reason that Andy is working as a secretary for a freelance lawyer in the middle of New York, which Alex knows for a fact is not the most glamorous or well paying job, especially not when Andy's as qualified as he is for something more.
As it is, Alex himself is just trying to make sure he doesn’t get kicked out of his apartment the next time the rent is due, but he expects that to change soon.
Apparently Derek knows someone -- which isn't surprising, because Derek knows everyone -- who knows someone who's cousins with someone who got in a spot of trouble, and hey, Alex is a lawyer, he's good at erasing trouble spots.
"No, I'm fine, thanks though."
Alex hears shuffling, what sounds like Andy shifting his weight uncomfortably, and that causes more than a few warning bells to go off in Alex's head.
"Andy?" he says after a few seconds, but the office is empty when he looks up, and he shrugs.
It must have been nothing.
--
Another week passes in the same fashion, and it isn’t until the next Monday that Alex hears the door open – he’d given Andy the day off because he’d admitted to waking up with a fever, and that just wouldn’t do – and he sighs with an irritated, “Andy, I thought I told you–”
“Where’s your hot new secretary?”
Derek Jeter is perched on the edge of Alex’s desk like he owns the damn thing, holding a thick file in his hands and looking much too smug for Alex’s liking.
“What are you doing here?” and Alex sets his pen down on the stack of papers he’d been signing because otherwise he’ll probably be tempted to stab Derek with it. It’s not that he’s not happy to see Derek, because he is, Derek is his best friend, but there had been a baby crying in the apartment underneath him until 3 AM and Alex just doesn’t know if he can deal with Jeter this morning.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Derek tosses the folder down in front of Alex but presses his palm to the top so Alex can’t open it.
“He was sick. I gave him the day off.”
Derek raises an eyebrow and Alex folds his arms over his chest, but not defensively, regardless of what Derek’s expression says. He’s not being defensive, why would he be defensive? He did the right thing.
“You sent him home just because you knew I was dropping by today, didn’t you? You bastard.”
“If I’d known you were dropping by today I would have gone home too.”
Alex has known Derek for a long time, but he still barely manages to duck the arm the goes flying towards his head.
--
Andy shows up to work the next day with fever bright eyes and too pale skin, claiming that he’s not contagious anymore. Alex is this close to sending him home before he realizes that even with Derek and after that his new client’s file to keep him occupied, it had been too quiet in the office yesterday.
“No more coming to work with a fever, Andy,” Alex warns, as though Andy has made a habit of it, but his tone is good-natured enough, and he sees Andy’s big shoulders relax under his coat. “It’s only the two of us here, so if you get me sick, we’re fucked, ya hear?”
Alex is pretty sure he’s never seen anyone turn the color of pink that Andy does then, and he nearly grins before he realizes how unprofessional that would be, so he stifles the urge.
“Sure thing, Alex,” Andy says, and Alex does smile then.
“Alright. Good deal.”
--
Alex is freaking out the day before his client’s case is expected to go to trial, and he’s pretty sure it must show on his face or something because Andy nearly drops the coffee he’s holding in his rush to hand it to Alex, and he has to take the keys from Alex’s shaking hands to unlock the door.
“I can do this,” Alex mumbles to himself once they get into the office, pacing across the floor, curling and uncurling his fingers around his coffee cup. Andy nods where he’s sitting on the floor, but he looks startled when Alex suddenly whirls on him.
“Andy!” he barks, which is probably a bit unnecessary because Andy is right there, but he’s a bit panicked, and for good reason; this is his first case. This will define the rest of his career.
He can’t fuck this up. Oh dear lord, he cannot fuck this up.
“You’re gonna do fine, Al,” and Alex barely even notices the nickname, or the way Andy seems to blanch after he says it, like he thinks he’s going to get hit or something. “I really don’t think you can get much more prepared than you are now.”
That would be enough to console Alex normally, but he’s been anxious for what feels like months but has really only been a few weeks, and mere words are not really doing much.
“Alex.”
Andy is suddenly a lot closer than Alex remembers him being, crowding into Alex’s space even though he really has no sense of personal space, never really has. Andy’s broad palms settle on Alex’s shoulder, warm even through the fabric of Alex’s coat – they still haven’t managed to turn the heater on in the office, but Andy hasn’t complained and Alex really can’t afford it right now – and Alex finds himself being steered towards his desk.
“Hey, wait-” Alex protests, but then he’s sinking into Andy’s really comfortable computer chair and something in him loosens, makes his skin feel not as tight. He’s still jittery, teeth grinding unconsciously, but Andy doesn’t move his hands and Alex feels himself relax a fraction.
“Stop worryin’, okay?” Andy’s thumbs are rubbing soft, unconscious circles on Alex’s shoulders, pressing against his skin under the collar of his shirt, and Alex sighs.
“Okay.”
--
“We pronounce the defendant…”
Alex sits up straighter, doing his best not to curl his fingers into white-knuckled fists because he shouldn’t be nervous, he fucking nailed this trial, said all the right things at all the right times just the way he learned it.
Someone coughs softly in the silence, there’s a scuff of a shoe on the floor, and the whole room holds their collective breath when the woman opens the envelope.
“Not guilty, Your Honor.”
--
The last thing Alex expects to see when he walks out of the courthouse is Andy standing there on the steps as snow flurries fall from the grey sky, Yankees cap pulled low over his eyes although Alex can see his grin from here, with a Starbucks cup in his hand, and Alex stops on the top step.
“Andy?” he calls, and Andy looks up with bright eyes.
“I told you that you’d be fine,” is the response Alex gets, and when Alex jogs down the stairs Andy holds the cup out in offering.
There are a lot of things weird about this situation, because isn’t Andy supposed to be at the office, and why is he bringing Alex coffee at 3 in the afternoon? Also, it’s snowing, how is he not cold? And how long has he been waiting out here for Alex? For that matter, was he even waiting for Alex?
“Al,” is the only warning he gets before there’s a heavy arm draped over his shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug against Andy’s side, which is… not that surprising, really.
“Andy, I won the case,” Alex says, like he thinks Andy doesn’t know that, and Andy maybe sort of laughs at him.
“I know.”
“No, Andy, you don’t get it,” Alex turns to Andy with wide eyes, victorious grin stretched across his face, because holy shit he won the case, and Andy is here, which means a lot more to him than he thought it would have when he’d first hired Andy nearly two months ago – two months? Wow, how time flies when you’re working your ass off trying not to get evicted from your apartment or your office building, but Andy had made the second one relatively easy so Alex really isn’t that mad – but Alex feels Andy tense next to him.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you,” and then Alex wraps his free hand around the back of Andy’s neck, pulls him down, and kisses him.
--
“So I think we need a bigger office.”
The office they -- and it is definitely they, at this point; Alex has already given Andy his own key and everything -- share isn't really an office, if Alex is being honest. It has everything an office should have, with fake potted plants and ugly, nondescript paintings of flowers on the walls and a heater that has only now decided to start kicking in, although it's in sporadic bursts and it usually doesn't get above 60°, but it gives Alex even more of an excuse to be close to Andy -- "for warmth," he'd explained the first time, and though he had a feeling Andy didn't believe him, he'd only smiled and shook his head and wrapped an arm around Alex's shoulders -- so he's not that mad about it.
But it's boring and nearly too small for them and Alex doesn't like it. He's winning cases on a fairly regular basis now, earning enough that they could definitely move to somewhere bigger, and he kicks out his leg to catch the back of Andy's thigh to pull him closer to where Alex is sitting on Andy's desk when he asks, "What do you think?" like Andy might protest to the suggestion.
Andy, true to form, just steps closer, fitting into the V between Alex's legs, and presses his palms to the top of the desk, bracketing Alex's hips with his arms when he shrugs, although he's smiling."Whatever you want, Al."
--
So they go office hunting later that week, which is kind of eerily similar to apartment hunting, and Alex shakes off the reminder that he's only got a few weeks left in his place before his lease is up.
Alex does the talking, to the real estate agent -- he didn't actually know that there were agents who led people office hunting, but apparently she knows Derek, which does not surprise Alex in the least -- to the building managers, but mostly to Andy, who looks a little bit overwhelmed by it all.
"How you doing, Pett?" he asks a few hours into the tour of what feel like their 100th office building and the agent is off talking to the manager for him. They're sitting on a couch in the lobby -- this building has a lobby, which is pretty exciting -- and Alex has to resist the urge to rest his feet in Andy's lap; he can be unprofessional sometimes, but he's not that unprofessional, even if he did show up to work today in worn out jeans and a too big Yankees sweatshirt, not knowing there would be a fucking real estate agent waiting for them in front of their office.
Andy looks up with a flush crawling along his cheeks, which is something that Alex will probably (hopefully) never get tired of seeing.
“Fine, Al,” and Alex is going to protest to that because bullshit, Andy looks half like he’s ready to bolt and half like he’s ready to pass out, but then the agent comes back over with an expression that tells Alex this is not going to be their new place of business, so he sighs before he stands back up on aching feet, Andy by his side, and the conversation dies.
--
It’s another few days before they find an office to Alex’s liking. It’s spacious but not overwhelming, with surprisingly soft carpet under his feet and big windows.
“The only problem that’s been reported,” Alex tunes back in just in time to hear, and he looks at the manager with a raised eyebrow. “Is the heater, which has a tendency of shutting off or not working sometimes. No one can figure out what’s wrong with it.”
Alex turns to Andy, who just gives him a look, and then he turns back to the manager.
“We’ll take it.”
--
There’s a strange sense of melancholy that comes with watching Andy take the stuff out of his desk, leaving it bare and empty, and he knows that Andy is just going to put it all in his new desk at the new office, but still. Sometimes Alex has his moments, and this is apparently one of them, where he feels weird and he doesn’t like it.
“Andy,” he says, pushing off the wall to step around the desk, closer to Andy, and Andy lets the papers in his fingers flutter from his fingers when Alex presses up to kiss him. Aside from the fact that it’s Andy, which makes everything that much better, kissing Andy has become commonplace now.
Whenever Alex can get away with it – and even sometimes when maybe he can’t – he kisses Andy. In the office when Alex sees him in the morning, outside of the courthouse after a case – Alex has been trying to convince Andy to actually come to one of his cases, sit in the courtroom and watch him work outside of what he does in the office; it hasn’t worked so far, but Alex can be very convincing, and he’s certain Andy will agree eventually – or anytime else, basically. Andy is so magnetic and he doesn’t even know, and Alex just wants to always be kissing him.
“I met you in this office,” with a nudge of his hips, and the backs of Andy’s thighs press against the edge of the desk.
“Yeah,” Andy laughs, and Alex licks the sound out of his mouth, sliding his thigh in between Andy’s with one smooth motion and ignoring the shiver that tries to work its way up his spine when Andy shifts to accommodate him without breaking the kiss.
“Thank God,” Alex murmurs, because what if he hadn’t let Andy in that day? What if he’d gone home the way he’d planned to? “What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t working for me?”
Andy looks thoughtful at that, fingers curled around Alex’s shoulder, where they’re clenching and unclenching on the fabric of Alex’s jacket.
“Probably still workin’ where I was before, honestly,” with another laugh, and Alex makes a soft sound in his throat before he presses his hand to Andy’s hip, a silent signal, and Andy shifts so that he’s sitting on the edge of the desk, eyes going wide when Alex slides to his knees in front of him.
“Good thing you’re not, because then I wouldn’t be able to do this,” and Alex mouths at the junction of Andy’s thigh, where it meets his pelvis, grinning when Andy shudders underneath him.
--
Andy’s old desk goes with them to the new office.
Alex is absolutely positive that he’s being ridiculous and sentimental, because the desk just sits in the corner and takes up space, but Alex can’t bear to get rid of it. Derek likes to laugh at him every time he comes by and the desk is still there, gathering dust, but Alex likes the way Andy flushes when he looks at it, so the desk stays where it is.
--
The first big case Alex loses is only two weeks after they move into the new office, and Andy can tell that it wasn’t good, because he just offers the coffee silently to Alex – it’s apparently become a thing now – and then hugs him, tighter than usual. Alex is practically shaking against Andy’s chest he’s so mad, and frustrated, teeth grinding together, but he can feel the adrenaline beginning to leave him and he knows he’s going to crash soon.
“I’m gonna go home, Andy,” he mumbles after a few minutes, but Andy’s arms tighten around him when Alex tries to pull away.
“I’ll go with you.”
It’s not a suggestion, not really, but the look Andy gives Alex erases the protest in his throat before he’s even voiced it, so he just sighs; if he’s being honest, he’s rather glad Andy’s coming home with him, although he’ll probably end up just going to right to sleep as soon as they get there.
--
“What?”
Alex isn’t tired anymore, not when he sees the woman in front of his apartment, and especially not when Alex hears what she says.
“Your lease is up.”
“No it’s fucking not, I still have another few days-”
“No. You don’t. And I rented out this apartment already, so you have until Thursday morning to get your shit and leave.”
Alex doesn’t know whether he wants to punch the landlord or go drink himself to unconsciousness in a bar somewhere. Maybe both. He’s not a drinker, never has been, but he thinks he probably could be for tonight.
“Hey, Al…”
It’s the hesitance in Andy’s tone that keeps Alex from snapping at him, because Andy doesn’t deserve that, no matter how much Alex wants to lash out. He doesn’t know what he did in a past life to deserve this bullshit, but it must have been pretty bad.
“I, uh. I have a spare room in my apartment? It’s mostly, um, just used for storage right now, but maybe we could clean it up and-”
Alex laughs before he can help it, trying to tamp it down when he sees the way Andy’s face falls, but he really can’t, not right now, not after everything that’s happened today, and the sound is probably a bit hysterical but there’s nothing he can do about that. The landlord has disappeared, probably to go make someone else’s life hell, so Alex reaches up with trembling fingers to curl his hand around the back of Andy’s head to pull him down and press their foreheads together.
“I love you, Andy, I really do.”
Andy looks really confused, so Alex continues, “I’ll come live with you, but I don’t need a spare room,” and it takes a few seconds, but then Andy grins and flushes and leans down to kiss Alex, and Alex laughs again.
“Love you too, Alex,” Andy says after they part, and his eyes are bright and his cheeks are pink and god, Alex loves him.