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He really tried to control himself.
He really did.
There was no denying the tremor in his hands when he saw it in the corner of the room, staring at him. It was waiting for him to relax before it would strike. He could feel it looking at him.
As a living-dead virus, not much in the world scared him. If anything, nothing scared him. Nothing, except a particular creature with eight legs.
He had fought the living dead, Hunters, the mother of all things infected - Elizabeth Greene - and her many creations.
Spiders are where he drew the line.
"Dana." Alex said, trying to keep his voice level. "There's a spider."
Dana glanced over, disinterested.
"So?"
Alex didn't want to look away. The thing was huge, and the moment he'd take his eyes off of it, it would run and disappear. He knew it would.
"It's big."
"Good, it'll keep the other bugs away."
Alex saw it begin to crawl slowly up the wall. If it got to the ceiling, there was no way he was staying in the apartment. From above, it could land on him without him even knowing. Stealth attacking him.
"So you're going to leave it? To crawl around in here?" Alex asked and finally found the courage to turn away from it.
Dana was reading a news article on her phone, mouth full of cereal. She shrugged.
"I let you crawl around in here, don't I?"
Alex glared at her.
"I don't crawl ." He muttered.
There was no way he could stay in the same apartment as that thing. Maybe if it were smaller… maybe.
It was so unnatural how fast spiders were, how easily they hid disturbed him, their way of disguising was unnerving and the way they catch and eat their prey was… disgusting. And that's coming from a predator that consumed people.
The amount of times Alex had walked through a web was too many to count. He'd flail around, wiping at his jacket, his hood, his face for minutes on end and still feel like something was crawling on him.
One time there was, and he fell off a skyscraper in a state of panic when it had started swinging from his hood. The spider did not survive. Alex left a crater in the street and walked away unscathed. Shaken, but without a scratch.
So yes, Alex Mercer; terrorist, monster, killer was scared of spiders.
And the large black eight legged one was now one long leg away from the ceiling. Alex didn't turn away from it as he grabbed the nearest item he could reach and threw it. It turned out to be the very bowl of cereal Dana had been eating.
Milk and cereal flew across the apartment but the bowl hit the spider before shattering. The spider dropped, and Alex immediately went into fight or flight mode because shit where did it go?!
"What the fuck , Alex?!" Dana exclaimed. "You got milk on my rug. Do you know how hard it is to scrub milk out of a rug?!"
Alex shushed her, listening for any sign of movement. All he could hear was traffic from the streets and milk dripping from the ceiling.
" Shit , it's gone." Alex cursed and cautiously approached the scene.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" She asked.
Alex kicked fragments of the bowl away, his senses heightened. The moment that thing runs out, he'll crush it to dust.
He'd been so focused on listening for eight legs on wood that he didn't hear Dana approaching him until she practically shouted in his ear, waving her arms around.
"Hello? Earth to Alex?"
Alex finally took his eyes away from the floor.
"Sorry."
Dana stared at him with raised eyebrows and an interrogating aura.
"The… spider, it was going to…" Alex trailed off, gesturing to the ceiling.
"So your first thought is to throw a bowl of liquid at it?" Dana asked incredulously, "Just put it in a cup and throw it outside."
Alex crossed his arms and shrugged. That idea was not appealing to him in the slightest.
"You are so weird sometimes." Dana muttered and knelt down to start picking the pieces of broken china off the floor.
"Stop, I'll do it." Alex said and, hesitantly, knelt down beside her.
"Thanks. I'll get the broom. Just pick up the big pieces."
Dana stood and disappeared into the kitchen. If that thing ran out at him now, he was completely defenseless; on his knees, unprepared. He shuddered at the thought.
He managed to pick up the large pieces while Dana swept up the smaller fragments. The rug was sticky and wet and Dana gagged when she touched it.
" You are cleaning this." She said. "I'll get started on the ceiling."
He really didn't want to but he had no other choice. There was no way he was admitting to his little - kind of - sister that he, all powerful, indestructible, supposedly fearless Alex Mercer, was afraid of spiders.
"Fine." Alex sighed defeatedly.
Dana had gone to take a shower, leaving Alex alone to scrub at the rug. It was his fault after all, so he couldn't say no, but that didn't mean he enjoyed the task. His eyes were darting around him, tensing at every bit of movement he could see. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever been this on edge.
Well, there was the time Dana got abducted by the Hunter.
In thought, Alex scrubbed particularly hard and saw something fly out at him from under the TV stand. He flew backwards and kicked the bucket of soapy water, spilling it over the entire rug and floor.
It turned out to be a large dust bunny, and right at the moment with him on his ass, wide eyed and terrified with water everywhere , Dana came out of the bathroom.
"What the hell happened?!"
Dana immediately threw her towel onto the floor to soak up the excess water seeping through the floorboards. Her naked form was a shock enough for Alex to completely forget about the spider on the hunt for revenge.
" Jesus! " Alex covered his eyes with his hands. "What the fuck, Dana?"
"You've seen me naked before, get over it." She hissed, "Now go and get me another towel!"
Alex grimaced behind his covered eyes and stood, feeling his way to the bathroom and picking up a bundle of fabric, which he assumed were towels, and took them into the lounge.
He threw all of them apart from one onto the floor and handed one to Dana. She finally covered herself and looked at him expectantly with hands on her hips and raised brows.
"Do you want me to get evicted?"
Alex could only offer a shrug.
"What the hell has gotten into you? Are you sick?" She asked and placed a hand on his forehead.
Alex ducked out of her touch.
"No, it was just an accident." He lied.
Dana didn't look convinced but thankfully didn't say anything else about it.
"If Mr. Reynolds comes up here and complains, you can answer the door." She said finally and headed to her room to, hopefully, get dressed.
"Gladly." Alex muttered. He was feeling hungry, and Mr. Reynolds pissed him off.
His body was still trembling with a mixture of fear and anxiety. He didn't even know he could feel these things until he came face to face with a spider. The adrenaline currently coursing through him was nothing unusual but combined with this… fear …
He was a wreck.
He'd combed through his memories, trying to decipher where this fear had come from. If it wasn't Alex Mercer he got his fear from, it must have been someone he consumed.
A lot of people, if not most, had a dislike for the creatures but not to the extent he felt. This was a phobia.
He didn't even think he could take on other people's phobias. He couldn't. It wasn't possible because he would have a lot more if it was. He knows he'd consumed someone with a phobia of rats at some point and he'd come across plenty of them with no issue.
Not to mention the amount of people with a fear of the dark, and he basically lived in the shadows. It wasn't due to consumption.
He didn't know what it was, what caused it or why but then again, he was used to that given his situation.
Alex was on edge.
That was an understatement, actually.
He hadn't seen the spider for a few days, and he had spent most of his time watching that one area of the lounge for it to crawl out.
Dana wanted to watch a horror movie at one point and Alex couldn't get himself to relax on the couch. His thoughts wandered back to that thing crawling up the side of the couch and onto him or crawling up his leg. He had sat there, fidgeting and jumping at every shadow that flickered in the room. Dana insisted on having the lights off, which was fantastic.
Dana assumed it was the movie causing his reaction. He let her think that for the sake of not explaining everything.
It was the not knowing that made it worse. Where was it? When was it going to appear? What the fuck was he going to do if he was alone when it happened?
It was biding its time, waiting to strike. Alex had convinced himself that it could somehow sense fear and was testing him. He swore he could see a hairy little leg poking out from underneath the table every so often.
Dana had noticed him staring and assumed he felt bad about the rug. He did, but not nearly as terrified about what caused him to ruin the rug in the first place. She reassured him multiple times, saying she didn't really like that old rug anyway and she was waiting to get a new one at some point.
She did order a new one, and when it arrived, she expected Alex to roll the old one up and dispose of it.
Of course he couldn't say no, he said to himself the hundredth time, it's his fault she needed a new one.
Dana patted the new rug that was rolled up next to the front door.
"Come on, the sooner we get this out, the sooner you can go and do… whatever it is you like to do. Eat people, I guess."
Alex rolled his eyes and pushed the couch backwards with one hand, using a tendril to move the table. He crouched down cautiously, slowly pulling the old rug out and rolling it up.
Nothing crawled out from under the furniture and for the first time in three days, he felt calm.
It was stupid of him to let his guard down.
Suddenly, a large black shape was running towards him and he lost all control.
Alex cursed loudly, jumped back, flipped over the table and landed on the couch within a split second. Tendrils erupted from him and began throwing couch cushions at the floor. When the cushions were scattered around the apartment and the thing was still alive and running towards him , he reached for the TV remote.
" Stop! Jesus Christ!" Dana shouted.
Alex froze, remote in his hand. Dana calmly walked forward and picked the spider up in her hands. Alex stared on in horror. He couldn't even begin to imagine what that would feel like. He watched Dana throw the spider out of the open window and wipe her palms on her jeans. She glanced around the apartment at the mess before she turned back to him, hands on her hips.
"Well, that was something." She commented.
Alex placed the remote back on the table and stepped off the couch, his tendrils returning. He was grateful the time had finally come for that creepy thing to emerge; he just wished he'd have handled it slightly better than that.
"So that's why you've been acting weird." Dana sighed, "Jesus, just admit you're scared of spiders."
"I'm not-" Alex began but Dana raised an eyebrow, cutting him off. "Fine. Yes. They're… unpleasant."
"Alex has always been scared of them." Dana said matter-of-factly.
"Wait, what?" Alex asked.
"Yeah, he never admitted it but I could tell, and I could tell with you, and you still wouldn't admit it. I think you're forgetting that you're still my brother. I know when you're scared." Dana replied.
"I can't remember…" Alex trailed off, really trying to uncover any memory in his mind.
"He repressed it, probably, or something. I don't know." Dana shook her head. "When we were kids, I always made sure there weren't any spiders around so he wouldn't freak out. Mom would freak out about them. I think it rubbed off on him… on you."
Alex looked over Dana's expression. She was smiling, reminiscing in memories of them as children. He knew those memories, maybe not the exact ones, but he could see them laughing together, play-fighting, watching horror movies.
"I didn't think he… you'd still be scared of them, that's all." Dana chuckled and held out her hand. "I'll make you a deal, you protect me from all that infected shit and I'll protect you from the spiders."
Alex looked down at her open palm.
"Deal." He replied and shook her hand, the corners of his lips turning upwards.
Dana tightened her grip on his hand.
"Now pick all this shit up." She smirked.
Alex nodded with a sigh and returned all the cushions to the couch, replaced the rug and threw the old one out. Even though Dana had suggested leaving the soiled rug out to dry, it was still damp when Alex slung it over his shoulder. It felt awful .
Dana was sitting on the couch with a blanket around her when he returned to the apartment. She insisted on watching a movie but ended up deciding on a documentary about dirt. Alex wasn't really listening or watching. One thing did pop into his head though as he watched a filthy apartment get uncovered.
Hopefully, Dana will protect him from cockroaches too. Those he can remember being scared of.