Adrenalin coiled in his stomach, hot and nauseas, as the buzzer let Alex in. Stepping into the lobby was an effort of will - not because he gave a damn for the sharp contrast between his home and Rick's (and he'd been here a few times already, he loved it more than the palace at home), but because he knew what Rick was going to see once he came down the stairs.
Alex - Lestat had told him, looking in the mirror that morning, that he looked like a starved vampire. Paler even than when he was healthy(ier), now, instead of being slim he looked breakable, fragile, dangerously thin; dark circles smudged over faintly blood-shot eyes. His face was worryingly hollow, and the only reason his clothes weren't hanging off him was because, since the doctors had confirmed the cut in his lifespan, his parents had had these specially made. Simple-looking jeans, but almost soft as velvet to touch, silk and cashmere shirts and jumpers; not to spoil him, but to prevent his heavily fragile body from being hurt from the slightest roughness.
They hurt anyway. But he silently thanked them for trying.
Shaking - the trip had almost been too much; logically, an idiotic idea - Alex managed to collapse onto one of the chairs in the entrance, letting his bag slide to the floor. He didn't even know if Rick would take one look at him and order him out; Lestat guessed he wouldn't, but Alex wasn't taking any chances. He wasn't going back to Tokyo, back to being wrapped in bubblewrap, where his parents were waiting to push him into chemo that was only going to kill him faster. He valued Lestat, as a person and as a - a mentor for what he was going through.
But there was a handgun and a box of bullets at the bottom of his bag, bought off the streets; and if he lost Rick too, he'd only need one.