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Fright Night had taken more of a toll on the zomboil then he would have readily admitted, especially on the last night of the events just before his mother had gone back home. Since then, he had tried not to dwell on things too much, and made an effort to get back into his daily routine of schoolwork, studying, work, and spending what little extra time he had with his friends. Helping out the lost clans as an initiate needed to take a place on the back burner for now. He knew he was due for his year three exam soon, and needed to focus on preparing himself for that instead.

And to top it all off, his birthday was soon approaching. How fantastic was that?

And so the zomboil worked, waiting on tables and concentrating on his job in order to take his mind off of everything else. It was something mundane, easy, and very repetitive. Greet customers. Take customers order. Bring customers drinks. Bring customers food. Check on customers. Clear customers plates. Bill customers. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Over and over again until he actually felt like a zombie in every sense of the word. But at least this was easy. At least this he could deal with.

A new customer was seated in his section, and from where he stood all he noticed was a pile of red hair. Nothing out of the ordinary, really, and certainly nothing to cause any alarm. What he wasn't expecting, however, was when he made his way over to the small booth along the side of the restaurant to see that the red hair actually belonged to a very familiar face.

"Belladonna!" He greeted the reaper in a friendly enough tone, a smile spreading across his face. He wore his usual work attire. White button up shirt beneath a black vest. Red tie, black pants, black shoes (yes, he had to wear shoes for work). His empty eye socket was not visible from behind his carefully styled hair.

"Are you meeting somebody here?" He asked, stopping once he was at the side of the table and glancing to the empty seat across from her, though there was no menu set for there. And then, remembering that he was at work and should probably do his job.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

Alexander's eyebrow rose with her first reply. "Me?" He laughed a little, maybe sounding just a tad bit nervous. "I didn't even know you knew where I worked." Maybe Mort had told her. That was fairly plausible and not at all unlikely. Though that look she was giving him now made him want to take a step back and possibly hide. She was definitely up to something, and he wasn't really sure he wanted to be any part of it. Still, he could humor her for now and make that decision when the time came, surely.

Oh, she just wanted to hang out? Okay, so far that seemed innocent and safe enough. Though now she was batting her eyelashes. What was that all about? If she started talking about going for a salon session together or something he was definitely running for it. "Oh, uh...in about thirty minutes, actually. You're probably the last customer I'll be getting today. Good timing?" His smile was a bit more apprehensive now, as he waited for her to continue.

"Water. Gotcha." That was easy enough, he was about to turn away to go and grab one for her when she began talking again, and he directed his attention back to her.

"No no, it's fine! I don't mind hanging out." Cheering up? Well...ya, he could do with some of that he supposed. At the very least anything to help relieve some stress would be nice.

Oh dear jack what magic was she using on him now? Those eyes. Those big, sparkling, round and imploring eyes! "Uh, whatever you want, Bella." He began backing away, slowly, holding the tray that he'd absolutely been carrying around this whole out almost like a shield before he turned and left.

He returned a couple of minutes later with her water. "Are you ordering anything to eat or do you just plan on sitting here waiting for me?"

He slid the water towards her, slowly, carefully, eyeing her with that apprehensive look once again. What exactly did this ghoul have in store for him? And...why had he told her they could do anything she wanted?!? Surely that was just asking for trouble! Still, he waited for her to decide whether or not she wanted anything to eat.

"A salad?" It was hard to keep the faint hint of disgust out of his voice. "No meat at all?" He may have looked just the slightest bit bewildered. But no, he'd served creatures of Halloween many times that didn't eat meat. He didn't fully understand it, but it wasn't uncommon. But this ghoul..she was dating a zombie! He'd have never pegged her for a vegetarian.

"Not even a tiny bit of meat?" He asked, face splitting into a teasing smile before he added on.

"Sure, no problem. Just sit tight and it should be out in a few minutes. Since it's slow I'm going to go and ask if I can start cashing out soon. Your salad is on me." He shook his head a little as he wandered away to go and ring in her order before shuffling off towards the back office to speak with the manager on duty. Before long he was back, and since a salad with no meat whatsoever took roughly 3 minutes to make he had her meal, if it could even be called that, in hand.

"By the time you have this finished I should be ready to go." He set down the bowl of leafy greens and healthy vegetables in front of her, wrinkling up his nose and sticking his tongue out at it.

"Enjoy!" He wandered off once more, unstringing his apron as he shuffled away to do his cash out in the back room and to change out of his work clothes.

It was some time later when the zomboil emerged once more, dressed in his street clothes after leaving his uniform in the locker once more. White hoodie, red tie with a white skull printed on the bottom, black pants rolled up to his knees, shoeless (and sockless), a skateboard was tucked under his arm and a backpack slung over his shoulder as he shuffled back on over to Belladonna's table. His wrists were adorned with leather cuffs, one spiked and one with a silver skull set on top, that when flipped open revealed a watch. The bracelet that Mei had made for him rested just below that. His hair was not nearly as perfectly styled now, and it was obvious that he had ran his fingers through it a few times, messing it up good and properly before he'd left the staff locker room.

"How was it?" He asked, as he approached, nodding down towards the salad and placing both hands on the table as he leaned forward, staring down at her intently with one pale grey eye.

"We can leave whenever you're ready." Still unsure of what exactly the ghoul had planned, he pushed himself back up and away from the table, slouching a little as he let his hands find their way into his pants pockets. Hopefully it wasn't something too ridiculous. If she took him shopping to ask for opinions on shoes or, worse, on some of the outfits at cryptoria's secret he might just blow a brain fuse, and he was fairly certain he shouldn't be looking at one of his best friends ghoulfriends in that kind of stuff. He just had to hope to jack that this was not some kind of ghoulish outing that he was going to regret.

Some tension that he wasn't even fully aware of left his body as she assured him that they weren't going to do anything embarrassing, and he closed his eye as his body seemed to slouch over even more so that he didn't look anywhere near his 6'3" height. He opened it back up again as he heard the telltale sounds of her scooting out of the booth, and offered her a warm smile. "Okay, I'm going to hold you to that." He at least sounded amused as he continued to back away from the booth, waiting for the ghoul to take the lead so that he could be the good little instinctive follower that he was.

Through the restaurant and out the door, Alexander had to resist the urge to stand really really close to the ghoul, to the point where he'd probably be invading her personal space on a super creepy level. But no, he kept a safe distance between them. A reasonable distance for two friends to have as he shambled along beside her, following her to the wall, not realizing what she was about to do until it was too late.

She grabbed his tie. That wasn't the bad part though. The bad part was that she then pulled on it. Lightly, but it still created pressure against the stitches that ran along the back of his neck, making him cringe and fight the urge to back away from her, which would have probably made the situation worse, or to smack her hand away. No, it was okay. She wasn't trying to hurt him. She wasn't going to yank hard on his tie in a threatening way. This was Belladonna, who was possibly one of the kindest ghouls he had met, even if they had gotten off to a bit of a shaky start during their spar. Still, it was hard to concentrate on her words through the floods of emotional trauma, and he slowly reached up, clutching his tie a little higher up then where her hand was, and eased it out of her grasp, staring down at her all the while and trying very hard not to let his panic show.

There, that was better. He could already feel his frazzled nerves beginning to settle. "Ah yes well..it has been. Rather hard I mean." He reached up to run fingers through his hair, eye darting to the side as though on the look out for anybody who might be listening in on their conversation before falling back down on her.

So, she was doing this to try and give him a distraction. It was actually a rather nice thing for her to do, considering how very little they knew about each other. He let his gratitude show in the small smile he gave her. "It just happened too suddenly. It's been hard to adjust. He was...my first good friend, that wasn't a family member or a part of my horde back home. My best friend. The best friend I could have ever asked for. And I...well, I know it's no use dwelling on it anymore. What's done is done." There, he had confided, if only just a tiny bit, in the ghoul who was offering him this chance at forgetting about inner pain and just enjoying something that didn't have to remind him of what he had lost.

And Alexander actually really liked shopping. He found the act of blowing all of his money on things he didn't necessarily need almost therapeutic. "You---You saved it?" His eye widened in shock at the revelation that she had saved one of the dresses that he had made.

"I didn't really think it was that great." He shrugged, his smile widening, reflecting just how flattered he actually felt about it.

"Okay well..." Where did he want to go? "Let's just walk along here a little and see if there are any new shops that might be worth checking out.

Oh yes, Alex seemed much more happy now. Tie holding incident forgotten already. It seemed the way to the zomboils heart was not just through his stomach.

"Having it not happen at all would have been better still." He countered, his voice going soft and sadness tainting his features for just a moment before he shook it off, giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry." He mumbled. Really, he was supposed to be trying to have a good time. Getting into deep conversations about love lost was going to result in the exact opposite occurring.

"Ah yes well, it was just a spur of the moment creation." Back to smiling as he welcomed the change in topic. "I made a couple more dresses before that but..I guess somebody didn't like them very much, because they were both taken apart each time I'd returned." He frowned at the memory. Somebody had obviously been jealous of his wonderful dresses. There was just no other explanation for such behavior.

None.

As they walked along together, Alexander kept an eye out for any store that might be worth checking out. At some point he really did need to visit the spare parts shop and look into the possibility of getting a new eye, but honestly it wasn't even bothering him that much beyond the fact that everyone kept asking him what happened and well...his vision was severely impaired, but he'd actually gotten used to that over the course of the weeks since it happened.

"Yes, for the most part, I had a really nice time!" He replied, still smiling as he trudged along. "Uhh a couple, but no, I didn't go overboard this time. I have too many pets as it is, really. I got a really nice poms from that booth surrounded by snow. He just ran right into my lap." His face split into a grin at the memory. So many other students had been running around trying to catch those poms, and all he had done was sit until one came directly to him.

"Twenty treats though? That's uh....where do you keep them all??" He supposed there was always the closet.

Looming up on their immediate left was a shop that Alexander wouldn't have minded checking out, so without another word he turned and ducked inside. The clothes on display were in an array of punk-like styles, in color schemes that the zomboil notably wore all of the time. He wasn't really sure if he necessarily needed more clothing, but it didn't hurt to have a look around.

Alexander was just pleased that she seemed to genuinely find the dresses he made to be worth keeping, even if she had only been able to save one of them. Of course, he didn't think of himself as being the fashionable sort. His attire was often just a mismatched coming together of clothing that could be found strewn about various areas of his dorm room, with the odd new hasn't-been-worn-yet article from out of his closet. And a tie. Always with the ties. He had maybe gone without a tie a handful of times since he'd first started wearing them all those years ago...

Ah, reminiscing~

Belladonna really seemed to be hinting towards him joining her fashion club. Well, no, not hinting. Actually she was using some sort of cunning and wily method of eyelash batting on him, again, and while he wished he could say he was immune to such feminine ploys, it would be a lie.

Still...fashion club? Seemed a little ghouly to him. And after already being harangued by Mei to join the art club (he knew little to nothing about art) and by Xiu to join the baking club, if it ever came about (he was terrified of ovens and didn't enjoy the taste of baked goodies in the slightest), he wasn't so sure if his masculinity could take another blow without dissipating completely.

But those eyelashes! Guuuuuuuuuhhhhhh!!!

"When is your next meeting?" Alexander could feel what remained of his manliness slipping away through his fingers like fine grains of sand.You win this round, Miss Belladonna Divine.

But back to the matter at hand. Clothing. Yes, clothing would solve all of his problems. Soothing, therapeutic, a way to relieve stress......

Alexander set to work, closing in on the nearest rack of men's clothes to begin sliding them along the rail, pulling out shirts to check tags for sizes and prices with a thoughtful look on his face. At Belladonna's question, he paused, and turned towards her even as he was pulling out a shirt to maybe try on. "Well, uh, no, not really. I normally just grab a bunch of things that I like and buy them." He was really quite horrible with money management, and overspending often happened when he went shopping.