Fic; Long Distance, 4/?
Title Long Distance 4/?, following Running Uphill
Rating pg-13? nc-17 overall.
Summary Hank and Alex move past curious and into the strange new territory of 'committed.'
Disclaimer Will never own, boo. Characters belong to their belongers.
part one
part two
part three
Alex’s eyes are open when Hank steps through the threshold. He’s awake but the morning is so still, the rise and fall of his breathing reminding Hank of the ebb and flow of the ocean. He doesn’t want to disturb this peace, doesn’t want to muddy the waters, but he has to, is compelled to, and so he takes a step forward, and another, and another, Alex’s eyes following him the whole way, until he is standing at the chair Scott left empty.
He sits in the chair because Alex doesn’t make room for him on the bed. It groans with his weight.
Alex’s fingers are still curled around a phantom wrist on the mattress, and hesitantly, deliberately, Hank slides his palm against his, heart leaping to his throat when Alex doesn’t pull away. He does the opposite, in fact, and tightens his grip. “Morning,” Hank whispers, purposefully leaving out the ‘good’ because he just isn’t sure yet.
Alex exhales and says, “Scott’s not really mad at you,” deep voice crackling like dead leaves in the Fall. The window is still open; a light breeze carries the sounds of morning into the room.
“Seemed pretty mad to me.”
The other boy closes his eyes. Hank wishes he could brush his thumbs over Alex's pale eyelids, card his fingers through that blond hair, but he doesn’t think he should move or reach just yet, and so settles on tracing the lines of Alex’s palm with the pads of his fingers.
“He’s just tired.” He doesn’t offer anything more, and it makes Hank wonder how often Scott’s done this for Alex, woken up in the middle of the night and just sat with him, for hours, until Alex was calm enough to sleep. Scott became Alex’s legal guardian when the younger brother was 12 - had it been going on for that long? Like he can read Hank’s thoughts, Alex mumbles, “Used to be worse.”
Caught off guard, Hank blinks to clear his head. “What do you mean?”
“Used to wake up screaming. I would hear the house creak and be a mess. Scott would rock me to sleep.”
The image of Alex being rocked to sleep is unexpectedly sweet, and Hank feels instantly guilty for thinking so. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he never doesn’t know what to say, and so he asks the one thing that has never really failed him, hoping that it’s right, that it’s okay: “Why?”
It isn’t the right thing to say, judging by how Alex’s breathing quickens, but he opens his eyes, at least. “I was twelve, you know?” he offers, like that answers Hank’s question. “I was twelve and that was not normal, to have to be rocked to sleep. It was like that for a year. I didn’t even have an excuse - I mean, not really.”
And that just opens up a well of questions inside Hank, but the first one that bubbles forth is something that he realizes he’s been wondering for a long time, since they met, even - since that first time he followed Alex into the high school building and stopped in front of Moira’s office and kept himself from listening through the door. “What happened to you?”
He doesn’t miss the way Alex tries to withdraw his hand from Hank’s as a reaction, before catching himself. His eyes flicker up to Hank’s. “My parents died and I was put into foster care,” he responds, but it’s formulaic and so sad, Hank realizes quickly, because that’s what everyone must see when they first see Alex, when they read his file or hear that his brother is his legal guardian, that he’s some kid who was unlucky and went through the system for it - and Alex is so much more.
“Yes,” Hank says with a hint of impatience, because he knows this already, is ready to move past that, now. “And what happened to you?”
The pause goes on for so long that Hank just about gives up on Alex answering, but then he says, “My foster parents weren’t bad people. They were just poor.” It sounds like the start of a long story. Hank’s heart flutters into his stomach.
This information isn’t a surprise, not really. The sheets rustle as Alex pulls himself up to sit against the headboard, letting go of Hank’s hand in the process and bringing his own into his lap. “I told you about the plane crash,” he reminds him with a quick glance. Hank nods because this is special, this sharing of information, and if he interrupts in anyway he is certain that Alex won’t continue, that the vault will be closed forever. Alex sighs, and Hank worries that he’s closing up anyway, despite him being so careful not to make a sound, but it is a resolved sigh and not a defeated one. When he speaks it is slow and rhythmic, like he’s reading the words off of a sheet of paper.
“After that, Scott went away. Lived with a distant relative here in New York. She was older - said she could only take one and wanted the older one. He sent notes, called. When he was 18 she retired to Hawaii. She was done. I had no idea what was happening. I was sent to live with an uncle in LA - that’s how I ended up there.” He gulps, throat working. Hank leans forward, fully present. “He didn’t want a kid; I was really young. Somehow - I’m still not really sure what happened - I was sent away again, this time to my foster parents. They weren’t bad people,” he says again. “I even had a foster sister. We still talk, sometimes.”
He grabs the lighter and carton of cigarettes off the bedside table, tapping out a cigarette before changing his mind, tapping his thumbnail on the plastic surface of the lighter instead. tic, tic, tic. “They had a son who died. Todd. They fought over everything. Mostly over money. Sometimes, they fought each other. Haley and I would sit in her closet when the fighting started. It wasn’t so bad - I mean. They never tried to hurt us. And it wasn’t all the time.” He places the cigarettes and the lighter back on the bedside table. “Joanna was nice. She was my foster-mother,” he adds quickly when he sees Hank’s confused look. “But she was overwhelmed, I think. I used to go to her after the fighting, you know? Sometimes she would be a little beat up. I never saw it happen, but it was there - I mean - I saw the evidence.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and Alex, as though sensing this, falls silent, letting Hank reorganize his thoughts. He kept saying it wasn’t so bad, Hank thinks, yet he hid in the closet with his foster sister when the fighting got out of hand. Once, after a particularly rambunctious party at Raven’s that had left the house with a few broken windows, Charles had taken her to another room the next morning and Hank and Sean and Angel had heard him berate her for her lack of responsibility. It had ended with Raven in Charles’ arms, though, and a round of breakfast for them all. His parents didn’t fight because they didn’t talk. And he’s never had to be afraid for himself, not like that.
Hank leans forward again and this time reaches, placing a hand on Alex’s knee. But then Alex is taking his hand in both of his, pulling him in, so Hank kicks off his shoes and climbs over him to settle on the other side of the bed. He waits, looks to Alex for permission, which he gives with a slight nod.
“I used to ask her,” Alex begins again, “Why does he do that to you? Why do you let Andrew do that? Why don’t you fight back?” He watches the blond give up on resisting a cigarette as he fumbles around the carton and fits a slim stick between his lips. Hank lights it for him - Alex’s fingers barely shook but he likely wouldn’t have been able to, himself. The story is unsettling him, Hank can tell. He’s fighting so hard not to shake apart that his movements are stiff around the cigarette. That first drag into his lungs seems to calm him, though, and he leans back and exhales blue curls of smoke and says, “She would say, ‘Oh, you just don’t understand. Andrew? I love him so much. He’s my whole world.’ She didn’t want anything else.”
Oh, Hank thinks, feeling a little outside of himself as the scene from last night replays: “It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist,” he said, a hint of pride at his confession, like he was being very romantic. But Alex just heard him and thought of Joanna, of his kind, vulnerable foster-mother who thought Andrew was all that mattered. He was her whole world. He shudders even though the sun is shining through the foliage outside, warming his shoulders.
"She was right," he says more to himself than to Hank. "I didn't understand and I don't think I wanted to, either." His eyes go unfocused as he remembers. Hank wonders if Alex even realizes that he's still here, listening, or if the retelling just makes him feel disconnected.
“So when I was eight,” Alex rambles on, the cigarette giving him something else to focus on so that the words come out smoother, easier; it startles Hank out of his thoughts. “I thought I could help her - protect her, even. Andrew was never really mean to me or to Haley. He was just big. And loud. And one night he comes home and they start to fight again, about money - it was always about money - and I left Haley in the closet and told her I’d be right back. They were at the top of the stairs - I know, right? Stupid,” he interjects in his own story, noticing the worry in Hank’s features. He sucks on the cigarette again, cheeks hollowing.
“Basically, I tried to get between them, they were surprised, and Andrew pushed me out of the way. And then I’m waking up in the hospital again with a broken arm.” The gasp is involuntary, and so is the way Hank presses his fingers against Alex’s arm, like he’s checking for a wound that has long since healed. Alex looks down to where he’s touching him and stubs the cigarette out in the shallow dish that functions as his ashtray.
Hank imagines what it would have been like, imagines Alex inserting himself between his fighting foster-parents at the top of the stairs, only concerned about Joanna, Andrew looming before him. Andrew would be red in the face, enraged, yelling, the veins in his neck sticking out like cords. Maybe Joanna would have faced him with her hands raised in warning, an attempt to be placating. Alex would have been small for his age, Hank thinks. Small with soft blond hair and the same eyes, and defiant, maybe. “Back off!,” he would have said, “You leave her alone,” and Andrew, so much bigger than Alex, would have pushed him aside carelessly. But anger made him strong, and Alex was just a child. Hank winces again at the thought.
“The school wanted the hospital to test me while I was there,” Alex says next, blessedly unaware of Hank’s vision, “and Andrew and Joanna lied about what happened and went along with it, to make it seem like they were really there for me, you know? That’s when I was diagnosed.”
“But they - “ Hank starts, but then snaps his mouth shut, teeth clicking audibly, hesitant about speaking. Alex raises an eyebrow at him, which is enough. “They let you go back to them, even after that?”
“Yeah,” he says flatly. “They did.” It's easy for Hank to figure out the association between Alex's shaking and the yelling, then. Like conditioning, like Pavlov's dog hearing the bell and salivating, Alex's body went into full Flight mode at a raised voice because of Andrew and Joanna's loud verbal matches and the broken bones that followed. Alex already knows this, Hank remembers, had said it was just a reaction to the yelling last night, but even though he knows he can't control it. The concern must be there in the dip of Hank’s brows, the way he draws his bottom lip between his teeth, because Alex backtracks, shakes his head and mumbles, “This is a lot, I know. I’ll stop. It’s too much--”
“No,” he says, because now that they’ve started, he doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want Alex to feel like he has to stop. Alex stills, hunched into himself. “Tell me,” Hank encourages gently, taking the chance to slowly drape his arm over the curve of Alex’s shoulders, slowly enough that Alex could turn him away if he wants to. He doesn’t. “I want to know.”
“There isn’t much else left to tell,” Alex admits, which is bullshit, though Hank doesn’t voice his thoughts. “I ran away a few times. That thing with In-N-Out happened. They tried moving me north. I tried out a few families. None of them fit. Scott finally got a hold of me on the phone after a few moves and told me to try to stay put, because he was going to turn 18 soon and could be my legal guardian. He and Logan would get me out, he promised.”
“And Logan?” Hank parrots, the name bringing with it the smell of diesel and cigars. Now, this is a real surprise. “Logan from the garage - that Logan?”
Alex leans into him, clearly more comfortable now that the subject of conversation has shifted. “That Logan.” He gives in to a tiny smile. “He and Scott were - what’s that word? - frenemies in school. They loved to hate each other. Then, junior year something changed and now they have this epic bromance.”
Hank scoffs. From what he’s seen, he can’t quite call Scott and Logan’s relationship - whatever it is they have - bromantic. They tolerate each other. He supposes Alex knows them differently. “What happened?”
Alex shrugs. “Beats me.”
It takes a moment but their breathing falls into the same rhythm, and Alex burrows close enough, face turned into his chest, that Hank can rest his chin on top of his head, the short blond hairs tickling his neck. Enough time passes that continuing the topic would not only be awkward but likely wrought with some emotion, and not the positive kind; Alex feels like a coil of anger and sadness that could snap at any point, even moreso now that Hank knows why, but he is also humming and content and playing with the fabric of the sheet between them, one arm having snaked around Hank’s waist without his knowledge. Hank has the sudden, smothering wish that he could keep Alex like this always, so that coil would never have to snap.
“What happened last night...” Hank treads slowly for he is on unfamiliar and unstable ground. “It will never happen again,” he promises. “At least, not from me.”
Alex makes a noise into Hank’s shirt. After a second he realizes that he is laughing. Hank frowns, confused. “Yeah,” Alex says when he manages a breath, voice muffled and disbelief dripping from his tongue. “Right. You can’t promise that, Hank. People get angry.”
“I mean I won’t yell at you. I may get angry, but I can control myself. Scott does it, doesn’t he?”
“Scott’s my brother --”
“And I’m your boyfriend.” The statement brings the laughter to a sudden halt, and Alex just breathes against him. It’s only the second time that Hank’s used that word. It still feels foreign on his lips.
“If I can avoid hurting you in any way, I will.” Another promise. “And I’m still very sorry about what happened,” he continues, because he’s on a roll and Alex does not seem inclined to stop him. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry in the first place. And it wasn’t you I was angry at, anyway. And I was scared when you pushed me away because I didn’t understand what was happening, so I’m very happy that you’ve told me what you’ve told me, because it feels...” Hank mulls a bit over the right word. “Special.” It sounds trite; Hank cringes.
“Special,” Alex repeats, yawning, finally looking up at Hank with clear eyes before looking away again and stretching his arms above his head. “Apology accepted.”
Hank blinks; Alex curls his lips up into a well-intentioned smirk. “That’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“You’re just - you accept my apology. No groveling needed?”
“You were groveling pretty well, there.”
“But. Well. We’re okay? You’re okay? That’s it,” Hank reaffirms, a little stunned. That can’t be it. His word alone can’t be enough, shouldn’t be enough. Apologies only work because the person who wronged you owes you something, and they know it.
Alex wrinkles his nose. “You could use a shower,” he suggests. “And a hairbrush.”
And Hank is - yeah, he’s still stunned. But he can roll with the punches or whatever it is that Alex needs right at this moment. He wonders briefly how many people know as much as he knows, now. How many people will even be given the chance. Alex waggles his eyebrows playfully and Hank is - Hank’s going to stop psycho-analyzing Alex after this - but he’s sure that the sudden shift in mood is how Alex wants to deal with the onslaught of memories that he’s just given to this long-limbed boy in bed with him. He must feel exposed, like a specimen, guts laid out in a petri dish. He teases so that Hank will be distracted from examining him further. So, Hank says, “Yeah? I’ll hairbrush you.”
Alex smiles because that makes no sense and must be about to say these words except that Hank pinches the sensitive skin between his second and third rib and Alex yelps, affronted, before Hank ducks under Alex’s nightshirt and blows a raspberry where the skin has turned pink. He kicks his legs, ticklish, but he’s laughing and that’s all that matters, so Hank continues, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose as Alex squirms under him. “Mercy!” Alex calls. “Uncle! Stop, stop, stop. You’re stretching out my shirt.”
Hank stops, but only because that is a ridiculous statement and they both know that Alex has no care whatsoever about the state of his nightshirt. It’s such a faded blue that it is almost grey, and there are holes in its collar. Hank re-emerges, huffing, nose nearly touching Alex’s. “Since when do you care about stretching out this shirt.”
“I don’t,” Alex says, looking very pleased with himself. “I just wanted to kiss your face.”
So they kiss; Alex, with quick little nips first, still playful. Eventually Hank grows impatient and bears down on him, pressing Alex against the headboard, and he moans. “Yeah,” Hank urges breathily, feeling himself stir at the sound Alex makes. And something shifts and it isn’t so playful anymore, it is Hank kissing an Alex who has been laid bare, Hank kissing him despite what he knows. Hank kissing him even though he knows. It might be too much, too soon, and Hank is hyper-aware at this point - all of his actions will have consequences, he’s learning - so that when the next noise Alex makes is halfway between a laugh and a sob, he stops. Pulls back. Cups Alex’s face between his palms.
Alex looks at once grateful and disappointed with himself, and he wraps his fingers around Hank’s wrists just under his jaw. With difficulty, he admits, “I don’t want this to change anything,” and it tugs at Hank’s heart because it strikes him that Alex was waiting on judgment, that he was expecting it. At the same moment that Hank wants to vow that Alex’s past won’t change anything, he realizes that it will. It already has. He’s already treating Alex differently, more sensitive to his tics and tells. But maybe that’s okay.
“Change can be a good thing,” Hank answers, open and honest. “We can make it a good thing.”
Now Alex just looks terrified, but he must see something in Hank’s eyes that he likes, because he gives a tiny nod and even says, “If you say so.”
“I do.” Hank presses his lips to Alex’s forehead, whose eyelids flutter closed at the touch. It feels alarmingly intimate but genuine and right. “All the good things will get better. The not-so-good things, too.” It is his third promise before noon. He gets the feeling that this is the most important one so far, but also a more difficult one to keep.
“Okay.” Only after Alex wraps his arms around Hank’s waist and lays his head on his shoulder does Hank realize that he has somehow ended up in Alex’s lap, yet despite their difference in size and Hank’s flagging hard-on, it’s not uncomfortable. He can take care of that, later. Right now this is what Alex needs, so this is what he gives him.
//
GUYS. Hank can like be a good boyfriend, SEE? p.s. I apologize because this chapter got away from me and basically became me just being like BAM! Backstory punch in your face! And then running away.
Rating pg-13? nc-17 overall.
Summary Hank and Alex move past curious and into the strange new territory of 'committed.'
Disclaimer Will never own, boo. Characters belong to their belongers.
part one
part two
part three
Alex’s eyes are open when Hank steps through the threshold. He’s awake but the morning is so still, the rise and fall of his breathing reminding Hank of the ebb and flow of the ocean. He doesn’t want to disturb this peace, doesn’t want to muddy the waters, but he has to, is compelled to, and so he takes a step forward, and another, and another, Alex’s eyes following him the whole way, until he is standing at the chair Scott left empty.
He sits in the chair because Alex doesn’t make room for him on the bed. It groans with his weight.
Alex’s fingers are still curled around a phantom wrist on the mattress, and hesitantly, deliberately, Hank slides his palm against his, heart leaping to his throat when Alex doesn’t pull away. He does the opposite, in fact, and tightens his grip. “Morning,” Hank whispers, purposefully leaving out the ‘good’ because he just isn’t sure yet.
Alex exhales and says, “Scott’s not really mad at you,” deep voice crackling like dead leaves in the Fall. The window is still open; a light breeze carries the sounds of morning into the room.
“Seemed pretty mad to me.”
The other boy closes his eyes. Hank wishes he could brush his thumbs over Alex's pale eyelids, card his fingers through that blond hair, but he doesn’t think he should move or reach just yet, and so settles on tracing the lines of Alex’s palm with the pads of his fingers.
“He’s just tired.” He doesn’t offer anything more, and it makes Hank wonder how often Scott’s done this for Alex, woken up in the middle of the night and just sat with him, for hours, until Alex was calm enough to sleep. Scott became Alex’s legal guardian when the younger brother was 12 - had it been going on for that long? Like he can read Hank’s thoughts, Alex mumbles, “Used to be worse.”
Caught off guard, Hank blinks to clear his head. “What do you mean?”
“Used to wake up screaming. I would hear the house creak and be a mess. Scott would rock me to sleep.”
The image of Alex being rocked to sleep is unexpectedly sweet, and Hank feels instantly guilty for thinking so. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he never doesn’t know what to say, and so he asks the one thing that has never really failed him, hoping that it’s right, that it’s okay: “Why?”
It isn’t the right thing to say, judging by how Alex’s breathing quickens, but he opens his eyes, at least. “I was twelve, you know?” he offers, like that answers Hank’s question. “I was twelve and that was not normal, to have to be rocked to sleep. It was like that for a year. I didn’t even have an excuse - I mean, not really.”
And that just opens up a well of questions inside Hank, but the first one that bubbles forth is something that he realizes he’s been wondering for a long time, since they met, even - since that first time he followed Alex into the high school building and stopped in front of Moira’s office and kept himself from listening through the door. “What happened to you?”
He doesn’t miss the way Alex tries to withdraw his hand from Hank’s as a reaction, before catching himself. His eyes flicker up to Hank’s. “My parents died and I was put into foster care,” he responds, but it’s formulaic and so sad, Hank realizes quickly, because that’s what everyone must see when they first see Alex, when they read his file or hear that his brother is his legal guardian, that he’s some kid who was unlucky and went through the system for it - and Alex is so much more.
“Yes,” Hank says with a hint of impatience, because he knows this already, is ready to move past that, now. “And what happened to you?”
The pause goes on for so long that Hank just about gives up on Alex answering, but then he says, “My foster parents weren’t bad people. They were just poor.” It sounds like the start of a long story. Hank’s heart flutters into his stomach.
This information isn’t a surprise, not really. The sheets rustle as Alex pulls himself up to sit against the headboard, letting go of Hank’s hand in the process and bringing his own into his lap. “I told you about the plane crash,” he reminds him with a quick glance. Hank nods because this is special, this sharing of information, and if he interrupts in anyway he is certain that Alex won’t continue, that the vault will be closed forever. Alex sighs, and Hank worries that he’s closing up anyway, despite him being so careful not to make a sound, but it is a resolved sigh and not a defeated one. When he speaks it is slow and rhythmic, like he’s reading the words off of a sheet of paper.
“After that, Scott went away. Lived with a distant relative here in New York. She was older - said she could only take one and wanted the older one. He sent notes, called. When he was 18 she retired to Hawaii. She was done. I had no idea what was happening. I was sent to live with an uncle in LA - that’s how I ended up there.” He gulps, throat working. Hank leans forward, fully present. “He didn’t want a kid; I was really young. Somehow - I’m still not really sure what happened - I was sent away again, this time to my foster parents. They weren’t bad people,” he says again. “I even had a foster sister. We still talk, sometimes.”
He grabs the lighter and carton of cigarettes off the bedside table, tapping out a cigarette before changing his mind, tapping his thumbnail on the plastic surface of the lighter instead. tic, tic, tic. “They had a son who died. Todd. They fought over everything. Mostly over money. Sometimes, they fought each other. Haley and I would sit in her closet when the fighting started. It wasn’t so bad - I mean. They never tried to hurt us. And it wasn’t all the time.” He places the cigarettes and the lighter back on the bedside table. “Joanna was nice. She was my foster-mother,” he adds quickly when he sees Hank’s confused look. “But she was overwhelmed, I think. I used to go to her after the fighting, you know? Sometimes she would be a little beat up. I never saw it happen, but it was there - I mean - I saw the evidence.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and Alex, as though sensing this, falls silent, letting Hank reorganize his thoughts. He kept saying it wasn’t so bad, Hank thinks, yet he hid in the closet with his foster sister when the fighting got out of hand. Once, after a particularly rambunctious party at Raven’s that had left the house with a few broken windows, Charles had taken her to another room the next morning and Hank and Sean and Angel had heard him berate her for her lack of responsibility. It had ended with Raven in Charles’ arms, though, and a round of breakfast for them all. His parents didn’t fight because they didn’t talk. And he’s never had to be afraid for himself, not like that.
Hank leans forward again and this time reaches, placing a hand on Alex’s knee. But then Alex is taking his hand in both of his, pulling him in, so Hank kicks off his shoes and climbs over him to settle on the other side of the bed. He waits, looks to Alex for permission, which he gives with a slight nod.
“I used to ask her,” Alex begins again, “Why does he do that to you? Why do you let Andrew do that? Why don’t you fight back?” He watches the blond give up on resisting a cigarette as he fumbles around the carton and fits a slim stick between his lips. Hank lights it for him - Alex’s fingers barely shook but he likely wouldn’t have been able to, himself. The story is unsettling him, Hank can tell. He’s fighting so hard not to shake apart that his movements are stiff around the cigarette. That first drag into his lungs seems to calm him, though, and he leans back and exhales blue curls of smoke and says, “She would say, ‘Oh, you just don’t understand. Andrew? I love him so much. He’s my whole world.’ She didn’t want anything else.”
Oh, Hank thinks, feeling a little outside of himself as the scene from last night replays: “It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist,” he said, a hint of pride at his confession, like he was being very romantic. But Alex just heard him and thought of Joanna, of his kind, vulnerable foster-mother who thought Andrew was all that mattered. He was her whole world. He shudders even though the sun is shining through the foliage outside, warming his shoulders.
"She was right," he says more to himself than to Hank. "I didn't understand and I don't think I wanted to, either." His eyes go unfocused as he remembers. Hank wonders if Alex even realizes that he's still here, listening, or if the retelling just makes him feel disconnected.
“So when I was eight,” Alex rambles on, the cigarette giving him something else to focus on so that the words come out smoother, easier; it startles Hank out of his thoughts. “I thought I could help her - protect her, even. Andrew was never really mean to me or to Haley. He was just big. And loud. And one night he comes home and they start to fight again, about money - it was always about money - and I left Haley in the closet and told her I’d be right back. They were at the top of the stairs - I know, right? Stupid,” he interjects in his own story, noticing the worry in Hank’s features. He sucks on the cigarette again, cheeks hollowing.
“Basically, I tried to get between them, they were surprised, and Andrew pushed me out of the way. And then I’m waking up in the hospital again with a broken arm.” The gasp is involuntary, and so is the way Hank presses his fingers against Alex’s arm, like he’s checking for a wound that has long since healed. Alex looks down to where he’s touching him and stubs the cigarette out in the shallow dish that functions as his ashtray.
Hank imagines what it would have been like, imagines Alex inserting himself between his fighting foster-parents at the top of the stairs, only concerned about Joanna, Andrew looming before him. Andrew would be red in the face, enraged, yelling, the veins in his neck sticking out like cords. Maybe Joanna would have faced him with her hands raised in warning, an attempt to be placating. Alex would have been small for his age, Hank thinks. Small with soft blond hair and the same eyes, and defiant, maybe. “Back off!,” he would have said, “You leave her alone,” and Andrew, so much bigger than Alex, would have pushed him aside carelessly. But anger made him strong, and Alex was just a child. Hank winces again at the thought.
“The school wanted the hospital to test me while I was there,” Alex says next, blessedly unaware of Hank’s vision, “and Andrew and Joanna lied about what happened and went along with it, to make it seem like they were really there for me, you know? That’s when I was diagnosed.”
“But they - “ Hank starts, but then snaps his mouth shut, teeth clicking audibly, hesitant about speaking. Alex raises an eyebrow at him, which is enough. “They let you go back to them, even after that?”
“Yeah,” he says flatly. “They did.” It's easy for Hank to figure out the association between Alex's shaking and the yelling, then. Like conditioning, like Pavlov's dog hearing the bell and salivating, Alex's body went into full Flight mode at a raised voice because of Andrew and Joanna's loud verbal matches and the broken bones that followed. Alex already knows this, Hank remembers, had said it was just a reaction to the yelling last night, but even though he knows he can't control it. The concern must be there in the dip of Hank’s brows, the way he draws his bottom lip between his teeth, because Alex backtracks, shakes his head and mumbles, “This is a lot, I know. I’ll stop. It’s too much--”
“No,” he says, because now that they’ve started, he doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want Alex to feel like he has to stop. Alex stills, hunched into himself. “Tell me,” Hank encourages gently, taking the chance to slowly drape his arm over the curve of Alex’s shoulders, slowly enough that Alex could turn him away if he wants to. He doesn’t. “I want to know.”
“There isn’t much else left to tell,” Alex admits, which is bullshit, though Hank doesn’t voice his thoughts. “I ran away a few times. That thing with In-N-Out happened. They tried moving me north. I tried out a few families. None of them fit. Scott finally got a hold of me on the phone after a few moves and told me to try to stay put, because he was going to turn 18 soon and could be my legal guardian. He and Logan would get me out, he promised.”
“And Logan?” Hank parrots, the name bringing with it the smell of diesel and cigars. Now, this is a real surprise. “Logan from the garage - that Logan?”
Alex leans into him, clearly more comfortable now that the subject of conversation has shifted. “That Logan.” He gives in to a tiny smile. “He and Scott were - what’s that word? - frenemies in school. They loved to hate each other. Then, junior year something changed and now they have this epic bromance.”
Hank scoffs. From what he’s seen, he can’t quite call Scott and Logan’s relationship - whatever it is they have - bromantic. They tolerate each other. He supposes Alex knows them differently. “What happened?”
Alex shrugs. “Beats me.”
It takes a moment but their breathing falls into the same rhythm, and Alex burrows close enough, face turned into his chest, that Hank can rest his chin on top of his head, the short blond hairs tickling his neck. Enough time passes that continuing the topic would not only be awkward but likely wrought with some emotion, and not the positive kind; Alex feels like a coil of anger and sadness that could snap at any point, even moreso now that Hank knows why, but he is also humming and content and playing with the fabric of the sheet between them, one arm having snaked around Hank’s waist without his knowledge. Hank has the sudden, smothering wish that he could keep Alex like this always, so that coil would never have to snap.
“What happened last night...” Hank treads slowly for he is on unfamiliar and unstable ground. “It will never happen again,” he promises. “At least, not from me.”
Alex makes a noise into Hank’s shirt. After a second he realizes that he is laughing. Hank frowns, confused. “Yeah,” Alex says when he manages a breath, voice muffled and disbelief dripping from his tongue. “Right. You can’t promise that, Hank. People get angry.”
“I mean I won’t yell at you. I may get angry, but I can control myself. Scott does it, doesn’t he?”
“Scott’s my brother --”
“And I’m your boyfriend.” The statement brings the laughter to a sudden halt, and Alex just breathes against him. It’s only the second time that Hank’s used that word. It still feels foreign on his lips.
“If I can avoid hurting you in any way, I will.” Another promise. “And I’m still very sorry about what happened,” he continues, because he’s on a roll and Alex does not seem inclined to stop him. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry in the first place. And it wasn’t you I was angry at, anyway. And I was scared when you pushed me away because I didn’t understand what was happening, so I’m very happy that you’ve told me what you’ve told me, because it feels...” Hank mulls a bit over the right word. “Special.” It sounds trite; Hank cringes.
“Special,” Alex repeats, yawning, finally looking up at Hank with clear eyes before looking away again and stretching his arms above his head. “Apology accepted.”
Hank blinks; Alex curls his lips up into a well-intentioned smirk. “That’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“You’re just - you accept my apology. No groveling needed?”
“You were groveling pretty well, there.”
“But. Well. We’re okay? You’re okay? That’s it,” Hank reaffirms, a little stunned. That can’t be it. His word alone can’t be enough, shouldn’t be enough. Apologies only work because the person who wronged you owes you something, and they know it.
Alex wrinkles his nose. “You could use a shower,” he suggests. “And a hairbrush.”
And Hank is - yeah, he’s still stunned. But he can roll with the punches or whatever it is that Alex needs right at this moment. He wonders briefly how many people know as much as he knows, now. How many people will even be given the chance. Alex waggles his eyebrows playfully and Hank is - Hank’s going to stop psycho-analyzing Alex after this - but he’s sure that the sudden shift in mood is how Alex wants to deal with the onslaught of memories that he’s just given to this long-limbed boy in bed with him. He must feel exposed, like a specimen, guts laid out in a petri dish. He teases so that Hank will be distracted from examining him further. So, Hank says, “Yeah? I’ll hairbrush you.”
Alex smiles because that makes no sense and must be about to say these words except that Hank pinches the sensitive skin between his second and third rib and Alex yelps, affronted, before Hank ducks under Alex’s nightshirt and blows a raspberry where the skin has turned pink. He kicks his legs, ticklish, but he’s laughing and that’s all that matters, so Hank continues, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose as Alex squirms under him. “Mercy!” Alex calls. “Uncle! Stop, stop, stop. You’re stretching out my shirt.”
Hank stops, but only because that is a ridiculous statement and they both know that Alex has no care whatsoever about the state of his nightshirt. It’s such a faded blue that it is almost grey, and there are holes in its collar. Hank re-emerges, huffing, nose nearly touching Alex’s. “Since when do you care about stretching out this shirt.”
“I don’t,” Alex says, looking very pleased with himself. “I just wanted to kiss your face.”
So they kiss; Alex, with quick little nips first, still playful. Eventually Hank grows impatient and bears down on him, pressing Alex against the headboard, and he moans. “Yeah,” Hank urges breathily, feeling himself stir at the sound Alex makes. And something shifts and it isn’t so playful anymore, it is Hank kissing an Alex who has been laid bare, Hank kissing him despite what he knows. Hank kissing him even though he knows. It might be too much, too soon, and Hank is hyper-aware at this point - all of his actions will have consequences, he’s learning - so that when the next noise Alex makes is halfway between a laugh and a sob, he stops. Pulls back. Cups Alex’s face between his palms.
Alex looks at once grateful and disappointed with himself, and he wraps his fingers around Hank’s wrists just under his jaw. With difficulty, he admits, “I don’t want this to change anything,” and it tugs at Hank’s heart because it strikes him that Alex was waiting on judgment, that he was expecting it. At the same moment that Hank wants to vow that Alex’s past won’t change anything, he realizes that it will. It already has. He’s already treating Alex differently, more sensitive to his tics and tells. But maybe that’s okay.
“Change can be a good thing,” Hank answers, open and honest. “We can make it a good thing.”
Now Alex just looks terrified, but he must see something in Hank’s eyes that he likes, because he gives a tiny nod and even says, “If you say so.”
“I do.” Hank presses his lips to Alex’s forehead, whose eyelids flutter closed at the touch. It feels alarmingly intimate but genuine and right. “All the good things will get better. The not-so-good things, too.” It is his third promise before noon. He gets the feeling that this is the most important one so far, but also a more difficult one to keep.
“Okay.” Only after Alex wraps his arms around Hank’s waist and lays his head on his shoulder does Hank realize that he has somehow ended up in Alex’s lap, yet despite their difference in size and Hank’s flagging hard-on, it’s not uncomfortable. He can take care of that, later. Right now this is what Alex needs, so this is what he gives him.
//
GUYS. Hank can like be a good boyfriend, SEE? p.s. I apologize because this chapter got away from me and basically became me just being like BAM! Backstory punch in your face! And then running away.