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“Jesus, I can smell the smoke from all the way over here.” John makes a face when Hercules twists the cap of the whiskey bottle Gilbert has fetched from their kitchen cupboard to replace the emptied-out Malibu.
“That’s because it’s a fantastic vintage, you uncultured paysan,” Gilbert sneers, his accent thickened by his tipsy state.
Hercules just smiles and pours a tasteful measure of the golden brown liquid into four glasses. Alex picks his up and swirls it around cautiously, the scent thick and imposing in his nostrils. Personally, he’s more of a ‘second cheapest liquor on the shelf’-kind of a guy. It feels rather wasteful since (knowing Gilbert) the price tag probably resembles Alexander’s monthly grocery budget.
“Now, what you do, my friends, is that you take a small sip, and then you oxy- oxygenate it,” Gilbert instructs while Hercules obediently demonstrates, clearly used to the motions. “And then you swallow. Like so.”
Alex takes a swig, lets it sit on his tongue, breathes in through his nose as was instructed and immediately regrets listening to Gilbert’s advice, definitely not for the first time. The whiskey doesn’t burn as it goes down but he still has to cover up his grimace with a cough.
John isn’t as gracious. “Ugh. Can I get some ice with this?”
“Can you-” Gilbert sputters.
John smirks, takes another sip and leans back. “I guess it’s not that bad when you approach it like it’s smoked cheese or something.”
“That’s it! You are unworthy of this nectar!”
Hercules seizes his boyfriend’s waist to prevent him from lunging over the table at John. Gilbert makes grabby hands at John’s drink but eventually settles on Hercules’ lap and pouts against his neck. “My hopeless friends cannot appreciate the finer things in life, mon amour.”
“I know, I know,” Hercules coos and pets his hair soothingly.
“Alex sides with me, right?” John throws an arm over the back of Alexander’s chair. He’s definitely the drunkest of them all.
Alex shrugs. “Eh, Thomas never let me drink the cheap shit so I kinda got used to drinking overpriced lighter fluid.”
There’s an uneasiness now to the chuckles, like always when he casually brings Thomas up in conversation. Alex shifts on his seat. “He’d be like ‘no Alex, you can’t have the house liquor in this Four Seasons, everyone’s gonna think we’re new money’,” he imitates, playing up the slimy Virginian drawl.
That does get a more sincere laugh out of his friends and some of the anxiety at Alexander’s core uncoils slightly.
“It wasn’t normal you know,” John says and the laughter dies down like a candle that fizzles out in a heavy gust of wind. “What he did to you. It wasn’t normal.”
Oh no. Alex notes his own breathing, chews on the inside of his cheek to anchor himself but he knows it won’t help, however his body reacts feels disconnected somehow from his brain so all he can do is sit there stiff as a prey animal in a cage and hope that whatever John is getting at won’t shatter him.
“John,” Hercules says low and quiet but John just looks at Alex a sudden intensity emerging from under the drunken haze in his eyes.
“It wasn’t normal,” he repeats, “so it’s not always gonna be like that, alright? It doesn’t gotta be like that.”
Fuck. Alex’s vision goes blurry before he manages to turn away and his friends shift on their seats, unsure if they should form some kind of a hug pile or keep their distance.
Alex clears his throat. “Gotta take a leak.”
Someone makes a noise, the first syllable of a hesitant word as he gets up but they let him stumble out of the room uninhibited. The tears are running freely by the time Alex twists the lock of the bathroom door with clumsy fingers.
It’s always weird like this, not the type of crying that comes out of your throat or your gut when you’re sad, the way crying is supposed to work. It’s more like shaking, something his body just does sometimes with no warning or proper discernible pattern to it. He can read abuse PSA’s and brochures and be totally fine and then someone says something or he reads the words “learned helplessness” (or once, memorably, “gentrification”) and it just hits him and knocks him sideways.
Alex wipes his face with his sleeve angrily and digs his phone out of his pocket. He pulls up a folder of random nature pictures and cityscapes and focuses on finding and naming different features and details in the pictures until the waterworks start to dwindle a little. It won’t make it stop completely, he knows that from experience, but it helps him breathe just a bit steadier. The breathing exercises all therapists seem to vouch by never really work for Alex; he needs very specific, simple distractions to come down from the episode.
And then his mind gets going, like always. John means well but he doesn’t really understand what he’s talking about; Alex was the one who wanted more, like always, forgot about his place and got burned, serves him right. He should have just settled for being a warm convenient body, he only has himself to blame for everything that followed that night he rolled over and begged Jefferson to stay.
Ah, the tears are back. Aaron would be disappointed in him, for thinking such things again.
Well, no. Aaron never seems disappointed, not really, as much as dejected. And even that’s never really aimed at Alex.
Aaron would want him to text him.
Apprehension knots up in Alexander’s throat as his fingertips hover over the keypad. He’s probably busy. Alex shouldn’t be a nuisance. He shouldn’t-
Alex exhales through his nose and types the damn text. The exchange goes as follows:
Alex: “how’s that essay coming along?”
Aaron: “Pretty good, actually, thanks. How’s the gang?”
Alex: “drunk af and fighting about whiskey. If it’s coming along so well why are u texting back so quick?”
Aaron: “It’s called pacing and taking breaks, you wouldn’t understand x”
Alex: “hardi har”
Alex: “hey uhh something kinda came up and i’m not feeling great. idk, sorry to bother I know u have stuff to do”
Aaron: “Would you let me come and get you?”
Alex: “uh alright. U know where Gil & Herc live right?”
He sighs and wipes at his face again. Aaron’s really good at this sort of thing, wording offers of help in a way that doesn’t raise his hackles or make him feel guilty. He’s really good at a number of things.
It’s a strange thing. Alex hadn’t thought much of Aaron initially - a somewhat quiet but eloquent and clearly intelligent guy from his law course. If anything they tended to be slightly irritated with each other most of the time; Aaron with Alexander’s rashness and loudness and Alex with Aaron’s tendency to play devil’s advocate in every class discussion for no reason.
Some months after Jefferson happened Aaron had given Alex a long, hesitant yet somewhat playful look after class and asked him out for a drink. How that has led to Aaron having a key to his apartment and occasionally letting himself in late at night to fix Alex a snack and force him to bed in the midst of essay writing, he honestly has no fucking clue.
Aaron shows up in ten minutes. Alex has stopped crying by then but he knows from experience it’ll come back sooner or later, he always spends the rest of the day feeling like an exposed nerve. He hugs John long and hard at the door to signal that they’re good and his friend didn’t do anything wrong. He’ll send him a text about it later, probably. Tomorrow.
Sure enough, as soon as Alex yanks the passenger side door closed, the sobs vibrate through his body and make his teeth clatter again. Aaron wordlessly hands him a pack of tissues from the glove compartment, chats with him idly about meaningless stuff and rubs his thumb in soothing circles over Alexander’s kneecap whenever he doesn’t need his hand for the stick shift.
As soon as they get home Alex makes a beeline for his bed, curls up between the familiar blankets and lets his body shake and quiver as much as it wants. Aaron pops into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water and ibuprofen, plops them onto the counter and also crawls into the bed. Alex tosses the pillow he’s been clutching aside and allows Aaron to fill the vacuum between his arms, snuggles as close to the warm torso as he can and inhales the fading whiffs of cologne and laundry detergent and skin. Aaron’s arms wrap around him and his fingers thread through his hair soothingly as Alex wets the collar of his pressed shirt.
“You know you don’t,” he manages to string words together eventually, “you know you don’t ha-have to like stay with me or whatever? Like it’s not your responsibility to…”
“I know,” Aaron’s breath flutters against the top of Alexander’s head. “I’m not doing this out of some sense of obligation, I promise.”
That leads to the dangerous thought-caveat of why does he do this, if it’s some ego-boosting thing that Aaron’s willing to put up with someone as damaged and difficult as Alex, or some kind of a passion project… Alex screws his eyes shut tightly and tries to force the thoughts out.
“If I’m not making you happy just ditch me, don’t even think about it.”
Aaron chuckles. “Likewise.”
“Cool.”
The crook of Aaron’s neck is right there in front of him so Alex leans in and plants a kiss on the dark, impeccably shaved skin. Then another, and another.
“Alexander,” Aaron’s tone is somehow chastising and warm at the same time.
“What? There’s a sexy man in my bed, I’m just being polite.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
Alex squeezes Aaron tighter and playfully holds his collarbone between his teeth, the slightly salty taste of skin familiar on his tongue.
“Alex I’m serious.” Aaron threads a hand through his hair and pulls his head back gently. “No sex tonight,” he spells out slowly while maintaining stern eye contact. The proximity makes Alex feel self-conscious - his face must be a mess, not that Aaron hasn’t seen his face all messy in a variation of contexts already. He licks his lips and blinks nervously.
“Fine. Are you gonna stay, though?”
Aaron’s face goes all soft again, a near-addictive sight from someone as tightly buttoned up as Aaron tends to be. How a smile can feel so intimate, more customized for Alexander personally than any sex act he has ever committed is kind of a mystery. Aaron is an enigma and sometimes the obscurity of his motives and feelings kind of boggles Alexander’s loud, paranoid mind but. It’s working, somehow. For the time being at least.
Aaron leans in and presses a close-mouthed kiss on Alexander’s tear-sticky lips.
“Of course.”
~
Alexander’s soul starts to slowly re-enter his body and he falls back against the sheets, panting and shaking in that way you shake after all your muscles have been taut with tension and pleasure for an extended amount of time.
“Good, Alexander,” Aaron’s somewhat breathless voice filters through the haze. The ropes are undone and gently unwrapped from around Alexander’s lax frame. The ropes are awesome, Aaron is so good at tying them that it borders on artistic genius and the slight chafing marks are something Alex can look at and run his fingers over for a day of a few at least, while respecting Aaron’s wishes not to do anything else to him that might leave marks on his body. For the time being at least.
Aaron keeps murmuring praises with a low and satisfied tone as he reaches for a washcloth on the bedside cabinet (he always has it ready so he doesn’t have to leave the room after a scene even for a moment) and gently wipes down the mix of bodily fluids on Alexander’s body. This treatment is followed by a shower of butterfly kisses, drizzling over his wrists, his collar bones, down his ribs and hip bones and all the way to his ankles. Alex inhales shakily and quivers under Aaron’s careful attentions.
After Alex has obediently gulped down some water, Aaron gathers him up in his arms and they just kiss. It’s kind of mind blowing, how great it can be to just kiss with no sense of transaction or surrender to it, just soft lips and lazy tongues dragging against each other and scratchy teeth clicking together or catching onto skin occasionally.
Aaron pulls back for a breath and Alex takes in his half-lidded eyes and blown pupils. “You’re incredible, you know that?”
Alex scoffs and scrunches up his nose. “Damn straight.”
Aaron’s chest shakes with laughter and Alex grins and rubs a thumb over one of his sore wrists.
Part of what makes Aaron so special is how he trusts Alex, trusts him to know what he wants. He doesn’t treat him like some fragile, damaged little thing that can only handle the vanilla-est of vanilla sex. Doesn’t look at him like he needs pity, doesn’t tell him how to value himself. It makes Alex feel seen to a degree that approaches uncomfortable at times, probably because he’s so unused to it.
Of course it’s still messy at times, because they’re both only human and the last time Alex was in love with someone he’d been too afraid to say the words because he’d known that if he had Thomas would have left him in a heartbeat. And sometimes it still feels like whether he’s afraid of someone or not is the only metric he has for evaluating whether he’s attracted to them or not, which isn’t ideal as far as foundations for a relationship go. He knows that.
But laying here, his entire body slightly sore but completely relaxed and gentle fingers stroking idle patterns over his skin is something that he wouldn’t give up for the world. If Alex has any say in it, at least.
“Hey,” Aaron says low and quiet right by his ear.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Alex shrugs. “Nothing.”
“Well that’s new.” Alex can hear that he’s smirking.
“What can I say? You’ve fucked my brains out.”
Aaron snorts. “Glad to hear. I do try.”
Alexander’s lips quirk up into a slow smile. “I appreciate it.”
Aaron presses a kiss over his cheekbone. “I know.”