abstracts | ghost of a chance.

"That's..." He thinks to deny it, to say he would never think of such a thing. Instead, Neil releases a shuddering breath. "I guess I'm a shit son if I look like that."

A pause. There's a soft look to his eyes. "I am glad, though, that he's alive."

Alex's mouth twists slightly, and he reaches to touch Neil's shoulder. "I didn't mean it like that, kid. He's... uh. A hard guy to deal with, it seems."

Look how nice Alex is being.

"And at least you know now. He's healthy and... busy, so he's probably happy or something."

A hard guy, huh? "It's funny," replies Neil. "When I was a kid, I thought my dad was easy to talk to. Uh, although--" He coughs, appearing extremely uncomfortable. "Sorry he was implying that your work wasn't important. He's hyper-focused on that project."

He slowly puts his hand over Alex's.

Edited 2016-06-21 05:43 (UTC)

Alex softens at the words, further at the touch. He turns his hand to take Neil's, then pulls it to his mouth to kiss. "Sorry, kid," he says quietly. "This can't be easy for you."

The gesture calms him, pulling him away from fathers, projects, and words. Neil muses on the why. Wonders how Alex has become that sort of existence.

"It's fine," he says quietly. "I'll be okay. Besides, we're finally here. In my recently robbed Crap Shack." A smirk tugs at his lips.

"Such an impressive place," Alex drawls sarcastically. "Though I guess it has a... rustic charm."

He frowns, as if noting a problem. "Definitely needs to be christened, though."

"If by 'rustic', you mean rusted completely through," Neil responds, bringing out the full smirk.

He notes the frown and tips his head. "Christened?"

Charming. So charming. And it's not the Crap Shack. Alex reaches out to twine his hands around Neil's back, tugging him into Alex.

"Christened," he says, with a familiar look.

Neil has to be trapped against Alex, his arms surrounding the younger man, before comprehension hits. Before something in him decides to allow the steps taken.

"Then what are you waiting for?" Neil asks lightly.

...With Alex pressed against him when Neil speaks, Neil should be able to tell the full affect of his words. Alex's eyes darken, and he leans his head down to take Neil's lips.

There is no mistake where these steps are taking them. Alex ducks his head to meet lips with like, and Neil inhales at the sensation, the pressure against him. In one of those rare moments, the man does not resist. Does not raise a fuss. Instead, he simply allows everything, as if passively enjoying the moment.

This is rare--Neil against him, reciprocating without a fight. For a moment, Alex thinks Neil might be more upset than he seems-- Then Alex just accepts it, taking joy and pleasure in the act without reading into it. He shifts Neil's arms to his shoulders, pulling them closer together.

He deepens the kiss, tongue teasing Neil's mouth, and it's strange, Alex thinks. Because he thinks he hears a lock turning.

The door opens to James' only son pressed shamefully close to the man James had just met--the man's hands on Neil and their lips locked--

Disgusted and overwhelmingly repulsed, James barks out, "Neil!"

Edited 2016-06-21 06:22 (UTC)

His arms slip onto the other man's shoulders easily, and he murmurs a content sound. It's so strange. Somewhere, Neil thinks--

Like a nightmare rising out of an otherwise delightful dream, like a knife cutting through living flesh, a new voice tears through the air. In utter shock, Neil pulls his head away from Alex to stare, wide-eyed, at the intruder. At the person, Neil understands in an instant, who likely is responsible for the property damage around them.

"Dad?!"

There is a part of him, removed from the situation, that can see where this is going. Both in the current, perfectly ruined moment, and some place unknown down the line. This is the start, he thinks, something in his broken brain. This start of some kind of ending.

At the moment, though, he is not removed, and nowhere near the place of distance he should be in this kind of situation--well-known and unwanted. Neil radiates shock but has not pulled away. Alex doesn't think Neil understands.

But that tone. Alex knows that tone well.

He drops his arms from Neil, takes a step away and forward, face shuttering closed. Words hover at the edge of his tongue, but-- Maybe he's wrong. Maybe this is different from what he thinks. Maybe--

Maybe this is none of his business, like the kid keeps telling him.

It does not matter that the act stops, that the stranger creates distance between James' son and himself. The act happened and James saw it--and it must have happened before, times uncounted, and God knows what else. The man feels ill. There are a thousand ways he could go about this, to make Neil understand that this is not the proper way-- But he can't think. Of all things, this is what he didn't expect.

"How could you do this?" To me, he thinks, but the statement has started a deluge. "You come back after vanishing for so long, and this is how you behave? I knew that living in the Wastes would ruin you, Neil. That wasn't what I wanted for you. This--" He waves a hand at Alex, dismissive, not acknowledging the tall man stiffening. "--isn't right, son. It's entirely--"

Wrong. Abominable. Unclean. Let him detail the reasons. But first he will just try to convince him. Use whatever he can.

"...Your mother would be so disappointed in you."

This is, by far, without a doubt, the ninth worst thing to happen to Neil. The fact that it's the ninth says a shit ton about his life, doesn't it? Alex breaks contact, and Neil's dark eyes follow automatically, to find a closed expression and silence. It hits him, then. Slams him with the force of a sledgehammer that this might not be as simple as the ninth worst thing in life. He glances back over to his father, his brain trying his best to keep everything together.

James waves at Alex, and Neil can practically feel the reaction.

"Dad," he says quietly.

His father continues with no end. Neil calls again, his tone firm, in an attempt to grab attention. "Dad." Please just stop for a damn minute and pay attention to him, for god's sake.

Except--

Your mother would be so disappointed in you.

Except Dad says the magic words, and everything rots away. Falls away into the background, leaving static on the line and a stone in his belly. Neil inhales sharply, eyes and ears unable to comprehend the scene, unable to grasp the idea that his dead mother would give a flying fuck about her adult son's behavior. That his father is hiding behind a dead woman's existence to convey-- Convey what, exactly?

Neil doesn't want to fucking know.

"Dad," he says, his voice subdued, as if taking pains to cover the destruction occurring beneath the surface. "You have the key to my place." A statement, not a question. "I need that back."

Edited 2016-06-26 01:48 (UTC)

As the tirade continues, Alex wonders if he should leave. Walk out and break himself from this fucked up moment, because he's not going to stand and endure abuse from a dick he doesn't even know and only disapproves of, and there's the whole My family isn't your business that Neil throws in his face whenever Alex makes a smart comment on Neil's father--comments, he would defend, that seem highly accurate at a glance. Yeah, it would probably be best, he thinks. To step around this drama and step out.

Except it continues, over Neil's faulty interruptions and the man's condescending tone. And just as Alex had decided to walk out, the man says something that makes Alex start, do a double-take at the gray-haired man in a scientist coat. Did he actually just... use Neil's mom as a fucking excuse? The mom that Neil had such guilt over, that he had drunkenly told him, that day in Novak, that he believed he killed? And this asshole was just going to throw that like a gauntlet between them?

Something jerks in Alex's brain, something primal and angry, and he thinks to step forward, take some kind of action--

"You have the key to my place. I need that back."

A tone of breaking, of swallowing shit down. Alex reformats, rethinks. Neil's wrong. Such a dumb, wrong kid. It's Alex's business. It's always been his business. Because there's no way he's going to leave Neil alone with this bullshit. No way he's just going to walk out on him through this.

At thigh level, Alex puts a hand out, palm back, as he steps forward, a clear stop/stay motion. Calm to the point of cold, Alex walks forward, stopping within an arm's length of James. At this distance, it would be clearer than it had outside, on the slanted pathway. Alex's height and size. The breadth of his shoulder and the well-built style of his body. The weapons showing over his back and at his sides. The frozen, unamused set to his mouth.

Alex moves, his arm reaching out. He turns his hand palm up, waiting.

Of all reactions, this is not the one he expected. His child should be listening to him, apologizing, vowing to never move in such a way again-- Instead, Neil is nearly dismissing him, requesting an item instead of giving an apology. To add to that, the man in Neil's house, moves forward, attempting some kind of intimidation tactic. As if that would work. James had never caved under pressure. Autumn alone was proof of that.

"This doesn't concern you," he says to the man coolly. "I'm speaking to my son." The son in which he directs his next words. "If you think I'm going to return the key, you'll be disappointed. I've been using this place as a backup supply of parts. It's not as if you were here to claim them."

A directed look, filled with disapproval and a strange mingled regret. "You never should have left. You wouldn't have become... this."

The word is thick, filled with something toxic, poisonous. James cannot breathe in this house, in this place where God knows what had occurred. It's tainted now. Wrong. Enough that he turns to leave. "I'm not talking to you with your...'friend' here. You know where to find me. I expect your apology in full when you return. Then we'll discuss things."

Alex moves first, hand out and stretched to his full height. An intimidation tactic, Neil knows, and to any other, it would work. It would fucking work. Except Dr. James Park is Neil's father, and there is nothing--not Alex, not Autumn, not his own fucking son--that will sway him from this insanity.

His chest tightens, his mouth dries, and yet, Neil does nothing. He continues watching in silence, his eyes hollowed out. Watches as his father dismisses his lover, throws Neil's request to the wayside, before storming out of the house, his word carrying something like a threat.

Neil gives a shuddered exhale and turns slowly toward the kitchenette, away from the damn exit.

The air is thick, Alex thinks. Ruined with tension and pain and something now turned sour. The man leaves and nothing in Alex Seattle Geer thinks to follow him. Neil turns to move away, and Alex steps toward him instantly. Steps to him and touches his shoulder. Reaches for him if Neil wants it.

The air is thick, and Neil's choking, his consciousness scrambling to hold onto something. Anything.

Therefore, when Alex offers an outlet, Neil steps toward it. Doesn't think about it as he leans his head against the other man's shoulder, his breaths coming out in harsh spurts. There is something to do, he knows, but right now, he needs to catch onto something stable.

And Alex happens to fit stability at the moment.

He expects Neil to reject him. To push away the offer and keep to himself, but the kid surprises him, and hey, maybe Alex should have expected that instead. When shown the kid's dad, even Alex would be a better fucking option.

But see, Alex expects Neil to end off going with the guy. He's waiting for it to start, the you know, I really should go help my dad--should listen to him, and all the bullshit he spews.

That's not right now though. The kid holds onto him and lays his head on Alex's shoulder, and Alex brings his arms to wrap around Neil tight, holding him securely against his chest. "That was bs," he finds himself saying, quiet and heated and emotional. "That was crossing a fucking line." You didn't--

"You don't deserve that."

"I do."

Neil talks, his voice breaking, his body wrapped tightly in Alex's embrace. Those lacking perception might think Neil refers to the topic at hand, but another might understand. He may not deserve the comment itself. He may, however, deserve the abuse the comment brings.

Ah, that may require clarification, no?

"Wife's dead because of me. Of course, he thinks I deserve it."

Anger sweeps over him, followed by something close to sorrow. He squeezes Neil harder. "No, you don't. This is--"

Your dad's a fucking asshole. Nothing he says is valid. This is bullshit you should just set aside. It'd be easier if the man was dead. Alex would say those things and care little to none. But the guy is alive and actively in Neil's face, and Alex isn't going to alienate the kid further by making him feel alone with Alex getting pissed off and talking shit about his dad.

He makes a frustrated sound in his throat. "I fucking love you," he forces out through a tightened throat. "And I know you. You are worth so much more than all of this crap. You shouldn't have to deal with it."

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