Chapter Text
Alex was quite literally the scariest person alive. He might as well have been a god with the amount of power he had, and a bloodthirsty one at that. There was no reason why he should be so affected by some stupid rumors. Despite this, he wasn’t having much success at convincing himself that he wasn’t hiding from his best friend.
Morgan wasn’t even scary. It wasn’t like they could kill him; it wasn’t even like they’d want to. Worst case scenario they’d just be uncomfortable and not want to be around him if they found out. And then Alex wouldn’t get to see them anymore.
…
Right. That was why he was scared.
Morgan wasn’t scary, they were just the only person in the world with the ability to take away the thing most important to Alex.
He ran his fingers through his hair again. This could all be fine, if he could just get himself under control. So the internet had started a rumor. That was all it was, and Morgan had no reason to think it was anything more.
So what if people thought they were together? So what if it was almost definitely because of Alex’s behaviour in that stupid fucking ClockApp? All that meant was that he needed to work on his poker face, and he’d already known that. As long as Morgan hadn’t noticed anything…
The thought was like an ice cube dropping into his stomach. If the internet had been able to tell from a thirty second clip, what were the odds that Morgan hadn’t noticed in the years they’d been friends? He tried unsuccessfully to push the idea from his head. If Morgan had noticed, they’d have said something by now.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the opening notes of Jenny played jauntily from his phone.
“Hello?” he asked, doing his best to sound normal.
“Hey, Alex. I think we should talk.”
Dread settled at the bottom of his stomach, but he ignored it. “Uh, alright? What did you want to talk about?”
“No, like, in person. Face to face,” Morgan said haltingly.
Ah. Okay. Good. This was completely fine.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” they sounded like they were about to say something else, but cut themself off at the last moment. “Just, come to my apartment when you have a minute, okay? I know you said you were busy.”
— — ~*~ — —
Morgan tidied their apartment a bit while they waited for Alex to appear. They considered polishing off the rest of the bottle of wine, but ultimately decided that there was no reason to make this conversation messier than it was already going to be.
When he finally teleported into their kitchen, they remembered that they didn’t need to be as worried as all that. His smile was awkward and didn’t reach his eyes, and he looked from them, to the wall, to the floor, and back. Morgan silently pushed a cup of coffee into his hands and sat on the couch with a second one.
“So, did you change your mind about wanting me to leave, then?” Alex finally broke the silence. “Because I can just grab my stuff and–”
“No, I didn’t.” Morgan said. “Uh, I feel like I should start off by apologizing.”
He looked at them blankly. “…What for…? Did you kill your first person without telling me?”
They snorted, but fell silent. There had to be a quick and easy way to bring this up. Something that even Alex would understand without needing much clarification. As they turned the different options over in their mind, he grew steadily more restless beside them.
A couple months back, Chad had said something to them about Alex’s ringtone for them. He’d been trying to use it to back up his theory that they were being mind-controlled, because, as he explained, Alex wanted them by his side badly enough to brainwash them into it. At the time, Morgan had chosen to pretend Chad hadn’t told them anything. Now, they pulled out their phone without a word and opened Alex’s contact.
Comprehension dawned on his face a split second before Morgan pressed call.
“Uh, this is– I swear– fuck, I didn’t–” he said, sounding panicked and a bit louder than usual. He clearly didn’t have anything to say, just talking to drown out the ringtone.
“I, uh… I already know,” they said, “I didn’t say anything because I thought it would make things complicated.” They hung up the call, and the sudden silence seemed to suck all the air out of the room. They hazarded a glance at Alex, his shoulders raised protectively and his face aimed away from them.
“Right,” he said at last, “Of course you do. I’ll just. Yeah.”
He made as if to get up, and Morgan grabbed his arm. “I’m not done.”
“I think this is one of those things that we don’t really need to talk about. I know what you’re going to say, so can’t we just agree to pretend this never happened instead?”
Morgan dragged their free hand across their face. “Clearly you don’t know what I’m going to say, though, or this whole situation would already be over,” they muttered to themself. Letting go of Alex, they raised their eyes to look at him. “I don’t want to pretend this never happened.”
That was the wrong thing to say, because Alex tensed further. “Oh. Right. Should I go get my stuff, then?”
“Your stuff,” Morgan repeated dumbly, and then mentally replayed the last thing they’d said. “Oh for fuck’s– I’m not telling you to leave.”
“Are you sure? Because if you want me to, I will. Like, I don’t want you to think I’d ignore you if you asked–”
“Are you gonna let me fucking ask you out or not?”
“–me to–” he abruptly stopped talking. After a few beats, he cleared his throat and blinked twice in rapid succession. “What?”
“Thank you. Because everyone already thinks we’re together, which kind of removes the issue that kept me from having this conversation with you years ago, so…”
“I’m sorry, did you just say years,” Alex said tonelessly.
“Yeah?”
“You could’ve done this years ago? And instead you just let me…? I thought you weren’t interested!”
Morgan winced. “I did start off by saying I felt like I should apologize for that.”
“Motherfucker.”