st_x5_494 | Sock on the Door (For Peter)

Sock on the Door (For Peter)

It was sometime in the afternoon when Alec returned to the room. He hadn't been back since he came upon a sock on the door and so he spent the night with someone else. He had to give Peter props for the amount of times the kid was using the sock, but he was slightly surprised every time he'd come in, take one look at Peter, and just know nothing happened. Alec often wondered what the hell was wrong with Peter since it seemed like they were both willing to get busy with one another, but at least he was having sex and at the end of the day, that was wall that mattered.

When he pushed through the door, he called out a 'hey! I'm back." In case Peter cared, which Alec knew he would.

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"Sure." He shrugged. He knew pointing out you don't need to enjoy it though would probably make Peter upset. Despite being made for it and being good at it and it also being his first response when he got angry, Alec didn't want to fight.

"What the hell is Babylon 5 anyways?"

"It's a SciFi show. Like Star Wars except not." Explaining Babylon 5 would take him all day and while he was perfectly prepared to do so, that wasn't what he wanted to do here.

"Do you get what I'm saying, though?" Alec's sure really wasn't inspiring confidence.

"I get you like to help people and be useful. You're a good person." He knew the enthusiastic wasn't because Peter liked chaos - he knew people like that too.

Peter's shoulders sink a little.

"You don't get anything else?"

The shoulder sinking is noticed by Alec and he inwardly sighed. And lied. "And I like your name for me."

Peter's expression brightens at this admission.

"I thought Alectricity might be a good one," he says, "But you don't have lightning powers. I'll keep thinking on it in case I come up with something better."

Peter looks down and smiles lightly.

"I'm really glad we met, Alec. Even if you were a jerk about the vending machine."

He almost gave Peter shit for the who 'Alectricity' thing, but then he was smiling and it made Alec pause.

"Yeah, well. The vending machine's back to normal." Even after the day Alec beat the shit out of it in rage. "But you're not so bad either."

"The vending machine is only back to normal because of the inn," Peter says. "In the real world it'd be in a junkyard somewhere."

A beat.

"Were you mad about something else that day? Or was it really just the machine?"

"...the first time?" Maybe he should feel weird about needing to clarify, but he doesn't. "I was hungry. I wanted some chocolate."

"That was it?" Peter asks, brows furrowed. "I thought you had to be angry about something else."

Only you, Peter, were able to make Alec so angry he'd punch an inanimate object.

"Yeah, why? Not everything I do is out of rage, you know." Just... a lot of it?

"People don't usually punch things when they're not angry," Peter counters. "I'm sure the person who wrecked the vending machine a few weeks ago wasn't happy either."

"That was different." Somehow he was defensive about this. "The first time I broke the glass. it was a clean hit. The second time I needed to punch something over and over again so I went on the metal."

See, Peter? Difference.

"That was you?"

Peter clearly hadn't made the connection until now. Even though he probably should have.

He brought his figures to the bridge of his nose. "Never mind."

How the kid didn't make the connection to his bleeding nose and the vending machine, Alec didn't know.

"You can't nevermind," Peter says. "You need to figure a healthier outlet. One that doesn't involve punching vending machines."

"I'm not you, Peter." He pushed off the wall and went, at this point, to pour himself a drink. "Besides, it was healthier than the alternative. I could have kept wailing on you for being an idiot."

Peter does not look impressed.

"Or you didn't have to hit anything at all."

"Uh huh." He waited until he filled up a glass and then took a long draw from it. And then a little more. "Listen, about that... I know I apologized already, but it wasn't really you." Alec figured Peter still had no clue about why things went down the way they did.

Peter shifts in his chair. "What was it?"

Alec was trying to do the whole 'talk it out' thing because he knew it was important to Peter and because Corbie would approve.

He still downed the rest of the drink first.

Then he spoke as he poured more.

"I think you're being an idiot with Liz." That wasn't really answering the question. He exhaled and paused, voice a bit lower as he stared into the Amber liquid. "I should have tried harder to be with her. Should have fought for it. I didn't understand until it was too late." And it was his fear Peter would repeat his mistake.

Rachel.

"I'm sorry that I reminded you of--"

Was it her? Was it him? Was it everything that went down then?

"--it," he finishes, because it's really a combination of all three things. "It's not that I don't want to be with Liz. I just don't want her to be unhappy and stuck with me."

"The one thing everyone keeps reminding me -" all the women, anyways. Corbie, Emma, and Kitty had all said the same thing. "We don't get to choose what they do or feel or whatever." The women had been much more succint in this idea.

"Anyways, it's history now... Just thought you deserved a 'why'. ". Alec shrugged.

He knew that Peter probably wouldn't ever get it unless something terrible happened and by then it might be too late.

"I wouldn't give up Liz if she wanted to be with me," he says. "She's told me that she doesn't want to be with Max anymore. I believe her."

A beat.

"If she didn't want to be with me, I'm not going to fight her over it." It's what he said before. "But if she wants to be with me, then she's going to be with me for as long as she wants to."

Or until one of them leaves.

He tensed a bit. "It's fight for her, not over here. There's a difference." Everyone seemed to think Alec always meant the latter, but he really meant the former. Fighting for something was a lot different than trying to hold onto something that's leaving you.

Alec was done explaining though. "Anyways, I'm going to hit up the cafe for food. You okay here?"

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