someone's burning out, out on condor avenue

The fluorescent lights buzzing overhead hurt his fuzzy eyes, making him sigh, as he rubs at them mopily, and continues forward with his (unfortunately light) grocery cart. The sound of his sandals thwaping against tile doesn’t really help the whole- kind of crazily hungover thing, either.

Man, he feels miserable. It’s kind of chilly in here, and he doesn’t have the right clothes just yet for Montana, and he’d been woken up this morning by a cop telling him he couldn’t sleep outside a 7/11, and it’s not like he can complain about it being a Monday or anything, ‘cause he wasn’t even really sure what day it was, until a crackling announcement overhead listed a beginning of the week sale on Stouffer’s mac and cheese when he walked in.

He’s hit a low—definitely not a new one, but a low, nonetheless.

Clearing his throat, he tries to shake these thoughts out of his head by tuning into whatever Fleetwood Mac song is currently playing in the background. It’s The Chain, right? Not that one about the girl? Except wait- isn’t there more than one about a girl?

“Are they all about girls?” He squints thoughtfully at the freezer section in front of him.

Sighing messily, he reaches out for the handle of one of the fridges, only to brush against the outstretched hand of a man he hadn’t noticed standing beside him.

“Oh shit, sorry-”

“-No, that’s- that’s my bad, I’m-”

“-No, no, please! Go ahead.” Dud gestures forward with a goofy, dramatic sweep of his arms that makes the dark-haired man beside him flash him a brief, fluttering sort of smile, before he opens the freezer, and reaches in for the last box of that $3 off Stouffer’s mac those announcements had been talking about.

The one Dud had sort of really been hoping to get. “Oh.”

The man freezes, big eyes blinking up at him nervously. “Oh?”

“No, it’s- it’s nothing.” Dud shrugs as casually as he can, hoping he doesn’t look too disappointed. “You’re a mac and cheese guy, huh?”

The man shrugs awkwardly and smiles again—just a there and gone curl of his thin lips that makes Dud’s stomach do somersaults. “Yeah, I- I s’pose so…you?”

“Who, me? Nah, I’m more of a pizza guy, myself.” He leans his weight against one of the freezer doors, and almost slips on the tile, before catching himself.

It gets him a laugh that’s even better than the smile.

“Really?” The man’s chuckles peter off, until he’s left staring over at Dud thoughtfully, while chewing on the inside of his cheek. “...Pizza’s one aisle over, though.”

“Oh. Right.” They both turn and look at the now completely empty wall of freezer space Dud had clearly been going to open. “Right, well- uh- I mean-”

The man freezes again, as he realizes what happened. “...You were hopin’ to grab this, weren’t you?” His face burns in embarrassment. Before Dud can try and reassure him, he starts shaking his head, already reaching into his basket to grab the box back out to shove it in Dud’s direction. “Here. I’m- I’m sorry, you must think I’m real rude. I shouldn’t have-”

“No. No! Seriously, you’re all good, man. Finders keepers, you know?” He insists, raising both hands up in mock surrender.

The man scoffs, and scrunches his eyebrows together adorably, still holding out the box. “But…you were here first, it wouldn’t be right of me to-”

Very suddenly, a realization pops into existence in his brain like a flash of lightning; Dud doesn’t actually have an oven or a microwave at the moment. The only reason he’d even wanted the mac and cheese in the first place was because it was cheap enough for him to afford it on discount and because it reminded him of eating it straight out of the box in front of the TV with his dad and Liz. But this guy probably isn’t a massive screw-up like him. He probably has access to things like- like kitchen appliances, and running water, and, you know, forks or whatever. “-We could split it. If you want.”

“Split it?”

“Why not? I mean, I’m pretty new to the area. It’d be pretty cool to get to know some of the locals.” Dud offers the guy his best grin. “And you’ve clearly got excellent taste in fine frozen goods.”

The guy laughs a second time, before rubbing the back of his neck, searching Dud’s face for…something. Whatever he finds there must be okay, though, ‘cause after another long moment, he starts to slowly nod. “Yeah…Yeah, okay. You alright with eatin’ at my place?”