Alexander watched him a moment, holding back the urge to hug him and never let go. “I want you to stay here tonight,” was what he finally said, his voice grave.
Seb nodded, his eyes downcast. “Okay. But let’s not talk about death anymore.”
Alexander laughed. “Okay deal. Now hop in.” He patted the space beside him. To his surprise, Seb clambered up and huddled under the duvet with him. They were still both fully clothed- Seb had taken off his boots and had placed them neatly by the door – but Alexander could feel his body heat as if it were a fire coaxing him to curl up beside it. There was a space between them though, like an invisible barrier that Alexander didn’t dare cross. It was odd for him, taking barriers into account. Being careful about overstepping. He had never used to. He’d always enjoyed bursting people’s imaginary personal bubbles and tearing down barriers. But with Seb he was desperate not to do anything that could possibly drive him away. Seb was his anchor in here, as Varsee was out there. Without him, he’d drift away.
Alexander shuffled down until his head hit the pillow. Seb did the same, his bright eyes gazing at the ceiling. Alexander stretched out to the bedside lamp that was bathing them in an orange glow. “Goodnight, Seb.”
He knocked off the light.
“Goodnight, Alexander.” Seb’s croaky voice found him in the darkness and it just felt so right.
The morning sun lit the backs of Alexander’s eyelids bright scarlet. Rousing from a deep sleep, he realised his head was resting on something hard. Not his pillow. And his arm was draped over something hard. Not his duvet. And it was moving. Rising and falling softly. Blinking away sleep, he smacked his lips together contently and swallowed, clearing his dry throat. He always ended up sleeping with his mouth open, which always led to a sandpapery throat and a string of drool. He swiped at his mouth and looked up. His heart did a somersault. The hard thing his head was resting against was Seb’s bicep. And the hard thing his arm was wrapped around was Seb’s middle.
He rolled onto his back quickly. Seb, who had been staring absently at the door, looked down at him. Alexander studied their current position- their current innocent position- and then thought back to their previous not so innocent position.
He laughed awkwardly and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Sorry for spooning you,” he said, “I guess I forgot that I move about in my sleep now.” He noticed the wet patch on Seb’s sleeve. “And sorry for drooling on you, too.”
Seb’s eyebrow quirked and he looked down at his sleeve. He laughed. “No problem.”
His hair was a little ruffled this morning, slightly flatter on one side than the other. It was incredibly endearing. It also meant he had kept his head on the pillow for at least a little while. It was something. “Did you sleep at all?”
Seb nodded. “In and out.”
“Well, that’s progress.” Alexander pushed himself further up so he was in the same position as Seb, his shoulders against the headboard. “Maybe it was my spooning. It’s been said that I’m very good at it.”
Seb laughed again - a laugh that made his whole body jump a little. “Maybe.”
Alexander smiled lazily. That laugh, he could listen to it for hours. Every time he heard it; it was like finding a pearl in a sea of empty oysters. And all his past pain that made his plump lips fall into a constant frown was the ugly, squishy meaty bit.
“Being alone for so long… it’s been hard adjusting in here. I find myself just sitting in empty rooms and staring at the wall for hours,” said Seb, looking down the bed.
“I don’t know how you did it. If I had to live without my sister, I just don’t think I could.”
“What I’m trying to say,” Seb looked to Alexander, his huge jade eyes locking onto his crystal blue ones, “ is that you’ve made it easier.” Alexander felt his heart skip a beat. Felt the butterflies swarming in his stomach. Felt his palms start to sweat. And he welcomed it. Welcomed it all with open arms for the first time since that fateful day in the market in 1911. “I don’t think I could have lasted this long without you.”
Alexander was speechless. He’d never been seen this way before. In all of his relationships, he had always been the weaker one that needed someone else to lean on. He guessed he had sought out Seb because he had looked like he was having a hard time but his intention hadn’t really been to try and console and comfort him. It had been so that he had company in his torment.
But Alexander had made Seb smile.
He had made Seb laugh.
And sometimes… that is the best gift you could possibly give someone in this world.
Maybe he had done more for Seb than he had realised.
Seb was smiling at him now. That sad, tortured smile that was almost a grimace. It felt like they were the only two people in the world. Alexander forgot all about barriers and leaned in.
Seb’s lips were soft against his, his plump lower lip interlocking Alexander’s. Feeling Seb stiffen beside him, Alexander’s heart plummeted and he pulled away. But Seb caught his lips again, his eyes flickering open and locking onto Alexander’s. There was that flurry again, deep in Alexander’s chest. The feeling he now let wash over him freely. He cupped Seb’s jaw and he smiled as he kissed him again, now with more confidence. Seb accepted, kissing him back with a vigour that made their bodies roll together. Alexander straddled him, pinning Seb back against the headboard. Seb’s hands were resting on the small of Alexander’s bare back, the heat of his touch setting Alexander alight. He was holding him close as Alexander’s fingers brushed the hair and the nape of his neck. Seb’s light stubble grazed Alexander’s cheeks and it was a sensation he knew well but never had it felt so good.
They were both panting, lost in the passion and intensity of the moment. “Alexander,” Seb breathed as Alexander’s lips descended along his throat to the pulse point on his neck. The point where he’d usually extend his fangs and bite, mixing the pleasure with pain. But Seb had been through enough pain and Alexander had no intention of inflicting any more.
“Alex,” Alexander corrected, seeking his lips once more. “Call me Alex.”
Knowing what was hidden underneath and filled with the deep urge to uncover it, Alexander started to pull up the hem of Seb’s t-shirt. That’s when Seb’s hands flew to his chest. And pushed him away.
The first push was light and Alexander ignored it. But the second was urgent and slammed him back, hard enough to break the kiss.
Alexander stared, his eyes wide and his heart racing. Seb couldn’t even look at him. His lips were red and swollen from the kiss and there were unshed tears in his eyes as he looked down, making them glisten. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t. I’m not- I’m sorry.”
Alexander slipped off his lap and curled back under the duvet beside him, his heart heavy and his body cold. He’d overstepped. Just like he always did. But this time it wasn’t fun. It was humiliating.
“No, I’m sorry. It was my fault. I misread the signs,” said Alexander in a small voice, just wanting to unzip himself, crawl right out and hide. But instead he sat with his fingers curled so tightly into the duvet cover that it was cutting off the blood flow.
“No, you didn’t. I mean, maybe. I don’t know.” Seb shook his head, clearly frustrated. “It’s just,” he heaved a sigh. “It gets lonely in here.” He yanked back the covers and got to his feet, scrubbing his head. He found his boots by the door and crossed over to them. “Look, I’m just gonna go. I’m sorry again.”
Alexander just stared from the bed. He had nothing to say. Seb opened the door and nearly tripped up. “There’s a box out here. I think it’s the stuff on your list.” And then he left, shutting the door behind him.
Tears welled in Alexander’s eyes as he felt the room closing in on him. He was completely mortified. What had he been thinking? Why did he always have to overstep? Now he’s lost the one person in here who he actually liked. Now their relationship was severed. Seb was a nice guy; he’d probably try to brush past it. But it’d be
there, a cloying, irritating thing like a demon on Alexander’s back.
Why are you so foolish?
Why do you always make the wrong choices?
He shouldn’t have let himself be happy. He should have beaten down those butterflies and curled his clammy hands into fists. Happiness was a luxury. A luxury that he didn’t deserve.
After wallowing under his duvet a little longer, Alexander’s steps were slow and sluggish as he walked to his door. He grabbed the cardboard box.. Kicking the door shut behind him, he dropped the box onto his bed and started sieving through its contents. He’d never been so delighted to see a pair of shoes before, even if they were ugly. There were a simple pair of black pumps and a pair of black zip-up boots.
Underneath the shoes were a pair of stonewash jeans, a plain white t-shirt and a thick woollen navy jumper. There were also several tubs of hair product to make his now lifeless mop shinier and bouncier. As Alexander had expected, there was no mobile phone. There was also no pair of fabric scissors, which he had specifically asked for so that he could make alterations to his clothing.
In the back of his mind, he wondered if Seb had actually asked for make-up.
He left his new clothes and such on the bed and went to the bathroom to shower, wanting to scrub away the humiliation that had closely followed the highlight of this whole hellish experience. He stripped out of his clothes and held them to his nose, inhaling Seb’s scent. It was a manly, musky smell that had felt like an extra blanket over him in the night. Maybe that’s why he had woken with his nose pressed against his upper arm.
But it all felt tainted now. Just like everything else in this wretched place. He threw his clothes on the floor with a spark of fury and turned on the shower. He stayed under the warm running water long enough for his fingertips to crinkle and the look of his wrinkled skin brought back his dread of aging. He was thinner than usual. His hip bones looked as sharp as blades and he could almost count his ribs. Starvation and devastation- what a mean combination.
Knocking off the shower, Alexander gulped the thin, steam filled air and slid open the cubicle door.
And screamed.
He fell back, slipping on the ridged floor of the shower and smacking his head on the tiled wall. He crumpled to the floor shaking, wedged in the corner of the shower, dripping wet and naked. His eyes were huge and his rapid pulse swelled in his ears like rushing waves.
He wasn’t alone.
There she stood, in the middle of the steam. Her hair was down, flowing freely in chestnut waves down to her hips. She was wearing a cream petticoat and floor length skirt. Her face was obscured by the mist but Alexander could draw in the blank space from memory.
It was Elizabeth.
Her arms were outstretched as if reaching to clutch him but Alexander cried out, tears running down his face.
A flash of brown and cream.
It had been her all along. Waiting just out of reach. Taunting him and haunting him. But it wasn’t really her. It couldn’t be. When Alexander plucked up enough courage to really look, she was translucent in the haze.
A phantom. A phantom of his dead wife.
Her fingers were groping, cloying at the air as if tugging on a rope to pull herself closer to him. Alexander pressed himself further into the tiled wall, afraid of the demon that had encompassed his wife’s form.
“I’m sorry!” he cried out almost on impulse. “I’m sorry I left you.” He cowered, pressing his chin to his chest and closing his arms around his head. His naked body was freezing, convulsing with sobs and shivers so violently that he couldn’t find his breath. “Please don’t hate me. It wasn’t my fault. I loved you. I love you. Don’t hate me when I’m gone. Please don’t hate me when I’m gone.”
Why was she appearing fully now? When she had only been a flash before? Alexander couldn’t help feeling that it was due to his guilt. His guilt that had been amplified when he had let himself succumb to the want to be with another in that way. In the way he had been with her.
Elizabeth had never moved on. What gave him the right to?
When he lowered his arms and dared to look, Elizabeth’s mirage was gone and he was alone again. An emptiness seeped into his bones and clawed at that pit inside him where his soul resided. The soul he had regained. The soul he didn’t want. The soul that would never let him escape his past.
Still a little jittery, Alexander managed to get dressed. He had left his old clothes in their pile in the bathroom and changed into his new jeans and white t-shirt. The bathroom door was shut tight and every time he had his back to it, he got a creeping feeling that it was going to creak open and unveil a new horror that his deteriorated mind had sickly conjured up for him.
He left his room with a quickening pace and almost flew down the stairs. His hair was still damp and with a lack of hair product but he didn’t care that it was hanging like a dead thing on his cheeks. He just wanted the icy feeling crawling up the back of his neck to disappear.
He was heading to the dining room where he planned to grab an easy snack, but as he passed the lounge the blazing sound of artillery fire knocked him back against the wall. He was shaking again. His brain was swelling inside his skull. His heart was whacking against his ribcage like it was trying to tear out of his chest.
The guns.
The blood.
The death.
The panic.
The pain.
As if sucked into a vortex and thrown back in time, Alexander was back in the trenches. Dead friends at his feet. The explosions wracked his brain and burst in his ears, reverberating in his eardrums like shockproof glass. His teeth were chattering. His face slick with dirt and gore.
Hands grabbed his shoulders and he screamed into the darkness of his closed eyes, slapping them away in a panic as the blaze of war ricocheted around him, bouncing back as if he were in a fishbowl.
“Will you turn that off!” someone shouted. A voice Alexander recognised but couldn’t place. It sounded far away as if from the bottom of a well.
Suddenly the firing stopped and all was quiet. All except for the deafening thump of his pulse.
The hands held him again and this time he didn’t fight them off. “Alex… Alex… it’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay.” There was that familiar voice again. Groggy but gentle. Stiff but warm.
Alexander’s eyes flickered open. “Seb,” he breathed with relief.
Seb was crouched before him and Alexander realised he was on the floor, his back against the wall and his knees tucked up to his chest. He was still shaking as the memories of the battlefield slowly began ebbing away.
Seb gave him that sad smile that made Alexander’s heart bleed. “Are you okay?”
Alexander swiped the hair away from his eyes and nodded, unsure. “Wh-what happened?”
“Louis and Lauren were watching a World War One documentary. It was just the T.V. It’s okay.”
Alexander gulped, still a little frazzled. “Okay.”
“Can I help you up?”
Alexander nodded and let Seb hold his hands and he unsteadily got to his feet. He was still in his black t-shirt and sweatpants and the heavy bags were still prominent under his eyes. For a distracted moment, Alexander wondered if he had asked Nico for anything.
“Are you okay?” asked Seb. Alexander nodded, but as Seb began to loosen his grip on his hands, Alexander found himself grabbling to keep hold. Not because he was still unbalanced. Just because he liked his touch. With great reluctance, he let Seb go.
“I’m going to get some breakfast,” said Alexander, sounding a little stiff.
Seb nodded. “Okay.”
As they stood opposite each other, Alexander could almost feel a wall between them being thrown up. It was as if they had both remembered about the kiss at the exact same moment, and it caused a heavy, awkward silence to fall between them.
Alexander shifted his gaze away and noticed they had an audience. Carrot-top and Shrooms were standing in the doorway of the lounge, w
atching.
Alexander cleared his throat. He looked back to Seb and dipped his head in an awkward, courteous manner. “I’ll see you around.” As he left Seb behind, he mentally kicked himself. Since when am I a gentleman? That was just weird.
Chapter 27
While munching on a chocolate cereal bar, Alexander accidently walked in on a private moment. Daisy was standing in the open area before the patio doors where a wicker table and chair set sat basking in the sunlight. She was hunched over a little, her back to Alexander. She was mumbling under her breath. Maybe Nico had trusted her with a phone.
He could call Varsee.
“I’m coming soon, Poppy. I’ll be there soon. Just hang on a little longer,” she was saying in a hushed tone. Alexander crept up behind her with stealth that surprised him.
Still got my good aim and my sleek, feather footing. Not bad.
But as he peered over her shoulders, his hope burnt out like a match dropped into a puddle. She was mumbling to that ugly bead bracelet on her wrist.
She spun around. Seb may not have asked for make-up but she certainly had. Her face was caked in it. Her big blue eyes were rimmed with thick black eyeliner that swooped at the corners and her lips were blood red. She had also fixed her hair. It was a brighter shade of blonde – almost white- and her ugly black roots were gone. It also had impressive volume and Alexander chastised himself for not adding product to his own hair. He hated that she looked better than him. It would have been something to stress and fuss over in the past.
“What are you doing?” Daisy snapped, her eyes forming into blue slits. She tugged down the sleeve of her – new- black leather jacket to cover up the bracelet.
Alexander watched her for a moment, and in the silence, empathy found its way through his hate for her but he stomped it down. Daisy had been broken just like he had. But she was fixed now. Whereas he was beyond repair.
“Nothing,” he replied, his voice brittle and hoarse as his emotions felt like a lead weight on his chest. He turned and headed out of the patio doors without looking back with one thought chasing itself around in his mind.
The Progeny Page 43