Chapter Text
Alex had outpaced Michael, for once in his life. He stopped halfway down the sidewalk, looked behind him.
“Stop looking so guilty,” Alex hissed at Michael, who was almost completely slumped into the collar of his blue and red letterman, almost radiating mea culpa. Michael’s wavy brown hair hung over his eyes, only contributing to the guilty look, and Alex resisted the urge to flick it out of the way.
Why had he asked Michael, of all people, to go with him to the liquor store? Why the fuck had he chosen the jock who only cared about leg day and beating his own sprinting times?
Oh, right.
T.C. was home with the flu.
Usually, it was T.C.’s fake ID (worth its weight in liquid gold) that got them in and out of their asscrack town’s equally shitty liquor store.
Not only did T.C. have the flu, T.C. had given the flu to Alex’s oldest brother Matthew, who would have been his runner-up. Matthew’s tall, overly muscled physique would have deterred anyone who thought to ask for an ID, and despite his preference for monosyllabic conversations, he could be persuaded into going if it was T.C. who asked.
And there was no way in hell he’d ask Tristan to go get alcohol with him. His slump-sack, glum-bum, useless excuse for a baby brother would probably rat on him.
So he was stuck with Michael. He’d take going with the jock (who probably kept his brain in his quads instead of in his head) over going alone.
“ I can’t help it, dude,” Michael muttered, looking down at his running shoes, shuffling them side to side as he progressed down the street. “Gettin’ alcohol underage is wrong, man. I mean, what would happen if Coach found out? I might get kicked off the team. And then I’d lose my chance to the big time.”
Alex almost asked him “which team.” Michael was on several, so many that Alex couldn’t remember them all at this point. Football and track were the only ones he could recall.
Also, asking him “which team” sounded gay.
“Now you look even more guilty,” Alex sighed. “You better just let me do the talking. And it’s my ID anyway, so I really should be the one who does the buying.”
He squinted down at the (entirely fake) ID in his hand, making sure that the picture wasn’t cloudy or anything. The guy on it looked enough like him (sans grungy blue ponytail, Limozeen shirt with artfully arranged safety pins, and distressed red boots) that it wouldn’t raise questions. Hopefully.
The sign on the door read “No Persons Under 21 Allowed” in cherry red letters, and the bell on the door let out a piercing jingle when Alex cracked it open. Michael jumped, and Alex shot him a look that was meant to look intimidating. Scare him into acting less guilty, that was the idea.
It only made Michael hang his head like a chastised puppy as he followed Alex inside.
The mustached clerk at the front desk gave them both a nod, but he was already busy helping a line of people, so Alex thought he didn’t look at them too closely. Michael was tall enough that he probably escaped suspicion completely, despite the hangdog expression on his face.
Once they got behind a rack of wines and champagne, Alex rounded on him.
“Stop looking like you just fumbled the sportsball, or whatever it’s called,” he whispered. “I need you to work with me here, can you do that.”
Michael looked disturbed.
“It’s a football. A pigskin. A-“
“That’s enough of that,” Alex interrupted, drowning out whatever Michael had been about to say.
Wait a minute, he could use this. What was Michael always muttering about, the thing his coach said over and over again?
“We can’t just rush into the sports zone,” he said.
“Score zone,” Michael corrected. “But that’s inaccurate too…”
“Okay, score zone, or whatever,” Alex snapped, already fed up with trying to speak in sports metaphors. He should have known better than to cater to the jock.
“We can’t just rush into it, is what I was saying. We gotta ease in.”
“And how do we do that?”
Alex looked around. “Look, we want the good stuff,” he said quietly. “None of those fruity cocktail drink mixes or…. Wine coolers or whatever.”
“But I like wine coolers,” Michael protested. “They taste great.”
“Wait, I thought you were bellyachin’ about not getting caught with booze because of the big time. How do you know you like wine coolers?”
Scandalized, Michael retorted, “I go to keggers, man.”
“How the fuck is that any different, mister high and mighty?”
They were almost in each other’s faces by now.
“The cops can’t catch all of us, man. I run fast. Plus, I didn’t buy the wine coolers. I didn’t buy booze underage.” Michael looked pleased with himself, and reached over to grab a six-pack of Raspberry ‘I’m a Homo’ Blast.
Alex slapped his hand away.
“Yeah, well, we aren’t gonna get any of them. We’re trying to get to the vodka display over there,” and he gestured with his hand to the far wall. “We’ll get two bottles of the good stuff, and get outta here. Once we grab that shit, you need to make yourself scarce.”
“Make myself what?”
Alex huffed.
“Just. When I get the vodka I need you to get yourself out of the cashier’s sight. I need you to either go outside or stay behind some display or something, and meet me at the door. Savvy?”
Michael nodded, too hard. “That’s a good game plan.”
Not everything had to be about sports, goddamn it.
At first, the plan went off without a hitch.
Michael started running ahead of him, but when Alex tapped his shoulder, he stopped at once. Kind of made Alex feel powerful, telling Michael what to do.
Michael grabbed the two most expensive bottles of vodka in the display.
“Not those, idiot,” Alex snapped.
“I thought you said we were going for the good stuff. This is the good stuff.”
Alex had to admit that it made sense- in a Michael way.
“Yeah, but we’re not gonna spend twenty fucking dollars per bottle. Get whichever ones have the highest alcohol content, that’s what we want.”
Michael gave him a confused look, so Alex reached out and grabbed the necks of the first two 100 proof bottles that he saw.
“These ones will do.”
Michael nodded, as though he’d known it all along.
“Of course those ones are good,” he said.
Alex stared at him a moment, to see if he was joking, but then, Michael never seemed to be.
“Fine,” he muttered, still holding onto the vodka.
That was when things started going wrong. Alex looked up from the vodka to see the clerk, standing by the clerk from behind the desk was standing right in front of him and Michael.
Shit.
“Can I help you boys?” the man asked.
And they’d been so close to getting out free and clear too.
It made Alex want to rip off the clerk’s benign salt-and-pepper mustache.
Forcing a grin, Alex made a desperate motion to Michael to stay quiet. Even a dumb jock could manage that… right?
“Yeah, we’re just fine,” Alex said, voice way too sweet for his own taste. It was almost as bad as putting a bottle of Raspberry ‘I’m a Homo’ Blast to his lips in public.
“We’re just fine. We got what we needed, we’re about to check out.”
Michael grabbed one of the bottles from Alex, before he knew what was going on.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Michael chirped, overly cheery.
The sad thing was, Alex wasn’t sure he was faking.
“We’re just taking these things up to the front to check out!”
Alex glared at Michael’s back as he took the lead up to the front, but he followed him. Apparently, the allure of a “game plan” wasn’t enough to keep Michael on track.
With a disarming grin, Michael set the vodka down on the counter. Alex followed suit, trying to stare him down without meeting the cashier’s eye.
What the fuck was he doing. What the fuck.
“Now, boys, let’s see some ID.”
Alex froze, horrified, and shot a condemning glance at Michael. Now he’d fucked them both over.
Goddamnit.
Riffling through his pockets, Alex dropped his (absolutely genuine, absolutely foolproof) ID onto the counter, and waited to see what Michael would do.
Michael was digging into his pockets, searching them over twice, an All-American pearly white smile still fixed on his face, which slowly faded as his search failed to turn up anything besides half an egg of silly putty, three soda tabs, and a pair of keys dangling from a dog-shaped novelty keychain, which let out a tinny barking noise as he laid it on the counter.
“Well, I’m sorry, sir, but I seem to have left my wallet at my friend’s house.” He turned, shaking his head. “Alex, you were supposed to remind me to get my wallet!”
“The fuck, man?” Alex muttered, trying not to show exactly how pissed he was with Michael. He’d get all the chances he needed to bawl him out… once they got thrown out of the liquor store.
“Oh- I’m so sorry. I apologize.” His tone dripped sarcasm, though neither Michael nor the clerk seemed to notice.
“Home from college, hmm?” the clerk said to Michael, ignoring Alex completely.
Apparently, the jock pheromones emanating from Michael were enough to completely fool the clerk into thinking Michael was some kind of college guy. Scratch that, a college football player.
“Well, I’ll let it slide this time. I’ll go ahead and ring you two up.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open, and Michael smiled his All-American Football Jockstrap smile.
Once they were out the door with their vodka stowed in secure paper bags, Alex closed his mouth long enough to say, “How the fuck did you think of that?”
Michael shrugged. “Every team member has to be good at improvisation to win the game, right?”
“I guess, but…”
He let the sentence drop.
“Looks like T.C. has competition- I guess I’ll be asking you to come with me to get my booze now.”
“Our booze, Michael corrected, and the grin on Alex’s face didn’t seem so forced now.