Chapter Text
Alex didn't want to come out. Well, that was a lie. He wanted to come out more than anything. He wanted to be known by his family and he wanted to be done with all the secrets and the lying. He wanted that more than anything. What he did not want was the looks, the snide comments, or the overall negative reaction that he knew his parents were going to have. But- at least to him- coming out wasn't really a choice. He had been planning on waiting until he was about to go on tour with the band and telling his parents then running. But sitting at the dinner table, with his little sister and his mom and dad, he got this feeling in his gut. It wasn't anxiety, because he had a lot of that and this was different. This was like a tugging sensation. And deep down he knew what it meant. He was going to come out tonight. That was just how this was all going to happen. So even when he didn't want to, he came out.
“I'm gay,” the words fall like concrete from his lips, and immediately he feels lighter because that concrete is no longer weighing in his mouth and on his heart. That light feeling lasts for maybe half a second before he is overcome with terrifying horror. He just came out. And his family isn't saying anything and he doesn't know what to do and his family keeps on just not saying anything.
“No you're not,” his father says, staring at him. Alex swallows, then shakes his head.
“Yeah, I- I kinda am,” and it's like he flipped a switch with those words because suddenly his mom starts to sob and his father slams his hands against the table so hard that the whole room shakes.
“My son is not a homosexual,” his father screams. His mother is crying, his sister is jumping to her feet, staring in fear at their father. She opens her mouth, going to Alex’s side but her father stops her.
“Go to your room, your brother and I need to have a talk,” it looks for a moment like she might defy him, but Alex has never seen him this angry, and he doesn't want her to be here for whatever is about to go down and he certainly does not want her to make him any angrier. He shakes his head minutely at her and she presses her lips together before nodding and bounding up the stairs.
Alex feels both a sense of relief and dread that she is gone. Now that she is gone she doesn't have to bear any of their father's anger. But now that she is gone, Alex has to deal with all of it alone.
“Dad-”
“Shut up shut up,” his father is shouting and a vein in his neck is bulging and his whole face is red and he looks like he is about to break something. Alex recoils, bringing his hands up to his face as if he could defend himself from his father while he is this angry. He turns to look at his mom, hoping beyond belief that she might support him or at the very least protect him from his father's fury. But she just shakes her head, not meeting his eyes, still sobbing. She turns her back to him, and that is the exact moment that his heart breaks. Because anger is so much easier to deal with than outright rejection. His mom turned her back to him. His mom is no longer his mom because with that one gesture she showed him that he is no longer her son.
Everything after that is a blur. There is a lot of yelling, so much screaming by his father. Slurs get hurled around the room, as well as a plate that shatters against the wall behind Alex, and although the plate was nowhere near where Alex was standing he still bites back a yell as he flinches.
He doesn't hear the exact words his father uses. He knows it's a lot of bad things. He knows that it is his father disowning him, kicking him out, telling him he is going to burn in hell, all of the things Alex was praying he wouldn't ever have to hear, let alone from his own family.
“Leave. If you’re still here tomorrow morning, I'm going to call the police on you for trespassing,” his father finally growls. Alex looks at him, making eye contact for the first time since the rant started. For some reason, Alex isn't crying. He isn't sure why, because his insides are all torn up and bleeding and he knows he should be crying, but he isn't. He just stares with dry eyes at his father.
Finally, Alex spins on his heels and walks up the stairs. He walks mutely to his room, opening the door and slamming it shut. He is startled to see his sister sitting on his bed, her head in her hands.
“Alex?” she whispers. Alex shakes his head.
“Please go,” he tells her. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, but doesn't move. “You’re going to get in trouble, dad’s already in the worst mood of his life, you're welcome for that,” the joke falls painfully flat, but she nods. Alex turns away, shame burning in his eyes.
Suddenly there is something flying at him. He flinches, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opens them he sees his sister in his arms, hugging him tightly.
“I love you, Alex,” she tells him. And that is what breaks him. Not the horrible hate his parents gave him, but the small morsel of love from his sister. He starts to sob into her, and she just holds him and rubs his back and tells him that everything will eventually be okay, even if it isn't tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that. Both of them realize that things won't be okay for a long time. But they also both know that they will have each other through it all.
The sound of someone coming up the stairs makes them both pull apart quickly, fear shining in both of their eyes.
“Go, please,” he begs her. She nods.
“Be safe, I love you, Alex,”
“I- I love you too,” she smiles one more time at him before running from his room and into hers, just as their father crests the stairs. Alex closes his door but hears as he walks right past his door and to his sisters. He is glad that she made it to her room before he got there. She doesn't need his wrath, she doesn't deserve it. A small voice in the back of his head says that he doesn't deserve it either.
Alex has a duffle bag and a backpack. He shoves as many clothes as he can into the duffle bag, and then as many nicknacks and possessions as he can into his backpack as well as his school stuff. Then he walks over to his desk. He picks up the framed picture of him and his sister. He slides that into his sweatshirt pocket. The pictures of his parents he leaves untouched on the desk.
With a final glance around the room and all the stuff he has to leave behind, he slings the backpack over his shoulder and walks right out the door and down the steps. His mother is still crying, on the phone with someone. She doesn't even look at him. He stares at the back of her head before he finally gives up. She won't look at him, and he's wasting time. It's already late, and he is going to have to walk to the studio because he can't ride his bike with both the backpack and the duffle bag.
The air is cool, but not uncomfortably so. Alex is still shivering though. Because his life is ruined. He thought things might be okay, he tricked himself into thinking that things might be okay for him. And they weren't, and now he is kicked out at seventeen, with nowhere to go except an old garage. How sad is that?
He thinks vaguely that he could call up Reggie or Luke or Bobby, but he doesn't want to bother them. It's really late anyway. And he just wants to be alone right now. Or at least that is what he keeps telling himself, whether or not it is true is a different story. He just doesn't want to be a burden to anyone else that night.
He drops his stuff off in the loft and collapses onto the couch. He closes his eyes but knows that sleep is very far away from him.
Now that he is alone and everything is quiet his mind begins to get very, very loud. Everything his father screamed at him comes rushing back, amplified inside his own head, getting louder and louder and angrier and angrier every time it repeats. Alex clutches the sides of his head, bringing his knees to his chest. He begins to sob, harder than he ever had before. His life is falling apart and he just has to sit there and watch it.
He cries all night, so hard that he ends up throwing up in the small bathroom in the back of the garage. In the end, he sits there, curled up in a small ball, leaning against the edge of the shower. His head hurts and his throat feels scratchy from all the crying. His heart throbs in his chest. His eyes are swollen and red and his cheeks feel weird and sticky from his many many tears.
The only thing that spurs him into action is knowing that it is Saturday- he had the good sense to come out on a Friday so at least he didn't have school- and he knows that soon the band will be there for practice.
He gets up, walks to his duffle bag, and pulls out a towel, soap, shampoo, and conditioner. His father gave him the good grace to pack, so he has his bare essentials.
Then he takes the longest, hottest shower of his life. For the most part, he just stands there under the water, letting it wash over his face, hoping that it washes away the remnants of the night before.
He stands there until his skin is pink from the heat and the scrubbing. Then he turns the water off and steps out. He is changing and drying his hair when the first person shows up at the studio. Of course, it is Luke, Alex can hear him shuffling around. He doesn't know if Luke knows he is here, and he doesn't want to scare him by walking out of the bathroom. He decides to be courteous and drop the bottle of shampoo. It clunks loudly against the basin of the shower and he hears Luke let out a muffled scream. If Alex wasn’t still so numb from the events of the night before, he might have laughed.
“Luke, that you?” Alex calls out. He hears some more shuffling and then Luke clears his throat.
“Uh- yeah. Alex?” he asks. Alex nods, hanging the towel on the hook on the back of the bathroom door before he steps out.
“Sup,” he greets Luke, hoping that the shower washed away any signs that he had been crying. His voice is a little gruff but he doesn't think Luke will notice.
“What uh- what are you doing here?” Luke asks him. Alex shrugs, walking over to the couch and falling down onto it, acting like he didn't sit there sobbing for half the night.
“We have practice today, right?”
“Well yeah it's just- you’re never usually this early is all,” Luke says. Alex shrugs again.
“I wanted to see what you did here before we got here. We all know you get here hours before practice actually starts,” Alex tries to joke but his heart still aches in his chest and nothing really hits. Luke picks this up and stares at him.
“Why did you shower here?”
“I-” Alex scrambles for an excuse. “Well this is embarrassing but I tripped walking over here and fell in some mud, I wanted to clean myself off,” the lie is half-baked and not well told, but Luke seems to buy it, shrugging and sitting down on the couch next to Alex. He pulls his guitar into his lap and begins to tune it. Alex watches him out of the corner of his eye. Luke knows that he is gay, he could tell Luke right now that he told his parents and got kicked out. But he doesn't want to. Everything still feels so fresh and loud in his head, and he doesn't want Luke to add any more noise to it right now. He knows that all the noise Luke would add would be comforting, but it would still just be so loud to him. Pretending the problem doesn't exist is a much better solution, Alex decides. He knows it isn't. He knows he will break eventually. But that is future-him’s problem, and the current him already has enough to deal with.
Halfway through band practice, Alex has practically smashed a hole through his drums but the sheer force with which he was hitting them. The band notices. They stare at him and wait for him to talk because usually the band is so open with each other, and when something is going on they share it and deal with it together. But Alex doesn't want to do that right now, so he has approximately three seconds to come up with another lie.
“Sorry guys, I failed a math test on Friday, and my parents are being- well they’re being my parents, you know?” Alex says, smiling for their benefit although it looks more like a grimace. It isn't technically a lie. He did fail a math test, and his parents would have been on him about it if not for the impromptu coming out. The half-lie still tastes bitter in his mouth. He hates lying to his friends and this is the second time he has had to do it in as many hours.
Reggie and Luke stare at him for a minute, their eyes all scrunched together, trying to figure out if it's the truth or not. Bobby, who is in his math class and also failed the test, nods in sympathy before turning back to his music. Eventually Luke and Reggie do too. Alex tries not to feel hurt by the fact that they believed him so easily, but he knows it isn't their fault. The band never lies to each other, so why would they think Alex wasn't telling the truth now? But another part of Alex wants them to figure it out and comfort him. A bigger part of him knows that that would be a disaster because he hasn't even dealt with it himself yet, and he doesn't want to rope his only friends into his disaster life problems.
The practice goes well, all things considered. The problem is when it ends and Alex is supposed to go home. Usually, he rides his bike over, but he doesn't have his bike and the others see that, so Reggie and Luke offer him a ride home and Bobby offers to at least walk with him because his mom’s minivan is in the shop.
“No it's okay,” he says, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. He didn't think this far ahead, but living in the studio is going to have some problems. And even though his friends maybe aren't the smartest or most observant, they are going to notice something is up eventually if Alex doesn't think of something quickly. But he has been getting a lot of practice lying to his band that day, and so he hates how easy the new lie comes.
“I want to stay and work a little on the drums if that's okay. I’ll lock up when I’m done I promise,” he says, glancing around the room at his friends. They stare at him, all eventually nodding. They all know how much the drums mean to him, and they all know that Alex uses his drums as a way to escape some of his anxiety. Going under the math test ruse, he can play up the anxiety card pretty high.
“Hey, Alex,” Luke says, turning in the doorway to face him. The almost saddened look on Luke’s face makes Alex think that maybe he is busted. He doesn't know whether to be relieved or upset about it.
“I- yeah?” he asks, clearing his throat. Luke shrugs, eyeing him.
“If you ever need something, just let me know. You can always talk to me, to any of us,” Alex holds it together long enough for Luke to leave and click the door shut behind him before he breaks down. He had thought that he had cried out everything he had in him the night before, but obviously, he was wrong. He sits at his drums, his sticks still in his hands, crying for a long time. Long enough for the sun to begin dipping in the sky.
Then Alex begins to play. Tears blur his vision and he can barely see anything around him but he doesn't need to see his drums to play them. They are basically a part of him, an extension of his limbs in a way only another musician could understand.
He plays for hours until the sun is long set and his hands are numb from gripping his sticks. His tears are gone, and every single thought in his head is replaced by the pounding of his music. Every thought he has gets shattered by his stick as it slams against the drums. And it feels so good. For the time being, he finally feels like he might be okay.
A drumstick flies out of his hand, soaring up into the sky, hitting the rafter before coming back down and rattling against the floor of the studio. Alex just stares at it. He knows the session is ruined, and he won't be able to get back into the music anymore. So he gets up, leaving his drumstick abandoned on the floor. He walks over to the couch and collapses onto it. He grabs a pillow and hugs it to his chest, staring blankly up at the ceiling. He doesn't cry, but he also doesn't sleep. He doesn't think he even blinks but to be honest he isn't sure.
The next morning he pulls himself up off the couch at eight, feeling sluggish and dizzy. He hasn't eaten anything in over a day, and he hasn't slept either.
It takes him a moment to realize why he got up at eight. Today is Sunday. Church day. Usually, he would be getting up now, eating breakfast with his family, taking a shower, and getting ready for church. He would sit there for an hour, listening to his pastor ramble, and he would fantasize about his drums and his friends, and the cute altar boy. Then he and his family would socialize, which meant his parents would talk and talk, and his sister and he would goof off before they inevitably got yelled at by their parents. Then they would go out to eat, and he would come back to his house around noon, do homework, and chill. Those were how his Sundays always went. That will never be how he spends a Sunday ever again.
He feels a little weird, sitting back down on the couch. He doesn't have anywhere to be right now. He knows that his family is getting ready. He wonders if they miss him or if they are even thinking about him. He wonders if the sermon this Sunday is going to be about him. He knows that his mom would have already told her entire bible study and ergo the entire church by now about what he did and how awful and sinful he is.
He gets up for a second time. He takes another shower. Then he walks over to the mini-fridge Reggie found on the side of the road one day. Inside is mostly energy drinks and pop, but Alex finds some leftover pizza which he eats cold. He isn't really hungry, but he knows that he can't just not eat.
Once he's cleaned out the fridge, he sits back down on the couch. He doesn't have anything to do or anywhere to be. He knows he should probably try to sleep. He isn't really tired, but he also isn't full of energy. He kind of just feels numb, his mind and body still processing what all happened to him.
He ends up putting on some music, very softly and laying back down. He closes his eyes, shifting around some to get comfortable. He takes a deep breath. He sees the plate shattering on the wall behind him. He opens his eyes again. He groans, flopping over to his side. He closes his eyes. He sees his mother turn her back on him. He opens his eyes, rolling over to the other side. He closes his eyes. He sees the vein in his father's neck pulsing. He doesn't open his eyes this time. He falls asleep with tears on his cheeks.