@kingofdirtandnothing // john & alexander
For someone who’s spent his whole life being loud and argumentative and frankly, very irritating, Alexander has never actually been punched in the face. Oh, it’s come close a couple times, and he’s been in a few scraps, but he’s always been one to fight with words rather than fists.
Right now, though, standing in John’s apartment and staring at pots and pans laid out, ingredients that he’d piled high in his arms and paid for by credit card, he has a strikingly clear idea of what it feels like. Thomas fucking Jefferson.
Bad enough without the sight of John skidding to a halt right behind him, still barely dressed. Alexander’s a smart guy. He would have figured it out without Jefferson throwing it callously in his face. The fact that he did is just icing on the goddamn cake.
Almost on auto-pilot, he tears open a bag of beans and spills them into a pan, fills it with cold water and sets it aside to soak. He could storm out, he supposes, but where would he go? Back to his own place to curl up in his own guilt and self-pity? To Lafayette for short-lived sympathy and generous but unsuccessful attempts to distract him? To Hercules, for a slap around the head and instructions to shut the fuck up and just sort himself out?
He leans against the counter, fingers curling against the cool surface and breath shuddering out from his chest. He knows he’s fucked up, though the details elude him, and he knows it’s bad. Can’t get the image of John jerking his hand away out of his mind, can’t stop hearing don’t fucking touch me!
Didn’t realise it was this bad.
John has every right to lash out at him. God knows Alexander’s good enough at fucking up to deserve it. He’d been prepared for arguments, for yelling, maybe a few days of silence if things were really fucked. This.
He tenses up when he hears John behind him again. Not sure what to expect. Everything has shifted under his feet, this blow coming out of left field and leaving him staggered. The kiss pressed against his shoulder unravels a little bit of the fear, but not the sick and sorry anger bunching in his stomach.
“That was supposed to be my line,” he says, humorlessly. And it still should be, really, but he doesn’t say it. Still too off-kilter. Still, he pushes a couple of onions in John’s direction, and turns to chopping up peppers. He focuses himself on the bright colours beneath his hands, the soothing rhythm of the knife against the board. He thinks of his mother. Of her gentle hands.
Eventually, though, something bubbles to the surface. He sets the knife down.
“Jefferson?” he asks, plaintive.
