Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2018-03-31 08:39 pm
videokilledme) wrote2018-03-31 08:39 pm
Entry tags:
- character: adelaide "addie" brooks,
- character: alex faulkner,
- character: andrew "drew" brooks,
- character: bianca jackson,
- character: connor katou,
- character: gemma brooks,
- character: joseph "joe" brooks,
- character: william "bill" faulkner,
- genre: general,
- label: chapter fic,
- rating: pg-13 (language),
- rp,
- series: persona dreamscape (private rpg)
“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eleven
~
"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eleven
[music]
Like most important holidays, Thanksgiving Break came all too soon for Alex.
As promised, he’d met up with Bianca for lunch on the Monday before the break, and they’d sat at a slightly smaller table that was still filled well beyond capacity with all her various, varied friends. Now that he really looked at them instead of just down at his plate, Alex recognized several of them from the ‘Jackson Challenge’ crowd he saw in the gym on every Tuesday that he happened to find time to work out (which was most of them, truthfully). He’d done his best to be more personable, if not quite in the same scummy way that Connor would’ve done it, and surprised himself a little with how easily he’d managed to speak up and hold a decent conversation with the rest of the table. Thankfully they’d skipped the boring, pointless small talk, and had been discussing something that was actually interesting: the not-so-subtle shift in the philosophical nuances of a big-name science fiction movie series that recently had been revived with an entirely new cast of characters.
To his surprise, Alex found that he’d actually somewhat enjoyed the 45 minutes he spent there, debating the merits of the old movies vs. the new movies, which had then bled into a surprisingly deep analysis of the various undertones of sci-fi media in general. Whether he’d enjoyed it as much he would’ve enjoyed spending that same amount of time alone with Bianca was a moot point, because the slow-growing but brilliant smile that crept over her face as gradually and gloriously as a sunrise, that he’d put there by doing his damnedest to be social and make nice with her other friends, was equally enjoyable in its own way.
Take that, Connor, he thought a little smugly as he excused himself from the table with a polite smile and carried his tray over to the dinnerware return area. Who doesn’t know how to talk to people, now?
That sense of self-satisfaction hadn’t lasted though, unable to withstand Bill’s snappish mood at dinner that night--the first they’d had together in more than a week, thanks to Alex’s work schedule and his father putting in a lot of extra hours on-base.
“If you’re so irritated about having to drive me to the airport tomorrow morning, why are you making me go in the first place?” Alex finally growled not quite under his breath, breaking his own self-imposed rule of not asking unnecessary questions and, as expected, he was met with a waspish mini-lecture about responsibility, keeping your word, and child custody agreements.
“Except I’m 19, well over a year past becoming a legal adult, which means none of that child custody stuff really matters anymore, does it?” Alex had finally interjected after gulping down the last of the simple beef stew he’d made that night, earning himself the freedom to finally escape both his father and their stilted attempts at conversation. “At least, it wouldn’t if you’d actually start treating me like an adult.” Placing his dishes in the sink, he called back over his shoulder, “If you need me for anything—which I doubt—I’ll be packing.”
Bill hadn’t replied, hadn’t spoken him for the rest of the night, which came as a welcome relief, though his silence wasn’t unexpected either: Alex was getting better and better at ‘winning’ the verbal parts of their fights, and both of them knew it. Unfortunately, it just made Bill all the more vindictive about things when he did have the upper hand, though even the most common threat of not having access to a personal vehicle for the next few weeks wasn’t enough to make Alex bite his tongue lately.
Packing didn’t take very long. All he had to do was put a few necessities into a small carry-on, since his mother had insisted on buying nearly a whole month’s worth of clothing and such for him, “just in case you ever feel like staying a little longer--we don’t want you to feel like you’re not welcome here!” She’d even gotten him his own set of toiletries, plenty of ‘edgy’ accessories that were surprisingly dead-on as far as his taste in that kind of thing went, and four pairs of shoes...and all of it spent most of the time languishing in one of the guest rooms that Gemma had made clear could and would be his permanent room immediately if he so much as hinted at wanting the space.
The first time she’d brought it up, the possibility of him moving in with her and the rest of her new family For Good, Alex had only been able to muster an awkward half-smile that hadn’t reached his eyes. “...Thanks, Mom, but…” His gaze had stayed downcast as he’d shaken his head in a resolute no, and Gemma hadn’t pressed the issue, though he could tell that his refusal had left her crestfallen. And honestly, part of him still kicked himself over it. Gemma would’ve supported his interest in music and radio completely--she was an artist and an architect herself, so how could she not?--and between her highly-celebrated drafting and design work and her second husband’s status as a minor celebrity chef, they made a lot of money. Alex could’ve had anything he’d ever wanted and more if he’d moved in with her, and he knew it.
But there were other factors involved there, and worst of all it would’ve meant leaving Bill all alone...and as far as Alex was concerned, there was far too much of a parallel between him taking her offer, and how Gemma had walked out on them years ago. As much as they disagreed on vital topics, as much as they fought and snapped at each other, Bill had still been the one who stayed. Even if his father didn’t care about his interests, what he wanted to do with his life, or who he really was, Alex still felt a significant amount of loyalty to Bill, and regardless of the lack of understanding between them, that returned, earned devotion wouldn’t let him take the admittedly easier path in life.
Besides...there was a part of him that still held something of a grudge and looked at his mother with if not outright suspicion, then at least a certain level of apprehension. Lingering abandonment and trust issues in regards to Gemma in particular and just about everyone else in general weren’t things that could be bought off, or that went away overnight, not that Alex had been making much of an effort to get over them: they were too valuable, too solid of a defense for him to even want to move on to brighter, more open pastures.
After packing, Alex had spent a restful evening reading an astronomy book he’d borrowed from the school library and practicing a few songs on his keyboard before going to bed early. With the kind of morning he’d have tomorrow, he’d need all the sleep he could get.
The flight to Colorado was uneventful: actually getting to the airport had been the worst part of it all, since Bill must’ve still been nursing a grudge over the previous night’s conversation. Alex had offered to take the metro to the airport instead, which had only earned him a sour look and a curt, “Go get in the damn truck” from his father. With a shrug, Alex had done just that, making sure to keep his headphones on, his music turned up, and his gaze focused somewhere outside the passenger window for the whole silent, tense drive. Even when he’d gotten out of the car, Bill hadn’t said anything, hadn’t so much as looked over at him, driving away the instant Alex had closed the car door behind himself. Right. Thanks for the ride, Alex had thought with a roll of his eyes as he’d made his way through airport security. Really, if Bill was going to be like that, then from now on he was going to take the metro.
Not that he didn’t halfway understand Bill’s ill temper where Alex’s mother was concerned. Gemma had remarried years ago, and she and her new husband Joe and their two kids lived high in the mountains a half-hour’s drive outside of Denver, in a huge, fancy house that Gemma had designed herself. It was a really impressive design, Alex had to admit that much, lots of nice slanted roof-lines mixed with plenty of right angles, the whole thing made of wood and multicolored grey bricks and enormous panes of glass that cast giant pools of warm, buttery light out into the surrounding wilderness, complete with an actual river rushing by behind it. There wasn’t another house for miles, something Gemma and Joe apparently prided themselves on, since “privacy is important to us.”
Which meant that it was a loooong taxi ride from the airport up into the already snow-dusted mountains. But, since Gemma and Joe were footing the bill, Alex didn’t particularly care. It seemed pretty par for the course as far as his mother was concerned: not interested in actually taking the time to make the drive to pick him up, but willing to pay someone else to do it. Alex’s last visit to Colorado had been in the early summer, right around when he and Bill had been getting ready to move to the D.C. area, so it had been almost half a year since he’d seen his mother, though she texted fairly often. Which was why he wasn’t at all surprised when she came dashing out of the house like a child, rushing down the icy driveway and up to the taxi and sweeping him up in her arms in a warm, enthusiastic embrace (that he returned a bit awkwardly, though Gemma didn’t seem to notice, or at least didn’t care).
Gemma Brooks looked a fair deal younger than she was--she was 39 now, but most people still assumed that she was in her mid-twenties. Her long, sleek, coppery hair and the wealth of freckles on her delicate, pixy-ish face (the latter of which she’d given to Alex) were a big part of why people assumed she was still so young, though her bubbly personality and irrepressible energy were some other good reasons for it. Her fashion sense was as distinct as Alex’s, but also couldn’t have been more different; her wardrobe was full of flowing, flowery dresses and well-cut white capris to be worn under boho-style tops rife with bright splashes of color, all of which looked very nice on her slim frame. She was around the same height as Alex, 5’4 or so, not particularly tall or short for a woman.
“It’s so good to see you, honey!” she gushed, all smiles as she reached out to cup his cheeks in her hands. “It’s been way too long!”
Alex permitted the contact briefly, then carefully disengaged, giving her a crooked half-smile as he slung his single small bag over his shoulder. And exactly whose fault is that, I wonder, he thought, even as he said aloud, “It’s definitely been a while.”
After paying the cab fare, Gemma linked her arm with Alex’s, a slight skip in her step as she towed him back towards the house, chattering the whole way about what Joe was cooking for dinner, how tired and thin Alex looked, and how Bill needed to take better care of him--“Not that you can’t take care of yourself, of course, honey! But it’s just a fact that he was never any good at taking care of himself, much less anyone else, so what should I expect? Anyway, we’ll feed you plenty while you’re here, and you can rest up and not worry about anything, so you’ll be all ready for classes to start again when you go back! Speaking of that—how has school been going? Are you still working at that music store? Have you gotten much DJ work lately? Have you written any real songs yet? Are there any girls around who I should know about? Ooh, I just want to hear all about everything that’s been going on in your life!”
Alex did his best to answer his mother’s rapid-fire questions as they climbed the front stairs and pushed their way into the (blessedly warm) house, because that was also pretty par for the course as far as Gemma was concerned. At the very start of his visits, she would always make a big show of fussing and worrying over him, asking for all sorts of details about how his life might’ve changed since she’d seen him last. Then she moved on to offering him expensive presents, or proposing exotic trips, then she’d sideways-mention her previous offer for Alex to stay there, generally variations on, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just stay like this forever?”
In direct contrast to the stony silence he gave to Bill, Alex responded to all of Gemma’s questions, though he was only as forthcoming as he had to be, and never went into the level of detail that she initially claimed she wanted. As for the gifts, he only accepted them if it was something he really wanted or needed (this time the item on offer was a shiny, new, high-powered but extra-light laptop that he could definitely use, both in class and for his DJing and music-mixing, so that was a big yes), and he always politely side-stepped the proposed vacations and the semi-subtle repetitions of her offer to move in with them.
But that initial, almost forceful level of attention never lasted long, thankfully--so far never past the second day of his visits--which was really the only reason Alex could put up with the visits at all. Whatever it takes to make you feel better about deserting your firstborn child, I guess, he always thought to himself with an internal snort as she babbled and blathered on, asking a question and hardly pausing to listen to his answer before asking another three. She broke off her cheerful interrogation as they stepped into the kitchen, at which point she called out with the enthusiasm of a child, “Look who’s finally here, Joe!”
At that announcement, Gemma’s second husband, Alex’s stepfather, turned from the half-dozen pots and pans simmering away on the triple-size stove to offer his stepson a wide, genuinely friendly smile and a nod of greeting. Alex returned the greeting, nodding back mostly sans smile, and let his mother pull him further into the kitchen and closer to whatever delicious-smelling, probably ridiculously fancy meal Joe was cooking up with his culinary wizardry. Once they got within range, Joe reached out to haul Alex into a rib-creaking, back-slapping hug, which by now Alex knew better than to fight or try to escape.
“It’s good to see you, Alex,” Joe said as he finally released his mostly-unresponsive stepson, and to his credit, he sounded as if he honestly meant it. “We’re overdue for a real man-to-man chat, so put aside some time for that tonight, okay?”
Joe Brooks was tall, a few inches over six feet, and had the broad-shouldered narrow-waisted build of a swimmer or a surfer, with the perpetually sun-kissed skin and slightly shaggy dirty blonde hair to match. He was usually a little bit ruggedly stubbly, typically dressing in khaki shorts and button-down shirts, though he also had a wide collection of oversized name brand sweaters. Joe was the exact opposite of Bill Faulkner in every way: a minor celebrity chef on the internet, he was also a stay-at-home dad, warm and comfortably laid-back and almost hyper-attentive to his wife and kids and all things family-related. Alex thought of him (not entirely flatteringly) as a human golden retriever, but although the constant hugs and intense how are you REALLY doing, let’s talk about our deepest feelings, son ‘manly’ conversations were annoying, Alex didn’t really hate him. Rather, he thought that it made sense that Gemma would want someone openly affectionate, someone who ran hot like Joe instead of cold like Bill.
Joe was also a big part of the reason that Alex wasn’t completely hopeless in the kitchen. A few years ago, on learning that Alex had been attempting to cook (largely in self-defense against a steady diet of nothing but microwaved dinners and eating out every night), his stepfather had given him a crash-course in cooking, teaching him the basics of kitchen safety and such. Even now he made a point of having Alex help him with the meals whenever Alex was there visiting, and while a lot of what Joe made was way too nitpicky and fancy for Alex to ever want to replicate it back home, the extra experience under the watchful eye of a high-quality chef was useful.
“ALEEEEEX!” howled a little burl of motion as it came hurtling through the living room and crashed against Alex’s legs hard enough that he gave a comical wobble and had to bite back a word that wasn’t really fit for a family setting like this one. A moment later though, he was chuckling and bending down to pat a thatch of curly copper hair and a tiny back.
“Hey, Drew. Oof, that was some greeting--guess you’re happy to see me too, huh?”
At that, Alex’s five-year-old half-brother Andrew (though he went solely by ‘Drew’ and would throw a fit if anyone, even a total stranger, called him ‘Andy’) pulled back enough to shove the toy clenched tightly in one little fist (some kind of Army tank from the look of it) up towards the older boy’s face. “Yeah! Mom promised you’d play with us, an’ I got a whole new set of Mini Mechas to set up, an’ Addie got new paints, an’ I know that we both got lots an’ lots more LEGOs since you were here last since it’s been forEVER!”
Alex gave another chuckle at that, glancing up at Joe to check his stepfather’s reaction to prioritizing playtime over cooking. On receiving a slightly wider smile and an affirmative nod (yet another reminder of just how different Joe was from Bill), Alex smirked and leaned down to scoop up Drew, arms going under the five-year-old’s knees and behind his back in a princess carry as he said, “Well then, I guess I’ve got a lot of time to make up to you two, don’t I?”
Drew gave a happy shriek as Alex whisked him off his feet, back through the living room, and down the hall to one of the spare rooms that Gemma had decorated and designated as the ‘playroom’--a place for both kids to keep all their extra toys and whatever else wouldn’t fit in their bedrooms (and that was entirely separate from the game room down in the basement, which was for board and video games, and included a pool table and an air hockey table). Inside the playroom, Alex found his other half-sibling, three-year-old Adelaide (who went placidly by ‘Addie’), sitting at a kid-sized table and quietly humming to herself as she left big streaks of bright blue paint across the paper (and part of the table) in front of her.
Drew heavily favored Joe, with a noticeable olive tint to his skin, blue eyes, and no freckles, though he did have Gemma’s fiery copper hair, so he and Alex didn’t look that much alike; Addie, however, with her white-blonde hair, pale skin, and profusion of freckles, looked so much like Alex that they looked more like full-blooded siblings than she and Drew did, especially with Alex’s naturally dark black-brown hair dyed its current light grey-blue.
Using all the momentum he could gain from a quick turn, Alex tossed Drew onto the room’s single bed, earning another delighted shriek as the five-year-old bounced a few times, then rolled off the bed and back onto his feet; meanwhile, Alex went over to kneel beside his half-sister.
“Hey, Addie,” he said, his voice noticeably softer, and there was a definite, atypical gentleness in his smile as he held out his arms. “Other Big Brother is here, do I get a hug?”
Addie angled a shy look over at him, nodding as she gave him a small smile and a hug around the neck that, had Alex’s shirt not been black, would’ve been pretty colorful. As it was, he ended up with some green and yellow paint on his throat and a smear of red on the underside of his jaw, the lingering wet stickiness in both places telltale enough that he knew he’d been marked, though he could only grin to himself about it. At that moment, Drew flung himself at Alex’s back, and Alex had a fraction of a second to brace himself against the table and chair to keep the both of them from crashing forward into Addie.
“Do you want to keep painting, Addie, or do you want to clean up the paints and come play LEGOs with us?” he asked, his voice a bit more strained as he twisted a bit in Drew’s grip. Reaching back around, he tickled his little brother under one arm, the resulting squeal of laughter and reflexive retreat from Drew leaving him just enough space to pull free and stand up again.
Addie straightened at that, then turned to hurriedly start closing up the various paints; suddenly serious and intent, Drew moved to help screw on the various lids while Addie placed them all neatly in a large, paint-stained plastic container, and Alex scooped up all the paintbrushes before either kid had the chance, stepping into the room’s adjoining bathroom to wash the (water-soluble) paint out of them. Leaving them to dry on the shelf that Gemma had installed in that bathroom for just that purpose, Alex herded both younger siblings over to the sink to help them wash the paint off their hands, arms, and anywhere else super visible.
“Getting paint on the LEGOs wouldn’t be very good. We don’t want them to be stuck together forever, right?” he reasoned when Drew dragged his feet and started to whine a little at the hand-washing. “A big part of the fun of LEGOs is being able to take them apart again and make something totally new. Yeah?”
“Yyyyyyeeeeeaaaahhhh,” Drew agreed grudgingly as Addie nodded silently at his side.
They were both pretty good kids, Alex thought to himself with a fond smile as he watched Drew making sure that Addie rubbed her hands together right to get all the paint off. Alex also knew that it was pretty clear from the way he interacted with them that he liked them...somewhat in spite of himself, really, since Alex always claimed that he didn’t like children, though kids usually seemed to like him well enough regardless of that claim.
Still, good kids or not, they weren’t perfect. Despite being the older child, Drew was the more emotional ‘drama queen’ of the two--and more inclined towards tantrums, though neither Gemma nor Joe (nor Alex, when he was there) really put up with that behavior. Drew loved the military-realism-oriented ‘Mini Mechas’ brand of toys and anything to do with various branches of the armed forces, and had asked all sorts of questions about Bill ever since he’d learned that Alex’s dad was in the Air Force. Judging by the rest of the toys scattered around the playroom, it was clear that he also was a big fan of Batmonk, Wars of the Stars, LEGOs, and, a little more unexpectedly, helping his dad cook: the expansive kitchen set in one corner of the room was his, not Addie’s.
Addie, on the other hand, was quiet almost to a fault, and tended to be a lot like Alex had been at that age. She didn’t speak much (Alex also hadn’t start speaking until fairly late, though it had been pretty clear that it wasn’t a language impairment or speech delay; he could talk, he just hadn’t wanted to for whatever reason--likely the stress of moving a lot even as a young child), but after the initial shyness wore off, she would talk nearly non-stop for Alex, which Gemma found adorable.
Addie’s main area of interest wasn’t dolls, or model toys and action figures like her brother, though she did have a pretty large collection of stuffed animals. Only three years old or not, she was still focused on all sorts of ‘art projects’ that she did with her mother...or sometimes by herself. That had gotten her in trouble on more than one occasion, since she’d take to drawing or painting on the walls and the floor when she ran out of room on the paper. For the most part, though, Gemma and Joe both encouraged her creative side, and Addie’s ‘art projects’ could be anything from the usual things like coloring with crayons or playing with clay, to more unusual things, like taking ice cubes outside and building ice sculptures in June (and then going back to being a more normal kid again and making mud pies out in the yard afterwards).
Once they had all cleaned up, they got down to the real business of building with LEGOs, all three of them working together to build a huge, spaceship-like thing that only partly followed the set’s instructions, with plenty of extra guns and a mini stove set (Drew’s addition) and some trailing vines and glittery-looking blocks in interesting places (Addie’s suggestion). Instead of adding anything himself, Alex let his job be mediating between the two and keeping the ship close enough to the original design that the cool moving parts would still look cool and move. Once it was put together, they started filling it up with various characters and objects, most of which were not LEGOs (though Drew did have a few LEGO Batmonk sets).
They’d only just managed to cram two of Drew’s Mini Mechas and three of Addie’s Prettiest Paintshop animal figures into the hold along with the Batmonk LEGO figure, when Joe’s large frame suddenly filled the doorway and he called them to dinner. After going through the hand-washing song and dance again (this time with Joe’s help, which expedited matters considerably), Joe herded all three of them into the dining room, where Gemma was putting the finishing touches on the place-settings.
Dinner with the Brooks family couldn’t have been more different from the strained, quiet, uncomfortable meals Alex usually had with Bill. For one thing, Drew and Gemma both loved to talk, and after Addie had gotten over her initial shyness (which by now she had), she spoke up a fair amount also. Joe was all easy smiles and playful quips as he kept watchful order between the kids, and Gemma made sure all their plates were appropriately full.
It was clearly a time that was important to all of them, full of shared warmth and stories and lots of laughter...and despite his constant smile and lighthearted answers to any and all questions sent his way, Alex couldn’t have felt more like an outsider.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, or that they didn’t get along. Abandonment issues and the lingering bitterness they’d left aside, Alex and his mother actually tended to get along pretty well, at least on the surface--their interactions were certainly a lot more easy and far less tense and antagonistic than his and Bill’s, anyway. And, easily distracted or not, she truly was interested in hearing about what he was interested in, and didn’t so much as blink over his fashion choices; in fact, she’d been the one who’d given consent for him to get his tattoo, since he’d been 16 at the time. (It had been an easy sell: all he’d had to say was, hey Mom, wanna help me make Bill super angry over something that’s really none of his business? and Gemma was immediately all in.) She’d never seemed put off by any of his personality quirks or his occasional headstrong ‘bad behavior’ either, though she didn’t have to live with him most of the time, which probably made it easier for her to think of him as ‘not my responsibility.’ She was supportive in the extreme...of everything Alex did, even the things that he knew were probably not so great.
(“For example,” Alex had told Bianca when he’d first explained his dynamic with Gemma to her, “One time back in high school, I got suspended for mouthing off to a teacher...and when she heard about it during my next visit, instead of sitting down and seriously talking with me about it, she gave me a high-five and told me she was proud that I knew how to stand up for myself.”)
He generally got along with Joe pretty well also, despite his stepdad’s chronic bad habit of trying to be overly involved, and the kids were always excited to see him; it was a simple fact that all four of them never failed to welcome him with open arms...but that still didn’t change how miserably out of place Alex felt there. These were people who lived most of their lives happily without the addition of another child or sibling. They were already complete, a picture-perfect family in a picture-perfect house. And Alex...well. He didn’t really see where he fit into that framework.
So while he didn’t hate his Colorado visits, he couldn’t really enjoy them, either. They were a break from ‘Real Life’ and Bill’s constant disapproval about everything he did, and it really was kind of fun to stay in such a fancy house and eat food prepared by a ViewTube-famous chef and play with all sorts of high-tech gadgets and all the cool toys he’d have loved to have when he was younger. But deep down, it never felt right, never felt like somewhere he could ever be truly comfortable, or think of as home.
And so, while he answered politely when spoken to and smiled and laughed on cue, for Alex, these visits were little more than a constant reminder of the fact that Gemma had chosen to walk out of his life, and had found another, better one somewhere else. She hadn’t needed or even wanted him then; and now, seven years later, that hadn’t really changed, regardless of how often she asked him to stay.
The next morning, Alex was the second one up: as usual, he found Joe in the kitchen, already dressed and looking disgustingly chipper as he worked away in front of the stove. Alex, still bleary-eyed and wearing the rumpled raglan tee and boxer shorts he’d worn to bed, poured himself a cup of expensive-smelling coffee and slumped down in one of the tall chairs at the counter, wondering absently why he always woke up so damned early on his days off from school.
“So...ready for that talk you promised me yesterday, Alex?”
Hunched over his already half-empty cup of coffee, Alex winced on reflex, then shot a quick sideways glance over at his stepdad, hoping that Joe hadn’t been looking his way, that he hadn’t been caught. And for once, his luck was good: Joe still had his back turned, focused on frying up some kind of thick, delicious-smelling bacon that Alex couldn’t be entirely certain had come from a pig. A moment later, though, Joe did turn a half-smile over his shoulder at the college student, and Alex did his best to return it, though he paired it with an intentionally awkward-sounding and noncommittal, “Uhmm…”
Joe only grinned a little at that before returning his focus to the bacon again. “Hey, you got out of it last night since the kids wanted to play with you, but don’t think you can avoid it forever, son.”
Muffling the flash of irritation that Joe’s entirely too-casual use of son always elicited, Alex sighed inwardly and resisted the urge to bang his forehead against the counter. His ‘man to man’ talks with Joe never really felt like they went anywhere: his stepdad just asked a lot of questions about what Alex had been doing lately, periodically asking about how something had made Alex feel, which usually left Alex grasping at straws somewhat. What did it matter, really, how he felt about working at the music store, or his DJ jobs going pretty well, or most of his classes being pretty interesting? They were simply things that were, clean-cut cold facts, with no in-depth thought and especially no unnecessary analysis of feelings required. This time, however, Joe started off his conversation with a curveball:
“So,” he began as he crumbled some of the bacon and sprinkled it on top of an egg-and-spinach breakfast crepe he’d left cooling on the counter, “from what you told Gemma yesterday, it sounds like you’ve made some friends this year.”
Alex, who happened to be mid-swallow, choked quietly on his coffee, doing his best to hide his sputtering as Joe went on.
“I mean, you’re a great kid, and I’d bet there’s plenty of other kids who’d want to hang out with you. You just never let them get close before. So what changed that made you want to have friends again?”
After adding a few slices of bacon to the side, Joe slid the still-steaming crepe into place in front of Alex, who stared down at it unseeingly as he fought the immediate urge to shove away the plate, his mug, and the counter as well and simply exit this unwanted, honestly pretty intrusive conversation.
“I dunno,” he managed to say after a half-second pause, giving a careless shrug and forcing an absent-minded lightness into his tone and onto his face, though he was certain that this time, his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Guess I was just bored or something. Well, actually,” he amended with an almost theatrical tone, “One of them just wouldn’t leave me alone, so I agreed to hang out with him to shut him up...but I wouldn’t say that we’re really friends. He’s a pretty big jerk.”
He could feel Joe’s steady gaze on him, so instead of looking up to meet it, Alex forked up a big bite of the crepe, which turned out to be every bit as savory and delicious as it looked. That wasn’t enough to satisfy his stepdad, however--Joe apparently either didn’t catch on to the fact that Alex didn’t want to talk about this (and that he’d only halfway been talking about Connor just now), or just didn’t care. It was a toss-up as to which it was, Alex thought, since either could easily be true.
“Okay, but what about the other one? The girl? Did you tell us her name?”
“Why do you want to know? It’s not like it really matters.”
“It does to you, though. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to all those volleyball games you were always texting Gemma about.”
Alex pressed his lips together, biting back a sharp retort, then forked up another, bigger mouthful of crepe this time, to prevent himself from saying something snide that he might later regret, a comment along the lines of, mhmm, sure, it might matter to me, but it shouldn’t matter to you, because it’s none of your business. You’re only in my life a few days each year, so don’t try to act like a father, and you’re not my fucking therapist either, even if you’re always trying to be.
“So, in her case, were you the one who wouldn’t leave her alone?”
Alex set his mug down a little too hard at that, finally looking up at Joe with a brief flash of the hostility that he generally reserved for Bill during the worst of their fights. It vanished almost immediately into a too-pleasant smile, though, as Alex replied cheerfully, “Nope, I didn’t stalk her, if that’s what you’re implying. We have a class together, and the professor assigned some of us to be partners for a group project, so we ended up spending some time together out of class. She invited me to one of her games, and I just happened to be curious and not-busy enough that night, so I went.”
If Alex had taken that tone with Bill--and he had before, on countless occasions--his father would’ve bristled and gotten prickly and indignant right back. They would’ve exchanged a few more terse sentences, then Alex would’ve said something extra snarky and either gone to his room or left the house completely, relishing that dark sort of triumph and leaving Bill behind to stew over his son’s ‘disrespectful’ behavior.
Joe, however, had an entirely different reaction: instead of anger or irritation, there was a look of wide-eyed surprise, followed by one of realization and contrition, all of them so genuine that Alex found himself wanting to leave the room again. Here it comes, the big apology, he told himself with gritted teeth, steeling himself for a forceful hug and some kind of over-the-top I’m sorry speech. But apparently Alex didn’t know Joe as well as he thought he did (not surprising, considering how little time they’d really spent together over the years), because Joe just bowed his head, his expression going a little sad.
“...I didn’t mean to make it sound like I thought you were stalking her,” he murmured, regret clear in his words as he set to work on another crepe. “I know you wouldn’t do that kind of thing. I was just glad to hear that you had an interest in spending time with some other kids again, and I guess I got a little carried away.” He looked over, making careful, direct eye contact with Alex as he said, “I’m sorry, Alex. You don’t have to tell me about your friends if you don’t want to. I just thought it might be a nice thing you might want to discuss with someone who wanted to hear about it.”
Yeah, well, I don’t, Alex thought, and very nearly said aloud. Earnest and heartfelt as Joe’s words had been, it still felt like a play at some kind of emotional manipulation, and Alex had no patience for that kind of thing. It might work on other people, but all it did to Alex was make him angry, or else darkly amused, that anyone would even try to use something as typically distant, irrelevant, and unfathomable as his emotions against him.
For a few long, uncomfortable minutes, the only sounds in the kitchen were the soft sizzling of the crepe in the pan and the muted clink of Alex’s fork against his plate.
“Thanks for the food. And offering to talk with me about things,” Alex finally muttered, low and a little grudging. He didn’t want to reinforce what he saw as ‘bad behavior’ on Joe’s part, but he couldn’t deny that the man’s intentions had been good, if clumsy and poorly expressed.
This time the smile Joe gave him was warm, but a little rueful. “I meant it, you know. Your mother can get busy with things pretty quickly, and I know that your...” He hesitated a moment, and Alex waited expectantly to see if he’d shit-talk Bill the same way Gemma always did. Instead Joe carefully went on, “...You might not always feel like you have someone who’ll listen to you. I guess I just wanted you to know that if you ever do want someone to talk to about anything, I’m here for you.”
Alex wasn’t sure what he wanted to do more, gag or roll his eyes--but once again, Joe was being entirely sincere, which made it hard to completely fault him for what he was saying. So instead of giving either of those knee-jerk reactions, Alex settled for a crooked half-smile and an ambiguous, “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
That was apparently enough to satisfy Joe, whose grin was bright as ever this time as he said, “All right, son, get over here and let me teach you how to make a fantastic breakfast crepe.”
Alex, who had already been watching him the whole time, thought that it looked like a lot of work, even if the end result had been really delicious.
...Still, when he imagined the priceless look on Bill’s face after being served one of these for dinner one night, Alex couldn’t help but feel a perverse sort of interest in learning how to make them.
The rest of the mornings of Alex’s Colorado visit were pretty similar to that first morning, though a few times Gemma made an appearance in the middle of them, fully dressed and rushing around frantically on her way to get out the door to this meeting with a prospective client or that design unveiling somewhere a few hours away by plane. Joe was also notably more careful in selecting his topics of conversation, and while he still couldn’t seem to help prying a little bit, it was enough of an improvement to be noteworthy. And despite his many, lingering misgivings, Alex had relaxed little by little, letting himself talk more openly about things that actually mattered to him, and he was a bit gratified when Joe kept his word and paid close attention, clearly absorbing every word. One morning he listened to Alex talking about music so intently that he almost burned his hashbrowns (they were still delicious, of course), and another morning he was laughing so hard over Alex’s mocking portrayal of Connor’s flirting methods that he accidentally added way too much salt to his breakfast quiche--so much that he had to start all over again from scratch.
By the morning of Alex’s last day in Colorado, he found himself at ease enough that he finally decided to open up about Bianca. He wouldn’t say anything too telling, he told himself as he helped Joe make whole-grain blueberry pancakes that morning, nothing that would give Joe the wrong idea about things or make him assume, like Connor had, that Alex held any sort of romantic feelings for the blonde girl. Even so, after he’d told his stepfather about how amazing Bianca was at volleyball--and nothing more, just that--there was still a knowing glint in Joe’s eye that Alex didn’t much care for.
“Before you ask, I’m not in love with her,” he said flatly, deciding that it was best to get that misconception laid to rest sooner rather than later. But instead of having the intended effect, and to his lasting annoyance, Joe just give him a shrug and a smile that could only be described as goofy.
“If you say so, son.”
“I did say so, in fact, if you were actually listening.”
Joe held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, or mollification. “Okay, okay! I’m just joking, sorry! But hey, you can’t blame an old romantic for hoping, now, can you?”
Alex shot him a perplexed look as he flipped a pancake. “What a weird thing to hope for. Why do you care?”
Joe’s expression softened at that. “Alex, we might not be related by blood, but you’re a part of my family now. Of course I care. I want you to be happy…” Absently, he rubbed his thumb against his wedding ring--something Alex had noticed him doing whenever he happened to be thinking especially hard about Gemma. “And, don’t take this the wrong way, but...it sounds like this girl, Bianca, really makes you happy.”
Alex’s expression, in contrast, had grown a little more distant and closed when Joe called him family, and he made a point of how intently he was studying the pancakes on the griddle in front of him as he answered, “Yeah, she does...but just because I have more fun when I’m with her doesn’t mean I’m in love with her or something stupid like that.”
Joe nodded, watching Alex closely as he gave an agreeable, “That’s true.”
“I mean, yeah, I was kinda miserable this last month when she was super busy and I couldn’t see her much, but that was just me forgetting what it felt like to be alone.”
“Mmhmm, makes sense.”
“I just got used to talking to her and eating with her, that’s why I wanted to keep doing it. I got used to a routine, and didn’t like having it altered. Not liking change is pretty normal.”
“Yeah, sounds about right.”
By now Alex was just thinking aloud to himself, hardly noticing Joe’s calm, even-keel response as he went on in a rush, “And yes, okay, sure, I do think she’s attractive or whatever--I mean, she’s freaking beautiful, I’d be lying or blind if I tried to deny that, but that still doesn’t mean I’m in love with her. You can acknowledge that someone’s good-looking without wanting it to go any farther than that. It’s just a simple observation, nothing more.”
“If you put it that way, sure.”
“I just...I know all of that, and yet...and I can’t...I just always seem to be thinking about her. It’ll happen out of nowhere, I’ll be doing something else entirely, and then I’ll suddenly think I wish Bianca was here to see this too, or I wonder what she’d say about this, and then I’m kicking myself for thinking something so stupid, because it’s not like I need her around. I just...can’t lie and tell myself that I don’t want her around...because I do. Pretty much always, too, which...is hella weird for a loner like me.”
This time Joe didn’t respond, which somehow registered more strongly with Alex than if he had. With a visible start, the blue-haired teen turned a look just shy of panic on the older man, who was watching him steadily, with the faintest of knowing smiles curling the corners of his lips upward. Alex’s mouth opened wordlessly, then closed again with a sharply audible clack, embarrassed color flooding his face as he turned about five shades of red and hastily went back to checking the pancakes, scooping them off the griddle with a spatula before finally managing to get out a very stop-and-start, “I...I mean...it’s just...complicated!”
Joe gave a quiet chuckle, his smile widening, but before he could say anything, another voice cut in:
“Duh, you like her. What’s ‘complica-dated’ about that? Also, you said a bad word which means no snacks today until maybe dessert, if you’re good!”
Alex and Joe both blinked at each other, then turned in unison to look down at five-year-old Drew, who had suddenly appeared at the end of the counter and now stood there, still dressed in his camo-print pajamas, frowning up at his half-brother skeptically. The little redhead fidgeted with the Batmonk action figure in his hands as he asked with the typical unabashed bluntness of children his age, “So if you like her, why isn’t she your girlfriend already?”
Joe coughed a laugh into his fist, half-turning away to hide his smile, and Alex shot him a flat sideways glance before addressing Drew’s question. “Because we do like each other, but only as friends. I don’t want her to be my girlfriend, and she doesn’t want me to be her boyfriend.”
At that, Drew gave a loud, very wet-sounding Bronx cheer and threw his arms in the air dramatically, sending the action figure tumbling to the floor behind him. “PBBBTHT! Sounds like excuses! That really means you’re too scared to ask her! More scared than a—a ELEPHANT would be, if it was suddenly super tiny, and trapped in a shoebox.” Turning around, he distractedly nudged his Batmonk toy along with one foot, then the other, sing-songing back over his shoulder, “I’ve had four girlfriends already, and that’s just this year, and you’re not even on your first one, and that’s ever, not just this year, and that’s super dumb, ‘cause girls aren’t scary unless you’re mean to them, an’ ANYbody can be scary if you’re mean to them. Even aliens, and probably fish.” He paused as the action figure bumped into the back of the couch, abandoning it in favor of hauling himself up to sit on the couch’s wide back, swinging his legs and frowning as he tried to remember what his original point was. “Anyway, don’t be scared!”
By then Joe had given up on trying to hide his laughter, his snickers obnoxiously loud as he ladled more pancake batter onto the griddle. Alex, meanwhile, was just staring open-mouthed at his brother, who, encouraged by Joe’s reaction, was grinning at him impishly from across the room. Alex didn’t so much as blink when Joe gently pulled the spatula out of his grasp, though an instant later his pale eyes narrowed in a mock-dangerous glare.
“...So. You think I’m scared, huh?” Slowly, slowly, he started to ease around the counter, moving closer and closer to his brother, who just grinned and kicked his feet even harder.
“TOTALLY scared! Like, extra super scared-y!”
By now Alex had reached the end of the counter, and was starting to cross the space between the kitchen and the sitting room, his every movement still gradual and measured, the careful stalking of a leopard in the grass approaching an antelope.
“You might be right...but you know who else should be scared right now?”
Still grinning mischievously, Drew shook his head. “Nope! Who else should be scared? The girl that you like?”
“Nooooope,” Alex drawled, then flashed his half-brother a grin every bit as wide and wicked as the one Drew was wearing. “The person who should be the most extra super scared-y scared...is YOU!”
In a sudden burst of speed, Alex lunged across the room, wrapping his arms around his little brother and (carefully, though it didn’t look it) rolling them both over the back of the couch and down onto the couch-cushions, then onto the floor, making sure to take the weight of each fall himself. Once they were on the floor, though, he really let loose, tickling Drew mercilessly, first going for his armpits, then his neck, then his feet, then pulling up the already-squealing five-year-old’s shirt and blowing a loud raspberry into his stomach.
“Do you take it back yet?” Alex questioned with a grin, leaning away from a wildly-flailing arm before going for another under-arm tickle attack that left Drew writhing with helpless, gleeful laughter.
“No wuh-way-hayhee!” Drew giggled, giving an abrupt twist that gained him a moment of temporary freedom, during which he made a vain attempt at escape--“NEVERRRR-AHHHahahaHEEEEK!”--only to be caught by the ankle and dragged back for further tickling and another, equally-loud belly-blow.
“Take it back!” Alex crowed again a few moments later, and this time Drew, by now red-faced and breathless from hysterical giggling, nodded frantically.
“I take--heeheheeEEEEEeee!--ahahah, STOPPIT!--I take it back! I take it back!”
“Gosh, I don’t knooow,” Alex mused with all the overdramatic careful consideration of a cartoon villain, a sly smirk on his face as he gave a thoughtful pause, then doubled down and began the tickle-assault anew. “Do you really~?”
Drew gave another mirthful shriek of laughter, squirming desperately to escape as he giggled, “I do! I DO! I promise this time, I doooOOHHoohoohaha--s-stoppit, Alex, or I’m gonna PEEEEEE!”
That was their codeword, of sorts, the way that Alex knew when he really had to stop tickling (something they’d both learned the hard way a few years ago); with one final grin and a playful hair-ruffle, Alex pulled back, letting his younger brother pull away and fold himself into one corner of the couch, still giggling a little breathlessly, eyes wide and watchful and focused intensely on Alex. Alex, though, had heard both their stomachs rumbling, and was far more interested in eating than playing around any more; besides, Drew had clearly forgotten all about Bianca now, which was what Alex had been going for in the first place.
“C’mon, kiddo, let’s go have pancakes,” he said, halfheartedly tossing one of the accent pillows in Drew’s direction, smirking a bit when the five-year-old took a big swing at it, missed, and ended up taking it directly in the face. “You should go ahead and eat, I’ll go get Addie up.”
“No need for that,” Joe called from the kitchen, and both boys turned to find their sister sitting at the counter, already halfway through a huge pancake, watching the both of them silently with something very much like judgement on her tiny, pale face.
“YEAHHHH, PANCAKES!” Drew shouted, flailing his way off the couch and darting into the kitchen, scrambling up into the chair next to Addie's. “Me next, me next!” he demanded, then at a mild but pointed look from Joe, added a hurried, “Me next, please!”
Alex took a moment to put the couch back in order, straightening the blanket draped over the back, retrieving the throw pillows, even scooping up Drew’s Batmonk figure and setting it on the end table on his way into the kitchen; and all the while, he was thinking about everything he’d said before Drew entered the room and derailed the whole conversation.
He’d meant it, after all. He’d meant everything he’d said. He wasn’t in love with Bianca Jackson. He wasn’t.
...Or am I?
That question settled in at the front of his mind, and for the first time, Alex wasn’t so sure about his answer. The only thing he was sure about now was that he had a lot of thinking to do. And where better to do it than on the plane ride home today? He’d put on his most comfortable pair of noise-cancelling headphones, bring up one of his best thinking about life, the universe, and everything playlists on his (airplane-mode-enabled) phone, and spend the next few hours lost in music and thought.
And maybe, just maybe, by the time the plane landed in D.C., and Alex made his way to the metro to catch a ride home, he’d have come up with some kind of answer.
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eleven
[music]
Like most important holidays, Thanksgiving Break came all too soon for Alex.
As promised, he’d met up with Bianca for lunch on the Monday before the break, and they’d sat at a slightly smaller table that was still filled well beyond capacity with all her various, varied friends. Now that he really looked at them instead of just down at his plate, Alex recognized several of them from the ‘Jackson Challenge’ crowd he saw in the gym on every Tuesday that he happened to find time to work out (which was most of them, truthfully). He’d done his best to be more personable, if not quite in the same scummy way that Connor would’ve done it, and surprised himself a little with how easily he’d managed to speak up and hold a decent conversation with the rest of the table. Thankfully they’d skipped the boring, pointless small talk, and had been discussing something that was actually interesting: the not-so-subtle shift in the philosophical nuances of a big-name science fiction movie series that recently had been revived with an entirely new cast of characters.
To his surprise, Alex found that he’d actually somewhat enjoyed the 45 minutes he spent there, debating the merits of the old movies vs. the new movies, which had then bled into a surprisingly deep analysis of the various undertones of sci-fi media in general. Whether he’d enjoyed it as much he would’ve enjoyed spending that same amount of time alone with Bianca was a moot point, because the slow-growing but brilliant smile that crept over her face as gradually and gloriously as a sunrise, that he’d put there by doing his damnedest to be social and make nice with her other friends, was equally enjoyable in its own way.
Take that, Connor, he thought a little smugly as he excused himself from the table with a polite smile and carried his tray over to the dinnerware return area. Who doesn’t know how to talk to people, now?
That sense of self-satisfaction hadn’t lasted though, unable to withstand Bill’s snappish mood at dinner that night--the first they’d had together in more than a week, thanks to Alex’s work schedule and his father putting in a lot of extra hours on-base.
“If you’re so irritated about having to drive me to the airport tomorrow morning, why are you making me go in the first place?” Alex finally growled not quite under his breath, breaking his own self-imposed rule of not asking unnecessary questions and, as expected, he was met with a waspish mini-lecture about responsibility, keeping your word, and child custody agreements.
“Except I’m 19, well over a year past becoming a legal adult, which means none of that child custody stuff really matters anymore, does it?” Alex had finally interjected after gulping down the last of the simple beef stew he’d made that night, earning himself the freedom to finally escape both his father and their stilted attempts at conversation. “At least, it wouldn’t if you’d actually start treating me like an adult.” Placing his dishes in the sink, he called back over his shoulder, “If you need me for anything—which I doubt—I’ll be packing.”
Bill hadn’t replied, hadn’t spoken him for the rest of the night, which came as a welcome relief, though his silence wasn’t unexpected either: Alex was getting better and better at ‘winning’ the verbal parts of their fights, and both of them knew it. Unfortunately, it just made Bill all the more vindictive about things when he did have the upper hand, though even the most common threat of not having access to a personal vehicle for the next few weeks wasn’t enough to make Alex bite his tongue lately.
Packing didn’t take very long. All he had to do was put a few necessities into a small carry-on, since his mother had insisted on buying nearly a whole month’s worth of clothing and such for him, “just in case you ever feel like staying a little longer--we don’t want you to feel like you’re not welcome here!” She’d even gotten him his own set of toiletries, plenty of ‘edgy’ accessories that were surprisingly dead-on as far as his taste in that kind of thing went, and four pairs of shoes...and all of it spent most of the time languishing in one of the guest rooms that Gemma had made clear could and would be his permanent room immediately if he so much as hinted at wanting the space.
The first time she’d brought it up, the possibility of him moving in with her and the rest of her new family For Good, Alex had only been able to muster an awkward half-smile that hadn’t reached his eyes. “...Thanks, Mom, but…” His gaze had stayed downcast as he’d shaken his head in a resolute no, and Gemma hadn’t pressed the issue, though he could tell that his refusal had left her crestfallen. And honestly, part of him still kicked himself over it. Gemma would’ve supported his interest in music and radio completely--she was an artist and an architect herself, so how could she not?--and between her highly-celebrated drafting and design work and her second husband’s status as a minor celebrity chef, they made a lot of money. Alex could’ve had anything he’d ever wanted and more if he’d moved in with her, and he knew it.
But there were other factors involved there, and worst of all it would’ve meant leaving Bill all alone...and as far as Alex was concerned, there was far too much of a parallel between him taking her offer, and how Gemma had walked out on them years ago. As much as they disagreed on vital topics, as much as they fought and snapped at each other, Bill had still been the one who stayed. Even if his father didn’t care about his interests, what he wanted to do with his life, or who he really was, Alex still felt a significant amount of loyalty to Bill, and regardless of the lack of understanding between them, that returned, earned devotion wouldn’t let him take the admittedly easier path in life.
Besides...there was a part of him that still held something of a grudge and looked at his mother with if not outright suspicion, then at least a certain level of apprehension. Lingering abandonment and trust issues in regards to Gemma in particular and just about everyone else in general weren’t things that could be bought off, or that went away overnight, not that Alex had been making much of an effort to get over them: they were too valuable, too solid of a defense for him to even want to move on to brighter, more open pastures.
After packing, Alex had spent a restful evening reading an astronomy book he’d borrowed from the school library and practicing a few songs on his keyboard before going to bed early. With the kind of morning he’d have tomorrow, he’d need all the sleep he could get.
The flight to Colorado was uneventful: actually getting to the airport had been the worst part of it all, since Bill must’ve still been nursing a grudge over the previous night’s conversation. Alex had offered to take the metro to the airport instead, which had only earned him a sour look and a curt, “Go get in the damn truck” from his father. With a shrug, Alex had done just that, making sure to keep his headphones on, his music turned up, and his gaze focused somewhere outside the passenger window for the whole silent, tense drive. Even when he’d gotten out of the car, Bill hadn’t said anything, hadn’t so much as looked over at him, driving away the instant Alex had closed the car door behind himself. Right. Thanks for the ride, Alex had thought with a roll of his eyes as he’d made his way through airport security. Really, if Bill was going to be like that, then from now on he was going to take the metro.
Not that he didn’t halfway understand Bill’s ill temper where Alex’s mother was concerned. Gemma had remarried years ago, and she and her new husband Joe and their two kids lived high in the mountains a half-hour’s drive outside of Denver, in a huge, fancy house that Gemma had designed herself. It was a really impressive design, Alex had to admit that much, lots of nice slanted roof-lines mixed with plenty of right angles, the whole thing made of wood and multicolored grey bricks and enormous panes of glass that cast giant pools of warm, buttery light out into the surrounding wilderness, complete with an actual river rushing by behind it. There wasn’t another house for miles, something Gemma and Joe apparently prided themselves on, since “privacy is important to us.”
Which meant that it was a loooong taxi ride from the airport up into the already snow-dusted mountains. But, since Gemma and Joe were footing the bill, Alex didn’t particularly care. It seemed pretty par for the course as far as his mother was concerned: not interested in actually taking the time to make the drive to pick him up, but willing to pay someone else to do it. Alex’s last visit to Colorado had been in the early summer, right around when he and Bill had been getting ready to move to the D.C. area, so it had been almost half a year since he’d seen his mother, though she texted fairly often. Which was why he wasn’t at all surprised when she came dashing out of the house like a child, rushing down the icy driveway and up to the taxi and sweeping him up in her arms in a warm, enthusiastic embrace (that he returned a bit awkwardly, though Gemma didn’t seem to notice, or at least didn’t care).
Gemma Brooks looked a fair deal younger than she was--she was 39 now, but most people still assumed that she was in her mid-twenties. Her long, sleek, coppery hair and the wealth of freckles on her delicate, pixy-ish face (the latter of which she’d given to Alex) were a big part of why people assumed she was still so young, though her bubbly personality and irrepressible energy were some other good reasons for it. Her fashion sense was as distinct as Alex’s, but also couldn’t have been more different; her wardrobe was full of flowing, flowery dresses and well-cut white capris to be worn under boho-style tops rife with bright splashes of color, all of which looked very nice on her slim frame. She was around the same height as Alex, 5’4 or so, not particularly tall or short for a woman.
“It’s so good to see you, honey!” she gushed, all smiles as she reached out to cup his cheeks in her hands. “It’s been way too long!”
Alex permitted the contact briefly, then carefully disengaged, giving her a crooked half-smile as he slung his single small bag over his shoulder. And exactly whose fault is that, I wonder, he thought, even as he said aloud, “It’s definitely been a while.”
After paying the cab fare, Gemma linked her arm with Alex’s, a slight skip in her step as she towed him back towards the house, chattering the whole way about what Joe was cooking for dinner, how tired and thin Alex looked, and how Bill needed to take better care of him--“Not that you can’t take care of yourself, of course, honey! But it’s just a fact that he was never any good at taking care of himself, much less anyone else, so what should I expect? Anyway, we’ll feed you plenty while you’re here, and you can rest up and not worry about anything, so you’ll be all ready for classes to start again when you go back! Speaking of that—how has school been going? Are you still working at that music store? Have you gotten much DJ work lately? Have you written any real songs yet? Are there any girls around who I should know about? Ooh, I just want to hear all about everything that’s been going on in your life!”
Alex did his best to answer his mother’s rapid-fire questions as they climbed the front stairs and pushed their way into the (blessedly warm) house, because that was also pretty par for the course as far as Gemma was concerned. At the very start of his visits, she would always make a big show of fussing and worrying over him, asking for all sorts of details about how his life might’ve changed since she’d seen him last. Then she moved on to offering him expensive presents, or proposing exotic trips, then she’d sideways-mention her previous offer for Alex to stay there, generally variations on, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just stay like this forever?”
In direct contrast to the stony silence he gave to Bill, Alex responded to all of Gemma’s questions, though he was only as forthcoming as he had to be, and never went into the level of detail that she initially claimed she wanted. As for the gifts, he only accepted them if it was something he really wanted or needed (this time the item on offer was a shiny, new, high-powered but extra-light laptop that he could definitely use, both in class and for his DJing and music-mixing, so that was a big yes), and he always politely side-stepped the proposed vacations and the semi-subtle repetitions of her offer to move in with them.
But that initial, almost forceful level of attention never lasted long, thankfully--so far never past the second day of his visits--which was really the only reason Alex could put up with the visits at all. Whatever it takes to make you feel better about deserting your firstborn child, I guess, he always thought to himself with an internal snort as she babbled and blathered on, asking a question and hardly pausing to listen to his answer before asking another three. She broke off her cheerful interrogation as they stepped into the kitchen, at which point she called out with the enthusiasm of a child, “Look who’s finally here, Joe!”
At that announcement, Gemma’s second husband, Alex’s stepfather, turned from the half-dozen pots and pans simmering away on the triple-size stove to offer his stepson a wide, genuinely friendly smile and a nod of greeting. Alex returned the greeting, nodding back mostly sans smile, and let his mother pull him further into the kitchen and closer to whatever delicious-smelling, probably ridiculously fancy meal Joe was cooking up with his culinary wizardry. Once they got within range, Joe reached out to haul Alex into a rib-creaking, back-slapping hug, which by now Alex knew better than to fight or try to escape.
“It’s good to see you, Alex,” Joe said as he finally released his mostly-unresponsive stepson, and to his credit, he sounded as if he honestly meant it. “We’re overdue for a real man-to-man chat, so put aside some time for that tonight, okay?”
Joe Brooks was tall, a few inches over six feet, and had the broad-shouldered narrow-waisted build of a swimmer or a surfer, with the perpetually sun-kissed skin and slightly shaggy dirty blonde hair to match. He was usually a little bit ruggedly stubbly, typically dressing in khaki shorts and button-down shirts, though he also had a wide collection of oversized name brand sweaters. Joe was the exact opposite of Bill Faulkner in every way: a minor celebrity chef on the internet, he was also a stay-at-home dad, warm and comfortably laid-back and almost hyper-attentive to his wife and kids and all things family-related. Alex thought of him (not entirely flatteringly) as a human golden retriever, but although the constant hugs and intense how are you REALLY doing, let’s talk about our deepest feelings, son ‘manly’ conversations were annoying, Alex didn’t really hate him. Rather, he thought that it made sense that Gemma would want someone openly affectionate, someone who ran hot like Joe instead of cold like Bill.
Joe was also a big part of the reason that Alex wasn’t completely hopeless in the kitchen. A few years ago, on learning that Alex had been attempting to cook (largely in self-defense against a steady diet of nothing but microwaved dinners and eating out every night), his stepfather had given him a crash-course in cooking, teaching him the basics of kitchen safety and such. Even now he made a point of having Alex help him with the meals whenever Alex was there visiting, and while a lot of what Joe made was way too nitpicky and fancy for Alex to ever want to replicate it back home, the extra experience under the watchful eye of a high-quality chef was useful.
“ALEEEEEX!” howled a little burl of motion as it came hurtling through the living room and crashed against Alex’s legs hard enough that he gave a comical wobble and had to bite back a word that wasn’t really fit for a family setting like this one. A moment later though, he was chuckling and bending down to pat a thatch of curly copper hair and a tiny back.
“Hey, Drew. Oof, that was some greeting--guess you’re happy to see me too, huh?”
At that, Alex’s five-year-old half-brother Andrew (though he went solely by ‘Drew’ and would throw a fit if anyone, even a total stranger, called him ‘Andy’) pulled back enough to shove the toy clenched tightly in one little fist (some kind of Army tank from the look of it) up towards the older boy’s face. “Yeah! Mom promised you’d play with us, an’ I got a whole new set of Mini Mechas to set up, an’ Addie got new paints, an’ I know that we both got lots an’ lots more LEGOs since you were here last since it’s been forEVER!”
Alex gave another chuckle at that, glancing up at Joe to check his stepfather’s reaction to prioritizing playtime over cooking. On receiving a slightly wider smile and an affirmative nod (yet another reminder of just how different Joe was from Bill), Alex smirked and leaned down to scoop up Drew, arms going under the five-year-old’s knees and behind his back in a princess carry as he said, “Well then, I guess I’ve got a lot of time to make up to you two, don’t I?”
Drew gave a happy shriek as Alex whisked him off his feet, back through the living room, and down the hall to one of the spare rooms that Gemma had decorated and designated as the ‘playroom’--a place for both kids to keep all their extra toys and whatever else wouldn’t fit in their bedrooms (and that was entirely separate from the game room down in the basement, which was for board and video games, and included a pool table and an air hockey table). Inside the playroom, Alex found his other half-sibling, three-year-old Adelaide (who went placidly by ‘Addie’), sitting at a kid-sized table and quietly humming to herself as she left big streaks of bright blue paint across the paper (and part of the table) in front of her.
Drew heavily favored Joe, with a noticeable olive tint to his skin, blue eyes, and no freckles, though he did have Gemma’s fiery copper hair, so he and Alex didn’t look that much alike; Addie, however, with her white-blonde hair, pale skin, and profusion of freckles, looked so much like Alex that they looked more like full-blooded siblings than she and Drew did, especially with Alex’s naturally dark black-brown hair dyed its current light grey-blue.
Using all the momentum he could gain from a quick turn, Alex tossed Drew onto the room’s single bed, earning another delighted shriek as the five-year-old bounced a few times, then rolled off the bed and back onto his feet; meanwhile, Alex went over to kneel beside his half-sister.
“Hey, Addie,” he said, his voice noticeably softer, and there was a definite, atypical gentleness in his smile as he held out his arms. “Other Big Brother is here, do I get a hug?”
Addie angled a shy look over at him, nodding as she gave him a small smile and a hug around the neck that, had Alex’s shirt not been black, would’ve been pretty colorful. As it was, he ended up with some green and yellow paint on his throat and a smear of red on the underside of his jaw, the lingering wet stickiness in both places telltale enough that he knew he’d been marked, though he could only grin to himself about it. At that moment, Drew flung himself at Alex’s back, and Alex had a fraction of a second to brace himself against the table and chair to keep the both of them from crashing forward into Addie.
“Do you want to keep painting, Addie, or do you want to clean up the paints and come play LEGOs with us?” he asked, his voice a bit more strained as he twisted a bit in Drew’s grip. Reaching back around, he tickled his little brother under one arm, the resulting squeal of laughter and reflexive retreat from Drew leaving him just enough space to pull free and stand up again.
Addie straightened at that, then turned to hurriedly start closing up the various paints; suddenly serious and intent, Drew moved to help screw on the various lids while Addie placed them all neatly in a large, paint-stained plastic container, and Alex scooped up all the paintbrushes before either kid had the chance, stepping into the room’s adjoining bathroom to wash the (water-soluble) paint out of them. Leaving them to dry on the shelf that Gemma had installed in that bathroom for just that purpose, Alex herded both younger siblings over to the sink to help them wash the paint off their hands, arms, and anywhere else super visible.
“Getting paint on the LEGOs wouldn’t be very good. We don’t want them to be stuck together forever, right?” he reasoned when Drew dragged his feet and started to whine a little at the hand-washing. “A big part of the fun of LEGOs is being able to take them apart again and make something totally new. Yeah?”
“Yyyyyyeeeeeaaaahhhh,” Drew agreed grudgingly as Addie nodded silently at his side.
They were both pretty good kids, Alex thought to himself with a fond smile as he watched Drew making sure that Addie rubbed her hands together right to get all the paint off. Alex also knew that it was pretty clear from the way he interacted with them that he liked them...somewhat in spite of himself, really, since Alex always claimed that he didn’t like children, though kids usually seemed to like him well enough regardless of that claim.
Still, good kids or not, they weren’t perfect. Despite being the older child, Drew was the more emotional ‘drama queen’ of the two--and more inclined towards tantrums, though neither Gemma nor Joe (nor Alex, when he was there) really put up with that behavior. Drew loved the military-realism-oriented ‘Mini Mechas’ brand of toys and anything to do with various branches of the armed forces, and had asked all sorts of questions about Bill ever since he’d learned that Alex’s dad was in the Air Force. Judging by the rest of the toys scattered around the playroom, it was clear that he also was a big fan of Batmonk, Wars of the Stars, LEGOs, and, a little more unexpectedly, helping his dad cook: the expansive kitchen set in one corner of the room was his, not Addie’s.
Addie, on the other hand, was quiet almost to a fault, and tended to be a lot like Alex had been at that age. She didn’t speak much (Alex also hadn’t start speaking until fairly late, though it had been pretty clear that it wasn’t a language impairment or speech delay; he could talk, he just hadn’t wanted to for whatever reason--likely the stress of moving a lot even as a young child), but after the initial shyness wore off, she would talk nearly non-stop for Alex, which Gemma found adorable.
Addie’s main area of interest wasn’t dolls, or model toys and action figures like her brother, though she did have a pretty large collection of stuffed animals. Only three years old or not, she was still focused on all sorts of ‘art projects’ that she did with her mother...or sometimes by herself. That had gotten her in trouble on more than one occasion, since she’d take to drawing or painting on the walls and the floor when she ran out of room on the paper. For the most part, though, Gemma and Joe both encouraged her creative side, and Addie’s ‘art projects’ could be anything from the usual things like coloring with crayons or playing with clay, to more unusual things, like taking ice cubes outside and building ice sculptures in June (and then going back to being a more normal kid again and making mud pies out in the yard afterwards).
Once they had all cleaned up, they got down to the real business of building with LEGOs, all three of them working together to build a huge, spaceship-like thing that only partly followed the set’s instructions, with plenty of extra guns and a mini stove set (Drew’s addition) and some trailing vines and glittery-looking blocks in interesting places (Addie’s suggestion). Instead of adding anything himself, Alex let his job be mediating between the two and keeping the ship close enough to the original design that the cool moving parts would still look cool and move. Once it was put together, they started filling it up with various characters and objects, most of which were not LEGOs (though Drew did have a few LEGO Batmonk sets).
They’d only just managed to cram two of Drew’s Mini Mechas and three of Addie’s Prettiest Paintshop animal figures into the hold along with the Batmonk LEGO figure, when Joe’s large frame suddenly filled the doorway and he called them to dinner. After going through the hand-washing song and dance again (this time with Joe’s help, which expedited matters considerably), Joe herded all three of them into the dining room, where Gemma was putting the finishing touches on the place-settings.
Dinner with the Brooks family couldn’t have been more different from the strained, quiet, uncomfortable meals Alex usually had with Bill. For one thing, Drew and Gemma both loved to talk, and after Addie had gotten over her initial shyness (which by now she had), she spoke up a fair amount also. Joe was all easy smiles and playful quips as he kept watchful order between the kids, and Gemma made sure all their plates were appropriately full.
It was clearly a time that was important to all of them, full of shared warmth and stories and lots of laughter...and despite his constant smile and lighthearted answers to any and all questions sent his way, Alex couldn’t have felt more like an outsider.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, or that they didn’t get along. Abandonment issues and the lingering bitterness they’d left aside, Alex and his mother actually tended to get along pretty well, at least on the surface--their interactions were certainly a lot more easy and far less tense and antagonistic than his and Bill’s, anyway. And, easily distracted or not, she truly was interested in hearing about what he was interested in, and didn’t so much as blink over his fashion choices; in fact, she’d been the one who’d given consent for him to get his tattoo, since he’d been 16 at the time. (It had been an easy sell: all he’d had to say was, hey Mom, wanna help me make Bill super angry over something that’s really none of his business? and Gemma was immediately all in.) She’d never seemed put off by any of his personality quirks or his occasional headstrong ‘bad behavior’ either, though she didn’t have to live with him most of the time, which probably made it easier for her to think of him as ‘not my responsibility.’ She was supportive in the extreme...of everything Alex did, even the things that he knew were probably not so great.
(“For example,” Alex had told Bianca when he’d first explained his dynamic with Gemma to her, “One time back in high school, I got suspended for mouthing off to a teacher...and when she heard about it during my next visit, instead of sitting down and seriously talking with me about it, she gave me a high-five and told me she was proud that I knew how to stand up for myself.”)
He generally got along with Joe pretty well also, despite his stepdad’s chronic bad habit of trying to be overly involved, and the kids were always excited to see him; it was a simple fact that all four of them never failed to welcome him with open arms...but that still didn’t change how miserably out of place Alex felt there. These were people who lived most of their lives happily without the addition of another child or sibling. They were already complete, a picture-perfect family in a picture-perfect house. And Alex...well. He didn’t really see where he fit into that framework.
So while he didn’t hate his Colorado visits, he couldn’t really enjoy them, either. They were a break from ‘Real Life’ and Bill’s constant disapproval about everything he did, and it really was kind of fun to stay in such a fancy house and eat food prepared by a ViewTube-famous chef and play with all sorts of high-tech gadgets and all the cool toys he’d have loved to have when he was younger. But deep down, it never felt right, never felt like somewhere he could ever be truly comfortable, or think of as home.
And so, while he answered politely when spoken to and smiled and laughed on cue, for Alex, these visits were little more than a constant reminder of the fact that Gemma had chosen to walk out of his life, and had found another, better one somewhere else. She hadn’t needed or even wanted him then; and now, seven years later, that hadn’t really changed, regardless of how often she asked him to stay.
The next morning, Alex was the second one up: as usual, he found Joe in the kitchen, already dressed and looking disgustingly chipper as he worked away in front of the stove. Alex, still bleary-eyed and wearing the rumpled raglan tee and boxer shorts he’d worn to bed, poured himself a cup of expensive-smelling coffee and slumped down in one of the tall chairs at the counter, wondering absently why he always woke up so damned early on his days off from school.
“So...ready for that talk you promised me yesterday, Alex?”
Hunched over his already half-empty cup of coffee, Alex winced on reflex, then shot a quick sideways glance over at his stepdad, hoping that Joe hadn’t been looking his way, that he hadn’t been caught. And for once, his luck was good: Joe still had his back turned, focused on frying up some kind of thick, delicious-smelling bacon that Alex couldn’t be entirely certain had come from a pig. A moment later, though, Joe did turn a half-smile over his shoulder at the college student, and Alex did his best to return it, though he paired it with an intentionally awkward-sounding and noncommittal, “Uhmm…”
Joe only grinned a little at that before returning his focus to the bacon again. “Hey, you got out of it last night since the kids wanted to play with you, but don’t think you can avoid it forever, son.”
Muffling the flash of irritation that Joe’s entirely too-casual use of son always elicited, Alex sighed inwardly and resisted the urge to bang his forehead against the counter. His ‘man to man’ talks with Joe never really felt like they went anywhere: his stepdad just asked a lot of questions about what Alex had been doing lately, periodically asking about how something had made Alex feel, which usually left Alex grasping at straws somewhat. What did it matter, really, how he felt about working at the music store, or his DJ jobs going pretty well, or most of his classes being pretty interesting? They were simply things that were, clean-cut cold facts, with no in-depth thought and especially no unnecessary analysis of feelings required. This time, however, Joe started off his conversation with a curveball:
“So,” he began as he crumbled some of the bacon and sprinkled it on top of an egg-and-spinach breakfast crepe he’d left cooling on the counter, “from what you told Gemma yesterday, it sounds like you’ve made some friends this year.”
Alex, who happened to be mid-swallow, choked quietly on his coffee, doing his best to hide his sputtering as Joe went on.
“I mean, you’re a great kid, and I’d bet there’s plenty of other kids who’d want to hang out with you. You just never let them get close before. So what changed that made you want to have friends again?”
After adding a few slices of bacon to the side, Joe slid the still-steaming crepe into place in front of Alex, who stared down at it unseeingly as he fought the immediate urge to shove away the plate, his mug, and the counter as well and simply exit this unwanted, honestly pretty intrusive conversation.
“I dunno,” he managed to say after a half-second pause, giving a careless shrug and forcing an absent-minded lightness into his tone and onto his face, though he was certain that this time, his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Guess I was just bored or something. Well, actually,” he amended with an almost theatrical tone, “One of them just wouldn’t leave me alone, so I agreed to hang out with him to shut him up...but I wouldn’t say that we’re really friends. He’s a pretty big jerk.”
He could feel Joe’s steady gaze on him, so instead of looking up to meet it, Alex forked up a big bite of the crepe, which turned out to be every bit as savory and delicious as it looked. That wasn’t enough to satisfy his stepdad, however--Joe apparently either didn’t catch on to the fact that Alex didn’t want to talk about this (and that he’d only halfway been talking about Connor just now), or just didn’t care. It was a toss-up as to which it was, Alex thought, since either could easily be true.
“Okay, but what about the other one? The girl? Did you tell us her name?”
“Why do you want to know? It’s not like it really matters.”
“It does to you, though. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to all those volleyball games you were always texting Gemma about.”
Alex pressed his lips together, biting back a sharp retort, then forked up another, bigger mouthful of crepe this time, to prevent himself from saying something snide that he might later regret, a comment along the lines of, mhmm, sure, it might matter to me, but it shouldn’t matter to you, because it’s none of your business. You’re only in my life a few days each year, so don’t try to act like a father, and you’re not my fucking therapist either, even if you’re always trying to be.
“So, in her case, were you the one who wouldn’t leave her alone?”
Alex set his mug down a little too hard at that, finally looking up at Joe with a brief flash of the hostility that he generally reserved for Bill during the worst of their fights. It vanished almost immediately into a too-pleasant smile, though, as Alex replied cheerfully, “Nope, I didn’t stalk her, if that’s what you’re implying. We have a class together, and the professor assigned some of us to be partners for a group project, so we ended up spending some time together out of class. She invited me to one of her games, and I just happened to be curious and not-busy enough that night, so I went.”
If Alex had taken that tone with Bill--and he had before, on countless occasions--his father would’ve bristled and gotten prickly and indignant right back. They would’ve exchanged a few more terse sentences, then Alex would’ve said something extra snarky and either gone to his room or left the house completely, relishing that dark sort of triumph and leaving Bill behind to stew over his son’s ‘disrespectful’ behavior.
Joe, however, had an entirely different reaction: instead of anger or irritation, there was a look of wide-eyed surprise, followed by one of realization and contrition, all of them so genuine that Alex found himself wanting to leave the room again. Here it comes, the big apology, he told himself with gritted teeth, steeling himself for a forceful hug and some kind of over-the-top I’m sorry speech. But apparently Alex didn’t know Joe as well as he thought he did (not surprising, considering how little time they’d really spent together over the years), because Joe just bowed his head, his expression going a little sad.
“...I didn’t mean to make it sound like I thought you were stalking her,” he murmured, regret clear in his words as he set to work on another crepe. “I know you wouldn’t do that kind of thing. I was just glad to hear that you had an interest in spending time with some other kids again, and I guess I got a little carried away.” He looked over, making careful, direct eye contact with Alex as he said, “I’m sorry, Alex. You don’t have to tell me about your friends if you don’t want to. I just thought it might be a nice thing you might want to discuss with someone who wanted to hear about it.”
Yeah, well, I don’t, Alex thought, and very nearly said aloud. Earnest and heartfelt as Joe’s words had been, it still felt like a play at some kind of emotional manipulation, and Alex had no patience for that kind of thing. It might work on other people, but all it did to Alex was make him angry, or else darkly amused, that anyone would even try to use something as typically distant, irrelevant, and unfathomable as his emotions against him.
For a few long, uncomfortable minutes, the only sounds in the kitchen were the soft sizzling of the crepe in the pan and the muted clink of Alex’s fork against his plate.
“Thanks for the food. And offering to talk with me about things,” Alex finally muttered, low and a little grudging. He didn’t want to reinforce what he saw as ‘bad behavior’ on Joe’s part, but he couldn’t deny that the man’s intentions had been good, if clumsy and poorly expressed.
This time the smile Joe gave him was warm, but a little rueful. “I meant it, you know. Your mother can get busy with things pretty quickly, and I know that your...” He hesitated a moment, and Alex waited expectantly to see if he’d shit-talk Bill the same way Gemma always did. Instead Joe carefully went on, “...You might not always feel like you have someone who’ll listen to you. I guess I just wanted you to know that if you ever do want someone to talk to about anything, I’m here for you.”
Alex wasn’t sure what he wanted to do more, gag or roll his eyes--but once again, Joe was being entirely sincere, which made it hard to completely fault him for what he was saying. So instead of giving either of those knee-jerk reactions, Alex settled for a crooked half-smile and an ambiguous, “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
That was apparently enough to satisfy Joe, whose grin was bright as ever this time as he said, “All right, son, get over here and let me teach you how to make a fantastic breakfast crepe.”
Alex, who had already been watching him the whole time, thought that it looked like a lot of work, even if the end result had been really delicious.
...Still, when he imagined the priceless look on Bill’s face after being served one of these for dinner one night, Alex couldn’t help but feel a perverse sort of interest in learning how to make them.
The rest of the mornings of Alex’s Colorado visit were pretty similar to that first morning, though a few times Gemma made an appearance in the middle of them, fully dressed and rushing around frantically on her way to get out the door to this meeting with a prospective client or that design unveiling somewhere a few hours away by plane. Joe was also notably more careful in selecting his topics of conversation, and while he still couldn’t seem to help prying a little bit, it was enough of an improvement to be noteworthy. And despite his many, lingering misgivings, Alex had relaxed little by little, letting himself talk more openly about things that actually mattered to him, and he was a bit gratified when Joe kept his word and paid close attention, clearly absorbing every word. One morning he listened to Alex talking about music so intently that he almost burned his hashbrowns (they were still delicious, of course), and another morning he was laughing so hard over Alex’s mocking portrayal of Connor’s flirting methods that he accidentally added way too much salt to his breakfast quiche--so much that he had to start all over again from scratch.
By the morning of Alex’s last day in Colorado, he found himself at ease enough that he finally decided to open up about Bianca. He wouldn’t say anything too telling, he told himself as he helped Joe make whole-grain blueberry pancakes that morning, nothing that would give Joe the wrong idea about things or make him assume, like Connor had, that Alex held any sort of romantic feelings for the blonde girl. Even so, after he’d told his stepfather about how amazing Bianca was at volleyball--and nothing more, just that--there was still a knowing glint in Joe’s eye that Alex didn’t much care for.
“Before you ask, I’m not in love with her,” he said flatly, deciding that it was best to get that misconception laid to rest sooner rather than later. But instead of having the intended effect, and to his lasting annoyance, Joe just give him a shrug and a smile that could only be described as goofy.
“If you say so, son.”
“I did say so, in fact, if you were actually listening.”
Joe held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, or mollification. “Okay, okay! I’m just joking, sorry! But hey, you can’t blame an old romantic for hoping, now, can you?”
Alex shot him a perplexed look as he flipped a pancake. “What a weird thing to hope for. Why do you care?”
Joe’s expression softened at that. “Alex, we might not be related by blood, but you’re a part of my family now. Of course I care. I want you to be happy…” Absently, he rubbed his thumb against his wedding ring--something Alex had noticed him doing whenever he happened to be thinking especially hard about Gemma. “And, don’t take this the wrong way, but...it sounds like this girl, Bianca, really makes you happy.”
Alex’s expression, in contrast, had grown a little more distant and closed when Joe called him family, and he made a point of how intently he was studying the pancakes on the griddle in front of him as he answered, “Yeah, she does...but just because I have more fun when I’m with her doesn’t mean I’m in love with her or something stupid like that.”
Joe nodded, watching Alex closely as he gave an agreeable, “That’s true.”
“I mean, yeah, I was kinda miserable this last month when she was super busy and I couldn’t see her much, but that was just me forgetting what it felt like to be alone.”
“Mmhmm, makes sense.”
“I just got used to talking to her and eating with her, that’s why I wanted to keep doing it. I got used to a routine, and didn’t like having it altered. Not liking change is pretty normal.”
“Yeah, sounds about right.”
By now Alex was just thinking aloud to himself, hardly noticing Joe’s calm, even-keel response as he went on in a rush, “And yes, okay, sure, I do think she’s attractive or whatever--I mean, she’s freaking beautiful, I’d be lying or blind if I tried to deny that, but that still doesn’t mean I’m in love with her. You can acknowledge that someone’s good-looking without wanting it to go any farther than that. It’s just a simple observation, nothing more.”
“If you put it that way, sure.”
“I just...I know all of that, and yet...and I can’t...I just always seem to be thinking about her. It’ll happen out of nowhere, I’ll be doing something else entirely, and then I’ll suddenly think I wish Bianca was here to see this too, or I wonder what she’d say about this, and then I’m kicking myself for thinking something so stupid, because it’s not like I need her around. I just...can’t lie and tell myself that I don’t want her around...because I do. Pretty much always, too, which...is hella weird for a loner like me.”
This time Joe didn’t respond, which somehow registered more strongly with Alex than if he had. With a visible start, the blue-haired teen turned a look just shy of panic on the older man, who was watching him steadily, with the faintest of knowing smiles curling the corners of his lips upward. Alex’s mouth opened wordlessly, then closed again with a sharply audible clack, embarrassed color flooding his face as he turned about five shades of red and hastily went back to checking the pancakes, scooping them off the griddle with a spatula before finally managing to get out a very stop-and-start, “I...I mean...it’s just...complicated!”
Joe gave a quiet chuckle, his smile widening, but before he could say anything, another voice cut in:
“Duh, you like her. What’s ‘complica-dated’ about that? Also, you said a bad word which means no snacks today until maybe dessert, if you’re good!”
Alex and Joe both blinked at each other, then turned in unison to look down at five-year-old Drew, who had suddenly appeared at the end of the counter and now stood there, still dressed in his camo-print pajamas, frowning up at his half-brother skeptically. The little redhead fidgeted with the Batmonk action figure in his hands as he asked with the typical unabashed bluntness of children his age, “So if you like her, why isn’t she your girlfriend already?”
Joe coughed a laugh into his fist, half-turning away to hide his smile, and Alex shot him a flat sideways glance before addressing Drew’s question. “Because we do like each other, but only as friends. I don’t want her to be my girlfriend, and she doesn’t want me to be her boyfriend.”
At that, Drew gave a loud, very wet-sounding Bronx cheer and threw his arms in the air dramatically, sending the action figure tumbling to the floor behind him. “PBBBTHT! Sounds like excuses! That really means you’re too scared to ask her! More scared than a—a ELEPHANT would be, if it was suddenly super tiny, and trapped in a shoebox.” Turning around, he distractedly nudged his Batmonk toy along with one foot, then the other, sing-songing back over his shoulder, “I’ve had four girlfriends already, and that’s just this year, and you’re not even on your first one, and that’s ever, not just this year, and that’s super dumb, ‘cause girls aren’t scary unless you’re mean to them, an’ ANYbody can be scary if you’re mean to them. Even aliens, and probably fish.” He paused as the action figure bumped into the back of the couch, abandoning it in favor of hauling himself up to sit on the couch’s wide back, swinging his legs and frowning as he tried to remember what his original point was. “Anyway, don’t be scared!”
By then Joe had given up on trying to hide his laughter, his snickers obnoxiously loud as he ladled more pancake batter onto the griddle. Alex, meanwhile, was just staring open-mouthed at his brother, who, encouraged by Joe’s reaction, was grinning at him impishly from across the room. Alex didn’t so much as blink when Joe gently pulled the spatula out of his grasp, though an instant later his pale eyes narrowed in a mock-dangerous glare.
“...So. You think I’m scared, huh?” Slowly, slowly, he started to ease around the counter, moving closer and closer to his brother, who just grinned and kicked his feet even harder.
“TOTALLY scared! Like, extra super scared-y!”
By now Alex had reached the end of the counter, and was starting to cross the space between the kitchen and the sitting room, his every movement still gradual and measured, the careful stalking of a leopard in the grass approaching an antelope.
“You might be right...but you know who else should be scared right now?”
Still grinning mischievously, Drew shook his head. “Nope! Who else should be scared? The girl that you like?”
“Nooooope,” Alex drawled, then flashed his half-brother a grin every bit as wide and wicked as the one Drew was wearing. “The person who should be the most extra super scared-y scared...is YOU!”
In a sudden burst of speed, Alex lunged across the room, wrapping his arms around his little brother and (carefully, though it didn’t look it) rolling them both over the back of the couch and down onto the couch-cushions, then onto the floor, making sure to take the weight of each fall himself. Once they were on the floor, though, he really let loose, tickling Drew mercilessly, first going for his armpits, then his neck, then his feet, then pulling up the already-squealing five-year-old’s shirt and blowing a loud raspberry into his stomach.
“Do you take it back yet?” Alex questioned with a grin, leaning away from a wildly-flailing arm before going for another under-arm tickle attack that left Drew writhing with helpless, gleeful laughter.
“No wuh-way-hayhee!” Drew giggled, giving an abrupt twist that gained him a moment of temporary freedom, during which he made a vain attempt at escape--“NEVERRRR-AHHHahahaHEEEEK!”--only to be caught by the ankle and dragged back for further tickling and another, equally-loud belly-blow.
“Take it back!” Alex crowed again a few moments later, and this time Drew, by now red-faced and breathless from hysterical giggling, nodded frantically.
“I take--heeheheeEEEEEeee!--ahahah, STOPPIT!--I take it back! I take it back!”
“Gosh, I don’t knooow,” Alex mused with all the overdramatic careful consideration of a cartoon villain, a sly smirk on his face as he gave a thoughtful pause, then doubled down and began the tickle-assault anew. “Do you really~?”
Drew gave another mirthful shriek of laughter, squirming desperately to escape as he giggled, “I do! I DO! I promise this time, I doooOOHHoohoohaha--s-stoppit, Alex, or I’m gonna PEEEEEE!”
That was their codeword, of sorts, the way that Alex knew when he really had to stop tickling (something they’d both learned the hard way a few years ago); with one final grin and a playful hair-ruffle, Alex pulled back, letting his younger brother pull away and fold himself into one corner of the couch, still giggling a little breathlessly, eyes wide and watchful and focused intensely on Alex. Alex, though, had heard both their stomachs rumbling, and was far more interested in eating than playing around any more; besides, Drew had clearly forgotten all about Bianca now, which was what Alex had been going for in the first place.
“C’mon, kiddo, let’s go have pancakes,” he said, halfheartedly tossing one of the accent pillows in Drew’s direction, smirking a bit when the five-year-old took a big swing at it, missed, and ended up taking it directly in the face. “You should go ahead and eat, I’ll go get Addie up.”
“No need for that,” Joe called from the kitchen, and both boys turned to find their sister sitting at the counter, already halfway through a huge pancake, watching the both of them silently with something very much like judgement on her tiny, pale face.
“YEAHHHH, PANCAKES!” Drew shouted, flailing his way off the couch and darting into the kitchen, scrambling up into the chair next to Addie's. “Me next, me next!” he demanded, then at a mild but pointed look from Joe, added a hurried, “Me next, please!”
Alex took a moment to put the couch back in order, straightening the blanket draped over the back, retrieving the throw pillows, even scooping up Drew’s Batmonk figure and setting it on the end table on his way into the kitchen; and all the while, he was thinking about everything he’d said before Drew entered the room and derailed the whole conversation.
He’d meant it, after all. He’d meant everything he’d said. He wasn’t in love with Bianca Jackson. He wasn’t.
...Or am I?
That question settled in at the front of his mind, and for the first time, Alex wasn’t so sure about his answer. The only thing he was sure about now was that he had a lot of thinking to do. And where better to do it than on the plane ride home today? He’d put on his most comfortable pair of noise-cancelling headphones, bring up one of his best thinking about life, the universe, and everything playlists on his (airplane-mode-enabled) phone, and spend the next few hours lost in music and thought.
And maybe, just maybe, by the time the plane landed in D.C., and Alex made his way to the metro to catch a ride home, he’d have come up with some kind of answer.
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