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[14 Jul 2008|08:32pm] |
After walking out on a shift at Starbucks almost two years ago to the day and subsequently being fired for being completely unreliable (and probably a drug-addled freak show who was undoubtedly spiking the mocha lattes with PCP), Alaric let go of what remained of the pretense that he was ‘searching for himself’ and was forced to admit that he was doing more drugs than even his shifty-eyed manager could have imagined. In a vague attempt at getting back on his increasingly unsteady track, Alaric struck out on a quest to get back into the Starbucks franchise, systematically hitting every Starbucks within a two-block radius of his apartment complex and begging for a job.
Though his memory of this time period consists of sporadic flashes of brandishing his resume, being freaked by the bags under his eyes, and almost but not quite falling onto the counter after tripping on the hem of his stupidly long jeans and completely, unmistakably losing his balance, the sight of the shift manager (who was probably coming to kick him out for being a disruptive, sloppy mess and, let’s face it, a hobo with a makeshift shank hidden in his shirt) is forever ingrained in his mind’s eye. He wondered, very self-righteously, how a guy with two-inch-thick eye makeup and impossible to hide neck tattoos could possibly have the right to judge him for anything, ever (as was a common theme from that point in his life, that everyone was constantly judging him).
Landing this job was a mixed blessing, as on the one hand, he was once again making money - everyone likes money, and minimum wage is vastly underrated - while on the other, he could no longer lie in bed for twelve hours at a time and brood about how unjust life was and how terribly the world had treated him. A privileged upbringing, more obstacles than any twenty-year-old should be faced with; things were bound to go awry.
When Alaric was inexplicably moved to show up at the apartment of Demetrius Parker, the aforementioned tattooed shift manager, it appeared that fate agreed with him. Once his former manager had handed in his two week’s notice, it seemed that the only logical course of action was to pursue him with his patent single-mindedness. With all of the passion that he'd reserved for conquests made before his slip-slide into reclusiveness, Alaric went after his new target, blocking out the negative and refusing to let himself dwell too long on all the yelling and looks of infinite irritation that the two traded back and forth over the course of a two-month courtship. Once his interest in Demetrius jumped from an impatient game of seduction to a genuine desire to settle into the kind monogamous relationship that he'd never quite seemed to master, Alaric was drawn toward focusing on the good with even more force.
His private school education proved itself to be at least somewhat useful in a real-life scenario, as Alaric used his formidable debating skills to wear Demetri down until the two were soon involved in the most committed, adult relationship that he had ever managed to maintain. Meeting the parents, threatening to leave in the middle of the night after a particularly random and undeniably ridiculous fight melted into a sickeningly sweet Valentine's Day waterfront proposal, followed by three months of cohabitation in Prince Edward Island in order to shrewdly get around Canadian same-sex marriage laws and an Independence Day wedding on a beach of red sand.
Though they aren't what stand out to him when he tries to make sense of what spurred on the completely overhaul of his character, somewhere along the way, these were events that played a very important role in getting from Point A (Alaric Dawson: slutty, flaky, whiny) to Point B (Alaric Parker: monogamous, dependable ...whiny).
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[12 Jul 2008|08:27pm] |
flocked.
![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) duvet
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