Re: trailer park: alex and mal
Alex smiled back, more for Mal's memories than his own. He didn't have memories like that of his own family. Not fond ones. Not ones that stuck out and were stories to tell someone later. He had stories about his older brother Jack beating him up because he thought Alex had stole his weed (he didn't). Of his baby sister Annie wearing a crop top and her ribs showing because she was so thin. Of his father getting day-drunk and hitting Alex with his car. So yeah: He smiled for Mal.
"Yeah," he agreed, stepping on the cinder block that served as a step into the trailer. "Yeah dude, if we don't figure this out or I'm still having...whatever." As if to accentuate the "whatever," he rubbed his hand over his face. Well, he'd meant for it to be his hand. It wound up being the back of his wrist. The fuck? "Um." He licked his lips, then decided to pretend it had never happened and he just had lost his train of thought. "I'll go see the doc at the clinic. Promise." He tried a smile but it was feeble at best as he was still feeling unsettled. "An' stay on my ass if I don't, 'kay?" The smile brightened, a little, became more genuine.
Alex's trailer was a dirty, weather-beaten blue, looking more like it had been sitting out at the edge of the desert somewhere in New Mexico for the twenty years rather than at the edge of the forest near Repose. Again he had that moment of embarrassment, so uncommon to him, but he knew Mal had not been raised like him, where not having money and having a shitty trailer were just facts of life. Normally it didn't bother him. Now...what, he wanted to make a good impression, he guessed. The interior was cramped, but clean by nineteen-year-old-boy standards. A couple dirty dishes in the sink, mostly neat piles of clothes or comics. Unmade bed, but come on. He realized once he opened the door that he wasn't sure if Mal was coming in. "In or out? Or both?"