Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2017-12-18 10:29 am
videokilledme) wrote2017-12-18 10:29 am
“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Three
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Three
[music]
“You’re home late,” was the first thing Alex heard when he walked in the front door of the small house he shared with his father. The sound of some announcer shouting excitedly about some sports game cut off abruptly, though a flickering play of colored light still showed on the far wall of the front room, indicating that the television had just been muted, not turned off entirely. “Something happen at the college?”
Colonel William “Bill” Faulkner was of middling height and medium build, though he tended towards the lean side of things. His dark black-brown hair was cut short in a standard military-regulation haircut and was greying at the temples, and there were deeper lines on his face than one might expect of a 45-year-old, though whether they were from frowning or smiling, it was difficult to say. He carried himself with confidence--even the way he sat comfortably on the couch in some old USAF-emblazoned PT sweats had some strange element of gravitas to it--and his voice, while not particularly loud, was projected well, the words clear and just a bit clipped, his tone that of someone who was used to, and demanded, respect.
But aside from his (natural, not current) hair color and spare frame, Alex didn’t really look much like his father, except maybe a little around the eyes, and then only when he was really angry. But physical differences weren’t the biggest, or the only, contrast between them.
“It’s only 9:04, that’s not so late,” was Alex’s response as he dumped his bag on the entryway table long enough to take off his jacket. “Nothing happened. Study group for a class project, that’s all.”
“Already? On your first day?”
Alex felt his father’s sharp eyes on him as he moved his bag from the entryway table to the kitchen table, then continued on into the kitchen proper and started getting out the ingredients for the meal he was making that night: cheesy orzo with herbs, cherry tomatoes, and lemon, as well as some grilled chicken breasts from last night’s dinner. “Yeah, my world history professor has some interesting ideas about how to keep his students from failing one of their first gen ed classes.”
Bill gave a vaguely disapproving hum--he was a firm proponent of the ‘sink or swim’ school of thought, Alex knew all too well, and thus never approved of any sort of hand-holding, training wheels, or the use of kid gloves. Even so, Bill waited a few seconds more in case there was anything Alex wanted to add, then turned the TV volume back on when nothing more was offered. After literal hours of unexpected conversation, Alex was glad for the chance to stay quiet, though it was a mixed blessing since not talking meant he had time to really think, and his thoughts were already starting to spin through his head with soon-to-be-tempest-like speed and force.
As he dumped olive oil into a skillet and poured some chicken stock and the orzo into a pot to warm up, then fell to chopping the cherry tomatoes in half and mincing the garlic, Alex found his thoughts involuntarily gravitating back to the last few hours and the girl he’d spent them with. Even that vague sense of his mind drifting slowly but inexorably in that direction left him feeling conflicted; the old ‘like a moth to a flame’ phrase was cliché as hell, but it was a trite, overused stereotype for a reason (though to be entirely truthful, Alex felt more like he had been unwillingly reeled in, or perhaps tracked and cornered, like an exasperated fox pursued by a particularly persistent hound).
What is it that makes it so difficult to stop thinking about her? he wondered as he petulantly tossed the garlic into the oil, stirring it with a ferocity born of pure peevishness. She was beautiful, he couldn’t deny that kind of objective observation, but while that would’ve been enough of an explanation (or excuse) if she simply drew his eye, it didn’t account for this...lingering consideration, or his undeniable wish to see her again, and soon. No, there was something else going on here, he decided, shaking his head as he paused in stirring the garlic long enough to stir the other now-boiling pot, then turn down the heat. Even cooking, which usually required his complete and careful attention, couldn’t fully distract him, or take his mind off his recollection of her quick wit and the way her eyes sparkled with mischief as she cracked a joke or teased him. She was funny, intelligent, and interesting--enough so that he’d stopped thinking about wanting to escape and be somewhere, anywhere else. Instead, he’d answered her questions truthfully and much more honestly than he’d really meant to; and yet even that, exposing himself to that sort of utterly unnecessary risk, hadn’t been enough to make him completely withdraw and close her out. In spite of all the warning bells going off in his head, he hadn’t pushed her away, or made a run for it, or rejected her advances towards something like friendship. He’d enjoyed the time they’d spent together, and though it had taken him until this very moment to figure it out, he abruptly realized something important:
He...liked her.
Alex commemorated that rather startling revelation by immediately dropping his spoon into the pot he was stirring, the metal utensil slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers into the mess of olive oil, tomatoes, and garlic with a loud CLANG. This was followed by a reflexive scramble to grab it back out and some choice swearing under his breath as he earned himself a burned fingertip in the process.
Already he was mentally backpedaling hard, because yes, he liked her, but no, he didn’t LIKE HER like her. It wasn’t that sort of interest--he’d known her for all of, what, 12 hours? He’d never been one for that ‘love at first sight’ nonsense or anything of the sort--you had to really know someone to love them--so it couldn’t be that sort of interest, not now, not so soon. It was just that he didn’t hate her, and in this case the opposite of hate wasn’t his usual ambivalence, it was ‘like’. Perhaps a ‘like’ that would be enough to foment an actual friendship, something he hadn’t had in years, but certainly nothing beyond that. Even considering anything more would be patently ridiculous, especially since even the possibility of simple friendship with someone as cheerful and upbeat as Bianca seemed pretty ridiculous in and of itself.
And yet, despite their personal (and personality) differences, Alex couldn’t deny that the potential was there: it was the longest conversation he could remember having, the most openly he’d talked with anyone who wasn’t related to him in a long time, since some time in high school, maybe even junior high. He wouldn’t have done that (his mind and reflexes and instincts and whatever else wouldn’t have let him) if he hadn’t felt some sort of approval and acceptance towards her.
...Well then. In that case, maybe it would be okay. His intuition was usually correct when it came to this kind of thing, to weighing and judging people and what they would be worth to him, if anything. Most of the time the scale came up empty, or near enough to it; this time, there was something of a balance to it, which was a singular enough occurrence that somehow, he couldn’t ignore or dismiss it outright.
He’d finished cooking the meal on autopilot, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to do otherwise, and he was still feeling rather vague and withdrawn as he dumped generous servings of the cheesy orzo onto two plates, got the reheated chicken out of the microwave, and took it all into the den.
When Alex handed him his plate, Bill’s gaze went immediately to the black polish on Alex’s fingernails; at that, he looked up to find the glint of silver in Alex’s ears, lip, nose, and eyebrow, then rolled his eyes and heaved a tired sigh.
“Did you really wear all of that mess on your first day in class?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Alex shot back without even a half-second of hesitance, dropping into the room’s single mismatched easychair. “This is me, what I’m like on the inside. If someone’s shallow enough that they can be scared off by something like this, then I don’t want anything to do with them anyway.”
Bill angled a censorious look towards his son, though he had to finish chewing and swallowing his current mouthful before he could answer.
“Appearances are important, Alex. What kinda message do you think that outfit gives off, hmm? There’s no reason to be so unfriendly.”
“There’s no reason to be friendly, either,” Alex retorted, sounding a little defensive in spite of his best efforts to stay calm and keep his temper in check. “And as for what kind of message it gives off--oh, I don’t know, maybe something like ‘I like punk fashion’ or ‘this person is a hardcore band kid’.” He shrugged with forced nonchalance, forking up a mouthful of chicken and then talking around it as he added, “Or maybe they’ll pick up on the other part of the message, the part that says, ‘approach at your own risk, I have an eyebrow piercing which means I probably worship Satan and might cause your eternal soul to atrophy if you so much as make eye contact with me’.”
Bill frowned, turning the creases on his face into all sorts of deep, interesting canyons. With a snapping hand motion, he snatched up the remote and clicked off the TV, and Alex tensed in spite of himself when his father turned his full and undivided attention towards him. Bill had never hit him, aside from well-deserved only-on-the-rear spankings when he’d been a little kid, and one alcohol-related incident a few years ago that he wasn’t even certain Bill remembered; but Alex did, and he couldn’t help that slight flinch, even though he knew there was no good reason for it.
The living room was a lot darker now that the television was off, and Alex was caught between wanting his eyes to adjust so he could see his father’s face, and keeping his eyes turned down on his food and avoiding looking at Bill entirely.
“...That smart mouth of yours is really gonna get you in trouble some day,” Bill said, the words coming slow and atypically quiet, a solemn pronouncement more than anything.
“Like it hasn’t already,” Alex muttered, then focused on shoveling chicken and orzo into his mouth as quickly as possible. They’d had one real family rule for longer than Alex could remember, even before his mother had left them eight years ago, and that was: dinner is a meal that should be eaten together as much as possible. Sometimes Bill had work or was away on a trip, or Alex had school-related things that kept him out late, but if they were both in the house when the evening meal time rolled around, it was expected that they’d have it together, even if it was something as low-effort as microwaved Pizza Pouches or some kind of take-out. That rule had become more problematic and less enjoyable in recent years, since they’d started to see eye to eye about increasingly fewer subjects, particularly Alex’s life and fashion choices; but even though he would’ve loved to ditch dinner, especially on nights like tonight, Alex knew the rule: your butt stayed in your chair (or on the couch) until you were done eating, then you could excuse yourself, and not a second sooner.
Alex could feel Bill looking at him, could see his father’s disapproving expression in his peripheral vision, noticed the way he pursed his lips, as if there was something more he wanted to say on the matter. Instead he paused, a moment of tension hanging between them, then gave another exasperated sigh that was more than half-growl, shaking his head and turning the TV back on without another word.
At least, no audible ones. You think what happened before was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet, kid, Alex read in the downwards curve of Bill’s mouth and the unsympathetic furrows in his forehead.
Right, Alex thought, as he hastened to finish off his meal, thanks for your concern, Dad, but I think I know how to handle myself well enough by now. He didn’t talk that way to his professors or other people in positions of authority--he knew better. But parents, well...that was different, especially when they weren’t really listening to what you were saying. Sarcasm didn’t ever seem to make Bill listen any closer or more openly, regardless of how thickly it was laid on, but it did make Alex feel marginally better about things, so his ‘smart mouth’ probably wasn’t going to get any less smart anytime soon.
Cramming the last of his meal into his mouth in a too-big mouthful, Alex headed back to the kitchen, putting away the meagre leftovers then scooping up his bag, setting his dirty plate and the various pots and utensils he’d used in the sink to soak before heading to his room. He didn’t think anything of leaving the dishes for his father; that was their arrangement, whoever did the cooking (or ordered the take out) didn’t have to do the dishes, which meant that Bill had been on dish duty most nights ever since Alex had first started trying to cook back in high school. (Those first few months had been rough, with a lot of half-burned and thrown-out meals, but there had been a clear learning curve. Alex wasn’t ever going to be able to match up against a professional chef or anything, but he was pretty decent by now, though that was half due to ViewTube videos and half due to a much-needed crash course in cooking from his stepfather, Joe. At least he tried, unlike Bill, who would’ve subsisted mainly on ordered-in pizza and microwave dinners if Alex hadn’t been there.)
After dumping his bag in his room and throwing a load of laundry into the washing machine, Alex took a shower, moved the laundry to the dryer afterwards, then finally let himself collapse on his bed, shaggy blue-grey hair still damp enough to leave a wet spot on the blanket beneath him as he stretched out on his back. His room here wasn’t very large, hardly big enough for his bed, his synthesizer, his computer and its desk plus all his sound-editing equipment, and the half-dozen boxes still unpacked from moving here a week ago. He also had a short, battered bookshelf wedged between his bed and the window that doubled as a nightstand and held a few books about music, psychology, and dreams, but was mostly filled up with vinyl records.
Moving here--this house, specifically--had been something of a surprise; it was the first time he could remember not living in the military housing area on-base. But since it was closer to Carrington University than the Bolling Family Housing would’ve been, Alex wasn’t about to complain. It was small, just two bedrooms, one bathroom, the kitchen, den, and a single-car garage, but it felt a lot more private than the base housing had...or maybe just more isolated. He had wondered why Bill had decided on this house, but not enough to bother asking. Never ask a question if you’re not willing to hear the whole, complicated, long-version answer, had become Alex’s motto in recent years, and since most of the time he didn’t want to sit through one of Bill’s mini-lecture responses to a simple question, there were plenty of inquiries that went unasked.
It was still only 10-something, he wasn’t particularly tired, and his homework was already done, so Alex spent the next hour or so messing around with his synthesizer. He could always use more practice, and he’d never felt very inspired when it came to writing his own songs; the best he could usually do was creative remixes of already-existing songs, something his substantial vocal talent helped considerably. He’d only uploaded half a dozen songs on his ViewTube channel so far, but they’d gotten a pretty respectable number of hits, most of the comments had been (surprisingly) positive, and he had far more subscribers than he’d expected, or expected that he deserved. Still, he hadn’t done more remixes because he already knew that didn’t want to be a cover artist.
He just didn’t know what he did want to be. At least, not yet.
But I’ve got time. I’m only a sophomore, after all...and a Communications degree can be used in a lot of ways. I’ll find something.
And well, if he didn’t, there was always the DJ and music store route.
After his absent-minded tooling around on the keys resulted in a halfway completed electro-trance version of a Blink-182 song that made it sound far more like something The Birthday Massacre or maybe The Naked and Famous might have written, Alex decided it was time to get some sleep. He texted a brief good-night message to his mother, received a slightly longer one in return as he was finishing up getting ready for bed, packed his school bag, plugged in and set his phone to silent mode, then turned out the light and buried himself under a small mountain of blankets (he was nearly always cold, as Bill generally kept the heat turned down lower than Alex would’ve liked). Closing his eyes, he listened for any sound from the living room or his father’s room, which was right next to his. The house was small enough, and the walls thin enough, that he could hear the TV even with his door closed, and Bill snored so loudly that Alex could hear that too; but tonight there was nothing but silence, aside from the sound of the house settling and the occasional car passing by outside.
He started to lift a hand, intending to tap on the wall--something of an old joke shared between father and son. Years ago, Bill had decided to teach Alex morse code, and Alex had been a bit too young at the time, ignoring the actual tap-dash combinations and coming up with his own ‘code’ of taps that meant different things. He’d eventually learned the correct method, so the only ‘Alex codes’ they’d both remembered over the years were are you awake (two slow taps, two quick taps), go away, leave me alone (three quick taps, four slow taps), and I love you (three slow taps). Here and now, he’d intended to tap out that first code, but...he didn’t really want to know if Bill was awake. He didn’t really want anything to do with him at the moment, he realized. Even the I love you code was more contact than he wanted with his exceptionally strait-laced father right now, and sometimes, especially lately, part of him wondered if Bill actually meant it when he tapped it back. There was an awkward distance between them now, one that Bill didn’t seem to have any interest in bridging; he simply wanted Alex to behave as he had in the past, dressing and acting like a miniature copy of his father, and that was something that Alex couldn’t do. He had to be himself, had to live his own life and dress and act like Alex, not Bill.
And so he let his hand fall back onto the blankets without letting his knuckles touch the wall, his eyes finding the window and the faint stars speckling the inky indigo sky. He didn’t try to count them--even as a kid, he’d known that was an impossible, pointless undertaking. Instead, he traced lines between them, creating his own constellations and half-hearted stories for them until sleep claimed him, all the while doing his damndest to keep any trace of pale blonde hair or mischievous sea-green eyes out of his thoughts, and hopefully his dreams.
And while the former proved to be something of a losing battle, considering the unusual amount of control Alex had over his dreams, the latter undertaking actually went much better than it otherwise might have.
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Three
[music]
“You’re home late,” was the first thing Alex heard when he walked in the front door of the small house he shared with his father. The sound of some announcer shouting excitedly about some sports game cut off abruptly, though a flickering play of colored light still showed on the far wall of the front room, indicating that the television had just been muted, not turned off entirely. “Something happen at the college?”
Colonel William “Bill” Faulkner was of middling height and medium build, though he tended towards the lean side of things. His dark black-brown hair was cut short in a standard military-regulation haircut and was greying at the temples, and there were deeper lines on his face than one might expect of a 45-year-old, though whether they were from frowning or smiling, it was difficult to say. He carried himself with confidence--even the way he sat comfortably on the couch in some old USAF-emblazoned PT sweats had some strange element of gravitas to it--and his voice, while not particularly loud, was projected well, the words clear and just a bit clipped, his tone that of someone who was used to, and demanded, respect.
But aside from his (natural, not current) hair color and spare frame, Alex didn’t really look much like his father, except maybe a little around the eyes, and then only when he was really angry. But physical differences weren’t the biggest, or the only, contrast between them.
“It’s only 9:04, that’s not so late,” was Alex’s response as he dumped his bag on the entryway table long enough to take off his jacket. “Nothing happened. Study group for a class project, that’s all.”
“Already? On your first day?”
Alex felt his father’s sharp eyes on him as he moved his bag from the entryway table to the kitchen table, then continued on into the kitchen proper and started getting out the ingredients for the meal he was making that night: cheesy orzo with herbs, cherry tomatoes, and lemon, as well as some grilled chicken breasts from last night’s dinner. “Yeah, my world history professor has some interesting ideas about how to keep his students from failing one of their first gen ed classes.”
Bill gave a vaguely disapproving hum--he was a firm proponent of the ‘sink or swim’ school of thought, Alex knew all too well, and thus never approved of any sort of hand-holding, training wheels, or the use of kid gloves. Even so, Bill waited a few seconds more in case there was anything Alex wanted to add, then turned the TV volume back on when nothing more was offered. After literal hours of unexpected conversation, Alex was glad for the chance to stay quiet, though it was a mixed blessing since not talking meant he had time to really think, and his thoughts were already starting to spin through his head with soon-to-be-tempest-like speed and force.
As he dumped olive oil into a skillet and poured some chicken stock and the orzo into a pot to warm up, then fell to chopping the cherry tomatoes in half and mincing the garlic, Alex found his thoughts involuntarily gravitating back to the last few hours and the girl he’d spent them with. Even that vague sense of his mind drifting slowly but inexorably in that direction left him feeling conflicted; the old ‘like a moth to a flame’ phrase was cliché as hell, but it was a trite, overused stereotype for a reason (though to be entirely truthful, Alex felt more like he had been unwillingly reeled in, or perhaps tracked and cornered, like an exasperated fox pursued by a particularly persistent hound).
What is it that makes it so difficult to stop thinking about her? he wondered as he petulantly tossed the garlic into the oil, stirring it with a ferocity born of pure peevishness. She was beautiful, he couldn’t deny that kind of objective observation, but while that would’ve been enough of an explanation (or excuse) if she simply drew his eye, it didn’t account for this...lingering consideration, or his undeniable wish to see her again, and soon. No, there was something else going on here, he decided, shaking his head as he paused in stirring the garlic long enough to stir the other now-boiling pot, then turn down the heat. Even cooking, which usually required his complete and careful attention, couldn’t fully distract him, or take his mind off his recollection of her quick wit and the way her eyes sparkled with mischief as she cracked a joke or teased him. She was funny, intelligent, and interesting--enough so that he’d stopped thinking about wanting to escape and be somewhere, anywhere else. Instead, he’d answered her questions truthfully and much more honestly than he’d really meant to; and yet even that, exposing himself to that sort of utterly unnecessary risk, hadn’t been enough to make him completely withdraw and close her out. In spite of all the warning bells going off in his head, he hadn’t pushed her away, or made a run for it, or rejected her advances towards something like friendship. He’d enjoyed the time they’d spent together, and though it had taken him until this very moment to figure it out, he abruptly realized something important:
He...liked her.
Alex commemorated that rather startling revelation by immediately dropping his spoon into the pot he was stirring, the metal utensil slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers into the mess of olive oil, tomatoes, and garlic with a loud CLANG. This was followed by a reflexive scramble to grab it back out and some choice swearing under his breath as he earned himself a burned fingertip in the process.
Already he was mentally backpedaling hard, because yes, he liked her, but no, he didn’t LIKE HER like her. It wasn’t that sort of interest--he’d known her for all of, what, 12 hours? He’d never been one for that ‘love at first sight’ nonsense or anything of the sort--you had to really know someone to love them--so it couldn’t be that sort of interest, not now, not so soon. It was just that he didn’t hate her, and in this case the opposite of hate wasn’t his usual ambivalence, it was ‘like’. Perhaps a ‘like’ that would be enough to foment an actual friendship, something he hadn’t had in years, but certainly nothing beyond that. Even considering anything more would be patently ridiculous, especially since even the possibility of simple friendship with someone as cheerful and upbeat as Bianca seemed pretty ridiculous in and of itself.
And yet, despite their personal (and personality) differences, Alex couldn’t deny that the potential was there: it was the longest conversation he could remember having, the most openly he’d talked with anyone who wasn’t related to him in a long time, since some time in high school, maybe even junior high. He wouldn’t have done that (his mind and reflexes and instincts and whatever else wouldn’t have let him) if he hadn’t felt some sort of approval and acceptance towards her.
...Well then. In that case, maybe it would be okay. His intuition was usually correct when it came to this kind of thing, to weighing and judging people and what they would be worth to him, if anything. Most of the time the scale came up empty, or near enough to it; this time, there was something of a balance to it, which was a singular enough occurrence that somehow, he couldn’t ignore or dismiss it outright.
He’d finished cooking the meal on autopilot, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to do otherwise, and he was still feeling rather vague and withdrawn as he dumped generous servings of the cheesy orzo onto two plates, got the reheated chicken out of the microwave, and took it all into the den.
When Alex handed him his plate, Bill’s gaze went immediately to the black polish on Alex’s fingernails; at that, he looked up to find the glint of silver in Alex’s ears, lip, nose, and eyebrow, then rolled his eyes and heaved a tired sigh.
“Did you really wear all of that mess on your first day in class?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Alex shot back without even a half-second of hesitance, dropping into the room’s single mismatched easychair. “This is me, what I’m like on the inside. If someone’s shallow enough that they can be scared off by something like this, then I don’t want anything to do with them anyway.”
Bill angled a censorious look towards his son, though he had to finish chewing and swallowing his current mouthful before he could answer.
“Appearances are important, Alex. What kinda message do you think that outfit gives off, hmm? There’s no reason to be so unfriendly.”
“There’s no reason to be friendly, either,” Alex retorted, sounding a little defensive in spite of his best efforts to stay calm and keep his temper in check. “And as for what kind of message it gives off--oh, I don’t know, maybe something like ‘I like punk fashion’ or ‘this person is a hardcore band kid’.” He shrugged with forced nonchalance, forking up a mouthful of chicken and then talking around it as he added, “Or maybe they’ll pick up on the other part of the message, the part that says, ‘approach at your own risk, I have an eyebrow piercing which means I probably worship Satan and might cause your eternal soul to atrophy if you so much as make eye contact with me’.”
Bill frowned, turning the creases on his face into all sorts of deep, interesting canyons. With a snapping hand motion, he snatched up the remote and clicked off the TV, and Alex tensed in spite of himself when his father turned his full and undivided attention towards him. Bill had never hit him, aside from well-deserved only-on-the-rear spankings when he’d been a little kid, and one alcohol-related incident a few years ago that he wasn’t even certain Bill remembered; but Alex did, and he couldn’t help that slight flinch, even though he knew there was no good reason for it.
The living room was a lot darker now that the television was off, and Alex was caught between wanting his eyes to adjust so he could see his father’s face, and keeping his eyes turned down on his food and avoiding looking at Bill entirely.
“...That smart mouth of yours is really gonna get you in trouble some day,” Bill said, the words coming slow and atypically quiet, a solemn pronouncement more than anything.
“Like it hasn’t already,” Alex muttered, then focused on shoveling chicken and orzo into his mouth as quickly as possible. They’d had one real family rule for longer than Alex could remember, even before his mother had left them eight years ago, and that was: dinner is a meal that should be eaten together as much as possible. Sometimes Bill had work or was away on a trip, or Alex had school-related things that kept him out late, but if they were both in the house when the evening meal time rolled around, it was expected that they’d have it together, even if it was something as low-effort as microwaved Pizza Pouches or some kind of take-out. That rule had become more problematic and less enjoyable in recent years, since they’d started to see eye to eye about increasingly fewer subjects, particularly Alex’s life and fashion choices; but even though he would’ve loved to ditch dinner, especially on nights like tonight, Alex knew the rule: your butt stayed in your chair (or on the couch) until you were done eating, then you could excuse yourself, and not a second sooner.
Alex could feel Bill looking at him, could see his father’s disapproving expression in his peripheral vision, noticed the way he pursed his lips, as if there was something more he wanted to say on the matter. Instead he paused, a moment of tension hanging between them, then gave another exasperated sigh that was more than half-growl, shaking his head and turning the TV back on without another word.
At least, no audible ones. You think what happened before was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet, kid, Alex read in the downwards curve of Bill’s mouth and the unsympathetic furrows in his forehead.
Right, Alex thought, as he hastened to finish off his meal, thanks for your concern, Dad, but I think I know how to handle myself well enough by now. He didn’t talk that way to his professors or other people in positions of authority--he knew better. But parents, well...that was different, especially when they weren’t really listening to what you were saying. Sarcasm didn’t ever seem to make Bill listen any closer or more openly, regardless of how thickly it was laid on, but it did make Alex feel marginally better about things, so his ‘smart mouth’ probably wasn’t going to get any less smart anytime soon.
Cramming the last of his meal into his mouth in a too-big mouthful, Alex headed back to the kitchen, putting away the meagre leftovers then scooping up his bag, setting his dirty plate and the various pots and utensils he’d used in the sink to soak before heading to his room. He didn’t think anything of leaving the dishes for his father; that was their arrangement, whoever did the cooking (or ordered the take out) didn’t have to do the dishes, which meant that Bill had been on dish duty most nights ever since Alex had first started trying to cook back in high school. (Those first few months had been rough, with a lot of half-burned and thrown-out meals, but there had been a clear learning curve. Alex wasn’t ever going to be able to match up against a professional chef or anything, but he was pretty decent by now, though that was half due to ViewTube videos and half due to a much-needed crash course in cooking from his stepfather, Joe. At least he tried, unlike Bill, who would’ve subsisted mainly on ordered-in pizza and microwave dinners if Alex hadn’t been there.)
After dumping his bag in his room and throwing a load of laundry into the washing machine, Alex took a shower, moved the laundry to the dryer afterwards, then finally let himself collapse on his bed, shaggy blue-grey hair still damp enough to leave a wet spot on the blanket beneath him as he stretched out on his back. His room here wasn’t very large, hardly big enough for his bed, his synthesizer, his computer and its desk plus all his sound-editing equipment, and the half-dozen boxes still unpacked from moving here a week ago. He also had a short, battered bookshelf wedged between his bed and the window that doubled as a nightstand and held a few books about music, psychology, and dreams, but was mostly filled up with vinyl records.
Moving here--this house, specifically--had been something of a surprise; it was the first time he could remember not living in the military housing area on-base. But since it was closer to Carrington University than the Bolling Family Housing would’ve been, Alex wasn’t about to complain. It was small, just two bedrooms, one bathroom, the kitchen, den, and a single-car garage, but it felt a lot more private than the base housing had...or maybe just more isolated. He had wondered why Bill had decided on this house, but not enough to bother asking. Never ask a question if you’re not willing to hear the whole, complicated, long-version answer, had become Alex’s motto in recent years, and since most of the time he didn’t want to sit through one of Bill’s mini-lecture responses to a simple question, there were plenty of inquiries that went unasked.
It was still only 10-something, he wasn’t particularly tired, and his homework was already done, so Alex spent the next hour or so messing around with his synthesizer. He could always use more practice, and he’d never felt very inspired when it came to writing his own songs; the best he could usually do was creative remixes of already-existing songs, something his substantial vocal talent helped considerably. He’d only uploaded half a dozen songs on his ViewTube channel so far, but they’d gotten a pretty respectable number of hits, most of the comments had been (surprisingly) positive, and he had far more subscribers than he’d expected, or expected that he deserved. Still, he hadn’t done more remixes because he already knew that didn’t want to be a cover artist.
He just didn’t know what he did want to be. At least, not yet.
But I’ve got time. I’m only a sophomore, after all...and a Communications degree can be used in a lot of ways. I’ll find something.
And well, if he didn’t, there was always the DJ and music store route.
After his absent-minded tooling around on the keys resulted in a halfway completed electro-trance version of a Blink-182 song that made it sound far more like something The Birthday Massacre or maybe The Naked and Famous might have written, Alex decided it was time to get some sleep. He texted a brief good-night message to his mother, received a slightly longer one in return as he was finishing up getting ready for bed, packed his school bag, plugged in and set his phone to silent mode, then turned out the light and buried himself under a small mountain of blankets (he was nearly always cold, as Bill generally kept the heat turned down lower than Alex would’ve liked). Closing his eyes, he listened for any sound from the living room or his father’s room, which was right next to his. The house was small enough, and the walls thin enough, that he could hear the TV even with his door closed, and Bill snored so loudly that Alex could hear that too; but tonight there was nothing but silence, aside from the sound of the house settling and the occasional car passing by outside.
He started to lift a hand, intending to tap on the wall--something of an old joke shared between father and son. Years ago, Bill had decided to teach Alex morse code, and Alex had been a bit too young at the time, ignoring the actual tap-dash combinations and coming up with his own ‘code’ of taps that meant different things. He’d eventually learned the correct method, so the only ‘Alex codes’ they’d both remembered over the years were are you awake (two slow taps, two quick taps), go away, leave me alone (three quick taps, four slow taps), and I love you (three slow taps). Here and now, he’d intended to tap out that first code, but...he didn’t really want to know if Bill was awake. He didn’t really want anything to do with him at the moment, he realized. Even the I love you code was more contact than he wanted with his exceptionally strait-laced father right now, and sometimes, especially lately, part of him wondered if Bill actually meant it when he tapped it back. There was an awkward distance between them now, one that Bill didn’t seem to have any interest in bridging; he simply wanted Alex to behave as he had in the past, dressing and acting like a miniature copy of his father, and that was something that Alex couldn’t do. He had to be himself, had to live his own life and dress and act like Alex, not Bill.
And so he let his hand fall back onto the blankets without letting his knuckles touch the wall, his eyes finding the window and the faint stars speckling the inky indigo sky. He didn’t try to count them--even as a kid, he’d known that was an impossible, pointless undertaking. Instead, he traced lines between them, creating his own constellations and half-hearted stories for them until sleep claimed him, all the while doing his damndest to keep any trace of pale blonde hair or mischievous sea-green eyes out of his thoughts, and hopefully his dreams.
And while the former proved to be something of a losing battle, considering the unusual amount of control Alex had over his dreams, the latter undertaking actually went much better than it otherwise might have.
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