Love is a Dangerous Thing

Zack woke up early the next morning to a cold bed which he didn't especially like but wasn't that surprising, Alex routinely got up before him. When he didn't find the older in the kitchen or living room that's when things felt a little strange. The bathroom door was open so he wasn't in there and when he wasn't in his own bedroom, the last room in the apartment, Zack got a little freaked out. He searched all the rooms again to see if Alex had left a note about where he was or when he would be back but came up empty handed.

He tried to tell himself there was probably another work emergency but it didn't take away from the panic he felt. He wasn't technically even supposed to be alone for more than an hour, he hated that his doctor was right but he knew it was true, he didn't do well on his own. On his own he thought too much and with no one there to stop him things fell apart quickly. The fact that Jack had screamed at him yesterday didn't help the mess that was his head feel any better. He didn't want to have an episode, he wanted to be okay so bad but he couldn't wish his brain back to normal.

Trying to remain calm he walked back to Alex's bed and crawled underneath the sheets that smelled like him curling up into a ball facing the door in the hopes of seeing Alex walk through it soon. Tears streamed down his face and his body trembled but he didn't fight that, he could handle that. What he couldn't handle was slipping into flashbacks or thoughts of leaving because there were obviously knives in the kitchen and it would be easy but he want going to think like that. Alex was his friend, he wouldnt hurt him, that's what he told himself over and over ignoring the voice in his head that reminded him of how strange his "friend" had been acting the night before.

His last attempt to keep from breaking down completely came in the form of grabbing his favorite picture from his dresser and clutching it to his chest while he waited for Alex to come home. That's all he was doing, he was just waiting for his friend to come home like any roommate would this wasn't a big deal. He could handle this, even though he was crying and shaking, he wouldn't let things get worse. But there was only so much he could take, he could take the first hour, he cried his way through the second but when the clock told him it had been three hours for whatever reason he took that as a sign that Alex wasn't coming back and he couldn't handle that.

Real memories of Jack mixed with words Alex never said in a swirling mess that left him gripping the picture frame hard enough to shatter the glass. Blood trickled down his hands from tiny cuts that only got worse when he refused to let go of the broken frame. He couldn't let go, he was too caught up in memories of things that never happened. With no one to stop him he slipped into his memories for about an hour before he could blink himself back to reality gasping at the sharp pain of the tiny cuts that littered his hands. He pushed the frame away from him to find a sizeable chunk of glass laying on the blood stained sheet in front of him.

That wasn't a memory he thought about often but he did when he saw the glass, he remembered how happy he'd been when he thought everything might be over. He remembered the only reason he was lying there was a nurse that was paid to check on him every fifteen minutes. When people didn't get paid to check on him he was alone because no one really wanted to be around him. There was only so much he could take and if everyone hated him and he hated himself too then there was no reason to stay.

It took a second to find a way to hold the piece of glass firm in his hand without dropping it due to the pain of all the small wounds. This meant getting out though so he found a way to keep it steady in his hand, closing his eyes briefly before he held the shard to his left wrist for the second time in his life.

"Zack!" The small broken boy jumped at the sound of his name, cutting into his wrist but only barely. "What are you doing!"

Hands much cleaner than his carefully took the glass from him and then Alex was climbing into the bed from the other side to avoid all the broken pieces of the picture frame and picking him up. He was still talking to him but Zack couldn't understand a word of it, he couldn't even really understand why Alex was there.

"Zack, come back to me, buddy, focus on me." He heard Alex's voice and tried his best to follow it but he kept getting lost. "Come on buddy, I'm right here, look at me. Just focus on me Zacky, I can fix this for you but you gotta come back."

Alex picked up one of his hands and Zack flinched back to the present crying out weakly at the pain in his hand where the older had unknowingly shoved a piece of glass further into his finger. Once he was back Alex quickly left the room promising to be right back as Zack continued crying and shaking, flexing his hands just to keep himself there.

"We gotta get you cleaned up, alright?" Alex said looking into his crying eyes. "I'm gonna wash the blood off your hands and if any of the cuts seem bad enough we're gonna go to the hospital, but I won't let them take you away," he added when Zack's crying got worse.

Grabbing his arms gently Alex dunked his bloody hands into a large bowl of water taking them out and dabbing at them with a wash cloth and then repeating the process. He tried his best to be careful but he wasn't a doctor and Zack still cried out in pain every once in while. When he finished that he examined both hands and decided neither were bad enough to go to the hospital. Then came the painstaking process of pulling out all the tiny glass shards with a pair of tweezers.

Zack stopped crying somewhere between gasping in pain when Alex dabbed his cuts and gasping when he pulled out fragments of glass. He still shook a little but he was trying to stop because Alex had glared at him and held his arm down forcefully when all his shaking interfered with his ability to keep working on his hand.

"You're gonna take me back?" He asked uncertainly, looking at Alex who kept his head down.

"No, I'm not taking you back. You're a person, Zack, I can't just return you and get my money back and even if I could, I wouldn't."

Zack stayed quiet while Alex finished both his hands with gauze and butterfly bandages. When they were all patched up he picked them up examining them none of the cuts felt deep enough to scar too bad. There wouldn't be hardly any unharmed skin on his left wrist but he wasn't that concerned. He didn't do a lot of going out in public, the only person that would probably ever see it was the person that bandaged it.

"I thought you weren't gonna leave me," Alex muttered while he collected all his supplies and left for a couple minutes. "Did you think about this for a long time?" He asked walking back into the room with a serious borderline angry face. "Do I need to keep you with me at all times? I thought I could trust you Zack, I thought we were making progress."

"You left me," Zack challenged. He should have done a better job at taking care of himself but he didn't plan this, he didn't lie like the older was trying to say he did. He meant it when he said he would stay but he was a fragile, stupid kid that couldn't handle a lot and Alex should have known that by now. "I waited and waited but you didn't come back, I thought you were like Jack."

"I'm not Jack!" Alex screamed much too loud scaring Zack. "Stop comparing me to him! I am not now nor will I ever be that fucking asshole!"

The noise was too much for Zack who shrunk back against the wall at the edge of his bed and cried again, forgetting whatever anger he'd felt. He didn't like loud noises and he didn't like people, especially people that were supposed to care about him, screaming at him. It was in his chart, all the nurses at the hospital knew not to raise their voice around him or else he'd freak out and for the first time he thought maybe he should go back, things weren't as nice there but they were consistent.

"Zack, I'm sorry buddy," Alex said in a calmer voice after he took a few deep breaths. "I won't yell anymore, come here."

Zack didn't listen but he still ended up in Alex's arms because although he flinched when he felt himself being scooped up he didn't fight.

"We're alright, buddy, just calm down, I'm here now, I'm not leaving."

"You smell weird." Zack finally mumbled a solid five minutes later, wiping the last of his tears from his face.

"Thanks," Alex laughed. "Glad you're feeling better too."

"You don't smell like you," Zack repeated in a more serious tone. "How come?"

"I had a long night," that part was honest. "There was an emergency at work," that part was a lie. "I can go change if you want but you have to come with me."

Zack got up in reply, following Alex out the door and across the hall waiting right outside the door while the older changed. He wasn't particularly fond of being treated like a child but he also wasn't fond of not being able to have the comforting scent of Alex. Why an emergency at work made him smell like too much cologne and sweat he wasn't sure but he didn't think about it that much.

"You've gotta stop thinking of me as Jack part two," Alex whispered when they were laying in the younger's bed again. "I'm not anything like him, I'd never hurt you like he did."

"I know," Zack murmured back. For the most part he did know and he did trust Alex but he was still insecure, he still got scared when he was yelled at or left alone. "I just get scared, I don't like being alone."

"But Z-"

"No." Zack cut him off and rolled over to face him looking into his brown eyes that seemed to be filled with worry and something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. "I'm not normal Alex, I never will be. I can live with that but I don't know if you can, even though you're not Jack, even though you care. I can't be alone, loud noises, screaming they scare the hell out of me, on my best days I'll still never believe any of the nice things you say to me. Even right now just talking this much it's so hard Alex and it always will be. I'm not gonna get better and after all this time I think you should know that, you can't ever have that kid from the picture back. You can't ever have your old friend back this is all I'm ever going to be."

"I don't want my old friend back, I want you."

Zack pulled away fast because that didn't sound right to him, that didn't sound like something his friend would tell him.

"I love you Zack, I've always loved you. I love the you that's laughing in that picture, I love the you that I visited everyday, and I especially love the you I've had the chance to get to know this past week. I don't care about any of that stuff you said, I just care about you."

"No, I, I, I don't think that's a good idea," Zack stuttered, moving even further away from the other boy. "Didn't you hear what I said? I can't love you, I'm not good Alex, you don't want to be stuck with me."

"Zack, you know better than anybody that you can't make other people feel something they don't, you can try to push me away all you want but I'm always gonna be right here. You can say whatever you want but you'll never make me believe you're anything but perfect."

"That's just so much," Zack mumbled pressing his head against the wall he'd backed into. "I can't be perfect."

"That's not what I meant." Alex sighed because it was so difficult to tell Zack anything good about himself without an argument. "I meant the person you are, the person that doesn't like loud noises or being left alone, is perfect. You don't have to try or do anything extra, just be yourself and that's enough."

"It's just scary."

"Because you still think I'm Jack." It wasn't a question they both knew it was true.

"That makes me sound so stupid but I just don't wanna lose you, you're my best friend."

Alex stared over at Zack as he tried to think of what to say, after all this time he didn't want to give up yet, not when he was this close. "So you're afraid I'm gonna realize you're "weird," which by the way I'm still not even sure what that means, and then do something like Jack did?" Zack nodded. "I get that, I understand how that would be scary but nothing you've done this far has made me think you're weird. What else could there be about you that I don't already know? I've seen everything you think is bad about yourself and I still love you."

There was a short silence while Zack thought, he wasn't quite sure about this "love" thing. He really liked Alex, he felt better about everything when the older boy was around but love hadn't worked well for him last time. It was hard because he didn't want to lose him but he felt like he would either way, he had to say something though so he did something he rarely did, he said exactly what he felt.

"I really care about you and I wanna be with you but that, that word, I'm not ready to say that yet." He felt nauseous just thinking of saying the word. "That didn't work out very well for me last time, I know you're not Jack but it's still scary, I just wanna go slow. If that's okay with you then, then I wanna be with you too." He would have held his breath while he waited for a response but there was no waiting there was just Alex smiling and nodding like a fool.

"That's fine Zacky, that's really, really fine."