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Therion clenched his teeth and tried not to squash this lady’s meatball sub. His newly hired coworker just would not shut up! He already knew his entire life story, a feat easily accomplished by standing next to him for more than two minutes.
His name is Alfyn Greengrass, he’s working so he can eventually go to med school, he’s 21, his childhood best friend is named Zephyr and has a sister named Nina who got bitten by a snake three weeks ago, his mom is dead and he wants to help people because of a traumatic illness as a child. Come on, dude, at least wait until the second day you’ve known a person, second hour, even, before you start trauma-dumping.
It seemed like Alfyn was just trying to be friendly, though. And he’s good at it. Customers won’t shut up around him, either, and Therion keeps finding himself about to answer his questions honestly instead of brushing them off. He thinks he might quit if Alfyn doesn’t.
And by the end of the shift, it seems like he won’t. Now the big blond oaf was blabbering about how much he liked the job and thought that the people he’d met so far were nice. Especially the coworkers he’d met so far. Wait.
That included Therion. Nope, absolutely no way he’d come off as nice. What was the point in practicing a resting scowl in the mirror?
Regardless, Therion found himself actually listening to Alfyn as the two of them walked back to their apartments, since they (un?)fortunately lived in the same building. By the time Alfyn had dropped him off at his door and bid him good day, Therion had laughed. For the first time in several months. And he hadn’t even done it to be dramatic or taunting! He’d giggled, which he just doesn’t do. But, at least, since Alfyn was so receptive to everything everyone said, he might be able to get him to tone the charisma down around 43 notches.
He stayed distracted, thinking about Alfyn, until well after two in the morning, when he made the decision that he was going to slip him a note with his number on it the next time they worked together. If things went poorly, he could find a minimum wage job quite literally anywhere.