Work Text:
Every other Tuesday, the Sadler-Randol-Cameron household treats themselves to stupidly expensive coffee at the somehow-more-pretentious-than-Starbucks cafe a few blocks down from the park - the park, the one where Shit Goes Down for them, or at least has multiple times over the last few years.
It’s not like they can’t afford the splurge, living off Other Alec’s Sadtech legacy. It’s just the principle of the thing, limiting the treat to make it more special. Jason isn’t much of a coffee drinker, so Alec usually grabs a pastry for him. He has Julian’s and Kiera’s orders memorized - it’s pretty damn thoughtful of him to still be treating his stepbrother, come to think of it - but Alec prefers to switch it up for his own drink every now and then. He stumbles over the words when the barista takes his order, and he watches her butcher every one of their names scrawled across the cups - Alex he’s used to, and he’s seen Kara before, but Jillian is a delightful fresh twist.
As he goes to grab the cups, he makes eye contact with a pretty brunette across the room. She quickly looks back down at her laptop, then glances up again and smiles shyly when she sees Alec is still looking in her direction. It’s one of those unexpected yet undeniably intimate moments strangers share sometimes, and Alec nods slightly to acknowledge the fleeting connection between himself and the woman before turning to leave.
As he traces the familiar steps toward the park, Alec is struck by an awareness that, outside of their peculiar circumstances, he and Kiera would not make any kind of sense. If it were Kiera he’d made eye contact with across the room in an unbranded coffee shop in some alternate, calm, ordinary version of Vancouver, neither would have given the other a second thought. Sure, Alec might have noticed Kiera in a fleeting “oh, she’s pretty” sort of way, but he wouldn’t have remembered her more than a day or so later, any more than he’s likely to remember this random coffee shop girl or any of the other hundreds, thousands of strangers whose paths he crosses every day in the city.
There is just such a preponderance of factors to make a relationship - not just a capital-R Relationship; any kind - between the two of them unlikely. Even ignoring the easy, obvious things like age and life experiences, they just don’t seem to have much in common, at least not from the outside. In truth, Alec isn’t sure that he would have any interest in Kiera if it weren’t for what they’ve shared. (He wonders, though, whether that’s even a bad thing. Couples with a thousand personality traits and hobbies in common break up all the time, while some of the most opposite oddballs make it work.) The intensity and intimacy of their interdependence has fashioned them both into very different people than they were at the start.
When he arrives at the park, Alec immediately, instinctively seeks out Kiera, drawn to her by that peculiar magnetism that started out as curiosity, grew to camaraderie, and has shifted to a protective affection. It’s like he recognizes a piece of himself in her, maybe. He finds her easily by the lake, without really having to search; Kiera Cameron is a creature of habit, easy enough to predict in these small ways, though he feels sometimes like he’s just barely beginning to know her. His breath catches at the way her soft almost-curls catch and return the reflection of the light off the water. How, he thinks, could I ever hope to deserve her?
You can’t, he reminds himself a second later. But thankfully, impossibly, wonderfully, that’s not the way it works.
She turns, then, hearing his approach, and smiles in that easy, everyday way that still manages to reduce him to a wordless mess on his sappier days - and today certainly qualifies. “Hi,” he offers in simple greeting, because sometimes - maddeningly often, actually - language fails him.
Her fingertips brush lightly against the back of his hand as she reaches for her coffee. “Hi,” she murmurs back, and then takes a sip. Her face breaks out into her famous “this is the good shit” expression, as Julian sarcastically (he does everything sarcastically) calls it.
“Ridiculously expensive, but damn well worth it,” she proclaims with a grin. And then, her fingers find Alec’s again, his free hand this time, and they stay there. Not quite tangled, but touching. A decent metaphor for their current state, Alec’s sappy side notes.
“Hate to interrupt whatever this is,” Julian not-at-all-apologetically interjects, appearing beside them as if summoned, “but don’t we have work to do?”
Alec rolls his eyes, breathes deeply for strength, then turns to face his brother.
“In a manner of speaking. Did you - did you lose Jason? Already?”
Julian shrugs. “He wandered off mumbling about advertising. I assume he meant to start putting up posters.”
Alec stares pointedly at the armful of posters Julian is still holding. “Going to be a little hard for him to do that, don’t you think?”
Julian sighs lightly. “I think tracking down my nephew calls for some caffeine, don’t you?” he says, holding out a hand expectantly.