drmcsexy | For thenewnormal, post 1x13

For thenewnormal, post 1x13 - Spoilers

By the time Kyle took a moment to truly breathe and thing about what's happened, he is back at the hospital. Hours earlier he had been shot. Yeah, he's standing there, mostly fine, but he had been shot. His shooter is lying in a bed in a coma, Dr Valenti listed as his physician to be contacted immediately about any changes to his condition, and for now, it's over.

Except it isn't. Not at all. And everything is still madness around them, and Liz and Max and all of them are dealing with so much, he realizes that he has to make a call. One that maybe he should have made sooner, as soon as he realized that he was maybe being followed, but if he does nothing else before maybe deciding to drink himself into a matching coma, Alex needs to know about his dad.

Ignoring how cold his hands feel as he hits the buttons to dial Alex, ignoring how the entire world feels kind of distant from him, from what he's going through, moving down the hall from Jesse's room to try and get some privacy as he puts the phone to his ear, praying Alex is okay and that he will answer the phone. That he even can.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

Alex checked his watch for what felt like the tenth time that morning. Or...it probably qualified as afternoon by now. He wasn't sure whether he should be worried for Michael because something had clearly been wrong or upset that he had apparently forgotten that he was supposed to meet so they could talk. He knew he wasn't a part of whatever was going on with them, but it was the first time he'd wished he was.

Hope filled him when his cell phone went off and his heart clenched a little when he saw the name. Kyle could be calling him for any number of reasons, but he couldn't help but consider that Kyle was a doctor.

"Is everyone all right?" were his first words after answering the call. He didn't even know if Max or Isobel knew that he knew. They might not give him a straight answer if he went up to them and asked what had happened last night. They might not, but Kyle would. If he knew. Alex's frame of reference began and ended with his father and the little information Michael had given him before Alex had walked away again. Kyle had been the one working on a cure with Liz and directly treating Isobel.

Glancing back, making sure no one was coming up behind him and might hear this talk. She knows that eventually someone was going to contact the family, and maybe someone would even call Alex, but he needs him to hear the truth.

Wincing at that tone, the question that comes with it, and still trying to find his words on this. And then speaking before he truly thinks.

"As far as I know, everyone you care about," he says, figuring that isn't lying. "Listen. We need to talk in person about this," he says. "But Jesse Manes is now a patient under my care. He's in a coma," he says, not sure how Alex is going to handle this but needing him to know two things. That Jesse was back, and that Kyle has him detained in one way or another. "Where are you? I can meet you somewhere."

Alex took a deep breath. His father. Back in town. He felt more out of the loop now than ever and he was tired of it. He glanced around and thought about leaving Michael a note, but figured that if he’d cared about talking to Alex, he would have sent a text. Called. Or maybe actually showed up.

“I’m at the junkyard. But I guess there’s no point in staying here. Why don’t we meet at the bunker? Unless this is a conversation that requires a noon beer.”

Because he didn’t know how or why his father would be in a coma. But he didn’t think he was going to like whatever answer that Kyle had to give him.

"You're at... if I'm interrupting anything, I can get somewhere and just do this on the phone," he offers, and maybe it shows he's learned a little, willing to try and be considerate. And not give him shit. Not that Alex sounds as if it's all okay but again, that might be an in person talk.

"Let's start with the bunker, but that beer may be needed," he admits, sounding about as worn as he feels. "I know it's not just for me but it's been one helluva night," he says, assuming Alex knows more about what's gone down, just the bits of it that Kyle knows, if nothing else.

"But yeah. Heading for the bunker, and if you can get away from things, I'll give you all the details. And then maybe get that beer after." He really didn't want to do this in public, that was for damn sure.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” Alex said with a sigh. He wished that Kyle were. He stood up, heading for his car. He took a last glance back at the trailer and then got in and went to the bunker.

He thought about what little he’d seen from Michael last night. After working through a few loose ends from things they’d found yesterday, he’d headed over to Michael’s trailer to see how he was doing. When he wasn’t there, he’d let himself in, figuring Michael had gone to talk to Max or Isobel and would be back sooner or later.

Instead, when he’d come in, he’d seemed almost desperate. There’d been all that blood that Michael had said wasn’t his. And then he’d been even more desperate to get out. Not away from Alex, it seemed, but almost as if he’d received a phone call and had to go. He rubbed at his eyes and hit the accelerator. Maybe Kyle would have answers.

Kyle frowns, glancing at his phone but then figuring that he is better off asking him in person than trying to do this over the phone. "Okay. See you then."

The bunker is becoming like a second home to him, which given all his time at the hospital he really isn't actually seeing his home. Instead he's here, trying to go through these files as if he's going to find something that could help. He's not even sure help with what but he's trying.

Now though he knows. He needs to find what they can use against Jesse Manes.

Nothing has been cleaned up from earlier, including Manes' gun on the table, where Kyle is sitting, staring at it, his new vest with the hole in the covering laying next to it.

Alex looked like hell. Part of it was that he hadn’t actually slept last night and part of it was that he was worried about Michael, even though Kyle had said that no one he cared about was hurt. A lot of his trust in that would depend on whether he knew if Michael could be hurt or not.

He froze when he walked inside. He looked like hell, but Kyle looked worse. And then he noticed the gun and the vest.

“What happened?” he asked, quickly looking Kyle over for signs he was hurt. Had Kyle actually shot his father? He probably should have been upset if the answer were yes, but he found himself almost hoping he was out of the picture permanently.

"I'm fine. Physically." Which is the truth. He is fine that way. He won't promise that he's okay in any other way. Not yet. Not for a while.

He sighs, poking his finger at the vest. "I noticed... I got paranoid,' he admits, looking away, not sure he can meet Alex's gaze during this. "I knew he was following me. I knew. And I went to buy a gun," he says, unable to keep looking away, but his gaze doesn't settle on Alex, not as he talks. "I didn't want to die, but... I didn't become a doctor to hurt people."

He's done enough of that in his life. He's seen what it can do and he couldn't.

"He came here. He shot me." With that he pokes his finger in the hole in the vest. The cover was torn but not the kevlar. "Okay I guess I'm not entirely fine," he says, moving to tug his shirt down, showing where it's starting to bruise.

He can't look away then, meeting Alex's gaze. "You're the only one that will know this. I injected him with a very large dose of barbiturates. I induced a coma and then admitted him as my patient. I couldn't kill him, but I couldn't leave him out there killing whoever he sees as a threat. Bad enough Liz was stabbed tonight by Noah and I still don't know what is happening with Isobel and Max. Liz went looking for them."

Alex closed his eyes. At least he could sort of explain Michael and the others keeping him out of what was going on last night. Michael had told him what was going on with him; he hadn’t shared the details with what was going on with the rest of them. And maybe he would have, but Alex had walked away after finding that console.

But Kyle and Cameron had been the ones to fill him in on current events. Hell, he’d been there when Kyle had found out who was really responsible for his dad’s death and it was that truth that had shaken a few things clear in him.

He rubbed at his eyes and then snapped them open when Kyle said that his father had actually shot Kyle. He was moving before he knew it, reaching over and pressing his hand against the bruise. “You didn’t break anything, did you?” Alex had worn enough of those vests to know that they usually stopped what they needed to, but you might have to suffer a bruised or even broken rib depending.

But then Kyle continued, talking about Noah and how Liz had been stabbed and Alex couldn’t help but notice the one name missing in that disturbing tableau. He stopped pressing against Kyle’s chest and asked quietly, “Michael was supposed to meet me this morning. You haven’t heard from him, have you?”

Maybe he should have been more upset by that, but he’d been okay with his father actually being shot. That Kyle had found a way to stop him while still keeping that part of his soul? It seemed like Kyle was doing better than Alex was in terms of his father.

He knows he should have told Alex sooner but it felt... wrong. Twisted even. Knowing your father is an evil wannabe mastermind and your former friend turned maybe friend again telling you he's got his hackles up he might be stalking him is not the same thing. Now though he has no choice, and he needs him to know what's going on. At least what Kyle knows.

Though he expects Alex's concern, that touch catches him off guard. Not movie, barely even breathing though, if he's honest, he's been kind of shallow and short on the breathing thing since his panic attack at the gun shop.

"I... I don't think so. Honestly? Kind of just ignored the pain and figured nothing was punctured and I had too much to worry about instead," he admits, offering a kind of crooked, hollow smile and a shrug. "He really just... guess I should be lucky he doesn't believe in head shots," he says with laugh that matches that smile. Shock and panic are lovely things though.

"I went to buy a gun, Alex. I... You would not even believe that he was just going to give me one. No identification even and..." Part of what bothered him so much was that. It shouldn't have been that easy. It never should be that easy to kill another human being, or in the case of their life. Any being.

He shakes his head, frowning heavily at that, looking down again. Jesus Christ. He couldn't imagine the state Alex would be in if something happened to Guerin.

"I've only seen Liz. Noah jumped her at the diner, and luckily missed anything vital. She had me come do some really fun mending using her mother's sewing kit and a bottle. For her, not me," he says, though right now the way his hands are balled up, still in his lap, they may be shaking as well. He's trying hard to hold it all together though. He'd done what he had to. That's what matters. "She wouldn't go to the hospital. Said it was so they wouldn't ask questions about how but..." But he knew better. He knew why she wouldn't go, and that was only part of the reason he did what he did for her.

"Do you want to go look for him? See if we can find any of them?"

“I’m active military in the state of New Mexico,” Alex replied dryly. “Of course I’d believe.” He continued pressing at Kyle’s chest. “Things don’t have to just be punctured to be a problem, Kyle. You might not be familiar with these kinds of wounds, but bruised or broken bones can be a part of it.” Depending on the caliber of the weapon. And yes, he was very lucky that his father had decided not to go for the head shot.

A part of him very much wanted to hurt his father more than he had the day Alex had broke in here. He’d killed Jim Valenti. Maybe his hadn’t been the hands who’d given the former Sheriff the tumor, but could you really blame the person who’d done it? He’d spent decades in captivity having god knew what happen to them and how was he supposed to know that Valenti was one of the good guys? And now his father had tried to kill Kyle.

“If he’s working for Dad, it’s possible that Flint will still be out there.” He wanted to believe that his brother wasn’t completely irredeemable. He’d warned them to get out, after all. Not that it hadn’t been obvious pretty quickly, but he could have done so much worse. His dad, well, his dad would have left at least two of them in there and he wasn’t so sure he was safe anymore. “And who knows how many more of my brothers.”

He let Kyle go once he was satisfied that he probably didn’t have anything major wrong with him. He wasn’t screaming in pain, although he’d have a nice bruise for his trouble. Instead, he leaned back against the table and tried to take all of this in. He wanted to help. He needed to help because he was apparently as much in this as anyone. Maybe he was veering from the path his father had set out from him, but he was still cleaning up his father’s messes. Still felt responsible for helping to stop him. And it’d been his father who’d cleaned up after every murder Noah had committed without doing the due diligence to figure out who was responsible. The one person he might have been justified to keep a prisoner and he hid the evidence that might have helped catch him.

And Michael. God, he didn’t want to think about the blood he’d seen on Michael. He’d said it wasn’t his. Had it been Liz? Had he been trying to help her before running off in the same kind of frenzy he’d run from Alex?

So his answer to Kyle was yes. Yes, he did want to go track Michael down and make sure he was okay. But he already had a friend to worry about first and he could only deal with one thing at a time.

He shifted again and leaned forward enough to put a hand on Kyle’s shoulder.

“How are you doing with all of this? It’s been a pretty crazy 24 hours.” This time yesterday, they’d been planning on going out to look at some anomalous heat signatures, never knowing that what they found would change everything.

"Wait, what? There's a half dozen ways your ribs could be injured that can leave you needing more in depth medical care?" He looks up at Alex with wide eyes, blinking at him innocently. "Shit, my medical degree left that off," he says, smiling at him. For a moment, the briefest of touches, he lifts his hand and touches the back of Alex's hand where it rests on his chest. "I'll have them take x-rays later, but I was too busy dealing with Jesse, and ... Shit, how has it even only been a day."

Saying it like that, making himself think about the fact that so much of his life has gone entirely upside down in a day and he's not sure how to handle it, except to keep pushing through and do what has to be done.

"Guess it's a good thing my only full time patient right now is in a coma," he says, realizing as he felt his hand against Alex's that maybe he isn't handling things as well as he things. Showing it by holding his hand out, noticing the tremor through his hand that belied more than his words or tone did.

Folding his hand back into a fist, dropping it to his lap as if that hides it all.

"I should be asking you that," he says, deflecting as best he can as he sits up in his seat more, fixing Alex with a serious look, arching a brow. "If you need to go look for anyone, try and find them, I understand that. Okay? It was good of you to come hear this face to face," he says, trying to pull together a semblance of the man he had been a couple of weeks before. Hell, even forty-eight hours before. Before Liz had told him about aliens, and before he'd had to cope with a patient that drank acetone for pain, and had killed a friend of theirs and yet hadn't been responsible.

Forty-eight hours ago when he hadn't known about aliens kept as test rats, killed because of their attempts to rescue them, or had witnessed the video of his father's murder. When he hadn't sewn up his ex-girlfriend who he'd just been trying to rebond with as friends. When he hadn't been shot, an intended murder victim. When life had been normal. Except, he knows, this is his normal now. There is now going back.

He shifts though without thinking towards Alex, towards that touch. Much as they had fought in high school, when Kyle had been a miserable asshole to Alex, there had been a time when they had been close, when if he'd been asked to name his best friend, he would have said Alex Manes, and part of him has never forgotten that.

Leave it to Kyle to actually give Alex a little bit of a chuckle during all of this. At least an internal chuckle. Outwardly, he merely shook his head at Kyle’s comment. “You doctor, me soldier,” he reminded Kyle. “I’m the one who’s actually been hit through a vest, so I know what’s likely to happen. Somehow I don’t think you get a lot of flak vest injuries in the sleepy town of Roswell. At least I hope not.” Sure, there were always those kids dumb enough to play with guns in the middle of the desert, but those were actual bullet wounds.

“You told me my father was in a coma under your care,” Alex reminded him. “When yesterday we blew up one of his research facilities.” Not intentionally, never intentionally when there’d been that many people there. But they’d blown it up nonetheless. “There was no way I wasn’t coming to find out what happened.”

He took a breath. “I should. If only because there was blood on Michael’s shirt the last time I saw him.” He took one of Kyle’s hands in his. “But I don’t think you should be driving anywhere.” His hands were still shaky and that was no wonder. Kyle hadn’t been through any of the training or situations that Alex had. It wasn’t any wonder he wasn’t reacting well to any of this. He was having to learn very literally on the battlefield. He squeezed Kyle’s hand and let go.

“Why don’t you come with me? You can give Liz a call on the way and find out if she needs any more advanced care than she got when you were playing field medic.” And meanwhile, Alex would have to start contemplating whether they were going to need actual medical supplies on hand if no one was actually going to get proper medical care. His basement was only stocked for someone going through recovery and everything in it was years out of date.

"I know, Tarzan," he says, smiling though despite the mental exhaustion and the nerves that still felt frazzled and worn. "I would have to guess I'm our first," he says with a snort. "Though I'm kind of surprised I could even buy one. I mean... hell it cost me more than the gun would have," he admits, poking at it with a finger as if it's a living, poisonous thing even if it had saved his life.

"I should have... I couldn't think of a better way to say it,' he admits. "Eventually they'll contact the rest of the family, and I needed you to know what happened." He sighs, rubbing at his temple, realizing he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, the last thing he'd had to drink. It felt like a year since he'd pulled up at the junkyard to meet up with Alex and Guerin.

He shifts, looking away again. "I keep thinking about all of those people," he says. Not aliens. Not different. People. They had been people. "And how we got them..." He shakes his head, knowing if he goes down this road he'll never stop, the facade will crack and he isn't sure he'll be able to stop from breaking if he let's the cracks start to grow.

His hand still shakes against Alex's but he's thankful for that secure anchor in that moment, his fingers curling against Alex's. "If... if this is my life now, I really need to think about redoing my guest room," he murmurs, almost tracking the same place Alex's thoughts are when he mentions calling Liz. "I get in trouble with admin sometimes because we get these patients in the emergency room, right?" He looks at Alex, almost smiling as he talks about this. "And they'll start to get cagey about insurance and all, so I go out and talk to them. Usually it's sick kids and I can't... I just can't think about what would happen if their parents got picked up, if these kids got sent to those camps," he says, expression hardening. "We have a sample closet and I'm forever raiding it for them, before they're registered and expecting to have insurance. My mom would have my ass if she knew," he says, smiling then though it's watery as his is gaze.

"I'd... I'd like to tag along,' he says, his hand still holding Alex's, more or less. "I need to get her on antibiotics if nothing else. So yeah, that's good. I need..." He looks around. "Maybe I shouldn't just stay here, entirely not watching that video of my dad."

Alex sucked in a shaky breath. Kyle hadn’t been there. He didn’t know what Alex knew about the people in the cells. Or at least about the person. Michael’s mother. And they, in their rush to find answers, had gotten her killed. He nodded. “Yeah. Me too.” He didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget all the ways he’d failed Michael over the years and this was just the latest example. And his brother. His brother hadn’t even seemed to care.

So close to those kind of thoughts, the smile he shot Kyle when he was talking about samples and lack of insurance was feeble, but it was there. “You’re a good guy, Kyle. After you got over your asshole phase.” And most of the time that dickishness had been pointed towards him. He might not have had much of a backbone back then, but he’d used most of it to stand up to Kyle.

“Yeah, no brooding over that. Especially when you have my dad in the hospital. But you know, if you give me ten minutes with one of the computers, I can make sure that I’m listed as having power of attorney. It won’t last forever, but it might hold off my brothers for a little while. Enough for us to regroup and figure out what else he might have in place.”

He squeezed Kyle’s hand before letting go. “Come on. Let’s go try to figure out what’s going on.”

All Kyle knew, and couldn't get out of his head, is that so many people died the day they decided to go there after being kept for so many decades. He couldn't get it out of his head, even if it's background noise sometimes to the sound of a gun in that small space, wondering how long he might flinch at loud sounds thinking about it. Kyle promised to save lives, and he's accepted a lot in trying to do that. He hadn't shot Jesse Manes, but he had been part of whatever happened in that prison. Even if he doesn't know what happened in those moments. He just keeps seeing faces. Even the one that had caused his dad's tumors, but not as the enemy. Not now.

"Yeah well, a lot changed after graduation." He'd left Roswell. He'd left behind the guys that had encouraged him at his worse. He'd left behind Alex, and those thoughts he had buried deep in his psyche so many years before. "I want to be this guy," he says, meaning it. In everything, and especially with Alex. Alex who was off limits and in love and so whatever all of that had been, it didn't matter.

"Do what you need to," he says with a nod. "Thankfully I'm the one they would consult on about his sudden coma without a cause, so I can push things back with a series of useless tests so no one will check his levels but me," he notes. "I just... I don't think I can keep him like that forever but we have time."

He nods as he says it, realizing his hand feels cold then, almost tingling and he forces himself to shake it off as he stands. "Let's go."

Alex led the way to his car, only hesitating once they were both inside and he’d started the engine. Just because he wanted to find Michael didn’t mean he’d know where to find him. There were two or three options he could think of before he’d start running out of places he knew Michael frequented. He’d tried the junkyard, where they’d planned to meet. There was Max or Isobel’s or there was the Wild Pony. It was still a little early for Maria to be open even to get things set up.

“I’m going to try Max and Isobel’s first,” he told Kyle. “Tell Liz that I think she’s an idiot for not going in to get proper care, but that I love her anyway and I’m glad she’s safe.”

He put the car into gear and headed toward Max’s. If they didn’t find Michael by the time they got around to the Wild Pony, Alex would at least ask Maria for a drink and the intervening distance would give him an excuse for why he’d decided to start day drinking. He hadn’t had to use an excuse to explain away any behavior yet, but if things kept going like they were, he was going to have to start and it was always a difficult proposition, lying to Maria.

"Hey, I am pretty damn proper care. In the right circumstances." Though he knows what Alex meant. Hell, he felt the same way, and it's killing him that he knows he isn't going to shy away from these things but run towards them. He's got a code now, he guesses, and he knows where it's leading him.

Settling in, Kyle got out his phone and started texting with Liz. "She's says she's not an idiot," he says between texts. "And that she loves you too." He pauses, texting more, considering the area around them while waiting. "Huh. She hasn't heard from Max since early this morning, like before dawn, and is heading out to look for him herself. She says she thinks Noah's dead though," he says, glancing at Alex. "Because she says she can't feel him anymore, and the handprint he left on her is gone."

He falls silent, considering that, not liking any of it. "She'd know if Max was gone, wouldn't she?"

Alex’s fist curled around the wheel and his knuckles briefly went white. There was so much that he didn’t know and he’d thought it was okay and he would learn in time, but it was affecting all the people he cared about now. Noah dead. A handprint that he hadn’t known Liz had had. He wanted to get angry but took a deep breath instead and reminded himself that Michael had promised they’d talk. Michael, who was nowhere to be found.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how it works.”

He took another breath and his grip on the wheel relaxed. “Let her know that we’re checking Max’s and Isobel’s. We’ll keep a lookout for Max if she keeps one for Michael.”

He considered that maybe what they needed to do was all sit down together and talk. They’d learned a lot when it had just been him, Kyle, and Cameron.

So much of this is so far over Kyle's pay grade and he's not sure how to handle most of this. He just knows that he's not backing down from this, not leaving any of them on their own to handle this. Not Alex or Liz, not the alien family they've known most of their lives. It's crazy and all of it leaves his head spinning half the time as he leads this kind of double life but both come down to the same thing. Saving lives.

"Got it," he murmurs softly, texting Liz... and then also sending out a couple of other texts as well. One to his mother, asking if she had picked up Guerin or seen Max that morning. Another was sent to a nurse he knows, checking with her about anyone brought in overnight fitting the description of any of those they were looking for.

"Okay, Liz says she'll let us know when she knows something." Not if. He doesn't buy if. Eventually she'll know something.

He glances sidelong at Alex, considering his profile for a long time. "It's going to be okay, you know."

Alex attempted a smile. If you’d have told him when he first came back to town that he’d actually be glad that Kyle was trying to look after him…okay, it might not have sounded as crazy to him as it could have. They’d been friends, once. But it would have still sounded a bit crazy. They hadn’t exactly ended things on the best note, not with him being the reason that Kyle and Liz broke up. Or at least that’s how the guy Kyle had been probably would have seen it.

“Yeah, Michael will be fine and you said Noah is gone and my father is in a holding pattern for the time being.” He took another deep breath. “The only ones likely to come after us at the moment are my brothers.” Because he was assuming that if one of them was working for his father, they all were. Keeping it in the family and everything. And he wasn’t at all bitter that his father had decided to keep this from him. Maybe he’d known that Alex never would have agreed with him.

He pulled up to Max’s and glanced at Kyle. “I’ll be right back.”

He did a brief sweep of the area, noting the glass and the blood. Something had gone down here and it was probably where they’d been holding Noah. He checked inside, but no one was home, so he headed back to the car.

“All right. Isobel’s next. And then we’ll see if Maria’s seen him.”

"I need to figure out what I'm doing about Jesse with the family," he points out, speaking softly. This is all so weird to him, and he has no idea what this means or what he should feel, but doing the right thing is what matters. The legal way, the way that his career and family has told him to do things, it doesn't work. It has to be about what's right and wrong, and he knows that line. "Flint knows not to trust me though, and even with you'll have power of attorney... Do we let them see him?"

He waits in the car, texting with Liz. Thinking about other things as well.

"I need your honest opinion, Alex." He's looking out the window, not looking at Alex. "Knowing what you know, and without me literally have what I would diagnosis as a panic attack, should I be armed when dealing with your brothers?"

He's military. He knows his siblings. Kyle trusts him to be honest with him.

"And I would just end up shooting myself is a legit answer."

Edited 2019-05-04 01:49 (UTC)

Alex groaned softly and started the car, heading them towards Isobel’s. “Tell Liz that there’s nobody at Max’s,” he said to give him time to stall. You’d think he’d have known his brothers, but when was the last time they’d all been together as a family? When had they ever been a family? He’d thought he’d known his father’s line before he crossed it with Michael. And then he thought he knew that line only to find out that there was pretty much nothing he wouldn’t do. He had no idea if that attitude was one his brothers had adopted or whether it was just another assignment to them. Flint didn’t seem to have cared that so many people had died.

“Call me. If you see any of my brothers, call me.” Maybe he should be telling Kyle to call Max, Michael, or Isabel, but these were his brothers. His family. If anyone was going to be dealing with them, making sure they couldn’t hurt anyone else, it was him. That said, he also didn’t want Kyle to be in the crossfire. They were starting to actually be friends again, good friends, like it had been before, and he wasn’t going to let his family screw up another relationship.

“And you probably would end up shooting yourself, so if you ever feel the need for lessons, let me know.” Especially if their lives continued in the path they seemed to be going down.

He nods, settling back in the car and giving her that depressing update that isn't likely to make her feel any better, but that's one thing that's true in all of this. Communication needs to happen, and not just between a couple of people. They're all in this together, and unless they work at keeping each other in the loop, they're going to all crash and burn.

"Your name's on the paperwork," he says with a nod. "You got it." Because while he'll hold his own and refuse them entry based on medical reasons, he also knows that at least one of them he can't trust to play nice, fair, or legally, and that's one too many out of three as it is.

"Kind of why I'm asking," he says softly, looking down at his phone though there's not been a message, just not looking at Alex. "It's stupid, I know, to even think about it. I realized that before, but..." But before he hadn't actually been shot and had only thought maybe the threat would be worth it. Now he knows it wouldn't be worth it just to threaten, and he'd been shot. Just because he isn't dead doesn't change that.

"I'm thinking later, after we find your errant would be boyfriend and his family, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I mean... I just feel I should have one," he says, speaking casually but he's just taken all of this in stride, more or less, and yet he's not sure any of it is healthy. Not to mention he's sure the moment he has a drink, and he's definitely going to have a drink, he's going to crack.

"If you'd rather, I'm sure we can find a few non-lethal methods you could use to defend yourself." There were always tasers for long distance and other ways to defend yourself in closer combat. After managing to bring down his brother, his confidence in that arena had pretty much skyrocketed. He'd been working on his physical therapy the last few months and now he'd tested himself in battle, so to speak.

"He's not my boyfriend," Alex added. He wasn't sure he wanted to live without Michael and Michael had promised him that they'd talk, but they were barely even friends, such as that went. He knew so little about Michael, although he'd learned a bit after he'd confronted Michael about being who and what he was.

"Look," he said, glancing over at Kyle. "I'm sorry Guerin was an ass to you yesterday. He doesn't get it." All he knew about Kyle and Alex was that Kyle had made Alex's life hell in high school. He didn't know the history behind that or even that they'd been friends once.

"Otherwise I'd suggest we all grab a couple of bottles and head out to the middle of nowhere somewhere."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject