Fic; Running Uphill 3/3, Alex/Hank
Title Running Uphill, for this prompt
Rating ...R, for language and drugs and some sex
Summary from prompt: Alex is the outcast and Hank is the jock. There's a new kid in town and Hank is curious.
Disclaimer Will never own, boo.
part one
part two
Christmas -
Christmas is an abysmal affair. Hank has to admit that this was self-imposed, however, since he had turned down an offer from Raven to spend it with her and Charles Xavier and their shipment of presents from their parents overseas. His dad sends him a pair of running shoes and a watch that can monitor his heart rate. The shoes are the wrong size, but at least he tried, which is more than what Hank can say for his mother, who just hands him 150-dollars in an envelope over dinner on Christmas Eve. Conversation is stilted, and when Hank swallows down the last of the roast on his plate (his mom had allowed meat, for once), she doesn’t protest when he excuses himself early. He thinks about how, when he was younger, when his dad had still been here, they would sometimes drive all the way to Niagara Falls and spend Christmas in a fancy hotel, surrounded by lights and the sound of water rushing over stone. It’s not like he misses it, though, just - it happened, and now it won’t happen anymore.
At least New Years rolls around almost immediately after, so he suffers a few days of finishing complete seasons of The Office and South Park until it’s the Saturday night before school starts up again and he can head over to Bobby’s, who is hosting the party to end all parties, according to Bobby, at least. That is, he had promised a lot of hard liquor, and Sean had promised a lot of pot, and Raven and Angel had promised to bring everyone who mattered in the senior class.
When he arrives, the party is in full swing and he has to park the next street over, it’s so crowded. A couple is already passed out on the giant lawn, red cups fallen to their sides, and inside, the thump of music and dancing is unmistakable. Bobby’s house is smaller than Hank’s, but the living room and kitchen are open to each other, and the stairs are easily blocked by a pet-gate. It’s a rule at Bobby’s that everyone knows: No one goes upstairs.
The crush of bodies is overwhelming. Hank imagines that this is what a frat house might look like on a Saturday night, shouldering his way past other students to reach where he knows his friends will be, on and around the couch in the living room. When he emerges from the crush it’s to a round of “Hey!” and a very drunk, “You’re here!” by Raven, who is very comfortably lying on top of Bobby’s and John’s legs on the couch. Sean and - to Hank’s surprise - Alex sit on the floor at their feet, eyes intent on the flatscreen, hands clenched around game controllers. Bobby has a collection of just about every gaming system that’s ever existed; Alex and Sean are currently stabbing with their thumbs at the buttons of Nintendo 64 controllers, playing Smash and being very vocal about it.
“Die, mother-fucker!” Sean yells as his character flings Alex’s to its death. “I win!”
“Again!” Alex demands, eyes bright. Sean gleefully pushes ‘start’ and they continue their war. “Oh, hey, Hank.” He looks up at him, smiling, before his attention is diverted back to the screen, because Sean is pummeling his character. “Goddamnit, Sean!”
“Told you I was a champ,” Sean teases.
“You’re not very good at this,” Hank says, grinning, sitting down next to him. Someone hands him a drink; he thinks it’s Angel. When he takes a sip, it’s candy-sweet, the perfect formula for a hangover. He drinks it anyway, gulping to catch up. Angel whoops behind him, encouraging.
Alex’s fingers pause. He looks at him, eyes unfocused and a little wild. The screen flashes that Alex’s character has died yet again, but he takes no notice. “I didn’t play a lot of video games, growing up,” he says, blinking slowly.
“Because you were - oh.” Hank realizes. Of course. What person would let a child who had lived through a plane crash and watched a parent die play video games?
Alex grins, but it’s unrefined and not like him. “Because they didn’t want me to turn into a psycho,” he confesses in a mock-whisper, leaning in close. Hank wrinkles his nose. Alex smells like alcohol. Or is that just his drink?
“Alex,” he starts, concern making his eyebrows dip. “Have you been drinking?”
Alex jerks, sitting back, creating space between them again. “I may have smoked some pot with Sean,” he admits. “And taken a few shots with Raven.”
“But what about -?” Hank pauses, unsure, but Alex catches on anyway.
“I didn’t take them today, Hank. Relax. It’s a special occasion!” When he smiles it makes Hank’s stomach form knots. An intoxicated, drugged Alex is unsurprisingly all edges - at once too crisp and too sharp, like he’s experiencing every feeling for the first time, breakable.
Suddenly, Angel appears in Alex’s lap, laughing, pulling. “Come do one with me, ‘Lex! You did one with Raven, and even Bobby! I feel unloved.”
“I don’t know if he should - “ Hank starts to say, but Alex is already up, being led to the kitchen by a weaving Angel. He hears her shout, “Jello shots!” when they reach the kitchen, and then a crowd closes in around them and cheers, obscuring his view.
“You’re such a downer, Hank, like. Don’t fuss, okay?” Sean mumbles. “Can’t we play any good music, Bobby?”
Bobby laughs, his movement jostling Raven, who pouts prettily. “You’re high. You don’t get to make any music choices for the greater population right now.”
“He doesn’t get to make any music choices, ever,” John cuts in, smirking.
“Hey!”
“More juice!” Raven demands imperiously, finally slithering off of John and Bobby and settling next to Hank, in the spot that Alex had left empty. “Sean!”
The redhead grumbles but takes her cup from her and rises. She smiles beautifully. Then she turns her beatific smile to Hank. He watches her smile turn from beatific to wicked in a flash. He chugs down the rest of his drink, unblinking.
“So,” Raven says finally, lips still curled. “You and Alex, huh?”
Hank chokes, splutters: “What?”
“C’mon.” Raven scoffs. “Like I’m blind. Even Bobby and John are more subtle than you two.”
The two boys on the couch start to protest, indignant, but a hand from Raven silences them and they sit back again, red-faced and with more distance between them than before. “We’re not- “ Hank starts, unsure how to finish that sentence. Together? Dating? Friends? Surely they were friends. Maybe, sometimes, they felt like more. “We’re not gay. Together. I’m not gay,” he says, feeling ridiculous.
“I didn’t say you were,” Raven sing-songs, clearly enjoying herself.
Hank rolls his eyes. “I’m getting more to drink. And then I’m not coming back until I’m drunk as you are.”
“Avoiding!” Raven calls at Hank’s back. “Denial!” She cackles.
Hank finds Sean putting a disturbing amount of whiskey into Raven’s cup in the kitchen. He takes a swig from the bottle when he’s satisfied. “Want me to make you one?” Sean waggles his eyebrows at him.
“What is it?” Hank asks, apprehensive.
“Jack ‘n Coke. Without the Coke. Okay, there’s like a splash of Coke in here.”
Sean looks way too maniacally happy when Hank agrees, handing him his cup.
“Where are Angel and Alex?” Hank finds himself asking when Sean gives him back his cup, now full of mostly alcohol.
“Dunno. Weren’t in the kitchen when I got here. I have to get back to her royal highness.” He waggles his eyebrows again before putting a hand on his hip and bringing the cup up in the other, his imitation of Raven spot-on. He sashays out of the kitchen.
Despite what Raven has said, Hank itches to find Alex, to just make sure…
Pills and alcohol do not mix, Hank knows, and Alex may have not taken his pills today, but there had to be side-effects, right? Long-term effects, maybe. Alcohol and weed probably affected him in a very different way than they would Hank or Sean or Bobby. Had Alex ever been drunk before? Why today? He thought about these things while he searched, first sweeping through the kitchen, and then circling the living room, and then making his way into the backyard, where a lot of the seniors had taken refuge with their significant others. Every available flat surface seemed to have a couple perched atop it. Hank resists the urge to stomp his feet in frustration. Where could he be?
And then he hears, “Hank?” from somewhere within the house, and it’s Angel’s voice, carrying through the noise of music and conversation. “Hank!”
“Yeah?” he calls back. “I’m in the back!”
“Hank?” She doesn’t seem to be moving closer, so Hank moves instead, toward her voice. He hears her voice again but jumps at the frantic tone in it: “Hank!”
“Here! I’m over here! Just - Angel?” They reach each other at the sink in the kitchen, and Angel has tears in her eyes.
“What happened?” he demands immediately, rough, knowing that it must have something to do with Alex.
“I don’t know,” Angel says helplessly. “We were fine; he was fine. We went upstairs to talk, because it was so loud everywhere else, and then - Oh, Hank, he went crazy. I don’t even know why. We were just talking about L.A. And now he’s - “ She pauses, gulping, realization and dread on her face.
“Now he’s what?” Hank wants to shake her.
Her voice shakes when she says, eyes downcast, “alone in the bathroom.”
Hank can’t even get into that right now. She’s so stupid it hurts his head to think about. Alone? In the bathroom? She might as well have left him alone in the kitchen with the big knives out, or in the garage with a shotgun, Hank thinks wildly. He takes the steps three at a time, flying up the stairs and nearly skidding into the closed door of the bathroom. The door is locked.
He pounds it, knuckles sharp against the wood. “Alex?”
A few seconds pass and Hank is going to break the door into splinters, he swears, and he’s just about to ram his shoulder into it when he hears, “Hank?” on the other side, small and soft but at least it’s there, he’s responding.
“Alex, open the door.” He lays a hand over the door knob.
“No.”
It’s like he physically shoved him. Hank reels back, surprised. “Open the door, please,” he asks again, louder.
“Go away.”
“Alex, I swear on my life, I will break down this door if it’s the last thing I do, so you had better open it, or else - or else, you will owe Bobby a new door!” he finishes lamely. A pause.
He feels the lock click on the other side, and he immediately pushes the door open, wasting no time, surprised when he’s met with a very solid body, and even more surprised when that body is Alex, hunched over, hands over his nose. “Owww,” Alex groans, muffled.
“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. I’m - sorry? Fuck. That wasn’t - shit.” Hank’s hands flutter about like that’s actually going to help, and then Alex straightens and there’s blood coming through his fingers and he’s glaring at Hank, not without reason. “I thought you were in danger.”
“I think you broke my nose,” Alex accuses, voice still muffled. Hank grabs the nearest towel he can find and offers it to him. Alex snatches it from him, still glaring, blood from his nose curling into his upper lip. It’s not bleeding as much as Hank had thought, but it’s still bleeding, and Hank was still the cause of it.
“I’m sorry,” he says again without rambling. “Here.” He shuffles past Alex into the bathroom and flips the lid of the toilet seat down. “Sit.” He grabs another towel and wets it in the sink as Alex sits. Angel appears at the door, then, but mutters, “Oh, sorry,” when she sees Hank cleaning the blood off of Alex’s face, and disappears.
“I think it’s stopped,” Hank says when most of the blood is cleaned off. The towels are ruined. He’ll have to replace them, later. “You’re probably going to have a black eye tomorrow,” he continues, knowing that he’s just digging himself deeper. The skin around Alex’s nose looks tender, but at least it’s not broken. The blond glares at him some more, silent. Feeling like he owes him an explanation, Hank rambles, “Angel came and found me; she was crying so I thought something had happened. And then she couldn’t tell me what was really wrong. And then she said you had locked yourself in the bathroom, so. I got worried.”
“I’m traumatized; not suicidal. And, do you really think I’d off myself in Bobby’s bathroom?”
“Traumatized and suicidal are not mutually exclusive,” Hank spouts.
“Angel mentioned this area of L.A. that I used to have to walk through a lot, okay? It…triggered some feelings. I may have yelled at her to leave me alone and then locked myself in here,” he admits. “But then I forced myself to throw up and now I feel better. Except for my nose.”
“You-?” Hank makes a gagging motion with his hands and throat.
“Yeah,” Alex says, unabashed. “The alcohol was doing funny things to me.”
“That’s generally what alcohol does.”
Alex scowls at him, then, but there’s something there underneath the look that makes the knot in Hank’s stomach uncoil. He’s brought back, suddenly, to that moment after he had told Alex about his parents’ divorce, when they had been facing each other on Alex’s bed, that space between them undeniable but so close. He hadn’t done anything about it then, but he does something about it now. Maybe it’s the alcohol that emboldens him, or the steady, bright blue of Alex’s eyes. Either way, he leans down to press his lips against Alex’s, sighing when the other boy’s eyelashes flutter closed against his cheeks.
He pulls back, licks his lips, and thinks he can taste blood.
“I think I should go home,” is what Alex says, soft, the softest rejection that Hank’s ever received, he thinks, except then Alex blinks and smiles lazily and growls, “Will you take me?”
x
They don’t say good-bye to their friends. Not that they would notice - the level of drunk at the party is approaching brown-out levels for quite a few. Most of the party-goers would be spending the night, anyway, and those with consciences might even help Bobby clean up tomorrow morning. They run to Hank’s car, tripping over nothing, stealing away like fugitives, even though no one’s watching. Their hands find each other before they get to the Toyota, and when Hank goes to enter the driver’s side he is tugged back by the link, surprised.
Alex lets go first, smiling in a way that makes the corners of his eyes crease.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Hank gasps when they’re both in the car and he’s pulling out of parallel parking, feeling reckless and like he’s at the starting line right before the gun’s about to go off.
“Why?” Alex challenges. He buckles himself in, lays a hand over Hank’s on the gear shift, so casual.
“I didn’t think you were,” Hank begins before he can think through his sentence, but once it’s out of his mouth he has to end it: “gay.” Alex’s hand tightens over his and he fights the instinct to yank it away defensively.
But Alex just shoots back at him: “I didn’t think you were gay,” lightness in his eyes that reassures. “And I’m not. Or, I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Me neither,” Hank admits to himself. He had never really even thought about it.
Their eyes meet then, over the gear shift, the smile on Hank’s face feeling like it will never fade. Two boys who may or may not be gay who had gravitated toward each other from the start, orbiting around and around until, finally, contact. A collision. Didn’t matter. They could figure this out together.
Alex says, “car,” and then again, louder, and Hank blinks and does yank his hand away then to wrench the steering to the right, the horn of the oncoming car loud and unforgiving as it speeds past. He rights the car again, panting. He turns to Alex, searching, frantic: “Oh my god, are you-?”
But Alex is laughing silently, one hand covering his mouth and the other curled around his belly. “Keep your eyes on the road,” he admonishes. “There are some pretty crazy drivers tonight.”
Hank relaxes, and the rest of the way back passes without injury.
When they get to Alex’s house, though, a nervous energy takes over his whole body. He stands before the front door, rocking back and forth on his heels, as he waits for Alex to unlock it and let them in. Somewhere in the distance, fireworks erupt in the air like gunshots.
“No one home?” Hank asks.
“Scott’s with Jean,” Alex says, at last jimmying the door open and peeling off his scarf and gloves and coat. He throws them unceremoniously over the railing of the stairs, so Hank does the same.
“Jean?” The name sounds familiar. It’s not a common one, and Hank thinks through all his circles and networks before he places it. “Jean Grey? North Hills Hospital? Psychiatrist?”
“Uh,” Alex responds, looking blank. Hank quickly puts all the pieces together.
“Your older brother is on a date right now with your psychiatrist. On New Year’s Eve.”
“Something like that.” Alex shrugs, clearly not as concerned about the questionable ethics in play as Hank is. “They’ve been dating for a while. She’s nice.”
“She’s your psychiatrist.”
“Yeah,” Alex says forcefully, growing impatient. “Are you gonna come upstairs, or what?”
And that effectively derails any sort of ethics crisis that Hank is structuring in his head, sending all the blood in his brain to his cheeks. Hank stammers something, but then Alex is tugging on his hand again and they bound up the stairs to his room. Before the door is even shut behind them Alex has pressed himself against Hank, pinning him to the wall, lips against lips.
They kiss like that for a while, slow and smooth, Alex a source of heat against him, but then Hank takes a chance and runs his tongue over Alex’s bottom lip, and Alex opens to him, beautifully. That Alex is letting him do this, letting Hank take control - it makes him want in a way that he never has before. He pushes and pushes and pushes, their open-mouthed kisses becoming heavier, wetter - and Hank had never thought that having someone else’s tongue in his mouth would be something that he craved - until the back of Alex’s knees hit his bed and they both fall into it and Alex laughs against his mouth, an action that is intimate and lovely and not at all embarrassing. “Take off your shirt,” he says. “I want to feel you.” The words send shivers down Hank’s back. He lifts his arms, lets Alex wrestle the shirt over his head, mourning the split second loss of contact of his lips against Alex’s.
“Yours, too.” Alex takes off his shirt, quick and efficient, and then lets Hank climb over him on the bed, legs tangled together, hips nearly aligned. Hank’s elbows are on either side of Alex, but when he rolls his hips experimentally, he falters, almost falling against Alex’s chest. “God.”
Then they are kissing again, but the press of Alex’s fingers against his shoulders, how he dips into each of Hank’s ribs like he’s counting them, the teasing circle they make around his belly button and then the enticing dip beneath the waistband of Hank’s jeans, lend a certain urgency that hadn’t been there before. Alex kisses with his teeth, worrying Hank’s lips between them until they are puffy and certainly bruised; Hank sucks a hickey into Alex’s collarbone while he writhes underneath him, gasping. Fireworks explode again outside, in the open air, perhaps the catalyst that makes Alex push them both up to their knees, grinning wickedly, exposed, his fingers making quick work of the fastening of Hank’s jeans.
“Let me,” he says, a plea disguised as a demand, and Hank nods, flushed, as Alex lays a hand on his chest and pushes him back, until he’s on his back, propped up on his elbows; he lifts his hips so Alex can pull the jeans off completely, and then he can’t look, turns his face away, as Alex slowly drags his boxers down as well.
He’s hard. He tenses visibly when Alex wraps a warm hand around the base of his cock. “Relax,” Alex whispers. “Look.”
So Hank looks. He watches as Alex licks his lips, lowers himself between Hank’s knees, and licks a long, wet stripe up the underside of his dick. He clenches his hands into fists, and then his head rolls back involuntarily when Alex twists his hand and wraps his lips around him, shallow but hot. And then Alex takes him deeper, and Hank moans, hips tilting until he feels himself nudging the back of Alex’s throat. Alex pulls off with an obscene pop!, working the spit with his hand. “Jesus Christ,” Hank says through his teeth.
Alex smirks before going in again, swallowing Hank down smoothly, and this time Hank can’t hold back the thrust of his hips, dick knocking the back of Alex’s throat again, making him gag, but he doesn’t pull off this time, just keeps a grip on Hank’s hips to hold him down and starting to work his lips around, sucking and blowing and doing a trick with his tongue that has Hank clawing at the sheets, warning Alex, trying to push him away: “I’m gonna - Alex, yeah. God, I’m gonna - “
When Hank comes it’s with a wordless cry, hips stuttering, and Alex sucks him through it, swallowing until there’s nothing left to swallow, and Hank is boneless on the bed. He crawls up next to him, pulls up the covers over them, and fits himself against Hank’s side. Hank turns to him, apologetic. “I’m sorry -“
“It’s good,” Alex says, lips red and puffy. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
“I could - “ Hank starts to say, looking down to where the blankets are covering them both. But he’s never, well, done that before, for anyone else.
“It’s good,” Alex says again, smiling, eyes heavy-lidded.
Impulsively, Hank musters the energy to lift his head up off the pillow and press a kiss to Alex’s jaw. “You’re amazing,” he says, sincerely.
Alex ducks to hide his grin, but it just makes it easier for Hank to reach his lips, so he presses another kiss there. They fall asleep to the last round of fireworks for the night, curled around each other, faces too close.
x
He wakes up to his hand curled around nothing, one side of the bed cold where the covers are flung back. He had fallen asleep with his contacts in his eyes, and every time he blinks, they readjust, like a camera lens focusing over and over again. Sunlight streams in through the lone window of Alex’s room. Next comes the awareness that he is naked, the sheets sticky against his skin. Hank blinks again, locating his boxers on the floor, and tries to decide if he should leave the safe confines of the blankets, despite the fact that it feels like he’s just eaten a mouthful of sand and that his limbs have been replaced with lead. Then, there is the sound of someone retching into the toilet, the sick plop of vomit hitting water. That decides it for him.
Working with the pounding in his head, he sits up and gingerly moves his feet to the floor before stooping down to grab his boxers and working his uncooperative legs through them. He finds his t-shirt and pulls that on, too, not bothering to suppress the shiver that runs up and down his arms at the morning chill. Thinking that lately he’s been searching for Alex in the bathroom a lot, he scratches absently at his belly as he shuffles out into the hallway and stops in front of the mostly-shut door. The lights are off behind it, but then Alex gags and spits, the sound final, and then the toilet is being flushed. Hank knocks on the door out of courtesy before opening it wide anyway. “Hey,” he says, voice soft, “you okay?”
He starts when Alex starts; the other boy throws himself back against the edge of the bathtub, still in his jeans, a ratty shirt over his torso, eyes wide. “Hank,” Alex breathes out unnecessarily. “You’re up.”
It’s not exactly the greeting that Hank had been expecting after last night. He feels his eyebrows rise up of their own accord. “And you’re-“ Hank pauses, doesn’t want to say ‘throwing up’ so early in the morning, so he just repeats: “You okay?”
Alex’s lips twist in a way that worries him. “Last night was…” Alex starts to say, trailing off, averting his eyes. He starts to stand, padding over to the sink and filling his cupped hands with water.
“Your tone of voice makes me think I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear,” Hank jokes weakly while Alex is gurgling water in his mouth. Alex spits, and they make eye contact in the mirror above the sink. He can’t tell what Alex is thinking, though, his eyes unreadable like when they had first met. It frustrates him immediately, all the residual glow of last night - of Alex’s lips and his soft, perfect laugh - draining out of him because Alex is all walls again, suddenly, and he doesn’t understand.
The faucet is still running. Alex lets the water skim over his fingers, wasting it, while Hank waits. His voice is so quiet, like it’s been carried down the drain with the wasted water, that Hank almost misses him say, “It was nice.” But he shuts the faucet quickly, and Hank can predict what’s coming next: like being given a cushion before being decked in the face. “But I don’t know if it’s a good idea, you know? I was a little off, and maybe drunk, and you were-“
“I was what?” Hank interrupts, wanting to step into Alex’s space, wanting to make him feel threatened, but it won’t help him, so he stays where he is, just outside the door. “Drunk?” His voice grows with every sentence; he wishes they weren’t in the bathroom, where everything echoes and inescapable. “I wasn’t. I wanted it. You wanted it. Hell, you initiated it!” And it’s the wrong thing to say, he can tell, because Alex’s whole face shutters at that, like a shadow has passed through it.
“Yeah,” he admits, wrecked. “I know. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have - I wasn’t thinking, okay? I was out of my mind. I - I skipped my pills-“
“Don’t you dare blame anything that happened last night on your pills.”
The ensuing silence is electric. It feels like all the little hairs on Hank’s arms are standing at attention. They’ve both stopped breathing, it seems, and Alex is pale, stricken, even in the dim half-light. He screws his eyes shut tight, like he doesn’t want to see Hank there, real and physical and pressing. “I’m sorry,” Alex says.
Hank takes a step forward, at last, crossing the threshold, an apology at his lips: “No, Alex, I’m -“
“I can’t do this.”
It’s a lightning strike that nearly cleaves him in two, and he’s left both blind and stumbling. “What?”
“I can’t do this,” Alex says again. “I’m not-please leave,” he begs.
“Are you serious?”
In response, Alex takes a deep, awful breath. It seems to steady him, and he finally turns slowly around to face Hank. “It’ll be - better. Later. You’ll see.”
“How?” Hank barks out, relishing the flinch that it causes Alex. He feels - betrayed is too strong a word - but, angry, definitely. Wronged. It’s the first day of the new year and he had thought naively that he could start it off right. He was going to introduce Alex to his mother, at least, and maybe even stick around long enough to finally, officially, meet Scott. He had forgotten, for a night, that his mother probably didn’t care who the fuck Alex was, and his dad was never going to see any of his friends, anyway. And Scott was probably fucking his little brother’s psychiatrist, which was just - wrong. He turns before he can see the look of hurt cross Alex’s face, stomping into Alex’s room and finding his jeans and yanking them on. He’s at the bottom of the stairs, jacket on one arm and keys jangling in his hand, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He brushes it off and snaps, spitefully, “I said you were amazing last night, but you’re pretending, too, just like everyone else. It’s easy for you: you just hide behind your fucking disease.”
He doesn’t feel good about it, can’t pretend he likes the way that Alex’s hand lingers at shoulder height, shock in his eyes and lips and body, as he slams the front door behind him. “Fuck!” he yells, at the stupid houses lining Alex’s street, at the snow that had fallen overnight, at the mess that they had just created between them. He speeds through every red light on the way home.
x
Sunday steamrolls into Monday, and all the seniors are flat, worn out by a weekend of partying and realizing that their last semester of high school is about to begin. Hank hadn’t bothered with his contacts today, felt perfectly justified in wearing a pair of old jeans and a navy blue Columbia University hoodie. Some of his teachers - Mr. Xavier, in particular - and peers give him curious glances in the morning, but by lunch everyone has just shrugged it off. After all, Hank is probably just feeling the collective hangover, just like everyone else.
He doesn’t realize until the day is over that everyone in the school is following a new schedule of classes, that AP Physics isn’t a part of his anymore, that he hasn’t seen a glimpse of Alex all day.
Bobby doesn’t give him a chance to linger on the thought, immediately tackling Hank into his locker when the day is over and wrestling him into agreeing to head to the gym after school, to start training for the lacrosse season, New Year’s resolution and all that. “C’mon, man! It’ll be fun. After, we can go out onto the field and pass the ball around,” he says, eyes gleaming. Hank is reminded of an overly eager puppy, and can’t resist playing.
On Tuesday Hank’s bounced back, feeling like a veil has been lifted off everyone’s shoulders and faces, knowing how his week will pass and finding comfort in the routine. School, gym, home. He keeps thinking that he sees Alex in his periphery, a flash of blond every time he turns a corner, but it always turns out to be some underclassman that he knows vaguely. One time, it’s a girl, who catches his eye when he looks and sends him a smirk, the action making him grimace. It was very Alex-like.
By Friday he’s angry - again. He hasn’t seen or heard from Alex in a week, and it’s ridiculous how easy it would be to just pick up his phone and call him or text him, but some unseen force - Hank suspects it’s his pride - keeps him from doing so. He takes out his anger on his locker, slamming it shut so hard that he hears the insides shake. A feminine voice at his side quips, “Jesus, what’s got you in a mood?”
Angel has her bulging purse on one shoulder, her leather jacket zipped up as far as it can go. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go visit him, but now I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she continues, about to turn and go.
Hank catches her arm. “Visit who? What?”
Like she’s speaking to a child: “Alex. Our friend? Blond hair, blue eyes. Awesome body. Who hasn’t been in school all week?”
A breath gets caught in his chest. “Have you heard from him? Has he told you anything?”
Angel shifts her bag restlessly, looking like she’s very much regretting trying to have this conversation. “Like what? How he’s been puking up his guts since before New Years?” Then her expression shifts to something sly and sharp. “Or, do you mean how you spent the night with each other and then in the morning you took off when he tried to tell you that he’d been feeling like shit for the past few days and that the anniversary of his parents’ death was this past Tuesday?”
“He didn’t tell me that!” Hank argues immediately, because if that were true he’d be the biggest jackass in the entire world.
“Yeah,” Angel snaps, punctuating it with a snap of her fingers, too. “Because you took off, see? And I bet you haven’t called or texted him since.”
Hank deflates. He is actually the biggest jackass in the entire world. “No,” he mumbles. “But, it’s not like he tried to, either.” He’s grabbing at straws, here, especially with Angel looking like a cobra about to strike, but it’s not entirely his fault, surely.
“God, you are so dumb.” Angel rolls her eyes at him. “Are you coming, or what? Because actually Sean drove me in this morning and we would need to go in your car.”
x
Angel doesn’t say anything on the drive over, just keeps checking her nailpolish and sighing, and then looking out the window. She’s definitely doing it on purpose, Hank thinks, trying to make him insane and guilty and nervous. Hank’s not nervous, not really, but he’s gone through at least a dozen different versions of ‘I’m sorry and an ass’ and none of them sound right. They had stopped by a coffee shop on the way over, and now a tray of steaming hot lattes and sugary concoctions sits in Angel’s lap. They feel a bit like bribes.
When they pull up by the curb a few houses down from Alex’s, though, Angel turns to him, a quirk in her lips. “Do you need to, like, collect yourself?”
He hates her; she’s helping him but he hates her for how easy it’s been for her and Alex - no complications, just a shared experience of living in L.A. that seemed to be a steady enough foundation for their friendship. “No, I’m good,” he says, aiming for cool, but she just smiles wider and lets herself out of the car, skillfully balancing the tray of drinks in her hand.
Then they’re ringing the doorbell once - twice - Hank shifts his weight for foot to foot, impatient. Angel raps her ringed knuckles against the door and shouts, “We bring coffee!” like it’s some password.
Except, maybe it is, because the door creaks open then, and there’s Alex, barefoot and tousle-haired, wearing Hank’s Yale sweater and flannel bottoms and looking very, very grumpy. He crosses his arms in front of his chest defensively - Hank hopes from the cold that’s seeping in and not from the unexpected visit - and starts to say, “Come on in,” but is interrupted by a truly painful sounding cough that makes him turn to the side. Instead of speaking, he steps back from the door and waves them in.
Angel bustles in like it’s her own house, putting the tray of drinks on the coffee table in the living room and then shedding her jacket and draping it over the back of the couch. When she sits, it’s with a satisfying thump! Hank, though, proceeds with caution.
He shuffles around Alex just as Alex is closing the door, and they nearly run into each other, but they both freeze, caught up in an awkward dance. Hank starts to move left and then Alex is there; he leans the other way and Alex does, too. “Hey,” Alex says, quietly, jolting Hank out of the cycle. It’s enough for Alex to step around and shut the door, a light hand on Hank’s back when he’s walking to join Angel on the couch.
So, Hank is not only a jackass, but suddenly a socially awkward one. His life.
Hank takes the armchair to the side, not wanting to squeeze himself onto the couch. If he leans forward, he’s close enough to reach out a hand and place it on Alex’s knee. That feels a bit forward, though, so instead he says, “We got you a latte,” and removes said drink from the tray.
“Thanks.” Alex smiles at him, but it’s frayed. He looks tired. He takes the drink and sips, wincing a little at the burn. The coffee shop hadn’t been too far away, so the drinks hadn’t had time to cool down, really. “What’d you guys get?”
“Grande double non-fat upside-down caramel macchiato, extra hot,” Angel chirps cheerfully.
“Come again?”
“A grande double non-fat -“
“She got something with lots of sugar,” Hank interrupts. “I got a latte.”
“Boring,” Angel singsongs. “So, how ya been?” She leans right into Alex’s space, her shoulder pressed against his. Hank fiddles with the paper sleeve around his latte cup.
“Sick, mostly,” he says. “And bored. Raven’s been bringing over assignments but other than that I just sit on the couch and watch daytime soaps or Jerry Springer.”
Angel teases, something about how she’s pretty sure that he’s been doing a lot of sit-ups and push-ups in his spare time, too, because come on, Alex. But Hank is too fixated on the fact that Raven has been bringing over assignments? Why did Raven not tell Hank? He didn’t even know that Raven and Alex were good enough friends for that. He brings his latte to his lips and takes a huge sip, coughing because fuck, that’s hot liquid.
“You all right, there?” Angel asks. Hank nods. “Hey, I was thinking,” Angel continues, not really invested in Hank’s ability to drink lattes, “you guys want to catch a movie tonight? It’s way too cold for anything else. Dar-Armando and I were going to go see that new space one? I think it’s Ridley Scott.”
Comical, almost, how Alex and Hank’s eyes dart to each other almost instantaneously. Hank wishes they could stay in this weird limbo for at least a little while longer - dancing around the subject is comfortable, especially with Angel leading them both. But he knows that as soon as he agrees to this outing, it’s going to be just them, Angel’s going to step back and let someone else lead. He gulps, not wanting to blink and lose eye contact. “Sure,” he agrees simply.
“Sounds fun,” Alex says immediately after.
“Great! I’ve got to go fix my make-up. We can leave and go pick up Armando and then go.” Angel very pointedly looks at Hank as she stands and gathers her purse. “I won’t take too long.”
Alex makes a face. “I should probably change,” he mumbles, like it’s the most difficult thing in the world to find a clean pair of pants. He turns to Hank. “You can find something on the T.V., or you want to come up with me?”
Hank stands, drink in hand. “Sure,” he says again.
They go upstairs quietly while Angel busies herself in the bathroom downstairs.
Hank sits on the bed while Alex paws the floor for a pair of jeans that are clean enough, and when he finds a pair he shamelessly pulls off his sweatpants and tugs the jeans on over his hips. Hank isn’t sure if he should turn away, so he doesn’t. Alex’s hands reach for the bottom of the sweater, next, like he’s going to take that off, too, but then he seems to reconsider and takes a seat in his chair at the desk, instead. He swivels around in it once, the squeak of the spin loud in the room.
Hank doesn’t want to be the first to speak; everything he could say would just linger in the air, taking up space until they both wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore and then Alex would leave and nothing would be better. He waits it out, feeling a bit like a coward, like Angel had expected him to take the reins but he’d handed them over to Alex instead. Confrontation, though, isn’t Hank’s thing. Never had been. He’d always been good at avoiding problems anyway. It’s part of the reason why he’s so sparse with his mother.
Alex turns to the desk, face hidden. He takes out a pencil and fiddles with it, twirling it around in his fingers. “I told Moira about you,” he confesses. “I told her how you said that I’m hiding behind my disease.” He doesn’t say anything else, just starts tracing x’s into the paper in front of him with the pencil.
“And?” Hank prompts. “Then what?”
Alex marks three more x’s on the paper and then erases them, and when that’s not enough, he crumples the paper up between his hands and tosses the wad into the waste basket beside the desk. He shifts back around in his seat, staring straight ahead. “I told her that I think you’re right.”
Hank glances up at him sharply, surprised. He wishes the bed weren’t so far away from Alex’s chair. It’s a few short steps but the distance is too far for him to reach out with a hand to take Alex’s and make it look natural, like he wants to. “You do?” he manages.
“Yeah. She laughed. She said it took you a few hours to get me to understand what we’ve been working on all semester. And then she told me to get out of her office. She won’t let me back in until I work things out with you.” He smiles, just barely. “I haven’t seen her all week, you know, since Monday, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, I haven’t been in school, either, but.”
“Isn’t that-“ Hank trails off, worry in his eyes. “Can she do that? Legally?”
Alex shrugs. Hank wonders if it’s the meds that are making him apathetic or if it’s something else. “She checks in sometimes; she calls. But we haven’t had a chance since Monday. It’s only been a few days.” Hank nods, relieved. “And she said that when I fix things with you, she and I can start making plans to cut back on the meds.” He turns to face the Hank finally, pencil still in hand, tight-gripped and white-knuckled. “She said, ‘Won’t it be nice to be able to feel the things you’re supposed to feel again?’ and I said that I don’t know because it’s been so long. But I want to feel what I’m supposed to feel, with you at least. Like how I felt that night.” When he breathes, he shudders, and Hank realizes that he will do anything to make that stop, to release that tension and apprehension and turn it into a different kind of shudder altogether.
He reaches out a hand, closing the awkward distance, and taps Alex on the wrist, on the hand that’s still in his lap. He has to lean far away from the bed to do so, but it’s worth it. Their fingers curl together. Hank brushes the pad of his thumb over Alex’s palm.
Alex says:
“I’m sorry for freaking out. I didn’t mean to. I always fuck everything up, and I didn’t want to fuck this up, but then I did and it’s awful and I can’t sleep or eat or do anything useful at all because I just keep seeing your face and how angry and sad you looked when you left, and I always make everyone angry and sad - I can’t help it. But not you, I thought. I really tried. Fuck.”
“Hey,” Hank says softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Look at me.” Alex looks. His eyes are so full and blue that it hurts. Hank mutters, “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“What?” There’s surprise in his voice, on his face.
“I shouldn’t have left like that. And I shouldn’t have said what I said. I think we were both confused. God, something about you… You didn’t fuck anything up, okay? We can fix this. We’re fixing it, right now. We’ll go to the movies, with Angel and Armando, and then I’m going to take you out to dinner, and then - well. I’d like to meet Scott.”
“You would?” He senses doubt, can feel it in the loose grip of Alex’s fingers.
“Yeah,” he says, trying to think of a way to lessen the doubt, realizing that the only way to do so is the only thing he wants to do in that moment, anyway. He pulls, ever so gently, on Alex’s hand, until the chair follows with Alex in it, and they are close enough to each other that Hank can cup Alex’s face between his hands. He pulls again, ever so gently, until Alex’s lips are against his, a soft contact that deepens when Hank exhales and then inhales again, breathing Alex in, drawing his lower lip between his teeth -
A sharp rap of knuckles on the door. “All good in there?” comes Angel’s voice, amused.
Hank backs away, smiling at the glazed-over expression on Alex’s face. “All good?” he asks him.
Alex darts forward, surprising him, stealing a quick peck on the lips. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Let’s go to the fucking movies.”
fin?
Rating ...R, for language and drugs and some sex
Summary from prompt: Alex is the outcast and Hank is the jock. There's a new kid in town and Hank is curious.
Disclaimer Will never own, boo.
part one
part two
Christmas -
Christmas is an abysmal affair. Hank has to admit that this was self-imposed, however, since he had turned down an offer from Raven to spend it with her and Charles Xavier and their shipment of presents from their parents overseas. His dad sends him a pair of running shoes and a watch that can monitor his heart rate. The shoes are the wrong size, but at least he tried, which is more than what Hank can say for his mother, who just hands him 150-dollars in an envelope over dinner on Christmas Eve. Conversation is stilted, and when Hank swallows down the last of the roast on his plate (his mom had allowed meat, for once), she doesn’t protest when he excuses himself early. He thinks about how, when he was younger, when his dad had still been here, they would sometimes drive all the way to Niagara Falls and spend Christmas in a fancy hotel, surrounded by lights and the sound of water rushing over stone. It’s not like he misses it, though, just - it happened, and now it won’t happen anymore.
At least New Years rolls around almost immediately after, so he suffers a few days of finishing complete seasons of The Office and South Park until it’s the Saturday night before school starts up again and he can head over to Bobby’s, who is hosting the party to end all parties, according to Bobby, at least. That is, he had promised a lot of hard liquor, and Sean had promised a lot of pot, and Raven and Angel had promised to bring everyone who mattered in the senior class.
When he arrives, the party is in full swing and he has to park the next street over, it’s so crowded. A couple is already passed out on the giant lawn, red cups fallen to their sides, and inside, the thump of music and dancing is unmistakable. Bobby’s house is smaller than Hank’s, but the living room and kitchen are open to each other, and the stairs are easily blocked by a pet-gate. It’s a rule at Bobby’s that everyone knows: No one goes upstairs.
The crush of bodies is overwhelming. Hank imagines that this is what a frat house might look like on a Saturday night, shouldering his way past other students to reach where he knows his friends will be, on and around the couch in the living room. When he emerges from the crush it’s to a round of “Hey!” and a very drunk, “You’re here!” by Raven, who is very comfortably lying on top of Bobby’s and John’s legs on the couch. Sean and - to Hank’s surprise - Alex sit on the floor at their feet, eyes intent on the flatscreen, hands clenched around game controllers. Bobby has a collection of just about every gaming system that’s ever existed; Alex and Sean are currently stabbing with their thumbs at the buttons of Nintendo 64 controllers, playing Smash and being very vocal about it.
“Die, mother-fucker!” Sean yells as his character flings Alex’s to its death. “I win!”
“Again!” Alex demands, eyes bright. Sean gleefully pushes ‘start’ and they continue their war. “Oh, hey, Hank.” He looks up at him, smiling, before his attention is diverted back to the screen, because Sean is pummeling his character. “Goddamnit, Sean!”
“Told you I was a champ,” Sean teases.
“You’re not very good at this,” Hank says, grinning, sitting down next to him. Someone hands him a drink; he thinks it’s Angel. When he takes a sip, it’s candy-sweet, the perfect formula for a hangover. He drinks it anyway, gulping to catch up. Angel whoops behind him, encouraging.
Alex’s fingers pause. He looks at him, eyes unfocused and a little wild. The screen flashes that Alex’s character has died yet again, but he takes no notice. “I didn’t play a lot of video games, growing up,” he says, blinking slowly.
“Because you were - oh.” Hank realizes. Of course. What person would let a child who had lived through a plane crash and watched a parent die play video games?
Alex grins, but it’s unrefined and not like him. “Because they didn’t want me to turn into a psycho,” he confesses in a mock-whisper, leaning in close. Hank wrinkles his nose. Alex smells like alcohol. Or is that just his drink?
“Alex,” he starts, concern making his eyebrows dip. “Have you been drinking?”
Alex jerks, sitting back, creating space between them again. “I may have smoked some pot with Sean,” he admits. “And taken a few shots with Raven.”
“But what about -?” Hank pauses, unsure, but Alex catches on anyway.
“I didn’t take them today, Hank. Relax. It’s a special occasion!” When he smiles it makes Hank’s stomach form knots. An intoxicated, drugged Alex is unsurprisingly all edges - at once too crisp and too sharp, like he’s experiencing every feeling for the first time, breakable.
Suddenly, Angel appears in Alex’s lap, laughing, pulling. “Come do one with me, ‘Lex! You did one with Raven, and even Bobby! I feel unloved.”
“I don’t know if he should - “ Hank starts to say, but Alex is already up, being led to the kitchen by a weaving Angel. He hears her shout, “Jello shots!” when they reach the kitchen, and then a crowd closes in around them and cheers, obscuring his view.
“You’re such a downer, Hank, like. Don’t fuss, okay?” Sean mumbles. “Can’t we play any good music, Bobby?”
Bobby laughs, his movement jostling Raven, who pouts prettily. “You’re high. You don’t get to make any music choices for the greater population right now.”
“He doesn’t get to make any music choices, ever,” John cuts in, smirking.
“Hey!”
“More juice!” Raven demands imperiously, finally slithering off of John and Bobby and settling next to Hank, in the spot that Alex had left empty. “Sean!”
The redhead grumbles but takes her cup from her and rises. She smiles beautifully. Then she turns her beatific smile to Hank. He watches her smile turn from beatific to wicked in a flash. He chugs down the rest of his drink, unblinking.
“So,” Raven says finally, lips still curled. “You and Alex, huh?”
Hank chokes, splutters: “What?”
“C’mon.” Raven scoffs. “Like I’m blind. Even Bobby and John are more subtle than you two.”
The two boys on the couch start to protest, indignant, but a hand from Raven silences them and they sit back again, red-faced and with more distance between them than before. “We’re not- “ Hank starts, unsure how to finish that sentence. Together? Dating? Friends? Surely they were friends. Maybe, sometimes, they felt like more. “We’re not gay. Together. I’m not gay,” he says, feeling ridiculous.
“I didn’t say you were,” Raven sing-songs, clearly enjoying herself.
Hank rolls his eyes. “I’m getting more to drink. And then I’m not coming back until I’m drunk as you are.”
“Avoiding!” Raven calls at Hank’s back. “Denial!” She cackles.
Hank finds Sean putting a disturbing amount of whiskey into Raven’s cup in the kitchen. He takes a swig from the bottle when he’s satisfied. “Want me to make you one?” Sean waggles his eyebrows at him.
“What is it?” Hank asks, apprehensive.
“Jack ‘n Coke. Without the Coke. Okay, there’s like a splash of Coke in here.”
Sean looks way too maniacally happy when Hank agrees, handing him his cup.
“Where are Angel and Alex?” Hank finds himself asking when Sean gives him back his cup, now full of mostly alcohol.
“Dunno. Weren’t in the kitchen when I got here. I have to get back to her royal highness.” He waggles his eyebrows again before putting a hand on his hip and bringing the cup up in the other, his imitation of Raven spot-on. He sashays out of the kitchen.
Despite what Raven has said, Hank itches to find Alex, to just make sure…
Pills and alcohol do not mix, Hank knows, and Alex may have not taken his pills today, but there had to be side-effects, right? Long-term effects, maybe. Alcohol and weed probably affected him in a very different way than they would Hank or Sean or Bobby. Had Alex ever been drunk before? Why today? He thought about these things while he searched, first sweeping through the kitchen, and then circling the living room, and then making his way into the backyard, where a lot of the seniors had taken refuge with their significant others. Every available flat surface seemed to have a couple perched atop it. Hank resists the urge to stomp his feet in frustration. Where could he be?
And then he hears, “Hank?” from somewhere within the house, and it’s Angel’s voice, carrying through the noise of music and conversation. “Hank!”
“Yeah?” he calls back. “I’m in the back!”
“Hank?” She doesn’t seem to be moving closer, so Hank moves instead, toward her voice. He hears her voice again but jumps at the frantic tone in it: “Hank!”
“Here! I’m over here! Just - Angel?” They reach each other at the sink in the kitchen, and Angel has tears in her eyes.
“What happened?” he demands immediately, rough, knowing that it must have something to do with Alex.
“I don’t know,” Angel says helplessly. “We were fine; he was fine. We went upstairs to talk, because it was so loud everywhere else, and then - Oh, Hank, he went crazy. I don’t even know why. We were just talking about L.A. And now he’s - “ She pauses, gulping, realization and dread on her face.
“Now he’s what?” Hank wants to shake her.
Her voice shakes when she says, eyes downcast, “alone in the bathroom.”
Hank can’t even get into that right now. She’s so stupid it hurts his head to think about. Alone? In the bathroom? She might as well have left him alone in the kitchen with the big knives out, or in the garage with a shotgun, Hank thinks wildly. He takes the steps three at a time, flying up the stairs and nearly skidding into the closed door of the bathroom. The door is locked.
He pounds it, knuckles sharp against the wood. “Alex?”
A few seconds pass and Hank is going to break the door into splinters, he swears, and he’s just about to ram his shoulder into it when he hears, “Hank?” on the other side, small and soft but at least it’s there, he’s responding.
“Alex, open the door.” He lays a hand over the door knob.
“No.”
It’s like he physically shoved him. Hank reels back, surprised. “Open the door, please,” he asks again, louder.
“Go away.”
“Alex, I swear on my life, I will break down this door if it’s the last thing I do, so you had better open it, or else - or else, you will owe Bobby a new door!” he finishes lamely. A pause.
He feels the lock click on the other side, and he immediately pushes the door open, wasting no time, surprised when he’s met with a very solid body, and even more surprised when that body is Alex, hunched over, hands over his nose. “Owww,” Alex groans, muffled.
“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. I’m - sorry? Fuck. That wasn’t - shit.” Hank’s hands flutter about like that’s actually going to help, and then Alex straightens and there’s blood coming through his fingers and he’s glaring at Hank, not without reason. “I thought you were in danger.”
“I think you broke my nose,” Alex accuses, voice still muffled. Hank grabs the nearest towel he can find and offers it to him. Alex snatches it from him, still glaring, blood from his nose curling into his upper lip. It’s not bleeding as much as Hank had thought, but it’s still bleeding, and Hank was still the cause of it.
“I’m sorry,” he says again without rambling. “Here.” He shuffles past Alex into the bathroom and flips the lid of the toilet seat down. “Sit.” He grabs another towel and wets it in the sink as Alex sits. Angel appears at the door, then, but mutters, “Oh, sorry,” when she sees Hank cleaning the blood off of Alex’s face, and disappears.
“I think it’s stopped,” Hank says when most of the blood is cleaned off. The towels are ruined. He’ll have to replace them, later. “You’re probably going to have a black eye tomorrow,” he continues, knowing that he’s just digging himself deeper. The skin around Alex’s nose looks tender, but at least it’s not broken. The blond glares at him some more, silent. Feeling like he owes him an explanation, Hank rambles, “Angel came and found me; she was crying so I thought something had happened. And then she couldn’t tell me what was really wrong. And then she said you had locked yourself in the bathroom, so. I got worried.”
“I’m traumatized; not suicidal. And, do you really think I’d off myself in Bobby’s bathroom?”
“Traumatized and suicidal are not mutually exclusive,” Hank spouts.
“Angel mentioned this area of L.A. that I used to have to walk through a lot, okay? It…triggered some feelings. I may have yelled at her to leave me alone and then locked myself in here,” he admits. “But then I forced myself to throw up and now I feel better. Except for my nose.”
“You-?” Hank makes a gagging motion with his hands and throat.
“Yeah,” Alex says, unabashed. “The alcohol was doing funny things to me.”
“That’s generally what alcohol does.”
Alex scowls at him, then, but there’s something there underneath the look that makes the knot in Hank’s stomach uncoil. He’s brought back, suddenly, to that moment after he had told Alex about his parents’ divorce, when they had been facing each other on Alex’s bed, that space between them undeniable but so close. He hadn’t done anything about it then, but he does something about it now. Maybe it’s the alcohol that emboldens him, or the steady, bright blue of Alex’s eyes. Either way, he leans down to press his lips against Alex’s, sighing when the other boy’s eyelashes flutter closed against his cheeks.
He pulls back, licks his lips, and thinks he can taste blood.
“I think I should go home,” is what Alex says, soft, the softest rejection that Hank’s ever received, he thinks, except then Alex blinks and smiles lazily and growls, “Will you take me?”
x
They don’t say good-bye to their friends. Not that they would notice - the level of drunk at the party is approaching brown-out levels for quite a few. Most of the party-goers would be spending the night, anyway, and those with consciences might even help Bobby clean up tomorrow morning. They run to Hank’s car, tripping over nothing, stealing away like fugitives, even though no one’s watching. Their hands find each other before they get to the Toyota, and when Hank goes to enter the driver’s side he is tugged back by the link, surprised.
Alex lets go first, smiling in a way that makes the corners of his eyes crease.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Hank gasps when they’re both in the car and he’s pulling out of parallel parking, feeling reckless and like he’s at the starting line right before the gun’s about to go off.
“Why?” Alex challenges. He buckles himself in, lays a hand over Hank’s on the gear shift, so casual.
“I didn’t think you were,” Hank begins before he can think through his sentence, but once it’s out of his mouth he has to end it: “gay.” Alex’s hand tightens over his and he fights the instinct to yank it away defensively.
But Alex just shoots back at him: “I didn’t think you were gay,” lightness in his eyes that reassures. “And I’m not. Or, I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Me neither,” Hank admits to himself. He had never really even thought about it.
Their eyes meet then, over the gear shift, the smile on Hank’s face feeling like it will never fade. Two boys who may or may not be gay who had gravitated toward each other from the start, orbiting around and around until, finally, contact. A collision. Didn’t matter. They could figure this out together.
Alex says, “car,” and then again, louder, and Hank blinks and does yank his hand away then to wrench the steering to the right, the horn of the oncoming car loud and unforgiving as it speeds past. He rights the car again, panting. He turns to Alex, searching, frantic: “Oh my god, are you-?”
But Alex is laughing silently, one hand covering his mouth and the other curled around his belly. “Keep your eyes on the road,” he admonishes. “There are some pretty crazy drivers tonight.”
Hank relaxes, and the rest of the way back passes without injury.
When they get to Alex’s house, though, a nervous energy takes over his whole body. He stands before the front door, rocking back and forth on his heels, as he waits for Alex to unlock it and let them in. Somewhere in the distance, fireworks erupt in the air like gunshots.
“No one home?” Hank asks.
“Scott’s with Jean,” Alex says, at last jimmying the door open and peeling off his scarf and gloves and coat. He throws them unceremoniously over the railing of the stairs, so Hank does the same.
“Jean?” The name sounds familiar. It’s not a common one, and Hank thinks through all his circles and networks before he places it. “Jean Grey? North Hills Hospital? Psychiatrist?”
“Uh,” Alex responds, looking blank. Hank quickly puts all the pieces together.
“Your older brother is on a date right now with your psychiatrist. On New Year’s Eve.”
“Something like that.” Alex shrugs, clearly not as concerned about the questionable ethics in play as Hank is. “They’ve been dating for a while. She’s nice.”
“She’s your psychiatrist.”
“Yeah,” Alex says forcefully, growing impatient. “Are you gonna come upstairs, or what?”
And that effectively derails any sort of ethics crisis that Hank is structuring in his head, sending all the blood in his brain to his cheeks. Hank stammers something, but then Alex is tugging on his hand again and they bound up the stairs to his room. Before the door is even shut behind them Alex has pressed himself against Hank, pinning him to the wall, lips against lips.
They kiss like that for a while, slow and smooth, Alex a source of heat against him, but then Hank takes a chance and runs his tongue over Alex’s bottom lip, and Alex opens to him, beautifully. That Alex is letting him do this, letting Hank take control - it makes him want in a way that he never has before. He pushes and pushes and pushes, their open-mouthed kisses becoming heavier, wetter - and Hank had never thought that having someone else’s tongue in his mouth would be something that he craved - until the back of Alex’s knees hit his bed and they both fall into it and Alex laughs against his mouth, an action that is intimate and lovely and not at all embarrassing. “Take off your shirt,” he says. “I want to feel you.” The words send shivers down Hank’s back. He lifts his arms, lets Alex wrestle the shirt over his head, mourning the split second loss of contact of his lips against Alex’s.
“Yours, too.” Alex takes off his shirt, quick and efficient, and then lets Hank climb over him on the bed, legs tangled together, hips nearly aligned. Hank’s elbows are on either side of Alex, but when he rolls his hips experimentally, he falters, almost falling against Alex’s chest. “God.”
Then they are kissing again, but the press of Alex’s fingers against his shoulders, how he dips into each of Hank’s ribs like he’s counting them, the teasing circle they make around his belly button and then the enticing dip beneath the waistband of Hank’s jeans, lend a certain urgency that hadn’t been there before. Alex kisses with his teeth, worrying Hank’s lips between them until they are puffy and certainly bruised; Hank sucks a hickey into Alex’s collarbone while he writhes underneath him, gasping. Fireworks explode again outside, in the open air, perhaps the catalyst that makes Alex push them both up to their knees, grinning wickedly, exposed, his fingers making quick work of the fastening of Hank’s jeans.
“Let me,” he says, a plea disguised as a demand, and Hank nods, flushed, as Alex lays a hand on his chest and pushes him back, until he’s on his back, propped up on his elbows; he lifts his hips so Alex can pull the jeans off completely, and then he can’t look, turns his face away, as Alex slowly drags his boxers down as well.
He’s hard. He tenses visibly when Alex wraps a warm hand around the base of his cock. “Relax,” Alex whispers. “Look.”
So Hank looks. He watches as Alex licks his lips, lowers himself between Hank’s knees, and licks a long, wet stripe up the underside of his dick. He clenches his hands into fists, and then his head rolls back involuntarily when Alex twists his hand and wraps his lips around him, shallow but hot. And then Alex takes him deeper, and Hank moans, hips tilting until he feels himself nudging the back of Alex’s throat. Alex pulls off with an obscene pop!, working the spit with his hand. “Jesus Christ,” Hank says through his teeth.
Alex smirks before going in again, swallowing Hank down smoothly, and this time Hank can’t hold back the thrust of his hips, dick knocking the back of Alex’s throat again, making him gag, but he doesn’t pull off this time, just keeps a grip on Hank’s hips to hold him down and starting to work his lips around, sucking and blowing and doing a trick with his tongue that has Hank clawing at the sheets, warning Alex, trying to push him away: “I’m gonna - Alex, yeah. God, I’m gonna - “
When Hank comes it’s with a wordless cry, hips stuttering, and Alex sucks him through it, swallowing until there’s nothing left to swallow, and Hank is boneless on the bed. He crawls up next to him, pulls up the covers over them, and fits himself against Hank’s side. Hank turns to him, apologetic. “I’m sorry -“
“It’s good,” Alex says, lips red and puffy. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
“I could - “ Hank starts to say, looking down to where the blankets are covering them both. But he’s never, well, done that before, for anyone else.
“It’s good,” Alex says again, smiling, eyes heavy-lidded.
Impulsively, Hank musters the energy to lift his head up off the pillow and press a kiss to Alex’s jaw. “You’re amazing,” he says, sincerely.
Alex ducks to hide his grin, but it just makes it easier for Hank to reach his lips, so he presses another kiss there. They fall asleep to the last round of fireworks for the night, curled around each other, faces too close.
x
He wakes up to his hand curled around nothing, one side of the bed cold where the covers are flung back. He had fallen asleep with his contacts in his eyes, and every time he blinks, they readjust, like a camera lens focusing over and over again. Sunlight streams in through the lone window of Alex’s room. Next comes the awareness that he is naked, the sheets sticky against his skin. Hank blinks again, locating his boxers on the floor, and tries to decide if he should leave the safe confines of the blankets, despite the fact that it feels like he’s just eaten a mouthful of sand and that his limbs have been replaced with lead. Then, there is the sound of someone retching into the toilet, the sick plop of vomit hitting water. That decides it for him.
Working with the pounding in his head, he sits up and gingerly moves his feet to the floor before stooping down to grab his boxers and working his uncooperative legs through them. He finds his t-shirt and pulls that on, too, not bothering to suppress the shiver that runs up and down his arms at the morning chill. Thinking that lately he’s been searching for Alex in the bathroom a lot, he scratches absently at his belly as he shuffles out into the hallway and stops in front of the mostly-shut door. The lights are off behind it, but then Alex gags and spits, the sound final, and then the toilet is being flushed. Hank knocks on the door out of courtesy before opening it wide anyway. “Hey,” he says, voice soft, “you okay?”
He starts when Alex starts; the other boy throws himself back against the edge of the bathtub, still in his jeans, a ratty shirt over his torso, eyes wide. “Hank,” Alex breathes out unnecessarily. “You’re up.”
It’s not exactly the greeting that Hank had been expecting after last night. He feels his eyebrows rise up of their own accord. “And you’re-“ Hank pauses, doesn’t want to say ‘throwing up’ so early in the morning, so he just repeats: “You okay?”
Alex’s lips twist in a way that worries him. “Last night was…” Alex starts to say, trailing off, averting his eyes. He starts to stand, padding over to the sink and filling his cupped hands with water.
“Your tone of voice makes me think I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear,” Hank jokes weakly while Alex is gurgling water in his mouth. Alex spits, and they make eye contact in the mirror above the sink. He can’t tell what Alex is thinking, though, his eyes unreadable like when they had first met. It frustrates him immediately, all the residual glow of last night - of Alex’s lips and his soft, perfect laugh - draining out of him because Alex is all walls again, suddenly, and he doesn’t understand.
The faucet is still running. Alex lets the water skim over his fingers, wasting it, while Hank waits. His voice is so quiet, like it’s been carried down the drain with the wasted water, that Hank almost misses him say, “It was nice.” But he shuts the faucet quickly, and Hank can predict what’s coming next: like being given a cushion before being decked in the face. “But I don’t know if it’s a good idea, you know? I was a little off, and maybe drunk, and you were-“
“I was what?” Hank interrupts, wanting to step into Alex’s space, wanting to make him feel threatened, but it won’t help him, so he stays where he is, just outside the door. “Drunk?” His voice grows with every sentence; he wishes they weren’t in the bathroom, where everything echoes and inescapable. “I wasn’t. I wanted it. You wanted it. Hell, you initiated it!” And it’s the wrong thing to say, he can tell, because Alex’s whole face shutters at that, like a shadow has passed through it.
“Yeah,” he admits, wrecked. “I know. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have - I wasn’t thinking, okay? I was out of my mind. I - I skipped my pills-“
“Don’t you dare blame anything that happened last night on your pills.”
The ensuing silence is electric. It feels like all the little hairs on Hank’s arms are standing at attention. They’ve both stopped breathing, it seems, and Alex is pale, stricken, even in the dim half-light. He screws his eyes shut tight, like he doesn’t want to see Hank there, real and physical and pressing. “I’m sorry,” Alex says.
Hank takes a step forward, at last, crossing the threshold, an apology at his lips: “No, Alex, I’m -“
“I can’t do this.”
It’s a lightning strike that nearly cleaves him in two, and he’s left both blind and stumbling. “What?”
“I can’t do this,” Alex says again. “I’m not-please leave,” he begs.
“Are you serious?”
In response, Alex takes a deep, awful breath. It seems to steady him, and he finally turns slowly around to face Hank. “It’ll be - better. Later. You’ll see.”
“How?” Hank barks out, relishing the flinch that it causes Alex. He feels - betrayed is too strong a word - but, angry, definitely. Wronged. It’s the first day of the new year and he had thought naively that he could start it off right. He was going to introduce Alex to his mother, at least, and maybe even stick around long enough to finally, officially, meet Scott. He had forgotten, for a night, that his mother probably didn’t care who the fuck Alex was, and his dad was never going to see any of his friends, anyway. And Scott was probably fucking his little brother’s psychiatrist, which was just - wrong. He turns before he can see the look of hurt cross Alex’s face, stomping into Alex’s room and finding his jeans and yanking them on. He’s at the bottom of the stairs, jacket on one arm and keys jangling in his hand, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He brushes it off and snaps, spitefully, “I said you were amazing last night, but you’re pretending, too, just like everyone else. It’s easy for you: you just hide behind your fucking disease.”
He doesn’t feel good about it, can’t pretend he likes the way that Alex’s hand lingers at shoulder height, shock in his eyes and lips and body, as he slams the front door behind him. “Fuck!” he yells, at the stupid houses lining Alex’s street, at the snow that had fallen overnight, at the mess that they had just created between them. He speeds through every red light on the way home.
x
Sunday steamrolls into Monday, and all the seniors are flat, worn out by a weekend of partying and realizing that their last semester of high school is about to begin. Hank hadn’t bothered with his contacts today, felt perfectly justified in wearing a pair of old jeans and a navy blue Columbia University hoodie. Some of his teachers - Mr. Xavier, in particular - and peers give him curious glances in the morning, but by lunch everyone has just shrugged it off. After all, Hank is probably just feeling the collective hangover, just like everyone else.
He doesn’t realize until the day is over that everyone in the school is following a new schedule of classes, that AP Physics isn’t a part of his anymore, that he hasn’t seen a glimpse of Alex all day.
Bobby doesn’t give him a chance to linger on the thought, immediately tackling Hank into his locker when the day is over and wrestling him into agreeing to head to the gym after school, to start training for the lacrosse season, New Year’s resolution and all that. “C’mon, man! It’ll be fun. After, we can go out onto the field and pass the ball around,” he says, eyes gleaming. Hank is reminded of an overly eager puppy, and can’t resist playing.
On Tuesday Hank’s bounced back, feeling like a veil has been lifted off everyone’s shoulders and faces, knowing how his week will pass and finding comfort in the routine. School, gym, home. He keeps thinking that he sees Alex in his periphery, a flash of blond every time he turns a corner, but it always turns out to be some underclassman that he knows vaguely. One time, it’s a girl, who catches his eye when he looks and sends him a smirk, the action making him grimace. It was very Alex-like.
By Friday he’s angry - again. He hasn’t seen or heard from Alex in a week, and it’s ridiculous how easy it would be to just pick up his phone and call him or text him, but some unseen force - Hank suspects it’s his pride - keeps him from doing so. He takes out his anger on his locker, slamming it shut so hard that he hears the insides shake. A feminine voice at his side quips, “Jesus, what’s got you in a mood?”
Angel has her bulging purse on one shoulder, her leather jacket zipped up as far as it can go. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go visit him, but now I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she continues, about to turn and go.
Hank catches her arm. “Visit who? What?”
Like she’s speaking to a child: “Alex. Our friend? Blond hair, blue eyes. Awesome body. Who hasn’t been in school all week?”
A breath gets caught in his chest. “Have you heard from him? Has he told you anything?”
Angel shifts her bag restlessly, looking like she’s very much regretting trying to have this conversation. “Like what? How he’s been puking up his guts since before New Years?” Then her expression shifts to something sly and sharp. “Or, do you mean how you spent the night with each other and then in the morning you took off when he tried to tell you that he’d been feeling like shit for the past few days and that the anniversary of his parents’ death was this past Tuesday?”
“He didn’t tell me that!” Hank argues immediately, because if that were true he’d be the biggest jackass in the entire world.
“Yeah,” Angel snaps, punctuating it with a snap of her fingers, too. “Because you took off, see? And I bet you haven’t called or texted him since.”
Hank deflates. He is actually the biggest jackass in the entire world. “No,” he mumbles. “But, it’s not like he tried to, either.” He’s grabbing at straws, here, especially with Angel looking like a cobra about to strike, but it’s not entirely his fault, surely.
“God, you are so dumb.” Angel rolls her eyes at him. “Are you coming, or what? Because actually Sean drove me in this morning and we would need to go in your car.”
x
Angel doesn’t say anything on the drive over, just keeps checking her nailpolish and sighing, and then looking out the window. She’s definitely doing it on purpose, Hank thinks, trying to make him insane and guilty and nervous. Hank’s not nervous, not really, but he’s gone through at least a dozen different versions of ‘I’m sorry and an ass’ and none of them sound right. They had stopped by a coffee shop on the way over, and now a tray of steaming hot lattes and sugary concoctions sits in Angel’s lap. They feel a bit like bribes.
When they pull up by the curb a few houses down from Alex’s, though, Angel turns to him, a quirk in her lips. “Do you need to, like, collect yourself?”
He hates her; she’s helping him but he hates her for how easy it’s been for her and Alex - no complications, just a shared experience of living in L.A. that seemed to be a steady enough foundation for their friendship. “No, I’m good,” he says, aiming for cool, but she just smiles wider and lets herself out of the car, skillfully balancing the tray of drinks in her hand.
Then they’re ringing the doorbell once - twice - Hank shifts his weight for foot to foot, impatient. Angel raps her ringed knuckles against the door and shouts, “We bring coffee!” like it’s some password.
Except, maybe it is, because the door creaks open then, and there’s Alex, barefoot and tousle-haired, wearing Hank’s Yale sweater and flannel bottoms and looking very, very grumpy. He crosses his arms in front of his chest defensively - Hank hopes from the cold that’s seeping in and not from the unexpected visit - and starts to say, “Come on in,” but is interrupted by a truly painful sounding cough that makes him turn to the side. Instead of speaking, he steps back from the door and waves them in.
Angel bustles in like it’s her own house, putting the tray of drinks on the coffee table in the living room and then shedding her jacket and draping it over the back of the couch. When she sits, it’s with a satisfying thump! Hank, though, proceeds with caution.
He shuffles around Alex just as Alex is closing the door, and they nearly run into each other, but they both freeze, caught up in an awkward dance. Hank starts to move left and then Alex is there; he leans the other way and Alex does, too. “Hey,” Alex says, quietly, jolting Hank out of the cycle. It’s enough for Alex to step around and shut the door, a light hand on Hank’s back when he’s walking to join Angel on the couch.
So, Hank is not only a jackass, but suddenly a socially awkward one. His life.
Hank takes the armchair to the side, not wanting to squeeze himself onto the couch. If he leans forward, he’s close enough to reach out a hand and place it on Alex’s knee. That feels a bit forward, though, so instead he says, “We got you a latte,” and removes said drink from the tray.
“Thanks.” Alex smiles at him, but it’s frayed. He looks tired. He takes the drink and sips, wincing a little at the burn. The coffee shop hadn’t been too far away, so the drinks hadn’t had time to cool down, really. “What’d you guys get?”
“Grande double non-fat upside-down caramel macchiato, extra hot,” Angel chirps cheerfully.
“Come again?”
“A grande double non-fat -“
“She got something with lots of sugar,” Hank interrupts. “I got a latte.”
“Boring,” Angel singsongs. “So, how ya been?” She leans right into Alex’s space, her shoulder pressed against his. Hank fiddles with the paper sleeve around his latte cup.
“Sick, mostly,” he says. “And bored. Raven’s been bringing over assignments but other than that I just sit on the couch and watch daytime soaps or Jerry Springer.”
Angel teases, something about how she’s pretty sure that he’s been doing a lot of sit-ups and push-ups in his spare time, too, because come on, Alex. But Hank is too fixated on the fact that Raven has been bringing over assignments? Why did Raven not tell Hank? He didn’t even know that Raven and Alex were good enough friends for that. He brings his latte to his lips and takes a huge sip, coughing because fuck, that’s hot liquid.
“You all right, there?” Angel asks. Hank nods. “Hey, I was thinking,” Angel continues, not really invested in Hank’s ability to drink lattes, “you guys want to catch a movie tonight? It’s way too cold for anything else. Dar-Armando and I were going to go see that new space one? I think it’s Ridley Scott.”
Comical, almost, how Alex and Hank’s eyes dart to each other almost instantaneously. Hank wishes they could stay in this weird limbo for at least a little while longer - dancing around the subject is comfortable, especially with Angel leading them both. But he knows that as soon as he agrees to this outing, it’s going to be just them, Angel’s going to step back and let someone else lead. He gulps, not wanting to blink and lose eye contact. “Sure,” he agrees simply.
“Sounds fun,” Alex says immediately after.
“Great! I’ve got to go fix my make-up. We can leave and go pick up Armando and then go.” Angel very pointedly looks at Hank as she stands and gathers her purse. “I won’t take too long.”
Alex makes a face. “I should probably change,” he mumbles, like it’s the most difficult thing in the world to find a clean pair of pants. He turns to Hank. “You can find something on the T.V., or you want to come up with me?”
Hank stands, drink in hand. “Sure,” he says again.
They go upstairs quietly while Angel busies herself in the bathroom downstairs.
Hank sits on the bed while Alex paws the floor for a pair of jeans that are clean enough, and when he finds a pair he shamelessly pulls off his sweatpants and tugs the jeans on over his hips. Hank isn’t sure if he should turn away, so he doesn’t. Alex’s hands reach for the bottom of the sweater, next, like he’s going to take that off, too, but then he seems to reconsider and takes a seat in his chair at the desk, instead. He swivels around in it once, the squeak of the spin loud in the room.
Hank doesn’t want to be the first to speak; everything he could say would just linger in the air, taking up space until they both wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore and then Alex would leave and nothing would be better. He waits it out, feeling a bit like a coward, like Angel had expected him to take the reins but he’d handed them over to Alex instead. Confrontation, though, isn’t Hank’s thing. Never had been. He’d always been good at avoiding problems anyway. It’s part of the reason why he’s so sparse with his mother.
Alex turns to the desk, face hidden. He takes out a pencil and fiddles with it, twirling it around in his fingers. “I told Moira about you,” he confesses. “I told her how you said that I’m hiding behind my disease.” He doesn’t say anything else, just starts tracing x’s into the paper in front of him with the pencil.
“And?” Hank prompts. “Then what?”
Alex marks three more x’s on the paper and then erases them, and when that’s not enough, he crumples the paper up between his hands and tosses the wad into the waste basket beside the desk. He shifts back around in his seat, staring straight ahead. “I told her that I think you’re right.”
Hank glances up at him sharply, surprised. He wishes the bed weren’t so far away from Alex’s chair. It’s a few short steps but the distance is too far for him to reach out with a hand to take Alex’s and make it look natural, like he wants to. “You do?” he manages.
“Yeah. She laughed. She said it took you a few hours to get me to understand what we’ve been working on all semester. And then she told me to get out of her office. She won’t let me back in until I work things out with you.” He smiles, just barely. “I haven’t seen her all week, you know, since Monday, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, I haven’t been in school, either, but.”
“Isn’t that-“ Hank trails off, worry in his eyes. “Can she do that? Legally?”
Alex shrugs. Hank wonders if it’s the meds that are making him apathetic or if it’s something else. “She checks in sometimes; she calls. But we haven’t had a chance since Monday. It’s only been a few days.” Hank nods, relieved. “And she said that when I fix things with you, she and I can start making plans to cut back on the meds.” He turns to face the Hank finally, pencil still in hand, tight-gripped and white-knuckled. “She said, ‘Won’t it be nice to be able to feel the things you’re supposed to feel again?’ and I said that I don’t know because it’s been so long. But I want to feel what I’m supposed to feel, with you at least. Like how I felt that night.” When he breathes, he shudders, and Hank realizes that he will do anything to make that stop, to release that tension and apprehension and turn it into a different kind of shudder altogether.
He reaches out a hand, closing the awkward distance, and taps Alex on the wrist, on the hand that’s still in his lap. He has to lean far away from the bed to do so, but it’s worth it. Their fingers curl together. Hank brushes the pad of his thumb over Alex’s palm.
Alex says:
“I’m sorry for freaking out. I didn’t mean to. I always fuck everything up, and I didn’t want to fuck this up, but then I did and it’s awful and I can’t sleep or eat or do anything useful at all because I just keep seeing your face and how angry and sad you looked when you left, and I always make everyone angry and sad - I can’t help it. But not you, I thought. I really tried. Fuck.”
“Hey,” Hank says softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Look at me.” Alex looks. His eyes are so full and blue that it hurts. Hank mutters, “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“What?” There’s surprise in his voice, on his face.
“I shouldn’t have left like that. And I shouldn’t have said what I said. I think we were both confused. God, something about you… You didn’t fuck anything up, okay? We can fix this. We’re fixing it, right now. We’ll go to the movies, with Angel and Armando, and then I’m going to take you out to dinner, and then - well. I’d like to meet Scott.”
“You would?” He senses doubt, can feel it in the loose grip of Alex’s fingers.
“Yeah,” he says, trying to think of a way to lessen the doubt, realizing that the only way to do so is the only thing he wants to do in that moment, anyway. He pulls, ever so gently, on Alex’s hand, until the chair follows with Alex in it, and they are close enough to each other that Hank can cup Alex’s face between his hands. He pulls again, ever so gently, until Alex’s lips are against his, a soft contact that deepens when Hank exhales and then inhales again, breathing Alex in, drawing his lower lip between his teeth -
A sharp rap of knuckles on the door. “All good in there?” comes Angel’s voice, amused.
Hank backs away, smiling at the glazed-over expression on Alex’s face. “All good?” he asks him.
Alex darts forward, surprising him, stealing a quick peck on the lips. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Let’s go to the fucking movies.”
fin?