It was cramped and humid, and he couldn't breathe.
Someone to his right moaned, a low, pained sound, and the noise echoed around the small container, ringing in his ears.
It was too dark. He couldn't see more than a meter in front of him, and no matter how hard he squinted, the dark shambling masses in front of him remained shapeless and shadowed. They were everywhere, all around, just a few footsteps away, stumbling into each other in the unlit corners of the box, letting out whimpers and guttural grunts whenever they did.
"Hello?" He whispered, heart in his throat. "Where are you?"
One of the shapes stumbled toward him, gurgling quietly, and he squinted harder.
"Is that you?" He hissed. "Come to my voice."
The shape stumbled nearer, footsteps uneven, and abruptly he could make out the body. It was wearing a dark grey suit, drenched in blood, and he swallowed heavily, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach.
"Is that you?" He asked again, although even quieter this time, afraid of the answer.
"Alllex."
The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up, a sharp rush of dread washing over him.
"I wasn't calling for you," he breathed, and as the body took another limping step forward, he took his own step backward.
"Alleex." Sarov gurgled, blood gushing between his raw lips. He was missing half of his head, skull shattered open, squelching viscera bare to the room. He reached out a hand. His flesh was rotting off his hand in chunks of bulging black. Maggots shone white in the low light.
"NO!" Alex gasped, and the terror exploded inside him like a bomb, bringing him alight. "Don't—"
"Alllex," Sarov said more urgently.
"Don't touch me!" His breath was choking in his throat and he felt wild with horror. "Don't you bloody touch me!"
There was no way out, he was trapped, the box he was in was dark and and constricting and there were too many bodies, he couldn't get away—
Sarov's teeth bared in a sickening parody of a smile, and his fingers brushed against his shoulder—
The scream wrenched out of his throat like someone had reached inside and ripped it out, and he thrashed away in horrified desperation to get away get away—
CRASH
—and he awoke with a gasp and a blinding pain in his side, hands held out in front of him to ward away—
"Day?" He choked out.
"Alex," Day said, voice high with a peculiar mixture of overwhelming relief and frantic worry. "Oh thank Christ, you're awake, I didn't know what to do!" He was on his knees in front of him, his own hands outstretched, but not touching. His brown eyes were wide, shining in the dim light from the bedside table with something close to panic. Somewhere behind him Molly the dog was whining loudly.
"Was I shouting?"
"Yeah," Day said shakily. "Yeah, you were screaming, really. Fuck, Alex, you scared me so bad."
"I'm sorry." His head felt hazy, the way it usually did after a particularly bad nightmare, and he had to squint blearily through the stars spotting his vision. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's fine." Day scooted closer, hands still held out cautiously, like he was approaching a cornered animal. "Don't worry about it, you just— no Alex! Don't move, stay right where you are."
Alex stopped. He looked down. He was sitting in a pile of ceramic shards and coloured pencils.
"Did I break something?"
"I think you hit my cup of art supplies when you fell out of bed. So don't move, okay? I'm going to go get a dustpan or something."
"Okay," Alex said. He felt dazed, like he'd just resubmerged from a month underwater, and the surface world was strange and oddly coloured and not like how he remembered.
Day jumped up and hurried to the door and nearly smacked into his mother, who was just coming from the hallway.
"Whoa! Day, I heard screaming, what's going on?" She was wearing a housecoat and her hair was mussed, but she looked wide awake and alert.
"Alex had a nightmare, and I think he hurt himself on some glass." Day gestured to Alex worriedly. "I'm going to go get a broom."
"Aw, god. Go." She approached and carefully and crouched a few feet from Alex. "Alex, love, are you okay? You're squinting. Did you hit your head?"
"Not my head." He touched a hand to his side and his fingers came away wet with blood. "Oh no. I ruined Day's shirt."
"Love, that is not anyone's concern right now. You're bleeding."
"Yeah, on his shirt."
"Day will not at all care about that, sweetie, I guarantee you—"
"Care about what?" Day reappeared in the room with a broom and dustpan and hurried to sweep up the broken glass.
"I ruined your shirt," Alex said, still feeling out of touch with what was happening.
"My mother's right." Day carefully pulled Alex away from the ring of destruction left on the ground. Scattered pencils, the scissors, two crazy straws shaped like hearts. "I don't care about that at all."
"I just keep destroying things."
"You've done nothing wrong," Rosemary said clearly, coming to move to Alex's other side. "Let's go to the kitchen and get you cleaned up, okay?"
They moved down the hallway as a unit, a Webster on either side of him, caging him like crutches. He didn't think he needed the support, but couldn't help being thankful for it all the same. He felt dazed and cold, and he couldn't stop staring at the blood on his hands. Again. Molly trailed at their heels, subdued, whining softly.
The green glow of the clock on the stove read 3:18 and when Rosemary flipped on the overhead lights, the table and chairs all shifted from amorphous black blobs to sharply lined furniture. Too sharp. The room felt too liminal, too otherworldly. Alex struggled to ground himself, eyes darting over the room, desperate for an anchor. If he blinked, would this all just disappear?
Rosemary clicked open the white box of medical supplies still lying on the table and picked through it. "Will you come stand over here, please? I need to take a look." She snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves and looked at him expectantly.
His eyes snapped to her and his breath hitched. "I don't— It's not that bad."
"You're dripping blood on the floor," Day said.
"Sorry—"
"Still not my worry." Day looked down at him with a frown. "What's wrong? You had no problem letting her look at you before."
"Yeah, but I didn't have to take off my shirt for that," he said tightly, and quick understanding dawned on Day's face.
"Oh."
Day and his mother exchanged uncertain looks.
"Look," he said, thinking quickly. "How about you just let me look at it on my own and I'll let you know if I need stitches."
"Sweetheart," Rosemary said softly. "I'm going to need to clean it, whether it needs stitches or not."
"I can do that."
"Love—"
"No." He fisted his hands into the hem of his shirt to hide their shaking. "No, you are not taking off my shirt, okay? It's not going to happen. I will not let that happen."
"Alex please, I'm not going to hurt you—"
"I know that," he snapped and then flinched at his own tone of voice. Fuck. He took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm sorry. God. I know you're not going to hurt me. You've already helped me so much. But I don't… Please. I don't like to be unclothed in front of other people."
Her weight shifted from one foot to another, and she worried her lip for a moment, thinking. "Would it be better if Day looked at you?" She asked finally. "It can be him, if that would make it any better."
She wasn't going to give up, Alex realized, his heart immediately sinking in his chest like an anchor. She would just keep pushing and prodding, gently, kindly, but unceasingly. It was something a mother would do, he thought. Jack would have done it. She had. Where Ian had been content to accept his answers of I'm fine, it barely hurt, Jack never took his words at face value. She always had to see, had to verify that his skinned knees weren't going to kill him, that his scraped elbow wasn't going to fall off.
He swallowed heavily. The lump in his throat felt the size of a baseball.
"I would prefer for you to look. And- And Day, I'm sorry but…"
"You want me to leave?"
He nodded, because there was absolutely no way he was going to let handsome Day Webster, who actually seemed to respect him, see how gross he actually looked under his clothes. He felt like a world class jerk, but Day only nodded back understandingly.
"I can do that. I'll just be in my room then? And you can yell for me if you need anything."
"Thanks."
Day reached out and squeezed his hand, then quickly left the kitchen, leaving his mother and Alex alone.
"Let's get this over with then." He felt bitter, resentful, and Rosemary's lips turned down at his tone.
"I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. That's not the point of all this."
"I know. But I'm going to feel uncomfortable and there's nothing you can do to change that." He smiled half-heartedly and added, "Unless you want to just let this go?"
"I want to make sure you don't catch an infection."
He sighed. "Yeah. All right."
There was no point in dragging things out, so he turned, gripped the bottom of his shirt, and resolutely pulled it up to just below his ribs.
It was quiet for a long moment.
"Please tell me where these bruises came from," Rosemary said. Her voice was carefully neutral. But Alex had a great deal of experience with horrified medical professionals carefully keeping their calm, and his shoulders hunched.
"The fight at school."
"All of them?"
"Yes."
"Right. I'm going to touch you now." Glove covered fingers carefully prodded at his ribs and he jerked back immediately, whipping around to glare at Rosemary, shirt falling back down.
"My ribs are fine. You're cleaning my cuts and my cuts only."
"You could have fractured something," Rosemary said. Her face was blank, but her eyes shone with worry. "I'm assuming you didn't get yourself checked out."
"They're not fractured."
"They could be—"
"Oh my god, please Ms. Rosie, just trust me, okay? I admit it, I've had fractured ribs before. And bruised ribs, contusions, whatever. I know what they feel like, and this? Hurts like hell, but it's none of the above, okay? Can you please, please, just clean my cut and let me go? I can't- I can't deal with this right now. I just want to go and lay back down and not think about any of this for a while, but you're not— you're just—" To his horror, he felt his eyes fill with tears, and he glared through them, furious with himself. "This isn't helping. I don't need this right now."
"I think you might, sweetie." The expression on her face had shifted. It was soft. Sad. "Does your foster dad even know you've hurt yourself?"
He pointed at his arm, brows raised incredulously, and Rosemary snorted a breath of air, lips twisting.
"Not that. You know what I'm talking about. The rest of this."
"I don't need him to know. He couldn't help me even if he wanted to. I've taken care of it."
"You shouldn't have to take care of something like this by yourself."
"This—" He waved a hand haphazardly around his torso. "This is nothing, don't you get that? It's nothing. I got into a fight with some kids at school— not the first time it's happened and it likely won't be the last. Nothing's broken! Or fractured, or whatever. I iced it all, practically took a bath in Bengay, and haven't been straining myself. What more is there?"
The look on Rosemary's face was only getting more sorrowful, and Alex could tell that somewhere along the line, he'd said something wrong. But God, he couldn't tell what. He scowled at her fiercely, struggling against the tight feeling of urgency in his chest, and the tingling in his stomach that prodded get away get away! as sharp as a knife.
"Alright," she finally said quietly. "Alright love. Let me just look at your side again. I promise I'll clean your cuts."
"And nothing else?"
"And nothing else." She sounded unhappy. Defeated.
What the hell was she unhappy about? She wasn't the one baring herself like some sort of exhibit to a person she barely knew, getting asked questions that weren't her business.
Alex firmed himself again and once more slid Day's shirt up just enough for her to see the wounds he'd incurred.
"They're not deep." She wiped the blood away with a rag and looked carefully at the cuts. "But this one has a small shard of glass inside. I'm going to have to take it out with a pair of tweezers, is that okay?"
"Sure."
He didn't make a sound as she dug the glass out, eyes fixed determinedly on the plastic tupperware of cookies sitting on the counter.
"There." She dropped the tweezers and the glass on the table and wiped away the blood once more. She held up a box of band-aids. "Disney to match the rest?"
"Sure."
She plastered him up and he immediately let the shirt fall back down, feeling shaky. His insides were all wobbly and weird, the way they usually got when he was coming down from an adrenaline high. And he guessed he probably was. The memory of Sarov's bloodied face still hovered in the forefront of his mind.
"Alex, before Day comes back in here, I need to ask you just two more questions."
"Ms. Rosemary," he said, exhausted by the refrain, and she held up a hand to stop his words.
"Love, please. Just two questions. That's all. Then this can be over."
He squeezed his eyes shut. "I don't want to answer your questions."
"I know. But answer them anyway. Please." She leaned forward in her chair, looking serious, hands folded over on her thighs. "I know you said Alil didn't give you the bruises on your torso, and I believe you. But is he the one who gave you the scars?"
Alex stiffened. "No."
"There's no shame on your part if he did, sweetheart. Only on his—"
"It wasn't him," Alex interrupted. "None of the scars you saw on my stomach were from him, I swear."
"Okay. And the scars on your shoulders?"
He jerked back as if he'd been struck, breath hitching, eyes growing wide. "Did you—? How do you know about them?" A thought struck him, a nauseating, sickening thought, and he felt bile rise in his throat, even as a frightened flush rose on his face. "Did you look at me? When I was asleep?"
Rosemary's eyes widened as well in twin horror, and revulsion burst from her like flies. "No! God, no, Alex, I would never—" She reached for him and he jumped to his feet, nearly tripping as he stumbled away.
"Did you take my shirt off?" He demanded. "Fuck, I should have known. You were too nice. I should never have let my guard down, I should have known—"
His mind whirled frantically, approaching the problem like a hurricane. His nightmares always went one of two ways: they hit him like a bunch of needles, sharp and pointed but light, keeping him on a hair trigger, or they pulled him down like a riptide, smothering him so deeply he could sleep through a literal fire alarm.
It must have been the second, Alex thought wildly. It was a bad one, it must have been the second.
"Alex I swear to God I didn't undress you," Rosemary was saying loudly and firmly. She'd stood as well, and her hands were still spread, open and unthreatening. "I swear—"
But Alex couldn't hear her. His ears were ringing and there was something surging up his throat, something dark and terrified and black as tar. Sweat was beading his brow.
He remembered the first time someone had undressed him without his permission. And he remembered the second time, and the third, and he remembered the skin-crawling sensation of Nile's hands on every part of his body, searching searching and the terror had frozen his tears with Nile, but here, in Day's kitchen, warm and clean and domestic, there was nothing to stop them from spilling over.
"Why does this keep happening? Do I— Do I invite these things in? I'm trying to be good."
"You don't invite anything Alex, I'm sorry, I didn't— the shirt you're wearing, Day's shirt—" She reached out a hand to him once more and he stumbled another step back, bumping up against a solid surface, and he pressed against it so hard his skin felt like it would burst.
"It's all me now," he breathed, coming alight with the realization. "It's just me now and I'm still fucking up so it's all me." He laughed viciously, his heart sick in his chest. His body was shuddering now, shaking against his will and he looked down at his hands, amazed at how his own flesh was once again betraying him, amazed at the tears blurring his vision because when was the last time he'd cried? When was the last time he'd lost control in such a spectacular, explosive, way? "Jesus Christ, I'm just some wreckage now—"
"You're not wreckage," Rosemary tried to interject, but Alex laughed again, loudly, and Rosemary flinched into silence at the sound.
"You have no idea what I am, you have absolutely no idea, the things I've done, the things that have been done to me, to this fucking stupid broken body. I'm all wrong inside now, don't you get it? And it's my fault! It's just the type of thing I am now, it's my own fucking fault—"
"Alex, it's not your fault—"
"IT IS!" He shouted. He could feel himself spiralling out of control, loathing choking at him like a pair of hands, fear and shame clawing at his body. "It's all my fault! I could have done so many things differently! I could have said no! I could have- I could have made them listen, I could have never gotten on that plane, I could have never followed that car, I could have never jumped out of that stupid window! And now it's like, it's like there's a sign, some big stupid sign pointing out to the universe, hey this is the kid! This is the fuck-up, do what you want to him because he's alone now and he deserves bad things and now there's definitely no one that can stop you!"
"You don't deserve bad things!" Rosemary sounded alarmed, and horrified, and Alex laughed.
"I deserve a bullet in the fucking head. And Tom says no and Jerry says no and I'm trying, I'm trying so hard, but nothing's working!" He slammed his fists against his face, knuckles digging into his eyeballs. "Nothing is getting better, I am still afraid, I am still alone, and this- this filthiness inside of me, it keeps spewing out, it keeps- it keeps— God!" He ground his fingers deeper into his eyes, digging in harder for the place of pain and panic that was making him feel like he was on fire. "I keep hurting people. I want it to stop, I want it all to stop, I don't want this anymore, I don't, I don't—"
"You're going to hurt yourself, Alex, sweetheart." A shuffling sound brought in the smell of clean soap and the warmth of a body, and Rosemary's voice came again, much much closer, "Sweetheart, can you look at me? Can you do that?"
"Why didn't I just die," he choked out. "Why did I have to make it this far, why'd she have to be the one when it was all my fault— it was all my fault, it's still all my fault—"
"Please just look at me, love, please—"
"I hate myself so much!" And oh he was sobbing now, big shuddering cries as tears spurted down his face, staining his cheeks and neck, confessions spilling out of him like a cascade of sharp little rocks. "I wish I were dead."
"Oh, sweetheart, no no." Gentle fingers were touching his shoulder and he flinched away. But the touch followed him, and Rosemary was gripping him softly, pressing in closer. "You are a good person, don't say things like that."
"I'm not," he sobbed. "I'm not, I'm bad, you have no idea how bad I am—"
She pulled him into a soft embrace, arms gentle but firm looping around his shoulders. "You are not bad. You just woke up from a nightmare so traumatic you injured yourself, and you were more worried about getting blood on my son's shirt."
His face crumpled. "I ruined it—"
"You haven't ruined anything—"
"I've ruined everything!" He tried to pull away but she gripped him tighter and held him closer. And when her hand started to rub a soothing tattoo over his back— his face crumpled and he broke, dissolving further into great, heaving sobs which wracked his frame so heavily his knees gave out.
"It's okay," Rosemary said softly, easing him to the ground. She kept her arms around him and he turned and buried his face in her shoulder, tears soaking her shirt, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. "It's okay, Alex, it's okay."
He didn't know how long he cried, just that it seemed like hours, and Rosemary never stopped rubbing his back or whispering things to him, quiet and earnest. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been hugged by an adult. The last time he'd been held like this. He felt warm and safe, and slowly the sobs petered off, and the jittering under his skin quieted. And then it was just him and Rosemary, kneeling on the kitchen floor as he sniffled quietly.
"There," she said quietly, hand still rubbing. "Are you feeling a little better now, love?"
He jerked a nod and a few more tears leaked out from his scrunched shut eyes. The panic was gone, lurking back under his skin where it always waited, out of sight but never quite absent. He took a shuddering breath and pulled his head back so he could look Rosemary in the face.
"I'm so sorry," he said, feeling watery and ashamed.
"You have nothing to feel sorry about. But Alex." She finally stopped and pulled her own distance back, meeting his eyes seriously. "I need to tell you this right now, before any conversation continues. I did not take off your clothes, I will never do something like that. Ever."
"Then how did you know?" He asked. "About my— about—"
"Day's shirt," she said. "It's a little big, love. I didn't notice until after I put the bandaid on, but sometimes it slips down a little."
He looked at his shoulder. Day's shirt had slid down, revealing, yes— skin, bubbled and raised, ugly roils of dark red and browns creeping up his back, just peeking over the top of his shoulder. The gasoline burns from the exploding oil drum in India. He squeezed his eyes shut, humiliation taking over.
"I'm so sorry," he said, miserable and ashamed by his belief, oh god, by his entire breakdown of a response. "I get a little… Just… I don't do so well, thinking that people are, you know, taking liberties they shouldn't."
But thinking about it a little more clearly, there was no way Rosemary would have been able to undress him while he was asleep. Sure, his nightmares were intense, but… were they that intense? And that's not even to mention that Rosemary herself had given him absolutely no reason to think that she would do something like that.
Fuck.
He buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm not even— I just— people have done that before, and I've never liked it, and just… God. I had no reason to think you would do that, that's such a not at all normal thing to think. Oh god."
"Alex, if people have done this before, then it's perfectly natural to be on edge about it."
And her voice was calm again, but there was something in it that made Alex look up at her sharply.
"Has Alil ever done something like that before?" She asked, and oh—
"Wait," he blurted. "Wait hold on I just realized how that all sounded, oh god—"
"It's absolutely not your fault," she said firmly, seriously. "If someone has taken your clothing off of you without your permission—"
"It was never sexual. Literally none of it was ever sexual, oh my god why do I even speak sometimes—"
"It's good that you told me. Have you ever spoken about this to anyone else in your life?"
"Oh my god," Alex moaned again. "It wasn't like that, I swear. I know how this sounds, I totally know, but it was never sexual, okay? I swear to god."
"But people have taken your clothing off of you without your permission." And the carefully neutral tone was back. Fantastic.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look. Yes. Once or twice, yes, people have taken my clothing off without my permission. And it sucked, but it wasn't sexual, and I knew then that it wasn't sexual, and nothing happened, okay?"
"So nobody has ever touched you in your private areas."
"I mean—" He floundered helplessly, not wanting to lie to the woman, not after slighting her so badly already. "Not sexually."
She took in a breath, face pinched, and he cut her off before she began.
"Whatever may have happened to me happened years ago, anyway. Not with Alil. He's been a good guardian. I mean. Relatively. And honestly, like totally honest, whenever we get into it, it's always my fault anyway. And by get into it I mean 'argue'," he added quickly. "Not anything else."
He wanted to reassure her that Alil had never hurt him, not including this most recent injury, but admitting to any physicality between him and his guardian was absolutely not the right call.
"Okay. Can you promise me that? Because if he is touching you, or making you feel scared or frightened in any way, I swear I can and I will help you."
Alex was already shaking his head. "He's not. I promise he's not. It was years ago, and I'm in a different, I guess, chapter of my life. It was years ago."
"Right." She stared at him sharply, assessing the validity of his promises, weighing the truth. But soon enough she sighed and softened her gaze and asked, "Does anybody else know about what happened to you? Sexual or not, Alex, somebody needs to know."
"Yeah. My- um- my case worker knows about it all. It's fine. It was all handled."
"You swear."
"I swear." He felt a little awkward at the weight she was putting into something as childish as a promise, but it was also strangely comforting that that was all it took.
"Okay… Okay. That's good."
"Yeah." He chewed on his lip, welcoming the sting of the open cut. "I really am sorry Ms. Rosemary. All you've done is help me and I've kind of thrown all of it in your face."
"You really haven't, love. It's okay." She considered him for a moment. "How about I make us some hot chocolate and we sit and talk for a bit."
Alex nodded slowly. He got the feeling that this wasn't something he could say no to. He sat heavily in one of the kitchen chairs and looked around for Molly. The dog had vanished.
"You want some cookies?" Rosemary rattled the box at him. "We've still got some left."
He took the box silently and leaned back to watch her rifling through a cabinet.
"You know," she said, as she retrieved two mugs from a shelf. "My son seems to really like you."
"I like him too."
"I'm glad to hear that. Day's a good kid." She added, faux-casually, "He's a good judge of character."
"He looks for the best in everyone," he muttered. "Which is a lovely trait, but… I mean, you should know as well as I do that it can be a dangerous one too."
"Are you talking about yourself?" She tore open two packets of cocoa powder and poured them into the mugs. "Do you think you're dangerous, Alex?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you're a young boy, love. I think you're still a child, although you haven't been afforded the luxury to act like one, although that luxury is more of a right."
Alex knew better than anyone that rights were just constructs, to be withheld or given at will. And he had not been a child since he was 14, staring silently down into a closed casket, eyes dry and jaw set.
"The world doesn't always work the way it should," he allowed.
Rosemary sighed. "No. I guess it doesn't." She sat across from him and slid a mug over the tabletop. It was white, with a picture of a cartoon German Shepherd plastered on the front. "Careful, it's hot."
He reached out and gripped the cup, grateful for the grounding sting.
His eyes hurt. They felt gritty, like they were full of sand, and he knew they were probably bloodshot and bright red. His ribs hurt, his arm simultaneously throbbed and itched, and his hand still felt like it had been crushed in a garbage disposal. Not the worst he'd ever felt, no— but the worst he'd felt in a long, long time.
Rosemary was the first to break the silence, nodding to his hand wrapped around his mug. "So you were the kid who beat up a bully?"
He stiffened. "Excuse me?"
"Day mentioned the incident a bit ago. He didn't name you or anything, but he said that whoever it was had come off a little worse for wear. It wasn't too hard to put the pieces together. And like I said. He sounded admiring."
She arched her brow at him like there was something more to be taken from her words— but he wasn't sure what, exactly, so he just huffed and muttered, "Too admiring. There's nothing glamorous about violence."
"But there is something attractive about a kid standing up to bullies for a friend. And I'm not saying that I approve of fighting in schools— or fighting at all, really— but I think maybe you're a bit harder on yourself than you should be."
"I'm exactly as hard on myself as I should be, Ms. Rosie. Fighting in schools isn't exactly the extent of my experience in life." His lips twisted up in a bitter parody of a smile. "You look at me and you see a child, but maybe you just don't know what to look for."
"I used to work in a hospital. I've seen the aftermath of almost every despicable act you could think of. I've met some of the worst the world has to offer."
"And yet you still can't look at me and know? You can't see? I mean—" He spread his hands at his body helplessly. "You've seen a lot of my scars. You think I just happened to get third degree burn scars all over my back just- just in some crazy happenstance?"
"I find myself very hard pressed to think up any scenario where a child your age deserves burns that badly."
"I'm not saying I deserved them, I'm saying there's a lot about me that's been damaged. Not just physically, do you understand? I'm not—" He shook his head, frustrated. "I'm not right anymore. I've done a lot of horrible things, to a lot of horrible people. And maybe they deserved it, but I still did those things. And now what's inside of me, it's not normal anymore. It's all- it's all twisted. Don't you get that?"
"I get that you're scared," Rosemary deflected firmly, neither accepting nor denying his words. "And that you probably feel overwhelmed and alone. But you're not alone."
"Well." He huffed. "I mean, I'm pretty alone."
"You have friends, I know you do. Day's told me about them. Tom, right? And his brother... Jerry?"
He snorted. "Yeah. Tom and Jerry. Sounds kind of made up, I know." He took a sip of his hot chocolate to give himself a moment to think, and then continued, slowly. "Tom and Jerry are great. I love them both, really I do. But neither of them really understands. They both still think that I'm- that I'm good. Even after I've told them things. About me. About what's happened."
And he'd told them a lot. Far more than he ever should have.
And here he was, telling Rosemary far more than he should as well.
But he was exhausted and in pain and he'd never felt so cared for by an adult. Not in years. And he was so, so tired of carrying all of his secrets around. So tired of their weight.
Rosemary nodded thoughtfully, and he felt like crying because there wasn't a single ounce of judgement in her eyes. Just contemplation.
"You know," she said. "Bad things can happen to you, and you can do a lot of bad things, but that still doesn't have to make you bad."
"Then what does? I'm pretty sure that's exactly what makes someone bad."
"Stagnation. Getting stuck in that place. You've outright told me, Alex, that you're trying to get better. To do better. That's not something a bad person would ever do."
"Maybe," he muttered quietly, not quite convinced.
Rosemary seemed to understand that, because she sighed and continued, "Do you talk to anyone about these feelings, Alex?"
"Tom, sometimes."
"I mean, a professional."
"What, like a therapist?"
"Exactly like a therapist. It sounds like there's a lot that you're dealing with, and sweetheart, I think you need to talk to someone about it."
He shook his head, bitterness surging once again. "I can't talk to anyone about this stuff, Ms. Rosie."
"And why not?"
"Because- because- you just…" He shook his head again, frustration joining the bitterness. Talking to anyone was literally illegal, but how could he ever say that? "I can't explain. I just can't talk about any of it. I can't."
"As long as there's no current risk to yourself or anyone else, what you talk about stays between you and your therapist. And," she bit her lip. "Well, if there is any risk to yourself, then you absolutely need to talk to a therapist."
Understanding dawned abruptly, and he groaned. "This is about me saying I wish I were dead."
"And that you deserve a bullet in the head. Yes."
"Look, I don't really… I mean, honestly, sometimes I do wish I were dead, but I'm not suicidal."
She looked at him and didn't speak.
"Really," he persisted. "I'm not. Things are fine right now. Honestly, better than they've been in a while. I don't know why I freaked out earlier, I've been through way worse, trust me."
"I trust that."
"Right. I'm dealing with things. I swear I am, I just… had a bad night."
"Your foster father threw a bowl at you and gave you eight stitches."
His breath caught, and he stared at her, taken aback. "A bowl?" It clicked. "You- You listened in on me earlier. When I was on the phone."
"I did. I'm sorry. But you're not safe at home, Alex, and that can't continue."
"No," he shook his head wildly, a flush overtaking his face. "No, you can't— you don't— you still don't understand. I'm safest with Alil. There are so many worse places to be, you just don't get that—"
"I get that Alex, but there are so many safer places to be too—"
"And if you say anything I won't get to those places! Alil's my last stop, alright? My absolute last, and I need to make things work with him. I need to. And there's not a single thing you can threaten me with that will ever make me report him, so you can just back off."
"Whoa, wait!" She held up her hands, taken aback. "I'm not going to threaten you with anything!"
"Then what are you saying? I'm not going to report him, Ms. Rosie. And if you report him, I'll deny everything, say he's the best damn foster father I've had, five stars. Your report won't get anywhere."
It would. It would get straight to Jones. He needed to cut this off now.
"I want to help you," she said earnestly, and he cut her off.
"If you really want to help me, you'll let this go. I know violent people, alright? And Alil— he's not violent. He's just hurt. Yesterday was the worst day of the year for him, because it was the anniversary of his brother's murder. Can you really blame him for losing his cool a little?"
"Oh I absolutely can."
"Come on," he sighed, tired of this already. "I practically goaded him into violence, he's honestly not to blame here."
"He really is."
He groaned out loud. "You and your son are just alike, Ms. Rosie. You really are."
"I'm very proud to hear that." And for a moment it seemed like this entire god-awful conversation was going to— but then she sighed and slumped back in her chair. "Are you sure you want to do things this way, love?"
"I'm sure."
"Fine. Okay… I won't push you. But know this: you are always welcome in this household. At any time of night, any day. And if we're not here, I can give you a key and you can let yourself in and stay without us. Do you understand?"
"Oh." He stared at her, jaw agape. "Um. I kind of feel like you missed a lot of what I've been trying to say."
"I've heard you. I just don't recognize in you a bad person. I really don't."
He swallowed. "Well. Thanks."
"Anytime. Now drink up. We need to get you into some clean clothes, and then you need to get some sleep."
A glance at the oven clock showed that it was after 4 AM. He winced and downed his hot chocolate as fast as he could.
When they approached it, Day's door was open a crack, and Rosemary gave two quick knocks before pushing the door the rest of the way open.
Alex had thought that Day might have fallen back to sleep, in the time it had taken Alex to calm down and talk to Rosemary, but the other boy was perched tensely on the edge of his bed, and he jumped up immediately as the door slid open. He looked wide awake.
"Hey," he said, eyes darting all over Alex's figure. "Um— all good?" Molly was laying at his feet, and she perked up as well, head raising from her paws.
Oh. Alex stared at Molly. Last he'd seen her, she'd been whining somewhere in the background as he'd broken down about being a terrible person. Oh god. If she was in the room now, Day must have, at some point, gone out to get her.
To his credit, Day didn't avoid his gaze, merely met his eyes and smiled somewhat awkwardly.
"All good," Rosemary said easily. "I'm going to leave you two boys to it, okay? Try to get some sleep."
"Will do," Day said.
"Thank you," Alex said.
Rosemary smiled at him kindly. "Anytime." And then she slipped out the door and padded down the hallway.
"Are you really okay?" Day immediately blurted as soon as they were alone.
"I'll live." He examined the carpet under his feet intently. "I just talked to your mum a bit."
"Right. Um. So." Day's feet padded closer and came to stop in his line of sight. "In the spirit of total honesty here, I actually heard quite a bit of your conversation with my mum."
"Yeah, I figured." He couldn't look at Day. "I was kind of loud."
"A bit. I couldn't quite make out what you guys were saying at first, but then my mum said, um, that she hadn't undressed you? And I wasn't sure what to make of that, and you sounded pretty panicked so I came out to see what was going on." Even though he wasn't looking at Day, he could feel the heavy weight of his gaze on him. It just made him want to look at him even less.
"And when did you leave?"
"When you started, ah, crying."
Alex groaned low in his throat. "That's so embarrassing. Christ."
"It's fine, really." Day touched his elbow tentatively. "I'm sorry you felt unsafe here."
"It wasn't your fault or your mother's, please know that. I've just… had some bad experiences in the past, and I don't really… trust people."
"Well… based on what I heard, it sounds like you have some pretty good reasons for that."
"Okay, I've got to set this straight." He took a deep breath and dragged his eyes up to meet Day's, and told him as firmly as possible. "Out of all of the bad things that have happened to me in the past, I have never once been sexually abused. I need to make that perfectly clear."
"Okay," Day said.
"I'm serious. I told your mother, and I'm telling you, because I need you to know."
"Okay." Day's grip on his elbow grew more firm. "I believe you."
And he wasn't sure that Day was telling the truth but what more could he say? He sighed and asked, "I don't suppose you have one more sleep shirt I could borrow? I promise I'll do my best not to get any blood on it."
The new shirt Day dug out for him was short-sleeved, but better fitting. He changed in the bathroom and then stepped out, uncomfortably clutching at his bare arms. He hadn't worn short sleeves in front of anyone other than Tom in literal years. He knew his scars were ugly, and the bruising made it look even worse. His only solace was that his fresh injury was covered up by a patch of gauze.
"You look good," Day said easily, barely lingering on his mess of flesh. "Do you want to try for sleep again now, or wait a bit? Maybe watch some TV?"
"Maybe some TV would be nice."
Despite the utter exhaustion of his body, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep just yet.
They padded out to the living room, and Molly immediately perked up from where she was laying in front of the couch. Day collapsed to his knees in front of his dog and ruffled her ears. "Hey girl. Mind if we sit with you a bit?"
She panted happily at him.
"I assume that means she doesn't mind?" Alex raised a brow.
"I assume that too." Day spread an inviting hand at the couch and Alex carefully lowered himself onto it, pushing aside the mess of blankets Day must have been using for the night.
Day took a seat right next to Alex. "What do you want to watch? We have Netflix and HBO Go."
"Are you… staying? I'll be fine here on my own. Just show me how to use the remote."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"You're probably tired," he hedged, and Day looked at him.
"Alex. Do you want me to stay."
He flushed, but managed to force out, "Yes."
"Good." The taller boy leaned back more comfortably, his long legs stretching out to bump into Molly's back. "What do you want to watch?"
They settled on Blue Planet and when the first school of fish swam across the screen, Molly scrambled up on the couch next to Day and turned to watch the TV screen intently, tongue lolling out of her mouth.
"She loves nature documentaries," Day said. "Just wait until the dolphins come on."
Alex leaned across Day to give Molly a scratch behind her ears. "She's a good dog."
"She is. She was really concerned about you tonight, you know."
"I didn't mean to disturb her."
Day shook his head, looking exasperated. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying she was concerned. She was the same way when Robin fell off her bike and had to get stitches. I was concerned about you too, you know—" He held up a hand. "And please don't say it, Alex, I'm begging you."
He stifled a smile. "I wasn't going to."
"You were, but okay." Day examined his face closely in the low light. The overhead was turned off, and only the blue of the ocean from the TV illuminated their figures, David Attenborough narrating softly, volume turned down. "I tried to shake you awake, you know. I think that's what startled you so badly."
"Oh. Yeah, I don't do so well with being touched when I'm asleep. Especially when I'm having a nightmare. I should have warned you, that's not your fault."
"Right. Do you want to talk about it?" Day ventured. "Your nightmare. It seemed… bad."
"It was." He sighed then, long and low. "Honestly it's… they've been getting worse recently. Things with Alil have been exacerbating them, I think."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Um." Did he want to talk about this? Yesterday- or, well, the day before yesterday, now- he would never have even considered it. Things with Day were going to stay compartmentalized. Casual. That's what he'd decided. But it seemed as if those plans were up in smoke now. The line had been crossed. And Day didn't seem to mind so much. He took a deep breath.
"So back when my uncle first died, things weren't super great. Which I'm sure you've gathered." His lips twisted bitterly. "Honestly, things were really bad. A lot happened. And uh, one of those things that happened was that this guy took me in to live with him. He— His name was... Well, it doesn't really matter what his name was. Anyway, he wanted to adopt me because I reminded him of his dead son."
Day nodded slowly, frowning as he listened in silence.
"And he was nice to me, but just in general he was a pretty awful person. Like, very bad. And it sort of came down to things, and I ended up telling him I didn't want him as a father. And then, um." He twisted his fingers in his lap. "He didn't really handle that too well and he shot himself in the head."
Day jerked back at the abrupt drop of information and stared at him, shocked. "He what? He shot himself in the head because you didn't want to be adopted?"
"Yeah," he responded quietly. "He wasn't very stable."
"That's awful. Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry that happened. I don't… I don't even know what to say to that." He shook his head and rallied. "But— Please tell me you know it wasn't your fault, Alex. If he was really such a bad person, then you were right not to condone his actions. It wasn't your fault at all."
"It was honestly kind of my fault," Alex said grimly. "I literally told him straight up that I would rather be dead than have a father like him. I'm pretty sure those are the exact words I used."
Day gripped his leg just above his knee, the usual place it fell, Alex noted. "Jesus Christ. That's… Alex, I'm so sorry that happened. You didn't deserve that at all. But you couldn't have known how he would react."
He laughed bitterly. "I mean, I do admit I expected him to shoot me, then. That was kind of the predicted response."
And Day blanched abruptly. The grip on his leg tightened. "Alex— Hold on. Wait. Just wait. Back up."
Alex blinked at him, confused by the dread in Day's voice.
"Just… Are you saying— Do you mean to tell me... you were there when it happened? You actually saw your foster father shoot himself in the head? After you told him you didn't want to be adopted?"
"I mean… yeah?"
Day looked as if someone had taken a hammer and beaten his heart to a bloody pulp. "Alex, holy fuck," he breathed and abruptly pulled Alex into a fierce hug, wrapping his arms around his body and burying his nose in Alex's hair. "That's awful. I'm so fucking sorry."
"It's- It's okay—"
"It's absolutely not okay, fuck." His arms tightened and Alex melted into his embrace, feeling tears prickling at his eyes. "I thought, I mean, it'd still be absolutely awful if it had happened without you there, but you literally saw it? That's so fucked up. Nobody should have to see something like that."
"It wasn't great," he laughed breathily. If Day was reacting this strongly to just Sarov, Alex couldn't imagine how he'd react to hearing about any of the things that came after. He thought he'd feel like a freak, but it honestly just felt… nice. Having someone validate his experiences.
"Yeah I bet it wasn't, Jesus."
They stayed like that a few more moments before Alex pulled away reluctantly, wiping his eyes quickly. Day pretended not to see, still looking incredibly upset.
"Anyway," Alex said, feeling a little embarrassed. "That was a thing that happened. It happened years ago. I don't know why I can't just get over it."
"You saw somebody— somebody you knew— shoot themselves in the head. That's horrific. I think you need to take as long as you need to process that."
"It's nowhere near the worst thing I've seen though," Alex argued weaky. "I mean, in comparison, this wasn't even that bad."
Day floundered for a moment, seeming at a loss for how to respond. "Comparisons aren't how you should think about trauma," he finally settled on. "There may have been worse stuff, but that still doesn't erase that what you just told me is absolutely wretched."
"Maybe."
"Definitely," he corrected. "It's absolutely understandable that you'd be distressed by such a thing. But so… how does Alil fit in? Are you worried that he's going to hurt himself?"
"It wasn't a big fear until recently," he admitted. "But then— when he called me when we were at the ice cream place, you remember— he was really messed up, and all I could think about was how he only sleeps on the couch, and that's where he keeps his gun—"
"His gun?"
"Yeah."
"It's illegal for foster parents to own firearms. You know that, right? God— the man who flew into a rage and gave you eight stitches has a gun?"
"He's got special permission," Alex lied, trying to appease the horrified look on Day's face. "And anyway, I'm definitely taking it away after all this, so you don't have to worry."
"Is he going to get mad about that?"
"No. He really does have special permission. It's not like he wants to have it around."
"Then why does he?"
He shrugged helplessly, not quite sure what to say. It was required by Jones that every person that looked after him have firearm training. It was protection. For Alex, or against Alex, he wasn't quite sure, but every single guardian he'd had since the Pleasures had all had at least a pistol hidden somewhere in the house.
"Okay. Okay… So he won't have access to a gun. That's good."
"Yeah," Alex said. "So you don't have to worry about that anymore. And hopefully my worries will get a bit less too."
"Hopefully. So that's what your nightmare was about? Alil shooting himself?"
"No, it was… It was about Sarov. My other foster dad," he clarified. "We were trapped in a dark box with a bunch of other people, and— and I didn't know it was him at first, because I could barely see anything. And then he turned around and it was him. And uh," he cleared his throat, embarrassed. "He was a zombie. Everyone else in the box was. And he was missing most of his head— you know, from where he shot himself— and he just kind of lurched at me. He was saying my name. It just… it sounded just like him. It was so clear."
"That sounds terrible."
"Really? Even the zombies? A little childish."
"I've seen The Walking Dead," Day quirked a grin at him. "Nothing childish about those things. Just the walkers from the first season gave me nightmares, and they only got more gross as the seasons progressed."
Alex couldn't help but smile back at him, relieved at the genuine response. "Thanks, Day."
"You don't need to thank me." He wrapped a gentle arm back around Alex's shoulders, and pulled him in once more. "You're crazy brave, mate. I'm literally astounded at how well you've taken things recently."
"I had a breakdown in your kitchen and accused your mother of taking my clothes off in my sleep," he mumbled against Day's chest. "That's like, the worst I've ever taken anything."
"Then that's even crazier." Day's fingers threaded through his hair and massaged at his scalp gently. "Your guardian really messed you up, Alex. And you handled everything so calmly and coolly. I would have had a breakdown on the bloody streets. I would have had no idea what to do. But you just… kept yourself together. Called someone you knew could help you. You didn't even flinch when my mum gave you stitches in the kitchen."
"Like I said. It was just eight."
He thought he should feel stiff and weird, being hugged like this so casually, but in reality, it felt nice. Good. Day had a peculiar way of making him feel safe and protected. Stabilized. Day was just such a steady, calm presence, and he relaxed against his side, hand gripping at the bottom of Day's shirt.
"Eight's too many, Alex." The words rumbled out of Day's chest, and Alex sank further into the vibrations, feeling warm and comfortable. "Way too many."
"It's fine."
"It's not." Day's fingers continued to run through his hair. "I don't want to disturb you but… do you want to talk anymore before we clock out for the night?"
"About what?"
Day hesitated. "You may have already talked to my mum about it. I'm actually positive you did. But… just… the clothing thing?"
He stiffened. "Oh."
"Yeah. I just… don't want to stumble upon anything accidentally, and make things worse."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…" The hand in his hair tugged gently at a lock of hair, and he sat back reluctantly to meet Day's eyes. "I mean this, Alex. I shouldn't have even touched you like this without asking."
"What? But I—" His cheeks tinted pink. "But I wanted you to touch me like that."
"Yeah, but how was I supposed to know that? What if that had been a trigger?"
"Touching my hair?"
"Yes," Day said stubbornly. "Or hugging you so close like that. I should have asked. I don't want to do anything wrong and hurt you on accident."
"Day, I told you. I wasn't, like, molested, or anything."
"But people took off your clothes. That's still some sort of abuse—"
"It wasn't sexual," he interrupted. "I know how it sounds but none of them ever had sexual motivations."
"It's— Alex," Day floundered, seeming lost. "You were what? 14? 15? No matter what reasoning they had in their heads, they should never have taken your clothes off you without your consent. It's still really fucked up, and it's totally natural, or you know, normal, if you were to feel weird about it— sexually, I mean."
"But it wasn't sexual."
"Okay. And I believe you. But you still have, you know, concerns about that sort of thing, and maybe you have concerns about other things that I should know about?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know," Day said patiently. "That's why I'm asking."
"Well I know you're not going to take my clothes off without asking me first," Alex said, and a slow grin worked its way across Day's face. Alex's words caught up with him and he immediately flushed bright red. "Oh my god, that's- that's not how I meant it."
"I know how you meant it," Day said, but he was still grinning. "Just… anything else? Like, can I touch you like this?" He put his hand on Alex's leg, and Alex flushed, somehow, impossibly deeper.
"Um. Yes. You can do that."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. You can also hug me, but… I guess sometimes I'd like to be asked. There are days when I don't really, uh, do so well with touch."
"That's good to know. I'll probably always ask, but, any signs I can look for to let me know what kind of day it is?"
Alex didn't answer immediately, just looked at him a moment, a frown curving over his face. "You're putting a lot of effort into this," he observed.
"I mean, it's not that much."
"It's more than anyone has done for me before, barring Tom."
"Then people are awful and you deserve better."
"Well. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now— signs?"
And Alex explained to him, haltingly, how he would sometimes flinch away from everything around him, afraid of the slightest movements against him. How the noises from the streets would set him deeply on edge, and he could hardly think of anything else except his own unease.
Day listened thoughtfully, nodding when he should, then said, "I'll keep that in mind."
"Thanks," he repeated again, helplessly. He could hardly understand what was going on.
"Haven't done anything." Day rested back in his seat, reaching out to put an arm around Molly, petting his dog on the back. He looked tired, Alex realized. His eyes were red too, and he was blinking just a bit too often.
"You know, you can go back to your bed now," Alex said, guiltily. "I can take the couch."
Day yawned. "Or we could both take the bed. My mum doesn't really think anything would happen tonight, she knows that the timing is way too inappropriate. Plus, you know. We're not that close— yet." He smirked at Alex, who could only gape back at him, astonished. "Uh— shit— bad joke?"
"Do you—? Wait." Alex shook his head. "Just wait. I don't think I understand. Do you…?"
"Hold on," Day held up his own hands, sitting up straight. He was blinking at him quickly, and this time Alex could tell it wasn't from sleep. In fact, he looked much more awake than he had mere moments before. "You wait. Are you saying..?" He breathed out a bewildered chuckle, looking somewhere between incredulous and amused. "Alex. You know I like you back, right?"
The words were like a sucker punch to the throat, and all of the air in Alex's lungs rushed out him in a low, startled gasp. He could do nothing but gape at Day who stared back, brows raised. They looked at each in ringing silence, which was only filled by David Attenborough's soothing exposition about a pack of polar bears.
Finally, he managed to choke out, "You what?"
"I like you. Like like you. Have a crush on you, fancy the hell out of you. Are you telling me you didn't know that?"
"How would I know that?" He asked, voice pitched high. "You— I didn't even know if you liked boys!"
"Well I do! I thought you knew that, I thought, I mean," he shook his head again, still looking bewildered. "I thought I was being pretty obvious."
"Well, not obvious to me! I mean, I kind of, you know, hoped, but I didn't want to get my hopes up because, you know, what are the chances of something like that ever happening to me—"
"Uh, to you?" Day shook his head with a laugh. "More like, what are my chances? Do you know how many girls have crushes on you? You told me you liked boys in the library that day and I was so relieved. I'd thought so, but to get a confirmation was just amazing."
"A confirmation? So— oh my god— you knew even before then that I liked boys? That I- That I liked you?"
"Well, Tom's not exactly subtle," Day said, not even trying to sound apologetic, and Alex squeezed his eyes shut, humiliated.
"Oh my god," he repeated.
"And frankly, you're not so much better, Alex," Day teased, and when he opened his eyes he was met by the sight of Day's wide, white grin. "I mean, you remember when I first walked with you after school?"
He groaned and slapped a hand over his face.
"Yeah," Day said, sounding satisfied. "I certainly remember. I'd always thought I'd seen you staring at me in class, but, well— you're actually pretty good at surreptitious staring, so I wasn't really sure. But then when we walked together, you just kept turning red."
"So embarrassing," Alex spluttered miserably into his hand, and Day reached out and pulled it down from his face.
"Yeah," Day huffed a soft laugh, watching his face with a half smile. "Just like that."
"You're the worst."
"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "You're just very attractive. And seeing you turn red, it makes me feel good. That I can make you so flustered. Because that's the way I feel around you, like, all the time. I just have a bit more practice hiding it."
"Well I don't like it at all," he grumbled, although his heart was beginning to flutter, Day's confession finally sinking in. "I'm a good actor, Day. And a good liar, and I can usually control myself pretty well. But with you—" He huffed, frustration at the thought mostly drowned out by the giddiness he felt. "With you, I can't stop from blushing all the time, and do you remember what else I did when you walked me home? I stuttered. Just a little, but oh my god. I've never stuttered before in my life."
"Yeah." Day's grin turned smug. "I remember that. That was nice."
"For you! It was terrible for me! Literally stuttering? Oh my god."
"You'll get better. Once you get used to the feeling."
"I sure bloody hope so." He bit his lip. "So, um. When did you start to like me back?"
"Oh." Day cleared his throat, and Alex was astonished to see a blush of his own settling over Day's cheeks. "Well, it's actually like this. We had World History together last year, right?"
"Right…"
"Right. And you remember those projects we had to make and then present on."
"I do. You did a thing on Vincent Van Gogh, right?"
"I did. And well, I remember when I was presenting I told a joke about his severed ear, and it was kind of morbid, and you were the only person in the room to laugh."
Alex stared at him. "You liked me because I laughed at your severed ear joke?"
The pink on his cheeks darkened. "Well, it was more than that, of course, but that was kind of what cinched it, yeah. But back then, you didn't seem interested in anyone, really, and I never thought I had a chance."
"Wow," Alex said, feeling dazed. "And here I was, worrying over whether you even liked guys."
"Yeah, about that." Day ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I'm sorry. I honestly thought you knew. I mean, I've never really kept it a secret, and Tom seemed really enthusiastic so I thought at least he knew—"
"Neither of us knew for sure. I mean, he was pretty sure, but I was, uh, less so."
"I should have gotten that. That's my bad."
"So are you… bi, then?"
"Yeah. Bisexual. I was actually dating Kelly when I got a crush on you last year, and it was when we were talking to each other about other guys at school we found attractive that we realized we were probably better off as friends."
"That's so chill."
"Very. So, uh, can I ask— is that why you were pulling away a bit yesterday? Because you weren't sure if I liked guys?"
"Sort of," Alex said halfheartedly. "Well… Honestly no." He sighed heavily. "It's just been all this stuff with Alil. It kind of highlighted to me how not okay I am. I treated him really badly, and I don't ever want to treat you like that, so I thought I'd take some space to figure myself out before I got any closer to you."
"Oh." Day was silent for a long moment, before he ventured, "Do you still feel that way?"
"I'm too happy right now to feel anything else," he admitted. "But, I mean, my reasoning wasn't flawed."
"It might have been."
Alex frowned.
"I mean, your reasoning is considerate," Day said quickly. "But also… have you ever acted the way you're afraid of with Tom?"
"Well, no, but that's basically because I've been lashing out my guardians instead."
"Guardians?" Days brows raised.
"Yeah," he sighed again. "Guardians. Alil hasn't exactly been the first person that I've blown up on. There's a pattern to it, you know."
"Oh."
"Yeah. It's really not healthy, and I know it's not healthy, but I just can't seem to stop myself from just losing it at them. It's honestly horrible, and I don't want to act like that toward you."
"Well, I don't want you to act that way toward me either. But I haven't seen anything like that from you, you know. Not even in that bathroom with Len Abrams. You seem to have it compartmentalized into a different circle."
"For now. And even then, isn't that terrible? Why would you want to be with a person who acts like that towards anyone, even if it's not you?"
"Well, you're trying to be better, right? So just—" He shrugged. "Keep trying. I don't really want to be yelled at, so, you know, let's just try our best to avoid that and see what happens. Have you ever been snowboarding?"
"Sure," he said, taken aback by the change in subject.
"I've only gone once or twice, but it was always like this for me— I knew how to stand up and go, but absolutely not at all how to slow down or stop. So I just strapped a helmet on and hoped for the best. And I usually made it to the bottom alright. I stayed upright more than I fell."
"The last time I went snowboarding I crashed headfirst into a barbed wire fence," Alex said, flicking his hair off his forehead to show the scar.
"Oh." Day coughed awkwardly. "So bad metaphor then."
"Not terrible. I get what you're saying. But… if I do crash?"
"I guess we pick you up and assess the damage?"
"Getting worse."
Day laughed. "Okay, well, you get what I'm saying. You up for it?"
Alex bit his lip. "I've got a lot to work on. Like, a lot."
"Okay. We can take things slow."
"And I've never actually dated anyone before."
"I can be patient."
"How patient?" He asked, and Day held out his hand.
"As patient as you need."
Alex looked at his hand for a long moment and then slowly, carefully, reached out and grabbed it.
The smile that spread across Day's face was wide, and brilliant, and beaming, and Alex's couldn't help but grin back.
They ended up stumbling back into Day's room to sleep on the bed. Although Alex, not wanting to do anything to displease Rosemary, insisted that they sleep flipped upside down, one person's head at the other's feet. And Day added that he would of course sleep on top of the covers, and that was that, their first debate as a burgeoning couple settled. Alex fell asleep quickly, face buried in Day's pillow, the other boy's spicy scent in his nose.
A/N: Phew! I thought I would get this chapter out way quicker but finals were honestly so wack this year. So glad to be finished with them lol. Anyway, this chapter ended up with a lot more Rosemary than I had planned- in fact, she basically took over the place I had intended for Day, tbh. But it kind of just worked out this way, so if you're disappointed in a lack of Alex and Day moments of mutual alarm, I feel you lol! Me too! There will be more in the future. But Alex finally got a couple of good hugs lol, so there's that! :)
LoveRider, thank you! I'm glad the last chapter worked for you! :))
Guest #1, thank you so much! I'm so happy you like this story!
Guest #2, thank you! I'm glad you like it so far!
Guest #3, I'm so glad you like Rosemary, I think Alex needs a sweet motherly figure to help him figure stuff out. Rosemary will definitely be inserting herself into the plot in the future, so stay tuned for more of her!
Guest #4, thank you so much! Love that you love it lol!
Brigith, ahhh thank you for saying that! I honestly appreciate your reviews so much, they're always so sweet :')) I'm glad you think the characters are believable, I'm trying to keep things realistic but it's kind of hard lol!
Guest #5, thank you! Glad you find it interesting, I'll try to keep it that way lol! I've had some new ideas for actual plotlines, so stay tuned!
BritishBookWorm, so unfortunately, updates are generally pretty random. I write whenever I can but sometimes life just goes so sideways :\\ But I'm trying to be better about updating more frequently, so fingers crossed I can figure that out lol!
Guest #6, thank you for the review! Hope you like this new chapter :)
Rain, this was such a nice review to receive. My motivation to write actually skyrocketed after reading it lol! Thank you so much :))
DemiDorkII, I basically just update whenever I finish a chapter- although I'm trying to be better about updating more regularly! We'll see how that goes! I've had a lot of drive to write recently so that's been pretty awesome lol
Guest #7, thank you for reviewing! It's so nice to hear that you like this story!
Guest #8, lol! Alex and Tom have very honest conversations with each other haha. And stay tuned for the Alex-James conversations that are going to happen soon. They're going to be pretty interesting too lol
Guest #9, omg this is such a nice review! Thank you so much! I am doing okay, finally finished finals so that's a relief! I don't have a regular updating schedule as of now, but that's something to think about. I basically write whenever I can and just post whenever I can, but I have been trying to be a bit more regular recently. I'm just afraid I won't be able to keep any schedule I make :\
Guest #10, the breakdown is here lol! It absolutely did not go as planned but you know Alex is going to have a couple more problems in the future lol, and Day will have loads to say about it all
Angela, thanks so much! I'm so glad you like Day, he's my first OC to write and I've been worried about how he's coming across! And I'm glad you're not viewing Alil as a monster! I've been trying to write him as just a really emotionally messed up dude (much like Alex lol). Their relationship is going to continue to be pretty complicated going into the future, and I'm planning some stuff for Alil :)