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Erestor walked up the first two flights of stairs to his fourth-story apartment before wishing he hadn’t made that one New Year’s resolution to take stairs instead of elevators. Despite this, he wasn’t out of breath by the time he made it to his door. He blamed it on the damnably cold Michigan winters. It was only September, and he was assured repeatedly that it wasn’t winter yet, but as a man born and raised in southeast Texas, he begged to differ. It was below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. It was winter.
He opened the door to his apartment, grumbling, and immediately set to adjust the heat. His hand hovered over the dial and he sighed miserably. His internship to Dr. Knochen, a rather famous paleontologist and archaeologist, wasn’t paid. As it was, he barely made enough money working part time at the zoo to afford an apartment.
He hung up his over-coat and jerked off his thick boots, which he’d been glad for with the rain coming down as hard as it was. Just as he was about to take off his gloves he heard a scream from next door. There was a difference between the scream queens in horror movies, or video games, and this scream. From his brief time as a volunteer firefighter during a particularly bad drought, he recognized it. He must have heard it a thousand times.
Running on pure instinct alone, he grabbed his favorite hunting knife, slid into the hall, and rammed his shoulder into his neighbor’s door. He found, much to his surprise that it was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar, so he ended up slamming into the counter hard enough that he knew bruises would be there and would linger. Before he could take in the full extent of his injury, he was up on his feet again, knife out, searching out the danger.
The downright gorgeous blonde looked at him. He looked at the blonde. The tawny and brown rat snake hissed. At that, the blonde tensed again, looking down at the serpent with obvious horror. Erestor shook his head. It wasn’t even a rattler- these bastards hurt like a bitch when they bit you, yes, but they weren’t venomous. Within seconds, he had a very irritated snake in one gloved hand, holding its’ jaws open with his thumb and forefinger.
“What in God’s name is a southern rat snake doing in Michigan?” Erestor asked of no one in particular.
“I have no clue, but thank you, and if you get rid of it, I’ll buy you dinner for a week.” Erestor shrugged at that, popped open his neighbors’ back window (they all had one, in exactly the same place), and tossed the snake unceremoniously off the fourth floor. He shut the window hurriedly against the cold and turned to see his neighbor looking extremely embarrassed.
“So,” began Erestor, “Sorry about the counter. I’ll just- uh- leave. Adios, man.”
Glorfindel huffed out a laugh. “No, the counter was shit anyway. Thanks for the snake thing- I’m a snake a phobe.”
Erestor shook his head and turned back around, sheathing the short blade. “When you grow up in Texas, if you’ve seen one snake, you’ve seen a dozen.” He shifted awkwardly, and then Glorfindel cleared his throat lightly.
“I’m Glorfindel. Glorfindel O’Gondolin.” He reached a hand out to the man with the slightly unkempt and shaggy dark hair. Erestor took it with a grin and Glorfindel fought the urge to melt. They didn’t have tans like that in Michigan.
“Erestor Moreno.” He replied quickly. ‘Accent. Oh no, accent. Keep him talking.’ Glorfindel thought. At the same time, a more reasonable voice said ‘Just how desperate are you? Shut up. Shut up now.’ The second voice seemed to pay no attention to how Erestor rolled his ‘r’s, however, and so it was quickly ignored.
“Have any plans tonight? I know this little diner, not far from here. They have great pie.”
Unfortunately, Erestor did, in fact, have plans. He’d been waiting for the new episode of The Walking Dead, and there was some leftover chili and an essay due Monday of next week with his name on them. One lock of blonde hair slipped out of the short, loose ponytail and drifted in front of those blue, blue eyes.
“No, nothing important. Let me get my shoes back on.”
The diner’s blueberry pie lived up to Glorfindel’s promise, and, even though he said it was just as payment for getting rid of a snake, Erestor privately thought of it as a date. During the course of the evening, he found out that Glorfindel taught martial arts at the dojo just down the street, was only afraid of snakes, and always grew out his hair to donate it to Locks of Luck when it got long enough because his mother had died during chemotherapy for breast cancer.
Glorfindel found himself saying perhaps a bit too much, but he looked at those brown eyes, and he just wanted to stay there. He never believed in love at first sight, but maybe, just maybe. Erestor told him about his grueling unpaid internship and the job he loved, working as a reptile caretaker at the local zoo. His favorite color was green, both his parents as well as an overbearing older brother were still alive and in Texas, and he was planning on opening an extinct and rare reptile museum back home.
Unfortunately, Erestor’s boss called because a rat snake had escaped its’ cage, and they had to cut the night short so he could look around the building for the missing snake before it froze to death, if it hadn’t died from the fall.
Before they split, Glorfindel slipped him his number with a saucy wink, and shut his door. This was closely followed by an earsplitting shriek. Somehow, for an unknown reason, of all the rooms in the complex, the snake had chosen Glorfindel’s couch to curl up on. Erestor smiled. Maybe when his brother called again, mourning his single status, he would be able to give a different answer than usual. After all, he’d been in his apartment twice, gone on a date, and gotten a phone number off a hot blonde in one night.
His smile quickly turned into a full out grin. Hopefully, this wouldn't be the last he saw of the teacher next door.