abstracts | ghost of a chance.

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."

His bones crack as Alex squeezes him, and the sensation's pleasant. It's so fucking pleasant that Neil might cry.

He doesn't. Of course, he doesn't. Alex says he loves Neil, and Neil cannot process the affection. He's struggling through sorting out the emotions being confessed; maybe he should sort them out aloud. "I didn't do anything to you," he states simply, quietly.

"I didn't fuck over your plans. Fuck over your future." He breathes in Alex's scent and thinks of arid desert and dancing lights. His voice loses its emotion, becoming dead. "I didn't take away the love of your life. It's easy--"

A pause. "Easy to say I'm worth anything without that."

It's conflicting. His mind, his head, something in his chest--they all conflict and shift. There are a thousand, thousand things to do here.

Alex grabs Neil's shoulders, pulls him back away from him to stare. "It's not easy. People aren't inherently valuable based on what they don't do. People lack value by default--you earn that in each person's eyes, sure. You can fight that your value is greater to me than it is to him," Alex says, chin cocking toward the door the bastard came from. "And you'd probably be right. But you proved that value to me, and you've shown that in your other actions. You make choices that matter, and you've helped people. Hell, you've helped me, and you've fucking busted your ass trying to fix this shitty place. Just because one blind asshole can't see it does not mean you don't have value.

"Neil," he says, after a single breath. "If you're stuck on this guilt of yours, fine. But you have to remember one fact as well. You didn't ask to be brought into this world. You didn't decide to be born. They decided to have you, and you didn't get a choice in that. You aren't responsible for someone's death with an act that you didn't choose."

Right. I didn't make that choice. If I could've chosen, I--

The ending frightens Neil. Scares him right out of Alex's hold. He backpedals, eyes widening in panic, in realization, before he stops against one of his gutted machines. From the feel and the position, it was once his meteorological instrument.

The recognition brings a wave of apathy, an indifference that overwhelms all other emotions, until he is able to stand straight and look the other man in the eye. "This isn't something I'm ever able to make up for, right?" he asks flatly. The query's rhetorical, but one he can't help voicing. "Is it better to just give up on trying to make peace with my old man?"

Alex had been staring. Even if he hadn't, he knows the kid enough to read the flood of shifting emotions. Shock, fear, panic, realization... Then death, creeping into the downward spiral of apathy eating everything else. It all plays off of the emotions that had been riding in Alex since this shit all began, the anger and protectiveness and threat of loss. He closes his eyes; wishes for something like peace. It's not in this place. Not in this Wasteland.

Maybe not anywhere anymore.

When he opens his eyes, he moves, closing the distance between them until Neil is pressed against the machine behind him, and Alex reaches to move Neil's head upward, to kiss him with an absence of normal passion but an addition of something with further meaning. The act completed, Alex leaves his hand there, staring at Neil. "Find a different way," he states, distance in his voice. "Your father in caught in delusions--there's no halfway to meet. There's other ways to make him happy, if that's what you want. Really obvious ones."

There are moments between them, sometimes. Moments when Neil thinks they might understand each other more than he's willing to admit. And when Alex steps forward to take him by the lips, Neil wonders if this might be one of those moments.

A hand lingers on Alex's arm, and Neil doesn't know how it got there. He only stares back at the other. "What," he begins, "do you mean?"

Neil is touching him and the subject matter combined with the affection Alex has been waiting for all this time makes him feel like laughing. Screaming or crying, at least. He should step away. Talk about this with distance between him, but he can't. He fucking can't move away.

"He has a problem with me," Alex says calmly. Quietly. "Has a problem with you being with me. So get rid of the problem, Wanderer."

Something quiet starts scratching within the confines of his brain, and Neil-- There is a coldness forming in his belly, and somehow, Neil laughs. Chortles darkly.

"Yeah, no," he gives after a moment. "Dad doesn't get to dictate who I associate with and how. Not after Vault 101." After skipping out on Neil's life and endangering the dwellers, James does not get the privilege of providing input to his son's relationships. "I'm not getting rid of the problem because that isn't my problem. It's his shit to get over."

His issue to resolve.

It makes him smile, that response, but not for the reasons one might think. The expression is pained, older; something wounded. "You don't understand, kid. People like that--that react like that--they don't get over it. You and me... We're abnormal," he says lightly, a bad taste in his mouth and history written over his face. "People don't like that. People can and will do a shit ton more than just get pissed off over it."

String people up, hunt them down like animals, kill each and every people loved or affiliated with by the person in question: Alex has seen all of the bad ends. All of the reasons that most men who didn't love the fairer sex stayed quiet.

"He won't understand," he continues. "And he's not going to accept it. If you want a relationship with your dad, just... have us go our separate ways. You were going to break up with me in Novak, remember? So just stick to that."

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