Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. I know it's been awhile since I've updated this, but it hasn't been abandoned.
Warning, some cruelty to an animal (and to Alex) at the beginning of this chapter.
"Where is it?" Alex hissed at Erik, planting his feet in preparation for summoning a plasma burst. He'd really rather another option given his track record when it came to that little thing called aim, but at this point he didn't see that he had a choice. And he was reasonably sure that Erik would have the sense to get back before he had to release the blast. Unfortunately, he needed to know what to release it at, and he still couldn't make out anything in the direction that Erik was staring except trees and brush. Well, trees and brush and a tail-wagging collie, but…. "I don't see anyth—"
The collie bounded the last few feet, obviously as blind as Alex to whatever danger Erik seemed to sense, but as it rose up on its hind legs to greet them, Erik kicked it viciously, pulling Alex behind him again in the same instant.
For a second after the dog landed in the dirt with a yelp, Alex was frozen, but then the collie was back on its feet whining, and Alex grabbed Erik's arm before he could do anything more drastic. "Erik, no! It's just a dog!"
Erik shook him off easily and Alex caught a flicker of fury and something else in Erik's expression before he landed on the ground a few feet away with an aching jaw. And Alex was suddenly glad that the few teachers at the juvie high school had spent their time working with the kids who couldn't even read in English rather than teaching, say, German because he didn't even want to know what it was that Erik was saying to him.
"It's just a dog," he repeated, pushing himself into a sitting position but not making an attempt to get to his feet. "Look." He turned his attention to the dog and whistled quietly. "Buddy. Hey, buddy." He clapped his hands. Under almost any other circumstances, he'd have gone over and petted the dog, maybe tried to read its name off the collar it wore, but given what Erik had just done…well, even if the dog let him get close, that kick had to have bruised if not broken ribs. Alex had better sense than to touch an injured animal that didn't already know him. "Time to go home, buddy. Go home, now." He pointed off into the distance in the direction that the dog had come from, and whether the collie actually knew the word 'home' or just wanted to get away from Erik, it turned in a circle and then trotted off. "See?"
Erik stepped over, grabbing his arm and yanking him back to his feet, and Alex fought down the urge to pull away as Erik lapsed back into snarling German. There was no way that he was breaking Erik's grip, and fighting would just make the bruise that he could already feel forming even worse. Or goad Erik into hauling off and hitting him again, which— Alex actually heard his teeth clack together as Erik shook him and spit something that sounded vaguely question-like, and he shook his head.
"Erik, I can't understand you!"
That finally seemed to bring Erik up short and he released Alex with an abruptness that made him stumble. "Go back to the house. Now."
It was English, at least, although far more heavily accented than Alex was used to hearing from Erik, and his first instinct was to obey. Unfortunately, given that Erik hadn't taken them on a very direct route out here, he wasn't sure which way it was. "I can't…I mean, I don't…."
Erik gave him a more than slightly disgusted look. "Of course not." He turned abruptly. "Follow."
Alex didn't argue although he could feel his face flaming at the derision in Erik's voice, and he stayed several yards behind Erik as they jogged back to the mansion. Or jogged back until the mansion was in sight, anyway; as soon as it was visible over the ridge, Erik turned off, and when Alex started to follow thinking it was some roundabout trail back, he got a vicious repeat of the order to go back. He wasn't about to make Erik repeat himself a third time, so he took off towards it and tried to keep himself on as straight a path as possible when he dipped down into valleys and it disappeared from sight again. He still ended up on the west end of the lawn somehow—and it wasn't a small lawn—but at least it was familiar territory, and when he finally reached the actual building, he made his way upstairs automatically.
"Alex?" Hank asked as he passed, looking up from the notebook he'd been staring down into and frowning. "Are you okay?"
"What? Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, you're back early, and you're…a lot less of a mess than usual." His eyes narrowed. "And what happened to your jaw?"
Alex snorted. "My being less messy than normal is a reason to be worried? Weren't you just saying the other day that I should talk to the professor and get Erik to lighten up? Make up your mind already." He didn't really want to get into the bruise on his jaw, and getting aggressive with the geek was the fastest way to throw him off.
Hank shrugged awkwardly. "Well, that bruise on your arm doesn't look very good, either."
It was starting to come in a pretty spectacular blue, Alex noticed when he glanced down at his upper arm, but there wasn't much that he could do besides shrug again. "I'm fine. Just took a fall." What else could he say? 'Erik doesn't like dogs'? Right, and in other news, Sean wouldn't touch oatmeal unless there was at least as much sugar as oats in it, and Raven thought that the only point of classical music was to put a person to sleep. "Excuse me, I need a shower."
"And one, two, three."
Alex lifted—carefully, because he was helping move new glass panes for Sean to use as target practice and he'd already nicked a finger on another pane that he hadn't noticed was cracked—at the same time that Moira did, and the two of them began to make their way up out of the basement slowly. He still didn't know why the professor had so many glass panes in the basement but then again, there was also a metal bunker under the mansion. Some questions just shouldn't be asked.
Things had been weird since the whole mess with the dog, to the point where Alex couldn't figure out how the others hadn't noticed it. Well, okay, Charles had, or at least he'd asked Alex a few times if everything was all right, and Alex couldn't come up with another reason why he'd suddenly start asking questions like that, but he was a telepath so he probably would have had trouble not noticing. Raven was more interested in getting his help rearranging things around the mansion than wondering why he had free time to help, though, and while Sean enjoyed showing off the results of his training, he didn't seem to think much about Alex not training with Erik any more. Hank did seem a little surprised about Alex spending extra time in his lab letting him tweak the targeting systems on the chest plate, but neither of them was inclined to heart-to-heart discussions and short of the most basic inquiries, he kept his questions to himself.
It wasn't that Erik wasn't around, he was, but Alex hadn't seen him much at all outside of meals for the past week. It was pretty much like it had been in the beginning. Erik talked to Charles frequently, Raven occasionally, Moira when he had something rude to say, and acted for the most part as if the rest of them were mobile furniture. It was…Alex didn't really know what it was. But he didn't like it. He'd gotten kind of used to Erik.
He snorted quietly and then shook his head when Moira raised her eyebrows in question. Maybe that was why the others hadn't noticed that anything was up. Erik had never gotten past the moving furniture stage with them. It was only Alex that he'd started treating differently and now wasn't.
As far as small favors went, the bruise on Alex's jaw had faded to nothing a couple days ago putting an end to the occasional questioning looks, and Alex figured that it must have been more of a glancing blow than he'd realized. Which, considering that he'd ended up on the ground, didn't make him feel better about how hard Erik would be able to hit if he got a straight punch in, but it did explain why he'd stayed conscious. The one on his bicep on the other hand was still an ugly greenish color and he was starting to think that it would be around for the rest of the month. He was trying to keep it covered—as tricky as that was given that he'd already ripped the arms off most of his shirts—mostly because if any of the others decided to use their brains they'd figure out pretty quickly that a bruise that wrapped around his arm hadn't come from any fall..
He and Moira finally got the pane to the top of the stairs and were making their way around the corner carefully when there was a sudden ringing and both of them glanced up in surprise.
"Was that the doorbell?" Moira asked.
Alex shrugged. "Maybe." He'd never heard it before, but then, as far as he knew, no one had ever come to the front door in the time that they'd been here.
She frowned and nodded at the wall. "Let's check it out."
They set the pane down where she'd indicated and headed down the hallway quickly, but Charles had beaten them there and was smiling at an older woman in the doorway as they turned into the foyer. "—so good to see you again, Mrs. Little. I thought that you and Mr. Little had moved down to the Carolinas."
"Oh, we did, four years ago now, but we come up every now and again to see the children. And three grandchildren as of last month, did you know?"
"I didn't, actually. Congratulations."
Her smile widened. "Anyway, when I saw your car while I was out walking Henry, I thought that I'd stop in and say hello. Is your sister here as well?"
"Unfortunately she went into town today with a friend," Charles said. "But she'll be so sorry that she missed you. I'll try and remember to send her by to say hello." He smiled at what looked like some kind of sheepdog mix, muzzle almost white with age, that was sitting beside Mrs. Little. "And how are you, Henry?"
Henry looked as though he was about ready for a nap, but he took Charles' attention as an excuse to step up and bump his head against Charles' extended hand for a scratch, and Alex jerked in surprise as the metal vase beside him warped viciously. Erik was here too, he realized, and it only took him a moment to locate the man standing motionless in the opposite doorway leading to the far hall. But the look on Erik's face….
It wasn't just that Erik didn't like dogs, Alex realized abruptly. Erik was afraid of them. He wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't seeing it—hell, he still wasn't sure that he believed it—but the look Erik was giving the old mutt was the same one that had Alex had seen flash across his face when the collie had first bounded up to greet them, and it definitely wasn't just dislike.
Moira's less than complimentary mutter as she scowled at the vase and then turned to head back in the direction they'd come from drew Alex back to reality, and he realized abruptly that at some point during his little revelation, Erik had caught him staring and was now staring right back. And some of what he'd figured out, or at least his shock at figuring it out, must have shown on his face because Erik's jaw clenched suddenly and he turned and stalked back down the hall.
Alex stared after him as Charles continued to make small talk, until Moira called for him to come help her again, but as he made his way back to where they'd left the pane of glass, his mind was still turning furiously. He'd been confused about the whole situation with Erik before, but now...well, now he was totally at a loss.