Not intern, or jag, or hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. (Or one of the hundred other nicknames he's acquired over the past month due to some animosity he hasn't quite understood.) And not Lord Alice.
Just. Alice.
And it feels -
Complicated.
(His name is a complicated thing. Where it began from a place of ethnicity he can't claim - his mother's interest in some obscure Italian footballer, an Alessandro something - and gravitated to Alex for most of his childhood simply for ease.
And sometime. Before, he thinks. The incident in the car, with the boy. Maybe when his grandfather started seeing something he didn't like? Alice, sneered like an insult across the room. Or when his name became slurred on a drunken tongue, Alex becoming Alice? He was young and not young anymore, he remembers that.
It caught on too fast, he remembers that, too.
And how it felt like a dagger.
And how he became accustomed to the dagger being nestled between his ribs, after a while. It was painful, but it was his. And there might be a dagger and he might be bleeding, but he was surviving the wound, wasn't he? So he healed around it.
For a while, when he introduced himself, it was Alice. Yeah, like Alice Cooper. This, from the mouth of a mop-topped, baby-faced redhead with his hunched shoulders and his awkward smile and his angry eyes: it didn't matter who shared that name. He learned to stop defending it.
Granted, there are a lot of things that are his that he no longer feels the need to defend. His plants. His solitude. His lack of alcohol in his apartment. His fussiness about everything from clothes to coffee. (And there are things in constant need of guardianship from the knowing of the world.)
But his name is a place of hurt and repossession, endlessly wounding and healing. He refuses to change it, and he refuses to let others twist it into mockery.
What kind of name is Alice?
It's my name.
Unwavering. Cold. Complicated.)
(It. Feels so. Complicated to hear Treavor say it.) (It feels so fucking good to hear him say it, and that's the complication.)
His hand has gone still while the other man speaks, and Alice is watching him (listening to that stage whisper, trying not to think of other whispers (in the dark, against his ear)(Alice, if he would whisper that, would it heal the word entirely, would it renew it, would it make it worthy and beautiful -)), his brows raised just a little.
Treavor winks and he doesn't. Know what to make of that.
(Is he.)
(F...lirting?)
(Don't be an idiot.)
Better to redirect. Better to focus his attention on. On something else. On the jokes. On the compliment. On nodding and making a patronizing 'mhmm' noise before flipping the cloth once more and pressing it over Treavor's forehead.
(Would it. Hurt to. Play back, a little?
Since it felt not terrible to hear him say that word. Since he's struggling, and trying so hard? Since he's in pain?
Not flirting! It's not that. That's not what's happening here. But maybe make him smile?
Bantering. It's just bantering, sure.)
His voice isn't a stage whisper. It's simply invitingly low, his mouth half-lifting with a little amusement. ]
Now, Treavor, if I wanted to murder you, why would I bring you back to my immaculate apartment? Clearly, whatever my elaborate plan is for your desk, it doesn't involve getting rid of you.
[ ...Christ. Christ he. Has to look away. That might have pushed his luck. Carefully, he adds with a little self-deprecating huff of a laugh: ]
I'm particular. Let's don't mistake that for social grace.
no subject
Not intern, or jag, or hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. (Or one of the hundred other nicknames he's acquired over the past month due to some animosity he hasn't quite understood.) And not Lord Alice.
Just. Alice.
And it feels -
Complicated.
(His name is a complicated thing. Where it began from a place of ethnicity he can't claim - his mother's interest in some obscure Italian footballer, an Alessandro something - and gravitated to Alex for most of his childhood simply for ease.
And sometime. Before, he thinks. The incident in the car, with the boy. Maybe when his grandfather started seeing something he didn't like? Alice, sneered like an insult across the room. Or when his name became slurred on a drunken tongue, Alex becoming Alice? He was young and not young anymore, he remembers that.
It caught on too fast, he remembers that, too.
And how it felt like a dagger.
And how he became accustomed to the dagger being nestled between his ribs, after a while. It was painful, but it was his. And there might be a dagger and he might be bleeding, but he was surviving the wound, wasn't he? So he healed around it.
For a while, when he introduced himself, it was Alice. Yeah, like Alice Cooper. This, from the mouth of a mop-topped, baby-faced redhead with his hunched shoulders and his awkward smile and his angry eyes: it didn't matter who shared that name. He learned to stop defending it.
Granted, there are a lot of things that are his that he no longer feels the need to defend. His plants. His solitude. His lack of alcohol in his apartment. His fussiness about everything from clothes to coffee. (And there are things in constant need of guardianship from the knowing of the world.)
But his name is a place of hurt and repossession, endlessly wounding and healing. He refuses to change it, and he refuses to let others twist it into mockery.
What kind of name is Alice?
It's my name.
Unwavering. Cold. Complicated.)
(It. Feels so. Complicated to hear Treavor say it.) (It feels so fucking good to hear him say it, and that's the complication.)
His hand has gone still while the other man speaks, and Alice is watching him (listening to that stage whisper, trying not to think of other whispers (in the dark, against his ear)(Alice, if he would whisper that, would it heal the word entirely, would it renew it, would it make it worthy and beautiful -)), his brows raised just a little.
Treavor winks and he doesn't. Know what to make of that.
(Is he.)
(F...lirting?)
(Don't be an idiot.)
Better to redirect. Better to focus his attention on. On something else. On the jokes. On the compliment. On nodding and making a patronizing 'mhmm' noise before flipping the cloth once more and pressing it over Treavor's forehead.
(Would it. Hurt to. Play back, a little?
Since it felt not terrible to hear him say that word. Since he's struggling, and trying so hard? Since he's in pain?
Not flirting! It's not that. That's not what's happening here. But maybe make him smile?
Bantering. It's just bantering, sure.)
His voice isn't a stage whisper. It's simply invitingly low, his mouth half-lifting with a little amusement. ]
Now, Treavor, if I wanted to murder you, why would I bring you back to my immaculate apartment? Clearly, whatever my elaborate plan is for your desk, it doesn't involve getting rid of you.
[ ...Christ. Christ he. Has to look away. That might have pushed his luck. Carefully, he adds with a little self-deprecating huff of a laugh: ]
I'm particular. Let's don't mistake that for social grace.