Takes One To Know One

Alex yawns as he pretends to pay attention to Hank’s experiment. It’s about chemicals in hair that affects an ant’s strength or something of the sort. It doesn’t really matter to Alex. He isn’t here for the experiment -although, it is his excuse. He just hates the loneliness and silence of his own room. He didn’t really have any personal touches to add to his room so it feels just like being in solitary confinement again.

It confuses him greatly that he hates that feeling of loneliness. He used to be in love with that feeling. There is just something about the people in this mansion. They actually like him. They care for him. They don’t make lewd comments about how pretty he is like the inmates did or talk about how worthless he was, like the prison guards did. They make him feel wanted. They’re his family.

Hank’s lab -technically it was his bedroom, but the only reason for that was the mattress tucked in the corner of the room- is equally as quiet as the rest of the mansion and almost as lonely, but Alex finds Hank’s presence comforting. When he’s around Hank he feels safe. He feels like he would never get hurt. This feeling is something Alex has a love-hate relationship with. On one hand, the feeling is amazing and he wishes that he felt it all the time, but on the other hand, it makes him feel like a love struck teenage girl which he most definitely is not.

Alex shakes his head, frustrated with this feeling. His head feels heavy -a sure sign that he was sleepy- but he tries to ignore it. He moves his head downwards a bit and it’s like all the weight is lifted. That’s when he realizes he had rested his head on Hank’s shoulder. His eyes begin drooping but he commands them to stay open, so they watch Hank’s nimble fingers move. Staring at those long, skinny, beautiful fingers makes Alex’s finger ache, for he longs to slip his fingers into the spaces between the other boy’s fingers and just leave them there forever. He even bet the spaces between his fingers are right where Hank’s fit perfectly.

The silence doesn’t even bother Alex. He hasn’t even noticed it since it is a peaceful silence. But then he feels Hank’s shoulder tense up before he speaks. “You know, Alex, if you’re sleepy, you should go to sleep. You don’t have to stay here and watch me do some boring experiment with your hair.”

On the inside Hank likes having Alex around. As much of a bully as Alex is, Hank finds himself weirdly attracted to him. He finds himself longing to reach out and touch that golden hair. He finds Alex's touch leaving him dazed. He finds himself extremely distracted when Alex is in the room, since all he can think about is Alex’s soft-looking hair .

He even has this recurring dream that he and Alex are sleeping together. Not sleeping together, sleeping together. They are literally just sleeping together on Hank’s bed. Alex would lay next to the wall, completely squished by Hank, who was just trying his best not to fall off of the bed.

Alex is usually asleep in these dreams and Hank could just watch him sleep peacefully. He’d run a hand through that golden hair and the feeling would just be amazing. He’d wrap his arms around Alex and it would feel like being a little kid again, and getting the softest and fluffiest teddy bear and just carrying it around with you everywhere.

There is also the rare occasion where Alex is awake in his dream and the two would just face each other in bed. This is Hank’s favorite version of the dream. He loves looking into those eyes. Oh, those eyes. Those beautiful, beautiful eyes. They’re blue and seem like they went on forever, just like the ocean. And in those dreams, Alex would just smell. Not a bad smell, but a just a really good smell. It’s really hard to explain exactly why Alex smells so good. He just smells so good. He smells like the laundry soap that they all use, but so much better. He smells so much like…himself.

Hank hopes that Alex would just stay exactly in that place, with his head on Hank’s shoulder. It just feels so right. Hank feels like this is what should’ve been happening. Like this is what God had planned all along. It feels too perfect to not have been planned by someone.

He prays to God that Alex would say he wasn’t sleepy and stay at Hank’s side, but he also wants the other boy to get some sleep. He doesn’t want Alex to suffer through a migraine the next morning from not getting enough sleep. He hates telling Alex to go to sleep because it means Alex leaving. He hates the hurt look on Alex’s face when he left. Hank can tell that Alex thought he was kicking Alex out of his room. It confuses Hank, though. Why would Alex want to spend time with him?

“I don’t like it in my room. I hate feeling lonely.” Alex replies. He take his head off of Hank’s shoulder.

“And I’m the company you want?” Hank asks, trying to remain calm while a little voice in the back of his head screams “No! What are you doing? Come back! Don’t go!”

Alex settles himself on the only other chair in the room. “Just go back to your experiment.” He yawns as he leans back and rests his feet on a table.

“You just yawned. You are completely sleepy.” Hank replies, not looking away from his experiment.

“Whatever, bozo.” the other boy answers lazily.

“Could you not call me ‘bozo’? How would you like it if I called you a name every time I talked to you?” Hank snaps.

“At least you’d be talking to me.” Alex whispers, now drifting off to sleep.

Hank feels his heart skip a beat and whips his head in Alex’s direction so fast he nearly falls out of his chair. He can feel his cheeks heating up. “What?”

“Yeah, bozo. I really like being around you.” He’s now slurring his words.

Hank thinks he must be hallucinating or something. His chest constricts and breathing becomes a bit harder. Did Alex just confess to not hating him? He pretends to go back to his experiment. “What?”, he asks, as nonchalantly as possible.

“Is that the only word in your vocabulary or something?” Alex retorts, annoyed that Hank was bothering his sleep.

There’s a silence between the two. Hank doesn’t know what to say. “S-s-so you don’t hate me?” Hank asks cautiously. No response. Hank glances over at Alex. The mutant is already dozing off. Hank sighs as he put down his beaker. “Alex.” Hank says gently to the other boy. Alex stirs a bit in response. “Alex.” Hank says a bit louder. “Come on. If you’re gonna sleep, at least go sleep on your bed or something. Sleeping in this posture will kill your back.”

Alex groans and extends a hand. “Fine. Help.” He’s so sleepy at this point that he can’t even string together a sentence. Hank grabs his hand and Alex suddenly intertwines their fingers, making Hank’s face as red as Sean’s hair. Hank begins to take Alex towards his own room, but Alex pulls him back with the little strength that his sleepy self has. “I wanna stay here with you. I like it in here with you.” Alex whines.

Hanks sighs again, “Fine.” He leads Alex to his bed. “You can take my bed.” He feels like a mother. “Well, I’m never having kids.” Hank mumbles.

A smile grows on Alex’s face as he settles on Hank’s bed. “I know why you’re not gonna have babies.”

“Why is that?” Hank questions, just to say something.

Alex motions for Hank to lean closer. “It’s because you’re gay.” Alex whispers into Hank’s ear.

Hank’s eyes widen. “How did you know?” There’s no way he could’ve found out. Hank even purposely asked Raven to pretend that they had a “thing” going on so that he could keep his sexuality a secret.

“It takes one to know one.” he says, really quietly, almost too quietly for Hank to hear. Hank opens his mouth, trying to form words with his mouth, but ultimately failing.

Finally, he just chuckles and says, “Good night,” before attempting to go back to his experiment only to realize that Alex is still holding his hand and won’t let go. After a few tries at making Alex let go without waking him up, Hank gives up and lays down on the mattress, right next to Alex.

Laying next to Alex is everything he imagined and more. It just feels so amazing that he never wants to leave. He is tempted to just swing his arms around Alex and go to sleep as he is really tired also,but decides not to. But then Alex pulls on his hand and Hank finds himself involuntarily wrapped around Alex.

Suddenly Hank feels as if he’s taking advantage of Alex and immediately rolls away from Alex, only to fall onto the floor. His head is pounding from hitting the floor and he’s still holding hands with Alex so he can only be so far away from the mattress. He pulls down part of the blanket to cover himself and scooches as close to the mattress as he can get so he’s not taking all of the blanket, leaving Alex cold.

Hank lays there for a while, the past few minutes’ events reeling through his head over and over again. “It takes on to know one.” he thinks. What had Alex meant? He lays there for a good hour or so pondering the true meaning of this statement. He realizes the other teen had just confessed to also being gay, which makes Hank smile before drifting to sleep.