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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"Yeah, it did," he agrees. His tone is a little bitter, and he looks at her like she's just betrayed him. "I'm not gonna start seeing someone else, just because Adam's not here. What kind of boyfriend would that make me? What kind of person would that make me?" He doesn't mean to sound judgmental. Maybe something like that could work for other people. Maybe, if he knew Adam had a say in it, he'd even see it differently. But there are too many what-ifs.

Alex's stomach turns sourly and she shifts away from him slightly, giving in to the impulse to sit up and draw her knees up, curling around her teacup again.

This is why she's never had friends, isn't it? Because she can pretend to be a different version of herself, but she's just Alex Stern in the end.

"Sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have said it."

"No— stop," he pleads, reaching his leg to press his foot against hers. "I'm sorry, I'm just— So many people keep saying that, and it just feels so wrong, and, and I'm sorry." He looks at her, eyebrows a tragic, puppy-dog-eyes arc. "I didn't mean to get weird."

He presses his foot against her and Alex doesn't uncurl, but she does at least look up.

"I've never had that with anyone," she says. "If Darlington wasn't here, I'd fuck someone else." She shrugs. "Hellie used to say I was a flat beast."

"What's that?" he asks, frowning a little. He can feel that they're not where they were, not yet, but he hopes soon. Maybe if they keep talking, she'll loosen that tightly coiled rusted spring that her self-deprecation and disappointment feel like.

Her fingers graze against one of the snake heads tattooed on her collarbone.

"She said I had a snake inside me. I bite and I'm poisonous."

"That... sounds like a pretty shitty thing to say," he notes, watching the trail of her fingers. Flat beast. Snakes were pretty flat. He wonders if that's what Hellie meant.

"She meant it as a compliment," she says, still curled up against the arm of the sofa, leaning away from him a little. "Some people are going to survive no matter what."

Hellie had no idea how right she'd be, in the end.

"You guard yourself," he says. "Like, a self-preservation thing, right? So when you get hurt, it doesn't feel so bad." He watches her, then sets his tea down on the coffee table and changes his position, so he's sitting with both feet on the floor, elbows on his knees. "I get it, I think. Instead of walls, you have fangs."

"Damn straight," she says, and then she glances across at him. "I fucked it up, didn't I?" She says, taking in the change in his posture.

He looks over at her, eyebrows twisting up into a confused frown. "No, no way," he assures. "I was a little worried I had, actually," he admits. "I just don't think I'm wired that way, y'know? Like... maybe if I start to get feelings for Clint, it'd be different, or I'd feel different about it, but right now, I can't imagine doing that to Adam. Even if he isn't here to know."

"I get that," she says, sipping her tea, which has gone stone cold. "I used to worry that I just...didn't know how to love people."

He winches a little, watching her. "You don't still feel that way, right?"

"I mean, maybe?" She says, tipping her head to cover her face for a moment. "I wish..." She sips her tea again. "I wanted to be someone new when I went to Yale. Didn't really work out."

"Well, you have another chance," he points out. "Whoever you were before, you can be someone new now. You've got Daniel, and you've got me.

"So now I just have to work out who Darrow Alex is going to be." She laughs, even though nothing feels funny right then. She wants the easy closeness from earlier back so much it hurts. "Should be easy."

Caleb can feel she wants something. There's a sense of missing coming from her, and he knows what it is, because he's missing it, too.

"Well, it sounds like Darrow Alex wants to love this weird dude with a stupid nickname," he offers, "and she super likes couch cuddles. Which is weird, because she likes soft things, and I'm not soft, like, at all."

"Maybe not soft," says Alex, sounding a little bit less miserable. "But you're really fucking solid. And that's good too."

"I'm a running back," he points out. "I have to be solid." He smiles a little, then stands. "Food," he declares. "You got popcorn or something?"

"Popcorn, chips, cookies," she says, sitting back a little on the sofa so that she can look up at him. "And can you grab me something else to drink, please? This tea is gross."

"Pour it in my cup, I'll finish it?" he offers. He makes his way into the kitchen, grabs her a soda and gets some popcorn in the microwave. When he brings the soda into the other room, he leans over the back of the couch and sort of hugs the side of her head.

"We're good," he assures, chin hooked over the crown of her head.

She leans into his touch, melting a little with relief.

"We're good," she echoes as she reaches to take the soda.

"Better," he murmurs. "Pink is a way better color for you than black." He releases her head, but only so he can move around to sit on the couch while he waits for the popcorn to finish popping.

"So black is...what? Anxiety? Guilt?" She turns her head to look at him. "And pink is...not feeling either of those?"

"In this case, pink is relief," he says. He grabs his tea, newly filled with her own, and takes a sip. The fact that it's gone cold doesn't bother him. It just reminds him of any time he's had it in a flask at a party. "You're relieved that talking about Adam not being here hasn't fucked up our friendship. It's not as tenuous as you think it is, you know," he adds, pulling out an Adam-worthy vocab word.