Work Text:
It is certainly a time of hope, something in the air perhaps. A crisp January gives birth to all sorts of resolutions and even dreams, often unfulfilled, but not this year. This year it will be different.
He looks up at the sky, the colors of the dawn only beginning to break through as it is quite early. It is important to get a solid start, even if he usually is one for working into the night. He has tried before to start his own venture and it hasn’t worked out well, mostly he now realizes because he has tried to be a good person and help people in the way the new people in his life have told him he should and the types of people he should help. But after that avenue crashed and burned he now knows he needs to go back to who he really is.
Greendale wouldn’t even know what hit it. His new business will be the talk of the town, and he no longer feels any shame or self-loathing about it. It pays to know and honor who you are.
“Hey, you need me to get the keys?”
He turns and smiles wryly at Alan Connor and decides to humor him just a little.
“You know what, I think I lost them, dropped them down a sewer grate back there.”
Alan’s face goes pale and he noticeably perspires and it’s almost too much. Almost because he kind of hates Alan but then again who didn’t.
After a sharp intake of breath, Alan begins to stammer, “I….you’re messing with me. I know it, you know what? You’re a jerk.”
“Sorry you feel that way. Maybe I won’t let you in then.” He sighs and tries to inhibit his giggle as he looks up at the sign. Yes, this would be a great enterprise.
“You need me.”
“Eh, maybe for a little while but I think there'll be plenty of customers.”
“Just please let me in. I have this party tonight and I gotta head out of town, you know I need some things.”
“Things?”
Alan groans, “Don’t make me beg.”
“Say it.”
“I need some marital aids.” He chokes a little on the word marital but then again they both know Alan isn’t married and if all is right in the universe he never will be.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
He jingles the keys and proceeds to unlock the front door to Dildopolis. He has kept the name after his uncle’s store had closed a couple years back during the pandemic. He had tried to talk the guy into offering online sales during the quarantine but old guys don’t always listen. Now is the time for new ownership, a new branding, and of course a multichannel sales model.
Thanos ushers in a giddy Alan and as he turns to flip on the lightswitch he spots his business lawyer approaching, his hands in his overcoat as his breath is visible in the winter air.
“Jeff! Good to see you!”
“Thanos, my pleasure.”
"The pleasure is always mine."
They shake hands and pride themselves on new beginnings while being true to themselves.