greatamazingfeelingsboy

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alex stern

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Jan 28th?

Caleb sprawls on Alex's couch, exhausted and sore and slightly frustrated. He'd gone to the gym with some of the guys from the team, and it'd proved... trying. Clint kept looking at him, which in and of itself isn't a problem. The problem was that he kept getting slightly aroused, at random times, while looking at Caleb. Which meant Caleb worked out harder, which meant Clint stared more, which meant that Clint got aroused more, and by the end of the two hours, he was so fucking tired and sore from trying to work out the feelings he kept getting.

He'd already showered at his place, but he'd promised Alex he'd swing over after the gym, since his place isn't warded against Grays. He likes hanging out with her, and he likes that there aren't any butterflies between them. It's nice to just... have a friend.

Which he realizes isn't fair to Rosie, who's easily one of his closest friends here. But she's so busy with her boyfriend and school that sometimes he doesn't get to just hang out with her. Last week doesn't entirely count, because he'd been a mess.

"Kill me," he mumbles into the couch cushion his face is pressed against.

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"I know you're not. It's a totally different feeling from that. But I'm talking about him. And he's definitely not just tolerating you. He's probably just not good at talking about his feelings." Caleb's one to talk, but he's getting better, at least.

"Oh, he's very good at talking about his fucking feelings, believe me," says Alex, sighing elaborately. "Did you get butterflies off him, too?"

"I might've," he says, and tosses a piece of popcorn at her. "I feel like I shouldn't say. Like I'm breaking some unspoken rule, or something."

She rolls her eyes at him, picking up the popcorn and biting into her mouth.

"Not even if it'll make me feel better. C'mon, Caleb. You're my best fucking friend around here. Other than him and...well...you know how that's going."

Something warm blooms in his chest when she says he's her best friend. It brings a blush to his cheeks and he smiles a little.

"Yes, okay? It was kinda hard to feel under the rest of it, but they were definitely there when we talked about you."

A smile tugs at the corner of Alex's mouth and she has to fight the urge to cover her face with her hands.

"Now we just have to...stop being fucking idiots, I guess?" She sighs and shifts, slightly, leaning her shoulder against his.

"Yeah, well," he says, leaning into the contact. "I just hope he's not gonna be an asshole again." He settles the bowl between them so they can more comfortably share.

"We're both assholes," she says, picking up some popcorn and popping it into her mouth one kernel at a time. "Just he's a New Haven asshole and I'm from California."

"You're not an asshole," he argues. "I mean, I think you believe you are, because it doesn't feel like a lie, but you haven't been an asshole to me."

"Not yet," she says, shifting to nudge him gently with her shoulder. "But give me time, okay? I can fuck anything up, given enough time."

"Oh shut up," he says. "With that attitude, you're bound to, y'know? Like... That's something I feel and see a lot. People with shitty outlooks tend to do or experience shitty things."

That might as well be the story of Alex Stern's entire fucking life. Nothing's ever gone right, but, then again, why would it have when she was poison from the start? She scrubs one hand back through her hair.

"Maybe it's not as clean cut as you think it is, Caleb," she says.

He tilts his head a little, and he narrows his eyes. "Wait, why are you disappointed in yourself?" he asks.

"Because I've done a lot of things that nobody would be proud of," she says. "I keep telling myself that I'm going to be Darrow Alex but that...doesn't scrub everything clean, does it?"

There's no point in trying to lie to him, which might mean having to tell him the whole truth. That feels like it'd be both terrifying and kind of freeing at the same time.

"I mean... I guess it doesn't," he says, thinking about what he'd done to Damien, how he'll always carry that with him. "But... you just gotta keep that stuff, and learn from it, right? Learn not to do it again, or... or the only reason you should do it again. Whatever it was."

"Believe me," she says. "You would not want to be sitting on a couch with me eating popcorn if you know the whole of it."

Caleb bites his lip, watching her for a long, quiet moment. Then he draws his left hand between them, shows her the small scar across his knuckles.

"The day I got here, I had just finished beating a guy so hard, I broke his ribs and his jaw, and punctured his lung, and... fuck knows what else. I beat him so hard I broke my hand. I don't know if he's alive, or... or if I'm a murderer. Because he'd tried to take Adam, to use him as leverage to get what he wanted. Whatever the fuck that was." He swallows, then shrugs, dropping his hands to his knees. "I'm not trying to measure dicks, I'm just... we've all got baggage."

"My dick is totally bigger than yours." He lets his hand drop and, a moment later, Alex reaches out and takes his hand, running the pad of her thumb across the scar.

"I don't know where to start," she admits.

"You don't... have to at all, if you don't want," he assures. "Alex, I'm not gonna judge you." He means that, and he hopes she can see that in his face. Whatever she's done, whoever she was, Caleb knows who she is. She's not a bad person.

She can still remember the look on Darlington's face when he'd put it all together, the realisation and the way that she'd frozen, in the end, when there might have been something, anything she could have done. Guilt seethes in the pit of her belly, even though he's safe and whole here.

"I...You might be a murderer," she says, still holding his hand. "But I definitely am."

It feels like the truth, so Caleb grips her hand a little tighter, watching her face. He thinks about Rowan, about helping him with that body. He thinks about Alex Manes, shooting those scientists who'd hovered over Michael with knives and cameras.

"What happened?" he asks quietly, gently, like she's going to spook if he speaks too loudly.

"My friend Hellie died," she says, quietly, grateful for the way he squeezes her hand. She's never told anyone this story before, so it takes her a little while before she knows what comes next. "She overdosed on Fentynyl. I was trying to keep her safe, but I wasn't even there, and...she was solid. She was so real. That I didn't even know she was dead until afterwards. I just curled up next to her and slept and then, in the morning, when I realised it was a gray not Hellie, not...alive, anyway, they just...they were just going to throw her away, Caleb. Like trash. Just discard her." A tear rolls down Alex's cheek. "She was perfect, and they were just going to throw her in the trash."

She's mentioned Hellie before, and the grief is no less intense this time than it was then. He frowns as he listens, gently tightening the grip on her hand. He doesn't know what Fentanyl is, but obviously it's some kind of drug. There's a sort of outrage that rises up in Alex as she speaks, and he feels it pressing against the insides of his ribs, like it'll burst out of him and rip him open with it. He isn't sure what to say, here, so he says nothing, just nods a little, like he understands what she's saying. He does, a little. Losing your friend and then having someone — the cops, maybe? — come take her body away for the city to deal with... That had to have been terrifying and infuriating.

"Those assholes," she says quietly. "Len and Betcha. They were just going to dump her outside a hospital. But she was already dead."

Those are new names, but Caleb nods again, now just gently prompting her to continue. Her feelings about Len, at least, are complicated, so he decides to stop focusing on them and instead listen to her words.