disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to alma, again.
notes: this wasn't supposed to get longer what the fuck anyway here have part 2
title: and in the decay
summary: Alex, stumbling through the time-stream. — Alex/Jonas.
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As for me, I'm—
[—rewind; again, we said. again. do try to keep up, dear, time's a ticking!]
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She can't look at him.
Which, unhelpful, Alex, this is your new step-brother and you should maybe not be such an asshole! But of course, he's only really her new step-brother for the next twelve hours, and then she'll wake up to Michael kneeling next to her with his hands in her hair and she'll start to cry because that's what always happens. And Jonas will be her friend, her best friend, her other brother, because—
God, it's been half an hour, and she can still feel the dry press of his lips, ghost-soft and tingling. Can still feel the linoleum, sticky in the summer heat. Can still taste his stupid cigarette, ash and mint and every bad life decision she's ever made.
(It's been half an hour and a lifetime in between, anyway.)
And now she can't look at him.
"Hey," Jonas says. He's got his hands stuck in his pockets, shoulders turned in. Ren trots ahead, and this is a tune Alex already knows. "Can I talk to you?"
The words are all sharp in her throat, broken-glass edges digging into her windpipe. And Jesus, no matter what anyone says, blood doesn't taste like metal. It tastes like blood. It tastes like blood and it's in the back of Alex's throat, just blood and blood and blood, that angry red wash hot and wet. It's eight o'clock and the island looms shadows around them. Oh, god, here we go again.
She breathes through it. "Yeah, of course. What's up?"
"Look, I just—I just wanted to say thanks. You've been really… really cool, about this whole thing," he says. It takes everything inside of her not to mouth the words along with him; no matter what, Jonas is always Jonas. He's completely incapable of being anyone else.
"Don't worry about it," Alex tells him, doesn't think about the fact that she knows he hesitates before he kisses someone. The crinkle of his eyes. The slick edges of his teeth. "It's not a big deal."
"Still. Thanks."
She flops a shoulder up and down in a half-hearted shrug. She could say a lot of things; the attic was already cleaned out or what else would I even do or don't mention it, no, really, don't. She could tell him about Michael, about the ghosts, about the horrorshow that this night is going to become. She could tell him about the soccer ball. She could tell him about the Source.
God, she could tell him that she wants to kiss him again.
But she doesn't.
(The ghosts press close, and she wonders if this is going to be the rest of eternity: Maggie, Michael, Clarissa. Ren and Nona. Jonas. Jonas, Jonas, Jonas. And Alex herself, the only company with enough memory to fill a paper cup.)
"Seriously," Alex says instead. Sighs. "It's chill. We're square. I've got your back."
He looks like he's about to reply, actually opens his mouth a little (which, weird, that's different, but whatever), but then Ren comes crashing back talking a mile a minute because honestly Ren has the worst sense of dramatic timing. It's relief and torture in equal measure, but there are some days where all Alex sees when she looks at him is the limp float of his arms in the water. Drown, drowning, drowned: just another loop, just another wave, just another ghost. He says something about being young enough to bathe together before society and puberty made it weird, and Alex thinks yeah, that happened but also I don't even remember it.
It's so fucked up, and it makes her wonder how much more the resets have taken from her. How much more they're going to take. This is what's left: Michael's jacket and teal hair and the empty crackle of the radio. How much more does she have to lose?
Alex swallows hard. Tunes back in.
(As though she's ever doing anything else.)
Jonas looks out of place amidst the kitsch of Edwards Island's quaint little shops, all too-wide shoulders and awkward shuffle, but he matches Ren word for word and snip for snip. The banter between them is so familiar Alex almost catches herself humming along as the sky fades dusky-blue, too tired in her bones to interject. Ren likes Nona. Jonas is new. Clarissa isn't possessed. Michael's dead. This is the reset, and this is her life. Don't be weird.
Can't you be cool for five minutes?
Haha, no. Not here. Not now. Not when she can still feel the hot sticky heat of the night before on her skin. Not when she can still taste that kiss. She licks her lips. Skin and salt. Jonas. Jonas, Jonas, Jonas.
Alex's muscles burn with the effort of basically climbing up and down a mountain. It's a good distraction from, well, everything.
Because then there's Clarissa's venom and Nona's sweet smile and the long empty beach before the wide, endless stretch of saltwater. The bonfire is all hungry tongues of flame to eat the night alive, the cooler full of beer. The ocean is a dull roar in the background. It starts all over again. Reset. Just another reset. Alex tastes blood and skin and salt in the back of her throat, and actually has to smile.
God, this whole thing would be funny if it weren't quite so sad.
There are delicate arcs of footprints in the sand where Nona and Clarissa have already walked. Alex ambles along them beneath the twinkle of stars in the sky, the very last vestiges of the day sinking beyond the horizon. She could wander the entire beach, and it would feel like no time had passed at all, because that's the way this works. Time only passes when the ghosts want it to. If there's anything that she has learned from this whole shindig, it's that time really isn't linear at all. She thinks of Michael. Maybe they'll have pancakes when they get out. Maybe they'll crawl into the local iHop, half dead and soaked and shaking, and order a huge stack to share—
"Hold on. Wait. Where—where are we?"
The world tilts.
Alex pivots, blinking, to stare at Jonas. He's gone very still, white in the face. He's looking down the beach to where the cave mouth opens like he's just—like he's just seen a ghost. Like he's just seen every ghost. Like déjà vu, the tight hot sickness in his throat that Alex lives with every single day.
Like he remembers it.
Oh, fuck.
"The beach," Nona's saying slowly. She's squinting at him a little bit from underneath her bangs, big dark eyes wary. "That place where people go to, y'know—"
"Drink and swim and fuck, and not get in trouble for it," Clarissa finishes for her, smirking, nothing but a red curl of lips and a red curl of hair. She's awful, venom and vitriol the only thing left inside of her. God, Alex despises her so much of the time.
"Stuff it," Alex cuts in, automatic.
"Oh, did the little one grow a spine while—"
"I'm serious, Clarissa, stuff it. No one needs this right now. Go—get drunk, or whatever it is you do when everyone hates you. I don't care," Alex tells her, eyes narrowing rapidly. I could leave you here, she thinks, all viciousness, all spite. The dull red glow of too many souls in a single body shines in her mind, and then that body falling, falling, the sickening crunch of bone against concrete. I could let the ghosts have you, and no one would ever know. "Just leave him alone."
A sharp, hoarse laugh leaves Clarissa's throat. She doesn't say anything, just waves them away as she heads for the water. Nona looks nervously between her retreating back and Alex like she's not sure what to do, not sure which way to go.
Alex raises a shoulder in a crow's shrug, gives her a tiny smile. I get it. Go on.
"What was that?" Ren asks, eyes wide. He's staring after Nona's retreating back like he can't look away. Of course he can't, he likes her so much that he's blind to pretty much anything else.
"Clarissa being her usual shitty self," Alex says, but she's returned her attention to Jonas. He's still way too pale, and she has to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep from reaching over to touch his elbow. He looks like he could use the comfort of it, but they aren't there yet. They won't be there for a long time. Maybe never again, for all she knows. "Hey, Jonas, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm—yeah, it's cool. I just thought—nah, never mind. I'm cool."
He is so not cool, but Alex doesn't say that. She knows exactly what it feels like, the remembering. It's not easy. And it hurts. It really, really hurts.
But she watches as it fades from his face, slipping back behind whatever barrier the ghosts have managed to keep the memories behind. Alex doesn't know why she's the only one allowed to remember. She thinks it probably has to do with misery and how it ages, better after being allowed to soak. Better sipped down like expensive brandy. Better when it's only one.
So Jonas remembering… Jonas remembering probably isn't something they're okay with.
Again: oh, fuck.
Alex's hand closes around the radio in her pocket. It's cool, too cool, and even though the plastic slowly warms beneath her touch, she shudders. No, there's no telling what the ghosts would do to Jonas if he remembered. Maybe they'll send him back on his own. Maybe they'll taunt him with flashes of memory, no context. Maybe he'll remember his arms around her head, her head on his chest, their mouths slotting together like missing puzzle pieces.
Maybe. But probably not.
Not even the ghosts are that cruel.
"Uh. Are we all—good to go? I mean…" Ren says, sending a significant glance towards where Nona and Clarissa have settled by the fire. Alex has no desire to play Truth or Slap right now. It'll just make her mad. Clarissa will push because she always pushes, and Alex's got enough of the sick hot red in her chest tonight. Fear is a good distraction, but every time they go through this, Alex gets a little less scared. There are only so many choices. There are only so many things she can say. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
But it's whatever. The ghosts don't want Alex dead. They want her to play, and that might actually be worse.
"Go ahead, Ren. I'm kinda not feeling it, tonight," Alex tells him. She loops her arms around herself to ward of the night's chill, imagines that it's Michael holding her together. Her brother did always know how to get her to chill out. Does always know. Will always know.
"Jonas?" Ren asks. "You gonna come?"
Jonas is looking at her, too. Just looking. There's no judgement in his expression, and she thinks that maybe that's what she misses most. He's always good at taking whatever she throws at him and rolling with it, even when none of it makes sense.
Stop that, Alex wants to tell him. She dips her head, makes a face. Stop looking at me like that.
"Nah," he's telling Ren, too casual, shrugging those wide shoulders. "I think I'll stay with Alex. She could use the company."
Alex jerks her head up, eyes huge in her face. No, Jonas is supposed to go play Truth or Slap with everyone else. He's not supposed to be looking at her like she's the answer to a question he didn't even know he'd asked. He's not supposed to—
Ren raises an eyebrow. He stares at Alex a second too long. Like he knows. And, see, this is why at the end, Ren is still her best friend: he gets it. He gets it when she's half-crazy and shaking in the bathtub three days after Michael drowns, and he gets it now. Even when everything's falling apart, he still gets it. A wave of affection rolls through Alex's chest. "O—kay? Shout if you need anything. And we still gotta check out the caves later!"
"Yeah, definitely," Jonas says easily, grinning at him. There's nothing in his face but smooth charm. Alex would hate him for it if she didn't know that he's actually totally terrible at people always, and that he taught himself good cheer in juvie when there was nothing else. The knowledge sort of puts a cap on her annoyance. "Save me a beer."
Ren laughs, a great big sound full of bravado. They're all full of it, really, all too young and too inexperienced and way too good at posturing. Pretending is easy, except when it's not. Her old friend babbles something too fast to catch, and then he's off across the sand to go bother the other half of their party.
Alex thinks she can good-natured humming from the ghosts. She has no idea why. The edges of the radio bite into her fist.
"What the hell was that?!" Jonas asks, voice low.
"What the hell was what?" Alex asks in reply. But he's staring at her with his lips pressed tightly together, and she knows. She knows.
(Jesus, where is a reset when she actually needs it?)
"That," he says, struggling for words. His hands flex at his sides. He's about two seconds away from lighting another cigarette, Alex can tell. It's going to kill him. What isn't going to kill him. "I saw—it was—the cave, there was a… triangle? And you were—"
Alex's shoulders slump.
Four hours isn't a record, but it's pretty close. She can feel the ghosts whispering. They're delighted. Someone else to play with! It unspools in her head; all the way they're going to unmake him until there's absolutely nothing left, until Jonas isn't Jonas anymore, until he's just another thing. Until he's as much theirs as Alex herself is. Oh, they're going to have so much fun.
"Welcome to Edwards Island," she says, so tired. "Can we just try not to get killed?"
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tbc.
