Chapter Text
Six months.
Six months had passed since Dana had last seen Christian. Four months had passed since she’d received his Pollock in disguise. Three months since she realized her crush on the awkward accountant might have turned into something more.
It started when she began her new job. After the whole fiasco, you know…just your former boss trying to kill you, no biggie, she had been compensated greatly by the new management of the company. With the little (lotta) extra cushion in her pocket and some necessary therapy sessions, Dana decided it was time to spread her wings a little and leap into a drastically different and new job.
Working as an accountant for the local art museum.
Okay…
It might not have been an enormous jump, but she got to walk into a beautiful building filled with wonderful pieces of art everyday, mix her favorite interest with her current skill set, and it was only a 10 minute walk from her apartment.
Not too shabby.
The financial statements of an art museum were drastically less vast and complex than a multi-million company, so the job ultimately lead to more free time for herself. As a result, she Dana ended up doing some browsing at some of the local events posted on the community board in the museum lobby and uncharacteristically joined a paintball league.
It was fun meeting new people, learning how to aim, and coming up with strategies. The only downside was the combination of bruises and paint that made her body look like her Pollock. To make her bruising habits even worse, her new paintballing friends even convinced Dana to try playing in their airsoft team.
“Just one time, see if you like it” they said.
“One time my ass” she thought 3 weeks later as she got into her gear.
The thrill she got from playing was addicting and from then on started a routine.
Paintballing the first Saturday of every month, since it was usually outside and lead to her hanging out with everyone for the rest of the day, and airsoft every Wednesday after work. Other activities started sprinkling themselves in there as more things popped up on the community board and Dana got more comfortable in her new job and chapter in her life.
Activities such as kickboxing and senior community yoga became a regular part of her life as well and being able to now walk down her neighborhood and greet Gretel from class or Marty from the gym was slowly giving Dana more social confidence, something little Dana only wished she had.
But her new habits didn’t even end there.
It wasn’t until she found herself splurging on comic books, browsing travel trailers did Dana realize something was up.
It happened one Wednesday after airsoft while trying to juggle looking at Airstreams on Craigslist and struggling to get through her door that it hit her.
“Holy shit, am I trying to copy him?” she mumbled, closing the door behind her.
“Copy who?”
Dana flipped around, hair swinging back to slap her in the face and blocking her eyes from the owner of the familiar voice. Sputtering to get the hair out of her mouth and dropping her phone to frantically wipe strands away from her eyes, Dana looked up to see the man who had unconsciously been on her mind since the day he left sitting in her couch as if he belonged there.
“Christian?”