2
It’s six AM and Alex isn't back yet. Ryan worries that maybe he dozed off without realizing it and missed something, but the past couple of hours at least he's stopped being as tired in favour of being more and more frightened. He doesn't miss when one of the dispatchers asks about that break-in at 1435 N. Poinsettia Place, and an officer responds that the situation is all clear. It's not a particularly unusual bit of information, it could be anything, but a moment after that someone else asks about the search for Greta Salpeter. "No longer necessary," the guy says, voice blurred by static, which means she's either been caught or killed.
Ryan stands up very calmly and goes to wake Sam. Sam's sleeping restlessly, and when he wakes up he blinks and says almost immediately, "They're not back yet."
"No," Ryan says. "And the police just called off the hunt for Salpeter."
"Fuck," Sam says. He struggles out from the mess of blankets and rubs his face with his hands, says. "Right, okay. Have you gotten any sleep?"
"Not yet," Ryan says.
"Go sleep," Sam says. "I'll get in touch with a few people, see if I can get into some of the police databases. Jeff's not here but he installed some new hardware into the computer and it can probably, like."
He doesn't really need Ryan there to keep talking, Ryan figures. Ryan stands up and says, "Tell me if you're doing anything or if - if anything changes."
"Yeah," Sam says, and Ryan goes off to bed. He means to go to his, but he just changed the sheets and maybe if Alex manages to break Salpeter out and get her back here after all, all this worry for nothing, then she'll probably be really tired and want to go to sleep straight away. Ryan curls up in Alex's bed, heaps the blankets up around him. He closes his eyes, and he's so tired, but he doesn't sleep very well or very much at all, tossing restlessly. He normally moves a fair bit in his sleep. When Alex had been here, they'd been tucked in too close together to wriggle.
He wakes up again a few hours later, not feeling very rested. He heads out to the stairwell, because he can’t find Sam anywhere else and Jeff is busy on the computer talking to someone. He finds Sam sitting on one of the steps, coat done up, already pulling on his boots. Ryan says, "Where - are you going somewhere? Where are you going?”
"Oh, good, you're up," Sam says. "Jeff is making some calls, and I was going to head out and see what I could figure out on my own.”
"No," Ryan says. He picks up his coat.
"Ryan," Sam says. "This is dangerous--"
"I know that," Ryan says. He looks up, folds his arms. "They're my friends, too. Alex is - Alex is my friend, too."
Sam looks at him, face blank, and then he says, "Okay."
They head up and outside, as the sun rises, the sky grey with early light, and Ryan is very nearly distracted by it - the colors! - but Sam glares at him and he shakes his head a little and hustles after Sam, head down, all bundled up in his winter gear and missing the indoors already.
The one nice thing about all this is the knowledge that the police aren't going to want Alex dead for at least a little while. They have to know how much information he has, or at least they must be able to guess. Interrogation can't happen instantly, but - Ryan keeps telling himself that Alex is too important to make an example of so soon.
Ryan hasn’t asked where they came from, but they have maps and schedules for the local police, for the boundaries of every patrol, and where which beat takes people it picks up before they get transferred from jail to a prison. There's no hope where prisons are involved, not in this area, at least. A few of the people who came through and crashed with them were broken out of a prison on an island off the Florida coast. Ryan never learns how, exactly. He just knows that, here, prison may as well be a death sentence.
Travel is slow, and Ryan doesn’t even know where they’re going. He wishes he knew the plan, since he’s sure Sam must have one. Ryan is ready to punch people or break glass or whatever kinds of things necessary to stage a daring rescue.
He doesn't think he will be very good at punching out windows or human beings, but he prepares himself to try.
The first thing they do, though, and it nearly disappoints Ryan that he doesn’t get to punch anything, is stop by an aboveground contact. The guy watches Ryan suspiciously, and the whole time Ryan never learns his name, but eight hours later he and Sam each leave with a pair of sunglasses complete with fake names and records, so they can walk around a little less conspicuously. The solution isn't perfect, and Ryan misses the brightness and clarity of color, but they manage to walk by an officer on patrol without a second glance so the trade-off seems worth it.
Sam looks at Ryan for a little while, and Ryan can't read his expression at all anymore without being able to see his eyes. Sam says, "So that was already pushing it, but after this, you're going to - you'll know things they'll want to know about. Maybe before this you could have just told them what you knew and gotten a pardon --"
"I wouldn't have," Ryan starts, but Sam shushes him.
"Hey. After this, they're not going to forgive you."
"I know," Ryan says. He keeps his arms crossed against the cold and in something like self-defense. "I know." He would have thought he was past that point already, but then - he doesn't know what they're doing. He doesn't know much of anything, just a few names here and there, the location of their safehouse and one or two others. Little things.
Ryan hasn't seen Z since that first night, and maybe a glimpse or two the next day - he's not certain. He was disoriented and confused then. They travel a circuitous route, this widening gyre of loops and doubling around, passing through checkpoints in a way that makes it look like they're going one way before they skirt around and head back the other to finally shimmy in under a loose board covering a broken window at an old warehouse. The floor is covered with dust and dirt and a few old empty bottles from a long, long time ago. Before Ryan was born, maybe.
But there is a way downstairs to a set of three rooms Ryan would never have guessed existed, and this place is better hidden than Alex's, even, not that Alex's is easy to find.
Z says, “I heard on the radio. That was you guys?”
“Yeah,” Sam says.
“Okay,” Z says, calmly, heading to one of the work tables shoved up against the wall. There are a few tables, all covered in metal and wire and tools and paint, and Ryan’s eyes glaze over trying to figure out what’s what. “Give me a while, then.”
Sam and Ryan sit and watch her, and the hours go by. Ryan spends a lot of time flat on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling or with his eyes closed.
"Hey, I remember you," Z tells Ryan conversationally as she snips at a bit of wire and ties something else together quickly, soldering something else to the contraption she’s been working on before passing it to Sam.
"Me too," Ryan says. "Except I remember you instead of me. I haven't forgotten myself."
"Is he just tired, or is he always like that?" Z asks Sam.
Sam shrugs, letting out about half of a laugh. "He's like that, I think."
Z smiles at him, not unkindly, and says, "Right, anyway. Maybe Sam had better handle the explosives."
Normally Ryan would bridle, because Z's only met him once before, for all she knows he could be a mad genius when it comes to reckless destruction and all, but she's still smiling at him and, more importantly, Ryan can see that she's pretty tense, hunching in on herself, moving with short, brittle motions. She's also right.
"Probably," Ryan agrees belatedly, and Z looks up and shoots him an unreadable look.
She says, "Anyway, these will hopefully get you into the complex. The first one--" she holds up something tagged with red, "-is muffled, and it'll be um, more implosion-y, hopefully it won't alert anyone right away when the wall collapses but if you place it right the security cameras will short out so you'll have someone down there to check out what's going on. This one," and she held up a second, while Ryan wondered how a wall could collapse quietly, "is for when you get down to -- for when you find them, in case you can't get your hands on some keys or something. It's pretty dangerous, get Alex or Darren to help you with it, they know what to do." She runs through some more instructions, but Ryan knows that he shouldn't handle the explosives so he doesn't pay a huge deal of attention, watches Z fidget with a loose thread on her sleeve instead.
Z clears her throat and says, "And, uh. There's more of you coming, right?"
Sam looks at her, shakes his head. "Just us," he says. "Anyway, we'll be less conspicuous like this."
"Maybe," Z says. She twists her hands together in her lap and says, "It's just. They might not all be -- quite up to making a fast escape--"
"What?" Ryan says. He stands up straighter, ears buzzing a little. "I. They've only been there for, like, two days, two and a half at most, they can't -- what?"
"Some of the police are pretty rough," Z says, not looking at him. "And Alex is well known enough that -- like, not like me, but enough, they might want to -- he's probably made their jobs a bit harder, the last few--"
"Fuck," Ryan says.
"Yeah," Z says. She looks straight at him. "So make sure you get him back."
Outside, though, it's the bright of day, barely even noon. Ryan doesn't want to ask this, hates himself a little for it, but, "Should we wait until night? Like, after curfew?"
Neither of them will look at him but they wait out the hours and go over maps, and Ryan at least gets the satisfaction of finding a solid route to the jail, the quickest way to skirt past the night's patrols. Anything to feel pleased about.
Waiting is terrible, but eventually Ryan sits down and then hours later wakes up curled up on the floor with his hands under his head and his knees curled up and a blanket thrown over him where he is. At first Ryan thinks the lights are dimmed down low, but no, he just forgot to take off his sunglasses, and his eyes flick up-left to check the time out of old habit.
They can leave soon. He doesn't feel well-rested, exactly, but a little less tired. He'd been awake too long. His dreams were terrible, full of shadows and biting things and a feeling of loss so profound it dogs him even as he wakes up. He gets Sam up - again, and Sam got sleep, so what the hell - and doesn't ask where Z went and they leave, follow the route that Ryan found behind buildings and through alleys and, at one point, across the roofs of two low buildings.
There is a high fence around the jail and its parking lot. Sam handed Ryan a pair of wire cutters way way back at the safehouse, though, and Ryan cuts part of the fence open, link by link, and the metal rattles as they both pull it aside. The parking lot has a few vehicles in it, but no people. Ryan wishes Alex were here. Alex is so much better at - at all of this, and it's not fair that Ryan has to be involved in any of this, that any of this is even happening, and maybe if he'd just gone along, or if someone else had, or if they'd waited or no one had gone after Greta at all - but that's unfair, because why was he any more deserving than Greta? He's not useful. He's not. He does what he can, and.
Ryan feels desperate and stupid because, seriously, he wishes Alex were here to help him rescue Alex, and that doesn't even make sense, and he's still kind of tired and probably about to get arrested.
The wall goes down so easily, with a whump of dust and smoke and crumbling brick, and Ryan watches it and thinks of Z and her neatly bobbed hair and her careful makeup and he kind of wants to laugh, amazed and bordering on incredulous, but he keeps it in and just kind of shakes a little in holding it back.
Sam whispers, "Hey, c'mon," and they get going down the newly-exposed hallway, down to the holding cells. There's a metal door between them and the cells but it's only padlocked shut, not electric, so Ryan manages to cut that open too, leaning heavy on the wire cutter until it finally bites through. Sam barely manages to catch the heavy lock before it falls to the floor, and keeps it with him for no good reason that Ryan can tell until it comes in handy a moment later.
A guard is snoozing at a desk, sitting in front of a computer, his head tilted back, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead. Ryan wonders if he is going to go home to a wife and kids when his shift is over, or to a dog or his friends or a girlfriend or an empty apartment and the rattle of an old radiator; the guard grumbles sleepily and just begins to stir and Sam clocks him on the head with the padlock.
Ryan whispers, "Is he dead?" and Sam shrugs, shakes his head, "I don't know."
They hurry.
The cells have heavy metal doors and the walls here are thicker, but there are eight-inch square windows crisscrossed by metal bars and they can peer through these. Most of the prisoners are asleep, people Ryan doesn't recognize. He worries that maybe Alex isn't here, maybe they took him somewhere else entirely, maybe he is somewhere being interrogated right now and this will have been pointless and they'll get arrested and killed because of it.
Sam finds Darren, and taps his knuckles against the glass until Darren wakes up all bleary-eyed and sleepy, and Ryan keeps looking while they talk in hushed whispers. Alex is at the very end of the hall, sitting on the edge of the narrow cot and staring at the wall. Ryan tries to get his attention but Alex keeps staring. He's got a black eye, and Ryan can't tell if there's anything else through the window and its narrow bars.
Sam says, shortly, "Guard might have keys," and turns back down the hall to get them and lets Darren out first, and Darren says, "Did you find - where's Greta? Is she still here?"
"Not yet," Sam says. "We don't have a ton of time." He fits a key into the door to Alex's cell, but it's the wrong one so he tries another and another and another and another, and Alex hardly stirs the whole time except eventually to lean back, arms behind his head, resting against the wall at an angle that cannot be entirely comfortable.
Darren goes looking. He seems shaken, but okay, so.
Eventually, Sam says, "The key's not on here. We don't have it."
"Are you sure? You tried them all both ways? Try it again," Ryan says, frantic. "Try them again."
Sam shakes his head and says, "We'll have to - Darren. Darren, come here. We got - Z gave us - here."
This explosion is much, much louder, and sets off an alarm, and Alex finally looks up when he gets hit with a chunk of flying concrete that leaves his arm bleeding. He looks right at Ryan and says, "Wow, you actually look just like him. Good job."
"Come on," Ryan says. "We have to go."
"Okay," Alex says, laughing. "But there are four lights. That’s my final answer, and no, I don’t want to phone a friend."
Ryan can't tell if that's supposed to be some kind of joke but he can't wait around to figure it out.
Alex moves easily enough when Ryan grabs his arm and tugs him forward, not like he's in any pain, but he won't move quickly, and he glances at Sam with the same incredulous, almost amused expression that he directs at Ryan. There's something distant in it, too, something angry, and Ryan hates it. He says, "Alex, c'mon. What the fuck?"
Alex moves easily but slow, even with the others ahead and calling out. Ryan's a little bit frantic, tugging harder at Alex's arm, and Alex says, "What's the rush?"
"Alex," Ryan says. "C'mon, we've -- we've gotta get you out of here, there are gonna be people down here any minute--"
"Yeah," Alex agrees. "I'd rather they just do what they're gonna do, instead of laughing at me first." He gives Ryan a tight, unimpressed smile, like Ryan's a stranger.
Ryan stares at him. "What did they do to you?" he says. "I. It's me."
"Yeah," Alex says. "Sure."
"Alex," Ryan says. "Alex." He can't think of what else to say, doesn't know what's wrong or what he can do to fix it. Alex looks at him politely and Ryan takes a deep breath, says, a little miserably, "Alex, we. We have to go."
"Sure we do," Alex says.
"Z's waiting," Ryan says.
"Who's Z?" Alex says, and he's still very polite but there's this flash of defiance in his eyes.
Ryan says, "Are we -- should I not mention her, in here?" He looks around, but the screen on the wall is still fuzzing grey.
"It's just not going to be that easy," Alex tells him.
"Stop it," Ryan says. His voice almost cracks. "You need to -- stop it, alright, we need to catch up with the others and just -- then we'll go home and Greta can sleep in my bed and it'll be cool, I'll stick with you, it's alright." Alex blinks, and Ryan tries not to pound at Alex's shoulder with his fist or pull him in close, either. "Please, Alex," he says.
Alex's mouth is open a little. He looks uncertain. In front of them, Sam is shouting for them to hurry up. "Okay," Alex says. He laughs, short and unhappy. "Not that this is -- okay."
The sharp cold of outside hurries Alex up a little, even as the jail buzzes into an angry swam of activity, and they duck through the fence after Sam and Darren and who Ryan assumes is Greta - the other three are a good ways ahead but Sam keeps looking back - and behind them there are sirens wailing to life and too many boots on the pavement and the night sky cut open by surgical spotlights. Ryan can't even figure out why the fuck there would be spotlights, until one nearly washes over them and he has to drag Alex behind a dumpster.
The other three disappear somewhere so it's just Ryan and Alex and too many police to even think about, and Ryan scrambles as fast as he can, zigzagging as fast as he has to and holding Alex's hand as tight as he can to make sure Alex stays with him. Alex still isn't quite with him, but he's physically there.
They lose the cops for a little while, then Ryan makes a turn and manages to run into an entirely different patrol and they have to rabbit off in another direction entirely, and he just wishes it were a little warmer out. There are shots fired this time but none of them hit home.
"This is," Alex says when they're huddled behind a tarp-covered minivan in someone's garage. "This is really creative."
"Shut up," Ryan whispers, miserably, as he waits and tries to remember where they are and how to get anywhere safe. The street has been quiet enough for long enough - there are still plenty of sirens in the area, but this street, at least - and they keep going, a little slower because Ryan's exhausted from so much running and Alex isn't doing much better. Alex keeps looking around, staring up at rooftops and the sky.
Ryan gets his bearings and heads for Z's because it's closer, even though maybe that's a bad idea, maybe he'll be bringing them down on her too, but he's gotten turned around, and, "We turn right here, yeah? And then it's - it's like three blocks, and. Something like that?"
"No," Alex says.
"No? But earlier," Ryan says, and stops himself. "Alex, we have to go somewhere."
Alex stares at him, and then lights flash across the street from the sky again and Ryan's dragging Alex behind a dumpster bin because Alex won't move that fast on his own, keeps giving Ryan these incredulous little looks. He pulls Alex in tight and thinks how this is really not his level of expertise, running from police and god knows who else, this is not what he ran away to do and Alex knows that and Ryan would just really appreciate it if Alex started acting like Alex again.
"Where are we going to go, then?" he demands. "I can't -- maybe if we just found Z's place I could get my head around where we are and head back home, but I can't. I don't recognize it here."
"What did you do with Darren and Greta and Jeff?" Alex asks.
Ryan puts his arms around Alex, hauls him in and ducks his own head. He can feel the light washing over them, but they're mostly sheltered by the dumpster and Ryan's hair is dark and the night is dark and he thinks they get away with it, especially when the light moves on. He holds onto Alex for a moment longer, anyway, breathing carefully. He was so frightened, he thinks, and he thought it would be better when he found Alex, and it is, a little, but he doesn't understand why Alex is being so weird.
"They've gone home," he says, letting Alex go. Alex isn't looking at him, face twisted up, staring at where their shoes are overlapping on the ground. "You know that, you saw -- we just got separated, is all, we'll be back with them in a minute."
Alex doesn't say anything. Ryan touches Alex's chin, tries to point him to look at Ryan, but Alex hunches his shoulders and doesn't do anything and Ryan says, "I'm going to take you to Z's."
Alex shivers. "Is this some kind of -- like, do you legitimately think I'm going to start believing you, or are you just having a bit of fun?"
"What?" Ryan stares at him. "Alex, we don't. We don't have time for this, okay, just. Come on."
He grabs Alex's hand again and pulls him out and up to his feet and then he starts running again, even though he knows that running in these quiet streets is probably going to draw more attention to them. He's too frightened to stay still, though, and he doesn't quite know what Alex is going to do or say next and he's still running on adrenaline, bitter in the back of his throat. He doesn't think about very much at all, thoughts running in a strange, frantic circle, and he thinks later that it was only because of that that they make it to Z's, the fact that he's running on autopilot. He pushes aside the broken board and makes Alex go in first, although Alex is resisting, and he gets even more freaked when Ryan tries to lead him down the stairs to Z's.
Alex's face is white and he shakes his head. "I'm -- no," he says, and he yanks his hand out of Ryan's and tries to make a break for it up the stairs, and Ryan clutches at him, not understanding what's going on, and then Z says, "Oh, fuck, thank god," and Alex freezes.
It still takes both of them to get Alex inside, and Z takes him back to her room and they sit him down on her bed and he just stares, for a while, and Z sits next to him and Ryan isn't sure what to do. He hasn't been sure for a long time now, but. Maybe.
"Alex," Z says.
Alex stays very still and very quiet.
"He won't," Ryan says. "He's - I don't know what they did to him. It wasn't even that long, what did they do, he's."
Z says, "Alex, Alex. Hey. Are you in there?"
Alex says, "What's it matter where I am?"
Ryan takes a step away, like he's going to go somewhere else, but instead he finds himself folded up on the floor in front of the bed, head against Alex's knees, just sitting there. "You remember," he says. "That time we went and got those carrots, and they almost found us? And then the next day we had them at lunch, in that soup you and Sam made, and they were really fucking good. I don't know why I thought of that. But we got home okay. You got us home."
Alex says, "There's no place like home, huh?" and laughs at himself for it.
Ryan says, "Or. Or that time we found some eggs, and I got so excited but you wouldn't eat any, and you said I could have them myself if I wanted but you weren't going to eat them and then we ended up giving them to a whole other group instead. They gave us some apples, and you showed me how to make applesauce, so that turned out pretty good, I guess, is what I'm saying, I don't know. I think we've still got a jar or two of it, right?"
Alex lets out a slow breath.
Z catches on, has the same idea, says, "Remember that time when we were kids," and tells a whole rambling story, about stolen bikes and war paint, leaning on Alex's shoulder the whole time.
Alex has his hands on his knees, and Ryan reaches up and covers one of Alex's hands with his own, fingers curling around a little. Ryan squeezes his eyes shut tight.
Alex stays quiet, but the set of his shoulders relaxes a bit and he just sits and listens. Z has more stories, of course, and Ryan runs out of action-ish ones, and it turns into, "Remember that time we had a flour war in the kitchen and then Sam came and yelled at us?" and "Remember that thing you said -- I can't remember it properly but it was like, we laughed for about an hour, and then pissed everybody else off for the rest of the day referring to it." He almost opens his mouth to say remember when those guys were here and it was so cold but that's kind of a weird story and Z's here and anyway, he doesn't.
After a while Z says, "I'm going to get you something to eat, okay, Alex? And -- and some coffee, I think."
Alex nods, slowly, and Ryan rests his head against Alex's knees. He doesn't resist when Alex tugs one of his hands free, but he makes an unhappy face at the denim of Alex's jeans. Then Alex threads his fingers through Ryan's hair, soft and unsure, and Ryan sits still, breathing centered under Alex's hand.
"Are you going to be okay?" Ryan asks, without moving his head, and Alex doesn't say anything. Ryan looks up and says, "Seriously, what. What did they do to you?"
"You tell me," Alex says.
"No, okay, you need to stop it," Ryan says. He scrambles up onto the bed beside Alex and says, "Seriously, I'm not -- this isn't cool, dude."
Alex looks at him, and Ryan says, "Do you want to go home, or we can stay here, or, or I can take you someplace else if you tell me where and we'll just. It'll be alright. It's -- I got you out of there." He flushes a bit saying it because it was Z and Sam too, of course, maybe more, but Ryan was there, he thinks it counts. "And I'll do it again, like, if you need or whatever although. Please don't."
Alex says, "Please don't?"
"Need," Ryan says, a little embarrassed, "to be broken out again. That would involve getting caught again and that would suck."
"Oh," Alex says. He looks down at where they're still holding hands and says, "Yeah, I'm. I'll do my best to avoid it." When Ryan next catches his eye again, Alex looks shy and amazed.
Ryan mumbles, "Alex," but he forgets what he means to say so he just sits in a quiet that terrifies a good deal less than before. The room smells less like fear, at least.
Z takes a while to come back, and Ryan wonders if that's intentional, and even if it's not he silently thanks her for the time. Ryan likes the stillness, right now, and how he can hear Alex breathing and how it's at nearly the same rate as Ryan.
Alex says, very, very quiet, so low that Ryan can hardly hear him, "If we can stay here. Just for a minute."
"Okay," Ryan says, quiet too. "We can stay here for more than a minute, though, unless you want me to start counting."
"No," Alex says. "No, don't. Maybe a few minutes. Or a few hours. Whichever. Just, yeah."
"I won't," Ryan says. "It's not a big deal, I don't think. We'll stay until we leave." He musters up a small smile, and it isn't quite returned but Alex is, at least, closer to relaxed, somewhere near to what Ryan might dare to call at ease even, though not quite there. It's better. "No hurry."
Z comes in with three mugs, one with a broken handle that she keeps to herself. Alex gets the world's best dad!!! mug. Ryan's has wolves on it.
Alex just sits and stares at his for a while, looking down into the dark liquid. Z sits a little further away on the bed now that Ryan's in her old place.
"Oh, should I," Ryan says when he realizes, and makes to get up. "I took your spot -"
But Alex holds onto his hand, staring at him, and so Ryan settles back in. Ryan says, "It's pretty comfy, though. I'll keep it for a bit, if you don't mind."
"It's okay," Z says. "Food's still heating up, by the way. I've got stuff simmering, I guess? It's cooking. There might even be enough for seconds, unless Laena gets back early."
"Thank you," Ryan says. He takes a careful sip of his coffee but it's still too hot. He almost wishes he had both hands to steady the mug, but he doesn't think Alex is going to let go, so.
Alex keeps staring at his, until Z says, "I put in one cube of sugar. We don't have any non-dairy creamer, though, sorry."
"It's been a while since I had a latte," Alex says, thoughtfully, like he is thinking very hard about lattes he has had in the past.
-
When Z brings the food in, Alex drops Ryan's hand and eats faster than Ryan's ever seen anybody eat, and Ryan feels a little bit sick, because he didn't even think and Alex didn't ask but probably Alex hasn't eaten since he left the night before. He says, "Careful, you'll make yourself sick," and puts his hand on Alex's shoulder, rubbing lightly at it, and Alex shoots him an affronted look that is very close to what Alex normally is, close enough that it makes Ryan duck his head and grin.
It's a kind of curry; there's thick orange sauce that tastes like coconut and sweet potato and red lentils, and it's good and Ryan eats his quickly, though less because he's starving and more because he wants to be ready when Alex finishes, for whatever Alex wants to do. Alex mostly just sets his bowl down and picks his coffee back up -- his second cup, but he's looking sleepier by the minute; still wary, just kind of losing the battle to keep himself upright -- and then settles back against Ryan's side, so Ryan figures they're not going anywhere.
"We should probably tell, um, Sam and them," Ryan says. "They could be worried."
"I already did," Z says, and grins, and Ryan grins back at her.
Alex says, "What time is it?"
"Nearly dawn," Z says.
"Hmm," Alex says. "Yeah, I."
"You should probably get some sleep," Z says, and Alex looks at her like he's relieved that she said it so he didn't have to. Then he looks suspicious for a moment, but Ryan taps at Alex's knuckles, humming out a song he can't remember the words to, and Alex nods.
"Yeah," he says.
"You can have my bed," Z says. "I'm not -- I might go out, for a while, go see Annie about something. Ryan, I've got a spare mattress, you cool with the floor?"
"Sure," Ryan says, without looking at Alex.
They get settled and Z makes up her bed for Alex and then a mattress on the living room floor for Ryan, and then she goes in the kitchen and starts talking to someone, low, on her cell. Ryan lies awake and listens to her leave, doesn't move, stares at the ceiling. He counts minutes all on his own, because Z doesn't have a clock he can see, one to sixty thirty times before gets bored and just lies there. A couple of times he thinks he hears heavy footsteps on the stairs outside Z's apartment and his heart sticks in his throat but nobody ever comes in.
Alex appears in the doorway. "Ryan?" he whispers. Ryan stands up and goes to Alex and then they go and crawl into Z's bed together. Ryan falls asleep pretty easily after that.
-
Laena's back the next day - or night, whatever, their hours are weird - though Z is still out, and when they get up and wander out of Z's room towards the kitchen she salutes and says, "Hey, Greenwald. Hey, new kid."
"Hey," Ryan says. "It's Ryan. My name is."
"Oh, great, I was wondering," she laughs.
Alex just nods at her, giving a little wave.
"We were gonna go," Ryan says.
"You want breakfast or anything?"
Alex holds up an apple he stole, and shrugs.
"That's cool," she says. "Well, hey. See you later."
They leave and Alex lets Ryan lead him home, more jittery when they're back outside. Alex is better this morning, a little, but still not quite right, and it's still chilly and Z and Laena didn't have any coats that fit quite right. Alex isn't in his own clothes, wearing ill-fitting grey instead.
Ryan thinks about going straight home, but there's a good dumpster on the way home, and he stops to dig through it and finds some edible-looking produce, some grapes and arugula and a few potatoes with itty-bitty eyes and he stuffs them all in a plastic bag.
Alex is standing waiting with his arms crossed and his knees pressed together, shivering, hands in his armpits. Ryan says, "Ah, fuck, hey, let's get going, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and they go but Alex seems off again, gone someplace else in his head and they finally get back home and just inside the door.
Ryan pulls Alex's hands to him, and they're cold just to touch, not that Ryan's are a whole lot better on that front. He leans his head down, blowing on Alex's hands to warm them up. His own get warmer in the process, just a nice bonus on the side.
"I'm sorry," Ryan says again. "We're home. Do you want to - I think the hot water is working again, Jeff said, maybe a bath or shower to warm up, and you can get back into your own clothes and under some blankets and everything. It's really cold, huh?"
"Not really," Alex says.
"You were shivering, though," Ryan says. "I thought it was cold."
"It's not that bad out," Alex says. "Pretty nice, really."
"Alex," Ryan says, and it's only then that Alex seems to actually see him again.
"Okay," Alex says. "A - yeah, a bath sounds good."
Sam shows up, all, "I thought I heard you guys, shit. We were so. Greta's all settled in and everything, don't worry. She's in your bed right now, Ryan, but we can get one of the mattresses set up for you soon, we just didn't know when you'd need it. I'll get Jeff to do it. Darren's taking a nap."
"Hi," Alex says.
"Hey," Sam says. "How are you?"
"I'm here," Alex says. "So that's good."
"Oh, definitely, definitely," Sam says. "Are you feeling okay? You want anything?"
Alex shrugs. "I'm going to take a bath, I guess. Can I - can you make me a latte?"
"Yeah, man, I think we've still got some soy milk."
"Okay," Alex nods. "Sweet. Thanks, man." He walks off, towards the bathroom, kind of slow.
Sam looks after him, and says, "Do you need to sleep, or are you okay?"
"I'm okay," Ryan says. "We got some rest at Z's."
"That's good. It'll be a bit before we can get shit ready."
"I, uhm," Ryan starts, then stops himself, shaking his head a little. "Anyway, I'm gonna go and - make sure Alex is okay and all."
Sam looks at him. "Okay."
"Alright." Ryan squeezes Sam on the shoulder, because he figures he should acknowledge the dude's presence or something, then trots off after Alex.
-
When Ryan taps on the bathroom door Alex says, "Come in," right away, and Ryan's a little bit hesitant but when he pushes open the door Alex is still completely dressed, sitting on the edge of the bath with one hand trailing in the water. Ryan looks at him and smiles and Alex looks back, dark-eyed and serious.
Ryan says, "Um, did you want me to get you anything? Like -- clothes for after, or something?"
"No, thank you," Alex says. He taps his fingers on the edge of the bath, and the water is getting pretty high, higher than they usually have it. Ryan leans over Alex and twists the tap off. "Thank you," Alex says, again.
"You're welcome," Ryan says. He's a little bewildered. Alex trails his fingers in the water, watching the ripples move out. "Do you -- do you want me to go out? Cleanliness, man, it's pretty fun."
"And," Alex says, ignoring this last, still not looking at Ryan properly, "for, you know. Getting me out. I guess."
"I guess," Ryan agrees, wonderingly. "You guess."
"Mm."
Ryan says, "We wouldn't have - have just left you. I'm sorry we took so long. But we wouldn't have, not ever, I, we all need you here, okay?" He isn't sure, really, if this is the right thing to say and thinks at the same time that he has said more than he meant to, but this isn't his department at all. Ryan remembers getting here, and telling Alex, warning him how he's not good at being useful, not especially, but - well. He doesn't have much choice right now. He's trying, at least.
"I said thank you," Alex says.
"Okay. I - okay, yeah, you did," Ryan agrees. "You're welcome. It was my, our pleasure, you know."
Alex starts laughing, and Ryan can't tell but he doesn't think it's quite sincere. He can't help but laugh a little, too, at how absurd this is. He wonders if, maybe, standing while Alex isn't, if that's bad, if they should be on the same level, so he sits on the edge of the toilet seat and leans forward a little because it's pretty close to the bathtub.
It's not really a good sound, Alex's laugh. Ryan's heard Alex laugh a lot of times, but this maybe doesn't live up to the name, not quite, but Ryan can't quite come up with another word.
"You're here, though," Ryan says. "You're here. Are - are you still cold?"
Alex shrugs.
Ryan scoots around, moving to sit on the edge of the tub next to Alex and drags Alex in close and hangs on very tight, and Alex is still cold, Ryan can feel it, and Alex keeps trailing one hand back and forth in the water but eventually the other one comes up somewhere near Ryan's elbow and Ryan just hangs on and on. "I bet. I bet Sam's going to make something really good with those potatoes, in a bit, maybe mashed potatoes. With soy milk and everything so it's not hurting anything or anybody." Ryan has no idea why the fuck he's talking about mashed potatoes, because there are about a billion other things that could be done with the potatoes he found, if they're even still good.
Alex swallows, and he says, "Ryan," for maybe the first time since getting out, and Ryan's going to take that as a good sign because he really wants one of those right now because he thought Alex was doing better. Alex was doing so much better.
"Yeah," Ryan says. "Yeah, what's up?"
"Will you - here," he pushes Ryan away, a little, and Ryan stares at him and Alex starts to undo the top button on the dreary grey shirt he's wearing but his hands are stiff and he drops his hands after getting that done and stares at Ryan until Ryan nods and says "okay" and leans in to help, very carefully, very intent on each little clear plastic button.
Alex sits very still. He has a lot of bruises, and some of them are some absolutely phenomenal shades of yellow and green and a sickly purple, and Ryan is very, very careful. Alex must be hurting, but he hasn't betrayed it at all yet.
"I'm sorry," Ryan tells him, and he's apologizing for a lot of things at once right now. He wishes Z were here, but thinks probably it is too dangerous to call her because she is just as wanted as Alex, probably - maybe more, but maybe not now that Alex has been broken out of jail. "I miss you," Ryan says, which is accurate, if nothing else, and, with a bit of a laugh, "The whole time we were - while we were getting ready and when we came to get you, I just kept wishing you were there to help because you'd be so much better at everything I had to do. Than me. You'd have."
He thinks maybe Alex will laugh, because of how stupid that is, but he doesn't, he just looks at Ryan very seriously and nods and says, "It's okay. You did okay."
Ryan helps Alex get his shirt off, and he's not sure if he's supposed to but he helps him with his pants, too, which are just tied shut by a drawstring, no zipper or anything so once the string's undone they slide off pretty easy and Ryan says, "You wanna get into the bath?"
Alex shrugs, and then gets in on his own and lies back and looks up at the ceiling, and Ryan says, "Should I go?" but he thinks that even if Alex says yes that maybe he should stay to make sure that Alex doesn't - fall asleep or anything, not with the water as high as it is.
"Nah," Alex says. "You might as well stick around."
"I've been here this long," Ryan agrees. He thinks a lot of stupid things, things he shouldn't think about, so he doesn't and instead he offers Alex some soap that Alex just holds cradled between his hands like a baby bird until Ryan says, "Dude, you remember what to do with that, right?"
And Alex mostly laughs, and that's good, says, "Yeah, sorry."
"No, it's cool," Ryan says. "Just checking."
"Mm-huh."
"Did you want," Ryan starts, and pauses. "Help or anything?"
Alex doesn't really pause or anything, just hands the soap over, and Ryan gets on his knees beside the bath, rolls his sleeves up. The bath walls aren't very high and he can lean over pretty well, lathers his hands up with soap and water and starts washing Alex's back. He's as gentle as he can, but he can feel how tense Alex is beneath Ryan's hands, almost trembling with it, and it's probably hurting a fair bit.
"Sorry," Ryan mumbles, and Alex shakes his head. The ends of his hair are wet, and Ryan watches them stick to Alex's skin. Ryan thinks about the way he made Alex run, when they were leaving the jail, the way Alex didn't even flinch, he thinks about the way he gripped Alex's arm and pushed him down when they were hiding and he kind of wants to cry or something. He ends up just stroking a line down Alex's spine, whispering that he's sorry again. Alex doesn't react.
He washes Alex's back and chest and shoulders, and he lifts Alex's hair up and drapes it around to the side so he can get at the back of Alex's neck, too. He hunts around in the bathroom cupboard until he finds an empty plastic container that doesn't look like it's being used for anything and fills it with water, tells Alex to tilt his head back and close his eyes. Alex flinches a little bit but he does it, and Ryan curves his hand around Alex's jaw and pours it down Alex's hair. It takes three refills to get it completely wet. Alex's hair is pretty thick.
"You want me to wash it?" Ryan says, and Alex makes an agreeable sort of sound, so Ryan does. He's still wary about hurting Alex, which means he's probably not doing a very good job of washing Alex's hair, not daring to dig his fingers into the scalp, but it's probably the best he's felt since the whole awful thing started. He's doing something, at least, and it feels vaguely constructive and not like it can backfire on him, not like Alex is going to go all weird on him like before. Actually, Ryan supposes Alex probably could, and would have good reason to, by anybody else's standards. Ryan hopes not, though.
"Time to rinse, close your eyes," Ryan says, and Alex does, and when Ryan smoothes Alex's hair back, almost brushing out the suds when he pours water over Alex's head, Alex leans back into the touch.
He tucks the container away and says, "So. All clean."
"Mmm," Alex says. He frowns a bit and says, "I want to brush my teeth."
"I'm not sure brushing your teeth in the bath is such a good idea," Ryan says. He brushes his in the shower sometimes, but the shower rinses things away, straight down the drain. Probably the bath would be a little gross.
Alex nods. "In a minute," he says.
"Are you warmer?" Ryan asks. "You've stopped shivering."
"Yeah," Alex agrees. Ryan waits, and Alex looks up at him and says, "Yes. I am. It's cool."
"Technically not," Ryan says, and grimaces, because that was really bad, but the corner of Alex's mouth quirks and he pulls his knees up, loops his arms loosely around them.
"Right," Alex says. He blinks and frowns, looks up at Ryan and says, "Is there something I should be doing?"
"What?" Ryan stares at him. "I. No. You were just -- I think you're good to do what you like for a little while."
Alex nods. "I need to brush my teeth," he says again.
"You want to get out of the bath?" Ryan asks.
Alex doesn't answer properly, just rubs his hand against his mouth over and over. Ryan knows he's a bit spacey, that he might zone out, so he tries to avoid looking at Alex's mouth in the first place, but it's difficult when he's doing that. "My mouth tastes funny," Alex says eventually, frowning like he doesn't entirely understand why.
"The water's going to get cold," Ryan says, when Alex just sits there for another few minutes. "C'mon, up. There we go. Okay. You've got it."
He goes to hand Alex the towel but Alex just blinks at him, owlishly, and Ryan sighs and says, "Okay, okay, fine," and does everything for him, dries him off as carefully as he helped wash, and he very intently does not look at him at all. "I'm not brushing your teeth for you, though."
"No," Alex agrees. "That would be weird."
"Uh-huh," Ryan laughs. "Just a little."
"A teensy bit," Alex says, holding his fingers and thumb just a little bit apart to show just how teensy a bit weird it would be.
"You're so weird," Ryan says, and really, he's usually so good at looking people in the eyes, he has gotten so much better at it, but he thinks looking at Alex right now is maybe a little too awkward. "Do, uh. Did you wanna put that towel on or anything?"
"Oh," Alex says. "Right, I guess."
Alex ties the towel around his waist, and picks his toothbrush out from all the others in the holder, and then stares at himself in the mirror for a while before actually doing anything. After, he says, "My teeth felt weird."
"I hear that happens sometimes," Ryan says. "When you don't brush them for a while."
"Yeah."
"All better now, though, right?"
"Yeah, it's good," Alex says. "I'm all minty fresh now."
"Let's - I'm gonna take you back to your room, you can put on some clothes or whatever, I'll give you a minute," Ryan says, because he kind of - he feels guilty, a little, but he just wants to talk to someone else. Sam or Darren or maybe Jeff, if he's around, any of them, because as far as he knows they're all okay, and Ryan wants something like reassurance right now.
Alex frowns, and Ryan feels miserable but he says, "Only a minute. I'll be right back."
"Fine," Alex says eventually. "I, yeah, I. Okay. You'll be right back?"
"Uh-huh."
"Sweet," Alex says. "Sorry to be monopolizing all your time or whatever."
"It's okay," Ryan says. "I'm gonna see if there's food, too."
"Right," Alex says, and he gets back to his room just fine but Ryan follows him there to make sure, and Alex says, "It's okay. I'll see you in a bit."
"A teensy bit," Ryan agrees, mimicking Alex's earlier gesture.
-
Ryan goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on the stove. He really does mean to talk to Darren or someone, maybe say hi and introduce himself properly to Greta, but he ends up just standing at the counter with his fingers curled around the edge, pushing himself up on his toes, arms straining, head bowed.
"Ryan?" Sam says, and Ryan drops back to his feet properly, turns around and smiles.
"Hey," he says.
"Is Alex--"
"Just getting dressed," Ryan says. Sam watches him without saying anything and Ryan breathes in, asks, "How are the others doing?"
"All right," Sam says. "Darren has a sprained wrist and Greta seems a bit frightened, kind of -- I guess she wasn't expecting all of this."
"Makes sense," Ryan says.
"But yeah," Sam says. "It's. It's alright. How's Alex? His latte’s getting cold."
"Oh. I don't know," Ryan says. Sam bites his lip and Ryan says, "Like, I don't get what's going on with him. In his head."
"Yeah," Sam says. He just looks at Ryan, and then he nods a bit and says, again, "yeah."
Ryan looks down, shrugs a little. "Anyway," he says. "I was just. It's good that the others are okay, that's good."
"Ryan," Alex says, and Ryan looks up. Alex is standing in the doorway in jeans and a thick sweater and a pair of socks. His hair is wet and tangled all down his back. Alex stares straight at Ryan and says, "That was more like this," and holds his fingers and thumb apart again, about twice as big as last time.
Ryan laughs, short and startled. "Right," he says. "Sorry, I. The exact details of that kind of measurement slips by me sometimes."
Sam says, “Hey. Got you your latte.”
“Oh, thanks.” Alex stands staring at him until Sam picks the mug up off the counter and hands it to him directly. Alex holds onto it and looks down at the warm liquid. “Looks good.”
"S'okay," Sam says. He looks easy, leaning back against the table, but his eyes are sharp, tracking every move Alex makes. "How you feeling, man?"
"Okay," Alex says. He looks at Ryan again, quick and fleeting, and Ryan takes a step towards him, not entirely sure what Alex wants.
"I mean, like," Alex says, suddenly, and it’s strange and unexpected when his expression goes hard and angry. He’s still staring down at the mug Sam handed him, both hands wrapped tightly around it. He has yet to take a drink. "Fuck those guys, thinking that - any of that is something you can even. Do to a person. And just. Fuck those guys."
"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah, no. What did they do to you, man?”
"I don’t really feel like talking about it, okay," Alex says. He shakes his head, hard enough that his wet hair hits his face, and that startles a bit of a laugh out of him at least though it's more just surprise. He brushes his hair back behind his ears again and says, "Fuck them."
"Yeah," Ryan agrees for lack of anything better to say. He shares the sentiment, but mostly he's just worried and tired and hungry. The kettle goes off, though, so he turns off the heat and pours a cup of tea, then says, "You want some too?" in Sam's general direction.
"Yes, please,” Sam says.
Ryan sits down at the table while he waits for his tea to brew, watching the clock, and eventually Alex comes over to sit immediately next to him, nudging at Ryan's ankle with his toes. Ryan nudges right back, and Alex even smiles at him, so that's good.
Alex doesn’t sleep that night. Eventually, the others wake up again, too. Darren only just got back safe himself, and Greta’s new, and Sam made that latte last night so Ryan waits until he has a second to talk to Jeff.
“Jeff,” Ryan says to him.
“Ryan.”
“Can you -“ He lowers his voice, carefully. “Watch Alex for a bit? I don’t want him thinking he’s being left alone, or whatever, but I need sleep.”
“You never got any?”
Ryan laughs.
“Okay,” Jeff says, hastily. “Don’t worry about it, man.”
“Ryan,” Alex says, from the couch where he’s spent most of the last few hours. Ryan wonders if his spot next to Alex is cold yet.
“Hey, man,” Jeff says.
“Hi, Jeff,” Alex says. “Tell Ryan to get his ass back over here.” He attempts a smile but it’s brittle.
Ryan feels guilty, but he’s exhausted, too. The little bit of rest he got at Z’s wasn’t near enough.
Jeff sits down, and, Ryan is grateful to note, not in Ryan’s spot. “Ryan’s gotta get some rest, dude.”
“But I don’t -“ Alex starts, then stops himself, going tense. “Jeff.”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me a story, so I know you’re the real deal.”
Jeff laughs, looking confused, and Ryan stops listening because he knows if he stays any longer he’ll end up folding himself back up at Alex’s side and staying awake for however long it takes.
-
The next few days are weird, with Alex getting closer and closer to better and fine but still having these moments where he just seems utterly lost and terrified, and two days later Sam asks, "Did you want your bed back? Greta says she's sorry for taking yours."
And Ryan has to shake his head and say, "No, uh, not - for right now. It's okay."
"You sure? We can get something sorted out."
"It's fine," Ryan says, more certain this time, and convinces himself that the reason he wants to stick close to Alex is to make sure that he really is okay, even though Alex sleeps fine through the night and is so, so much better now. The bruises are fading, and, for example, right now Alex is taking a bath all by himself even though he refuses to take showers just yet. "I want to make sure he's okay. At night. You know."
"Is that," Sam begins, but shrugs. "Well, that's cool. We're all here, though. We can keep an eye out. It's not just you."
"I know," Ryan says. He thinks of the patterns of bruises on Alex's chest, of being very gentle in tracing the outline of one and saying, this one looks like a rabbit and this one looks like a house and this one doesn't look like much of anything, though, it's healing up pretty good, and Alex just breathing so slowly and watching him do it. "Thank you," Ryan adds. "For - everything and all, I guess."
Sam looks at him for a minute and then he says, "I'm glad Alex found you," and walks away. Ryan leans back against the counter for a moment and tries to work out what Sam's expression just then had meant, and then he gives up and starts heating up some of the vegan fried rice they had last night. (Vegan less out of deference to Alex's eating habits and more because ingredients were running low, but still pretty good.)
-
Ryan wakes up to Alex cursing softly to himself on the other side of the room. He sits up, scratching his head blearily, and Alex looks up from where he's hopping into a pair of trousers.
"Alex," Ryan says.
"Shush."
Ryan blinks and tries again, lowering his voice. "Alex. What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out," Alex says.
Ryan stares. "What?"
"C'mon," Alex says, and he comes over and takes Ryan's hand, pulls him upright and shoves a t-shirt at him. "Come on. Hurry up."
"Alex--"
"Shut up," Alex says, holding on tight to Ryan's hand, and it's then that Ryan notices the knife in Alex's other hand.
He sucks in a breath. "Hey. What are you doing?"
"Let's just go, come on, please," Alex says.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"Ryan," Alex says, and he looks unhappy and a little wild, looking over his shoulder. "C'mon. We have to go."
Ryan swallows. "It's the middle of the day. We shouldn't go outside in that."
Alex makes an impatient noise and turns on his heel, and Ryan hurries to keep up with him, grabbing Alex's wrist and following him out the door and through the kitchen into the tunnel beyond.
They get all the way outside before Alex turns around and looks at Ryan, looking sort of sheepish.
"Hey," Ryan says, quietly. It’s a surprisingly dreary day, clouds hanging low and grey in the sky. Ryan thinks it might rain later. "What do we do now?"
Alex shivers. They're not really dressed for the chilly weather, and Ryan puts an arm around Alex's shoulders and hugs him in close. "Sorry," Alex says.
"It's cool." Ryan shrugs. A drop of water hits him on the nose. He looks up briefly then remembers that it’s Alex he’s concerned about now. "Little night time adventure."
"I wasn't sure where." Alex breathes in sharply, rubs his hand against his nose. His wrist is bony, and Ryan reaches out with his other hand to circle his fingers around it, slide his hand up to where Alex is still clutching the knife. The blade is flicked in now, at least.
"It's cool," Ryan repeats. "You want to go back to bed now? We probably shouldn't be out here. There's patrols and things."
"Yeah," Alex says absently. He looks around. "They -- they catch you by surprise. Sometimes. You know."
Ryan watches him, waiting, but Alex doesn't say anything else. "Okay," Ryan says.
"Anyway, yeah." Alex shakes his head, like a dog waking up. "Let's go back to bed. It's cold up here."
Alex holds onto Ryan's hand very tightly, all the way back through the tunnels and the dark.
-
It’s a reasonable enough time when they wake up again. There’s even less to eat this morning, but there looks to be just enough of the fried rice left for everyone if their portions are on the small side, so Ryan gets out a pan to reheat it a second time.
Greta comes out while he's still heating it up, and he grins at her quickly and says something inconsequential about how there should be enough for her to eat too. She laughs and puts her chin on his shoulder, watching him cook. Ryan likes Greta. He hasn't had much time to get to know her over the past few days because he's been with Alex most of the time but she's friendly and sweet and one morning he shuffled out to try and make some coffee and she gave him the cup she'd just made. "Least I can do for the dude whose bed I'm sleeping in," she had said, and so Ryan is pretty fond of her.
Ryan says, "Hey, hey."
"What's up?" Greta says.
"I'm. Do you know what's happening?" Ryan asks. It's a little bit silly, considering she's newer here than him, but she has been spending time with the others so she's maybe a little more clued in. "Around here, I mean. Do you know whether anything's being planned?"
"I think everyone's just settling down," Greta says. "Plus, you know. I get the feeling they're waiting for Alex."
Ryan glares at the rice, switching off the heat and piling it into bowls a little too vehemently, maybe. "I wish they wouldn't," he says.
Greta takes one of the bowls and looks at him consideringly. "I don't think Alex would want to be like -- permanently off rotation," she says. "Or whatever they call it here."
"Doesn't mean they should sit around, like, pointedly waiting for him to get better," Ryan says. He pushes a hand through his hair and says, "He. He's really."
"I know," Greta says. She looks at Ryan, steady and calm, and says, "It was really scary."
"I think they did stuff to him," Ryan says. "Like. That he's not telling us."
"I think so, too," Greta says. "I saw them march him past my cell a couple of times."
Ryan swallows. "What did he look like?"
"He was laughing," Greta says.
It was only three days, Ryan reminds himself. Maybe not even that, closer to two and a half. When Alex appears in the doorway, though, hair wet from his bath, rubbing sleepily at his eyes with his sleeve, Ryan can't help the way his stomach twists, the way he shuffles in closer to Alex when Alex comes to get the bowl of rice Ryan holds out. Alex blinks at him and says a quiet hello to Greta and then he tucks his head against Ryan's shoulder and Ryan doesn't move.
Ryan breathes in deep and keeps still, because he likes how Alex smells and because he doesn't want to do anything stupid. Sometimes, just sometimes, he finds himself thinking about things he knows he shouldn't ever ask for.
Eventually though Ryan says, "Hey, c'mon, our food is gonna get cold."
"Right.” Alex nods a little, the motion small against Ryan’s shoulder, but he doesn’t move.
"Somebody's going to have to get more soon," Ryan says. "Food, I mean. You want me to ask Jeff?"
Alex steps back and looks at him. "I can ask him.”
"I know," Ryan says, careful. He sits down at the table. "It was just. In case. I could do it."
"Yeah," Alex says, and he sounds somewhere between incredulous and amazed. "And Jeff's a good pick. He wasn't. He wasn't there, so."
"Right," Ryan nods. He sits and eats for a while, Greta doing the same across the table.
Eventually Alex says, "I’m going to ask him, though. Not you, you don’t have to.”
"Okay," Ryan says. "Okay. Sorry."
Alex opens his mouth to say something but closes it again without doing so, and he takes his time eating.
Ryan just wants to make sure everything works and everything is okay, and mostly that Alex is okay and they all (Alex, always Alex) have enough to eat.
Greta says, "Hey, Alex. Darren told me to tell you that Annie called, she says-- Z? Z was asking after you, he said to say. And Ryan, she says hi."
"Oh, thanks," Alex says. "Somebody should have got me."
"Oh," Greta says. "Well, it was late, I guess, and you and -- you were already in bed."
"Are people just not telling me things anymore now? What is this?"
"You were asleep," Greta says a little helplessly.
Ryan stands up, and he feels all tense and annoyed, at not having any idea what's going on, first of all, but even worse -- he knows Alex hasn't been okay, but still. "I'll talk to them," he says. "I'm gonna. I'll talk to them."
Alex says, "No," and he sounds frustrated and more annoyed.
"What?" Ryan says.
"I can talk to them myself," Alex says. He eats quickly, free hand curled around the edge of the table, frowning at the wall. "I don't need -- I'll just talk to Sam, it's fine."
"I don't mind," Ryan begins.
"I know you don't," Alex says. "You don't mind anything."
Ryan looks up, startled. Alex still isn't looking at him, but his expression is harder than Ryan is used to. "I don't know what you mean," he says, low. Greta looks uncomfortable, glancing between the two of them.
"I mean, it's like, whatever I want, right?" Alex says. "Whatever I want, except, except -- you know, I'm not hugely fond of being your new direction in life, Ryan."
Ryan stands up, setting his bowl on the sink. "Sure," he says. "Sorry." Alex opens his mouth again but Ryan doesn't particularly want to hear, walks out of the room and into Alex's bedroom. It kind of sucks that he doesn't have anywhere more private to go, but it's still daylight and not worth the risk of going outside onto the fire escape or something, and he's not rude enough to go invade Greta's room, even if it used to be his. Most of his stuff has migrated in here over the past few days anyway.
Ryan curls up in the centre of the bed and closes his eyes. He didn't get much sleep last night. He squeezes his eyes shut tight just to have something to look at, the blue-yellow spots that float behind his eyelids drifting in and out of patterns and shapes.
He's in and out of sleep for a little while but each time just wakes up feeling more tired, and then eventually Darren pokes his head in and says, "Hey, did you want dinner?"
"Oh," Ryan says, sitting up. "I - yeah, okay. Okay." He nods, and looks around, and says, "There's still, we've got mattresses, right?"
"Yeah," Darren says, a little confused, maybe.
"I just remember, Sam was saying, he offered to - I can do it myself, I mean, but I should have my own bed at some point, probably."
"Oh," Darren says. "Right, okay. Yeah, it's just in storage upstairs. Someone can help you bring it down after dinner if you want."
"Yeah, thanks," Ryan says, and kicks his feet over the edge of the bed and curls his fingers up in the blanket for a minute, because it's soft and warm from him lying on it. He closes his eyes for a minute, and there are still strange shapes dancing back there before getting up and going to the kitchen.
Greta and Sam and Alex are at the table already, Sam telling Greta some story that has her laughing, and Alex occasionally chimes in to add some stupid detail. Dinner is rice again, and beans, and not much else.
Sam says, "Oh, by the way, all the clean dishes are on the drying rack right now. Not the shelf. Because somebody," and he looks at Darren, "didn't want to do dishes yesterday."
"It was so tragic," Greta says. "Me and Sam had to do all that washing up all by ourselves. That's not the kind of work you make innocents do, Darren."
Darren laughs, shaking his head a little. His fingers go around his still-bandaged wrist. "Shut the fuck up. Oh, hey, Jeff leave already?"
"Yeah," Alex says. "Hopefully we can actually have something good for breakfast."
"Sweet," Darren says. "Oh, man, I hope he finds something other than pinto beans. I've had enough fucking pinto beans."
Sam says, "Maybe we'll find some radishes. I could go for a radish right now."
"Out of basically anything in the world, what you pick is radishes?" Alex asks. "Seriously?"
"Don't underestimate the power." Sam crosses his arms. "They're good, man."
Ryan serves himself some beans and rice, and doesn't say anything, just eats standing a little way back from the table. He ends up finishing at around the same time as everyone else, because even though they got a head start he isn't interrupted by talking, not much, except when Greta scoots her chair over a little bit and kicks at the empty one next to her and says, "You want to sit? There's a chair."
"It's cool," Ryan says.
Alex laughs and says, "Jesus, dude, just sit down already."
Ryan says, "I'm done, though. It's okay." He goes to put his dish in the sink and rinse it out and says, "Sam, are you finished eating?"
"Yeah," Sam says, hesitant.
"I need you to help me with something."
"Okay."
Ryan is being immature, and he knows it, and right now he's giving himself the opportunity to sulk because it's been a terrible week and it's not like Alex owes him anything, that would be fucked up, but Ryan's allowed to be kind of pissed off, he thinks. He hopes. Frustrated, at least.
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