“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twenty-One

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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twenty-One

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Bianca turned 21 on November 2nd, and despite her responsibility to the volleyball team, she and Alex decided to take full advantage of that oh-so-important-to-college-students milestone birthday.

Alex was 20, wouldn’t be 21 until February, and Bill had been pretty strict about that sort of thing, so he hadn’t really had much alcohol before. Neither had Bianca, other than that one party in the spring, so somehow it just made sense that they should experiment with it together.
It had started as a joke, with Bianca extending a teasing offer to buy “something real good” for their upcoming NextFliks marathon night, to which Alex had responded bluntly and without hesitation, “Sure, why not?”

Though Bianca had given a startled blink at how easily he’d agreed, in the next instant she’d been grinning as she whipped out her phone, announcing that she’d text Avery and find out what they should try first.

As it turned out, Avery had a lot of recommendations (which Alex found rather interesting, considering the fact that she was younger than either of them, with a birthday in May), so the only real trouble they had was deciding which drinks they wanted to try most, since so many of them sounded good, or at least worth trying; and one carefully-ranked list and trip to the nearest Entire Vine store later, they were good to go.

“Are you sure it’ll be safe for me to stay here tonight?” Alex asked as they carried their near-to-burstingly full bags up the stairs to Bianca’s room. A small, crooked smile curled along his mouth as Bianca turned an inquisitive frown his way, but he went on before she could actually ask the question on her face. “If you’re going to be drinking, I mean. After all, you did pull me into bed with you the last time you got drunk...”

Bianca’s face had gone an intensely satisfying shade of red by that time, and Alex had to fight to keep the laughter out of his voice as he asked, “Ohhh no, don’t tell me, is this all a part of your twisted, diabolical plan? Did you enjoy our pure, innocent cuddling that much? Have you been suffering in silence, desperately craving it all these months? Or...should I fear for my virtue?”

He said it all lightly, with a grin that suggested that he was completely joking, that he didn’t seriously mean any of it, that he just wanted to give her a hard time. But although it sounded like he was only teasing, there was still a fragment of truth in it, the tiniest sliver of authenticity in those questions.

They’d reached her room by now, and Bianca had more or less recovered, all traces of that deep blush receding from her face. As she unlocked the door, she gave a low, skeptical snort. “Fear for your virtue, huh? Heh, as if you actually have any left to lose.”

Her casual but dryly scathing tone of voice made it clear that Bianca thought he was a whole lot worldlier than he really was, and Alex wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or offended by that. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been making assumptions, and maybe they did need to talk about this, awkward as it might end up being.

Eye contact had become a distinctly uncomfortable idea, and as they set down their bags, Alex took the opportunity to turn away to hide his own sudden flush of embarrassment. “Yeah,” he muttered, the words coming out tight and clipped from his suddenly constricted-feeling throat, “I do, actually, considering the fact that I’ve never been with anyone before.”

His back was still turned, so he missed the look of surprise Bianca shot his way, followed by a slightly shamefaced expression as her eyes dropped to the bottle currently in her hands.

Alex found that he couldn’t stop there, though: now that he was being so starkly honest, now that he’d admitted how far he hadn’t gone, the compulsion to admit how far he had gone was somehow impossible to resist.

“...Hell, I’ve only ever really been kissed once, and that was...a mistake. I wish it hadn’t happened at all. Though...all things considered, I guess I should be glad it was only a kiss.”

“...Do you want to talk about it?” Bianca’s question was tentative, but genuine--this simply wasn’t a subject they’d discussed in-depth before. With so many other things to talk about, it just hadn’t ever come up.

Not in the least, especially not with you, Alex thought, but wisely bit back the words, instead turning a wry half-smirk his best friend’s way. “Not until I’ve had at least one of these...whatever they are. Raspberry lambic beer?”

That sounded kind of weird, not at all like any beer he’d ever heard of, not that he’d heard of much, aside from what his father bought. But the stuff Bill drank was cheap and (going by the smell of the empty cans Alex was sometimes left to gather up after a Bad Night) pretty damn gross, while this...this, as it turned out, was sweet and fruity and didn’t taste like alcohol at all, which probably made it dangerous. He made pretty short work of it, and started in on another one right away, this one strawberry flavored--the point of tonight was to experience the joy of alcohol, after all, and also to see what it was like to let himself lose control and get drunk in a safe place where it would be okay to pass out.

“Okay,” Bianca said after they had been sitting together on her bed watching ViewTube videos for a while, “Now, tell me about this kiss, and why it was such a mistake.”

Alex had finished his second beer, and had started in on some kind of hard cider that Avery had apparently raved about, and by now he was feeling like everything was a little softer, a little slower, like his reactions were muffled, a sensation not completely unlike being drugged up on cold medicine. Somehow he also felt like he might be talking a little bit too loud, laughing at the ViewTube videos a little too hard, and some part of him wondered if he was being obnoxious. Bianca didn’t seem to notice if he was, though she’d been keeping pace with him in drinks, so she was on her third now also, and while the alcohol content of everything they’d had so far was comparatively low, neither of them had done much drinking before either, so they were both bound to be lightweights.

Despite that feeling of softening, the blue-haired student still paused for a moment, though it was as much because he wasn’t sure how to phrase it all as it was uncertainty about sharing at all, particularly with the very girl he loved.

“It was last year, at this stupid party that Connor dragged me to. He kept on buggin’ me and buggin’ me about it, until I finally agreed t’go with him, t’shut him up. He showed me ‘round, introduced me t’way too many people...then abandoned me t’go bang these two girls who showed up an’ dragged him off with them into one of the bedrooms.”

Bianca rolled her eyes and pulled a face that made it clear that she wasn’t surprised by Connor’s behavior. “First he annoys you until you agree, then he just dumps you off? Wow, that’s pretty inconsiderate, even for Connor.”

Alex nodded, surprised to find that he was still a little resentful over being deserted even now. Maybe he had thought of Connor as more of an actual friend than he’d realized. ...Though I guess having people leave me behind is always gonna kinda be a sore spot for me.

It was a much more candid thought than he normally would’ve allowed himself, but even with two and a half drinks in him, Alex still pushed aside any real consideration of his abandonment issues--he had a story to finish telling, even if he didn’t really want to tell it in the first place.

“Right? Well, anyway...I wandered ‘round the place for a bit, but...it wasn’t any more fun without Connor than it had been with Connor, an’ it hadn’t been fun even with him around. But I was already there, so I thought maybe I’d just...wait it out, an’ Connor would come back after he was done an’ we could...I dunno, maybe he’d show me what was actually fun ‘bout those sorts of parties...so I found a spot on a couch an’ sat down t’wait.”

He paused to take a drink of cider, then thought eh, screw it and chugged the rest of it, reaching for something else after setting the empty glass bottle down, not particularly caring what he chose this time.

“...Anyway...a girl Connor’d introduced me to before came by...she’d been drinkin’, had a cup in her hand an’ everything, an’ she sat really close t’me...an’ before I knew it, she was...kissing me.”

Alex toyed with the unopened bottle of whatever in his hands, expression drawn and moody as he thought about that kiss again. He didn’t have any real frame of reference, nothing to compare it to, but...it hadn’t been terrible, at least he didn’t think so. It had been a lot different than he’d expected, and thanks to that memory, he still couldn’t stand the taste of anything watermelon-flavored, but it wasn’t like it had been awful. It probably would have been really nice, actually, if it had been with someone he wanted to kiss, someone like-

He shook his head hard, as if trying to shake away the thought, then went on, even more haltingly than before, “I was too surprised...an’...too curious, I guess, to stop her right away, but...it just, it happened so fast, ‘s like she was just suddenly there in my lap, pushin’ me back against the couch an’...”

Even buzzed as he was, Alex couldn’t bring himself to say anything about the way her fingers had run through his hair, how her mouth and teeth had felt on his jaw, his neck, his ear, the suggestive line she’d murmured to him, or the way she’d moved against him--it was too embarrassing, and considering the fact that the girl had been a total stranger, a sick wash of shame swept over the college junior. Digging into his pocket, he found his bottle-opener key-chain and fumblingly opened the new bottle in his hands, taking a steadying drink, though he didn’t really taste it.

“And?” Bianca prompted gently after a moment. “What made you stop?”

“You did,” Alex replied without thinking--and then, seeing Bianca’s mystified blink, he hurriedly added, “I mean, I jus’ thought... ‘What if someone, one’a my friends, saw me like this right now, makin’ out with some girl who doesn’ even know my name?’ An’ I didn’t know hers either, an’...I didn’ like that. Felt...wrong. Almos’...almos’ kinda gross, somehow. An’ so I pushed her off a’me an’ got outta there.”

Bianca was still giving him a strange look that Alex couldn’t read, and so he hurriedly added, “I mean...I think even if I hadn’ shoved her off an’ left, she probably still wouldn’a gotten much farther with me. The...touchin’ an’ stuff itself did feel...good, but...I didn’t feel anything for her, so I wasn’t...it wasn’t...uh...”

He trailed off, feeling his face burning a painful shade of red on sideways-admitting something like that to, of all people, the girl he was secretly in love with. Bianca herself was silent, and Alex debated for a second whether or not he wanted to look over and see what kind of expression she was wearing--but when he finally did, he found that the reason for her silence was because she was taking a long drink from her own bottle of cider. Once she was done with that, though, those heart-catching blue-green eyes came open and fixed him in place, and as always, Alex found that he couldn’t look away.

“...So, lemme get this straight...she was pretty, and definitely willing, but you still didn’t wanna do anything with her...‘cuz ya weren’t in love with her?”

Alex stiffened a bit, unsure about where this was going, and then gave a jerky sort of nod. “...I mean...yeah, I guess-”

And on that grudging admission, Bianca started to laugh. Alex gaped at her as she wobbled in place, then finally let herself flop over sideways on the bed, her ringing laughter bubbling out of her.

It made him feel more than a little defensive.

“Wha...wha’s so funny?” he tried to snap, though his words weren’t coming out as precise and sharp as usual, so it came out a little slurred, which made it sound decidedly less grim.

Bianca could apparently still hear the warning, or at least the hurt in his tone though, and pushed herself back up, righting herself and forcing down her laughter, though it still escaped her in breathless little giggles and low snickers every so often. “Holy Hera,” she sniffled, wiping the beginnings of mirthful tears from her eyes, “I wouldn’ta ever have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own two ears just now. Heh! Gods, that’s priceless.”

“What is?”

“That Alex Ace, snark-king and merciless destroyer of soppy romcom-lovers and melodramatic boneheads...is actually a huge romantic.” And with that, she lapsed back into breathless, tittering little giggles that continued to escape her even after she’d pressed a hand over her mouth.

For a long moment, Alex just stared at Bianca open-mouthed, uncertain how to answer that accusation; then he huffed out an annoyed half-growl and snatched up her plush dolphin, lobbing it right at her face from close range. “I jus’ want it t’mean somethin’--doin’ somethin’ like that with someone I don’ care about jus’...jus’ feels gross t’me. I don’ think wantin’ t’be with someone who actually matters t’you ‘s particularly romantic. It jus’...it’s what I want.”

That last sentence left him quietly, as he stared sightlessly down at the somehow already-empty bottle in his hands, and as Bianca looked over at him, she saw a fragileness there, a vulnerability that he didn’t often show even to her, and the last vestiges of the laughter she’d been fighting back faded away.

“...Hey,” she murmured, reaching out to affectionately drape an arm around her second-best-friend’s shoulders, pulling him against her side despite the fact that she’d felt him tense a little at the contact. But that made sense, she figured, and she was going to fix it, so she dragged him in anyway. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t makin’ fun of ya for wantin’ it t’actually mean somethin’. That’s pretty reasonable, an’ makes you a pretty decent guy, really. I was just...surprised t’hear somethin’ like that from you, since ya seem so...I dunno, you can be kinda...cold about that sorta thing a lotta the time. I figured you’d see it as ‘just sex’ and wouldn’t think it was a big deal. But...I guess I was forgettin’ that you’re the type who keeps people at arm’s length ‘cuz you do care, an’ you don’t wanna get hurt by carin’ about too many people, or carin’ about the wrong sorta people.”

That observation was uncomfortably on-point, and Alex found himself feeling far too warm--from the alcohol or from his close proximity to Bianca while sitting on her bed, or a mix of the two, he wasn’t certain--and the look he angled up at the smiling blonde was pink-cheeked and wary enough that she couldn’t seem to help smiling a little wider, her eyes softening as she took in that cute, still slightly-sulky expression.

Alex couldn’t know it, but aside from her amusement at that expression, the thought that made the corners of Bianca’s mouth pull upwards was, Gods, he’s pretty. Avery would eat him alive.

“...Yeah, well. If my bes’ friend is gonna laugh at me over somethin’ like this, guess that kinda caution isn’ outta place, huh,” Alex mumbled as he almost reluctantly pulled away from her, having a minor struggle with the throw-blanket they’d draped over their legs before he climbed off the bed.

Curious, Bianca watched him go, her expression clearly reading where are you going? and Alex quirked a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“Gotta get the futon out now, ‘r I’m gonna end up sleepin’ in the bed with you.”

Bianca gave a light chuckle, waving away his concern, though she also clambered off the bed (with decidedly less grace than usual) to help. “Eh, s’not a big deal. I wouldn’t mind.”

Even buzzed as he was, that offhanded statement still sent a sharp pang through Alex’s chest, and he only just managed to bite back his knee-jerk retort of yeah, that’s kind of the whole problem, isn’t it?

“...Well, s’a big deal t’me. An’ I do mind,” he murmured, voice low and subdued as he spread the usual comforter and two throw blankets out on top of the futon. “Jus’ cuz yer my bes’ friend doesn’ mean yer not still a girl, too...an’ ‘m not yer boyfriend, so...”

His voice had dropped even lower on that last part, and he could feel his face burning as he said it. In an attempt to hopefully keep her from seeing just how red he was, Alex turned his back on her and snatched up one of the bottles of water they’d bought along with the alcohol, hurriedly chugging most of it in an attempt to cool himself down.

Thankfully Bianca hadn’t seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary, shrugging with perfect nonchalance as she said, “Okay, but really, you worry too much. I mean, ya just told me that ya don’t wanna do anything with anyone unless you’re in love with ‘em, so it’s not like I’d have anything t’worry about even if we did share the bed.”

Alex sputtered and almost choked on his water--both at the mental image of the two of them intentionally sharing that narrow single bed, as well as Bianca’s laughable obliviousness--and had to spend the next few minutes coughing and drinking the rest of the bottle more slowly, though at least he was spared from having to respond to that all-too-innocent statement.

Bianca hadn’t returned to her previous spot on her bed after helping Alex with the futon; instead, she’d settled on one end of the futon, leaning back against the bed and blinking a little owlishly. Then she suddenly clapped her hands together hard, and burst out, “Right! That’s enough of this depressing silence! Imma get another drink, an’ you should get another drink too, while I tell ya a great story about my parents!”

Alex had already heard a fair amount about Bianca’s family over the last year. He knew that her dad was a marine biologist who was, in her own words, both super-cool and a huge dork who was constantly making terrible jokes. Her mom was an architect--Alex had finally realized at some point that he’d heard her name before from his mom, though he’d never mentioned that to Bianca--and she was nothing short of brilliant, easily the smartest person Bianca had ever known. She was also clearly still Bianca’s personal hero even now, Alex surmised with a flash of his usual keen insight that had somehow remained undulled by the fifth--or was it sixth?--bottle of alcohol he was dutifully knocking back little by little.

She’d told him a lot about her siblings, too. They were all younger, though there wasn’t nearly as much of an age gap for her as there was between Alex and his half-siblings. First there was Caleb, who was just a year younger than Bianca, and from the pictures she’d shown him, their blonde hair and green eyes made them look enough alike that they could’ve easily been mistaken for twins, though Caleb’s smile had a definite ‘troublemaker’ quirk to it that Bianca’s only had occasionally. His talent for sports was on the same level as Bianca’s, but he was even more of an extrovert, and had a lot of interest in acting: he was a theatre major at UCLA and was also on the college’s swim team.

Next was Harper, currently sixteen, who was apparently very quiet and a huge introvert. He had never really been smiling in any of the pictures Bianca had shared, his dark hair shaggy and falling into serious-looking grey eyes. He was rarely seen without either a pencil and sketchbook or some kind of musical instrument, though he heavily favored the guitar. If Alex had been forced to choose one of Bianca’s siblings to talk to and hang out with for an afternoon, he would’ve picked Harper without a second thought, and no deliberation required.

Then there was twelve-year-old Skylar, who looked like a huge handful--in every picture Alex had seen so far, at least some part of the kid was obscured by a motion-blur. Bianca was a little cagey about what her youngest brother was interested in, simply saying that he was ‘very involved in a lot of family stuff, it’s kind of complicated so I don’t really want to get into it, sorry.’ He had their mom’s blonde hair, just like Bianca and Caleb, and her piercing grey eyes as well, which made him look bright-eyed but a little more cautious and reserved than Caleb, though less closed and withdrawn than Harper.

And last of all, the youngest, Bianca’s nine-year-old sister Olivia. With long, dark hair and bright eyes that were noticeably more green and less blue than Bianca’s, she was a beautiful little girl--and she seemed to know it, too. She was very traditionally feminine in her style of dress, but she had a smart mouth (“Just like Dad around her age, Mom says.”) and their dad’s quirky sense of humor, and it was clear from the stories Bianca had told him that ‘Liv’ had their dad completely wrapped around her little finger. She was also absolutely crazy about horses, and had a whole wall full of ribbons and trophies from riding competitions.

“Liv’s definitely got the most ribbons and stuff out of all of us, maybe more than all the rest of us put together. I mean, we all have at least a dozen awards for swimming competitions--even Harper, who pretty much hates all sports,” Bianca had told him with a chuckle. But she wasn’t telling him stories about her siblings now; tonight, it was stories about her parents, and also about her godfather.

Her godfather--the one who’d loaned her his Benz--was still something of a mysterious figure to Alex, because while it was obvious that they were close, she was usually a little more close-mouthed about him. Alex guessed that it was because this ‘Zico’ guy, as she called him, was something of a private person, and that Bianca didn’t want to talk about his personal life without his permission, but...it still felt a little like he was being closed out.

That was how Alex usually felt, anyway. Apparently the alcohol must’ve loosened Bianca’s tongue, or at least muted her inhibitions enough for her to share more about her godfather than she ever had before. It was still nothing major, just a lot of short, cutesy little stories that made both half-drunk college students giggle like crazy people, fun little anecdotes about silly mishaps they’d had while he’d taught her to cook various Italian dishes, that sort of thing.

They were both semi-sprawled out on the futon now, and Alex had stopped counting how many bottles of whatever he’d had to drink; now, they were simply passing a larger bottle back and forth, its contents something that burned his throat in a delicious sort of way, and he was too far past tipsy to be concerned about the whole ‘indirect kiss’ aspect of it.

“Aiight, s’yer turn!” Bianca slurred brightly as they picked themselves up from laughing about a very young Bianca getting teaspoons and tablespoons mixed up, with very noticeable results. “Tell me a story ‘bout yer parents...somethin’ you’ve never told me--no, somethin’ you’ve never told ANYone!”

After taking a thoughtful drink, Alex handed the bottle back to Bianca, blinking slowly as he struggled to find something that fit that criteria. If he was supposed to tell an interesting story about his parents...well, Alex didn’t have the same sort of glowing opinion of his parents as Bianca did about hers. He was too cynical, and he’d seen too much of their faults by now to idolize them, like Bianca still did somewhat; but then again, even though they clearly weren’t perfect, Bianca’s parents did very obviously love each other and her and her siblings a lot. Enough that they weren’t super selfish about things. Enough that they had put their kids’ happiness above their own, and made their marriage work, made sure to give their family the sort of close-knit security that Alex could only wish for longingly. Not that he wanted his own parents to be unhappy, or to suffer for his sake, but...it just felt like they’d never really put all that much effort into staying together once things had started to go south. Any sort of relationship was a lot of work, Alex knew that much, and a marriage was doubtless harder to maintain than a friendship.

But instead of even trying, Gemma had shouted and sulked and cried and then finally walked out on them when she decided that she couldn’t stand it any more. And instead of trying to make things better for her, instead of talking with her and making an effort to understand her side of things, Bill had lashed out verbally and emotionally, then closed up and gone cold and unresponsive; and instead of going after her once she’d left, he’d dealt with the pain of her absence by working even longer hours, by criticizing everything Alex did, and sometimes by drinking.

And so, since he was staring at a bunch of empty bottles and couldn’t seem to think of anything else important that he hadn’t shared with her already...Bianca finally got to hear the story of the one, and only, time Bill had hit him.

“...So, Bill--my dad--didn’ take it well when Gemma--my mom--walked out on us. He’d always had t’work pretty long hours, but...after that, s’was like he was never home if he didn’ have t’be. Which left me t’fend fer myself a lot. Leave an empty house fer school in th’morning, come back t’ an empty house after school. Go shoppin’ with whatever cash’s lyin’ aroun’ th’house, ‘r from th’ ‘secret’ stash a’ money, if y’can find it. Cook yer own meals, make yer own lunches. Typ’cal latchkey kid stuff, y’know. But...he also started drinkin’ more. Mos’ a’ th’time, it wasn’ a big deal. Sure, he lef’ a big mess ‘n th’ livin’ room ‘r wherever, but he’d jus’ fall asleep on th’couch an’ maybe even still be there ‘n th’ mornin’. An’...I kin’a liked havin’ ‘im actually be there.”

At this point he was rambling, and nothing short of an interruption from Bianca was going to cut him off or rein him in, which was unlikely: the other junior had gone very quiet, and very still.

“I was fo’rteen, an’ I’d started t’figure out tha’ I liked t’dress kinna...dif’rent an’ stuff. Hadn’ dyed m’hair yet ‘r anythin’, but I was wearin’ a lot more black an’ punkish kinna stuff...includin’ th’jewelry. I’d gotten m’ears pierced a week b’fore, an’ Bill hadn’ said anythin’, so I thought I’d gotten ‘way with it. It was a cold night, an’ I knew tha’ even with a blanket th’couch wasn’ gonna be very warm, so...even though he’d been drinkin’ way too much tha’ night, I wen’ ‘n’ tried t’wake Bill up, get ‘im t’bed.”

Alex shook his head slightly, his gaze focused unseeingly on the wall across the room, lost in his retelling of this incident, something he’d never told anyone else.

“I’unno if it was ‘cuz I was wearin’ some fake dog tags I’d gotten at th’ mall ‘r what, r’ly, but...I woke ‘im up alrigh’...an’ he grabbed th’dog tags an’ pulled me in close, shoutin’ like a drill sergeant ‘bout how I wasn’ any good, jus’ ‘nother disappointment he didn’ deserve since he’d worked real hard all his life...”

His voice trailed off, and Bianca saw him absently raise a hand to his left cheek, pressing it against his face. “Then he shoved me away, an’ hit me.”

Even half-drunk as she was, something changed in Bianca’s face, in her eyes, and she went a little pale, though Alex was still staring at the wall in an unfocused daze, and didn’t notice.

“...Hit me hard. Hard enough t’ knock me into th’wall an’ make me see stars. Hard enough t’bruise. Face was puffy fer a week. Cut m’cheek on m’teeth, too...”

He bowed his head, and suddenly couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away from a certain spot on the blanket half-covering him.

“He yelled at me s’more after tha’, ‘til I cried, which jus’ made ‘im yell even louder, ‘bout how I was a pansy-ass momma’s boy, an’ how I always took Gemma’s side, an’ how I didn’ take anythin’ seriously, an’ a lotta other stuff tha’s not true ‘bout me but shouln’ be used as ‘n insult. Then he stumbled off t’bed, an’ if he ‘membered it ‘n th’morning, he never said anythin’. Never apologized, ‘r brought it up. But he never hit me again either, an’ he hasn’ gotten tha’ drunk ever again. So...s’happy endin’...‘r somethin’, I guess...”

Alex suddenly turned his head to look at Bianca, and thrust out his hand for the bottle of alcohol, a wry smile twisting along his lips as he thought about how easily that story had come out, not at all like coughing up stones as he’d expected. Alcohol is a hell of a...hell of a...thing. After drinking long enough that it felt like there was a glowing fire in his gut, Alex passed the bottle back with an unsteady little laugh.

“Tha’ personal an’ secret enough fer ya? If not...s’not ‘bout m’parents, but I can tell ya ‘bout th’ time m’cousin broke m’arm.”

That incident had happened when he was twelve, Bianca soon learned. Unable to deal with Gemma walking out on them, Bill had dumped Alex off with his sister, Aunt Bess, whom Alex had only met once or twice before when he was very young. Aunt Bess had three kids, and while her seven-year-old daughter Jess had adored Alex, her two sons, eleven-year-old Trey and fifteen-year-old Duke, had taken one look at Alex and decided that he was the perfect target to pick on. They had tormented him in petty, sibling-esque ways, which was difficult for an only child to accept, especially since they both had the regrettable teenage tendency of taking things too far. Alex, who was still reeling from first his mother’s abandonment and then the fact that his father had ditched him there, with no indication of how long he’d have to stay or when Bill might be back for him, was already in a bad place mentally; even so, he’d managed to put up with the slyly relentless, mean-spirited-feeling torment for nearly an entire month before he’d finally snapped.

Some increasingly unpleasant words had been exchanged between the boys over dinner, and Aunt Bess had sent them all outside to push each other around a little and cool off--only Trey and Duke had taken advantage of the no-adult-present situation to needle Alex even further. After yet another comment about his delicate features and how Gemma had probably left because she’d decided that she wanted a son, not a daughter, Alex had seen red and gone after Trey, who was at that point only a little bigger than he was. Unfortunately for Alex, Duke had stepped in right away and jerked him off Trey, slamming him to the ground so hard and fast that it broke Alex’s left arm in two places, and fractured his collarbone as well. It happened with an awful crack so loud that it sent Jess running to get Aunt Bess, crying and screaming about how Duke had killed Alex.

Duke and Trey had known they would be in for it, so they had left Alex lying there and had run off into the woods behind the house to let their mom cool down. When Aunt Bess and a tearful Jess had found Alex, he hadn’t really moved: he was lying on his back on the ground, cradling his arm and crying near-silently, a trail of tears running from the outer corners of his eyes and over his temples, disappearing into his hair.

Aunt Bess was livid, and had grounded Duke for three months, but the damage was already done, and 15-year-olds are apt to blame others for their punishment, so the rest of Alex’s stay didn’t get any better than it had been before, especially once school started.

It was a catalyst though, the thing that made Alex (and also Bill to a certain extent) realize that he needed to take some kind of self-defense lessons. He might be small, he might always be small, and he might never be very strong, but he still needed and wanted to know the basics about protecting himself. And where better to learn that than on a military base?

Alex hadn’t been trying to make Bianca feel sorry for him with either story, but somewhere in the middle of the second story, around the time he told her about how he’d just laid there flat on his back and cried, the blonde had impulsively reached over and taken his hand, intertwining their fingers. And even now, so drunk that getting his eyes to focus properly and remaining upright were becoming real challenges, it made Alex’s heart stutter with a painful longing.

Talking got progressively more and more difficult after that--it was hard to keep his attention on anything, and all Alex wanted to do was lie down and let go of his hold on time and wakefulness. Before long, he was lying down--and Bianca was lying down too, and that was fine because he liked her, he trusted her, he wanted her to be close by.

And that was how they fell asleep that night, both curled up on opposite ends of the futon, a blanket-shrouded human yin-yang, their hands still clasped tight.

---

Morning proved to be painfully bright, and after jolting awake to the sound of his phone alarm, Alex flinched away from the sunlight pouring in through the window, feeling like someone had been using his skull, especially his temples, as part of a drum set. With a bleary, pained moan, he turned and buried his face in his pillow--then, after a moment’s pause as realization trickled through his mind, he tried to jerk backwards, very nearly fully awake...because what he’d cuddled back into wasn’t his pillow at all.

It was Bianca. A very awake, and very amused Bianca, judging by her wide, trouble-making smile.

...And, specifically, it had been a part of Bianca that he had no business burying his face in, not that she’d seemed to care...which once again really just made it seem all the more hopeless, not that he’d had much (or any) to begin with.

His attempt at pulling away was only partly successful--he managed to draw back enough that his face wasn’t pillowed on the soft curves of his best friend’s chest, but Bianca wasn’t moving away...and she wasn’t really letting go of him either. She kept her arms wrapped around him, looking completely at ease, and not a little smug. Alex, meanwhile, tried (and failed) not to notice how their legs were tangled together, or that certain parts of himself had doubtless been pressed up against the smirking blonde while he slept. What did he even say about that, should he apologize, but it wasn’t as though he’d meant to, he’d been asleep and it was just a natural thing that he couldn’t control, and now Bianca wasn’t letting him put any more space between them, so if she’d noticed (and how could she not) then it clearly didn’t bother her, so maybe he could just pretend it hadn’t happened and not say anything at all and God, his head was killing him and his mouth was so dry, putting words together was going to be impossible-

“Would you look at this,” Bianca drawled, and even though her voice was quiet, Alex flinched at the sound, though he forced himself to keep both eyes open and look at her as she went on. “The Alex Ace: not just a secret romantic, but a total cuddleslut as well. Man, you’d better be extra-nice to me from now on, because I could completely destroy your whole cool, icy radio persona with this knowledge of your adorableness. Though I don’t know if anyone would believe that you’re capable of being this cute, so you might be safe after all.”

Alex felt a rush of indignation (and, to be completely honest, a lancing stab of despair) at how patronizing her tone was, and also at how clear this made it that she didn’t see him as any sort of potential romantic partner. The fact that her voice was pitched lower than usual, rough with sleep and disuse and all the alcohol they’d had last night, really only made things worse for him.

He could feel himself flushing five shades of red, and once again he made an attempt to flail away from her, this one a lot more insistent than before; and this time, Bianca let him go, though her sea-green eyes were still dancing with barely-contained laughter. Immediate regret at being so forceful flooded Alex’s entire body when his head started to pound even harder and his stomach gave a queasy flip. He tasted salt in his mouth, felt that telltale pull at the back of his throat, and one hand clamped over the lower half of his face automatically, headache not forgotten but at least temporarily pushed aside as he scrambled out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, making it just in time to throw up in one of the showers.

“How are you not throwing up, too,” he mumbled when he heard Bianca’s footsteps stop behind him, felt her rest a comforting hand on his back, and he sensed rather than saw her shrug.

“Guess my tolerance for that sort of thing is just higher. Plus I drank a lot of water all day yesterday. I do have a killer headache, though.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Alex said, dry-heaving and then spitting on the floor. “Ugh. Why do people do this to themselves?”

“Because they can. Because it’s part of the college experience. Because it’s fun.”

Alex made a noise that was something between a cough and a dry laugh. “Now you sound like Connor.”

“Ooooh, low blow. You get nasty when you’re feelin’ sick.”

Alex made an attempt at giving a mock-modest shrug, and Bianca patted him comfortingly before stepping away to nab a few paper towels out of the dispenser, wetting them in the sink before offering him one.

“Think you’re done, or do you still have more partly-digested alcohol in there to re-introduce to the world?”

“Har,” Alex gave another choked cough, “Har.” Fumblingly he accepted the wet paper towel and wiped his mouth, then forced himself to open his eyes enough in the sick glare of the bathroom’s fluorescent lighting to survey the damage. His stomach had been pretty empty, so it actually wasn’t that bad, nothing that turning on the shower for a few minutes shouldn’t fix, but at the moment, the handles looked and felt a million miles away from where he was leaning up against the blessedly cool metal stall.

But it was within easy reach for Bianca, who pat-slapped another cool, wet paper towel onto the back of his neck, then carefully leaned forward enough to turn on the shower without stepping inside. She turned it on slow at first, and letting it clear away the worst of the mess before cranking it higher and hotter. The steam felt good on Alex’s face, and the warmth was welcome--he was suddenly feeling really cold, though he also didn’t want to move. Before long, he was crouched down, leaning against the wall and hugging his legs to his chest and trying to hold still, since that seemed to make his head hurt less.

Eventually, after repeated poking failed to rouse him, Bianca had to slip an arm around his ribs and pull him back up onto his feet, then half-carried, half-hauled him back down the hallway to her room, where she laid him out on the futon with a touching amount of care, all things considered. Alex didn’t resist any of it, curling up on his side into a ball of misery and burying his face in his pillow, only to be roused from it again less than a minute later when Bianca forced him to drink most of a bottle of water and take some painkillers.

“Rest up for a bit, then we’ll go get breakfast,” she said, rubbing the side of his shoulder soothingly.

A low, muffled groan of protest was the only response.

“...Then we’ll go get coffee,” she amended.

Another groan, this one a little more considering and agreeable-sounding.

After closing the blinds and downing most of a bottle of water herself, Bianca stretched out on her back on her bed, messing with her phone briefly before giving a soft sigh and letting her eyes drift closed. She almost seemed to have dozed off, but then unexpectedly spoke up, once again keeping her voice low and soft, little more than a whisper:

“Hey, Alex?”

“...Nngh...yeah?”

“Thanks for not throwing up on my stuff. Or on me.”

Alex snorted a weak laugh, even though it made his head feel ready to crack in two, and mumbled from the depths of his pillow, “Don’t worry, I’ll get ya next time. After all...what are friends for?”


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