Re: Comic Book Heroes: Alex/Holly/Billy
Thing was, Alex hated the small, scared thing he'd become, and he would've hated the "shrinking violet" description. And what really was there to be afraid of, except some kind of government agents with a black bag and a black van and a windowless cell killing him over and over again for the rest of his days? But that was only if he talked. Which he hadn't done. Which he wouldn't do, and he wished he could fucking get over it. He'd stayed up late, reading up on the whole Maslow thing. He'd cleared the first stage: even if money was tight, he had a place to stay, clothes on his back and enough food to eat, even if it was cheap and not exactly as nutritious as it could be. He'd debated himself, endlessly, about the second stage: Did he really feel that security and safety? The two main threats to that were see above, and a fucker who was rotting in prison for the rest of his miserable life. Essentially, check.
So he knew, he'd even told Tandy, that he was stuck at stage three. He had to remember how to be friends with people, put himself back out there. He was doing it with the play, with the forums, but he had to follow through in more...what, friends-like situations. Fifteen-year-old Alex, the person he'd been before all the shit had started, had been all right at that. Sure, he'd always been quiet, but he knew how to engage with friends. So it was there, just buried, and he just had to remember how to let it out. Okay, modeling your life on a naive, teenage version of yourself was probably not the best strategy, but it really was the only one available to him at the moment. All that stuff was still in there, and it was almost like a visible decision to use it - posture a little straighter, maybe. A release of tension, maybe. "Dude," he shook his head and even included a rueful sort of smile, "Tandy would crush me in a debate. He knows all those-" He waved a hand like clearing smoke out of his face, shaking his head "-words." That was something the old Alex would've said. "Have to figure out have to fight dirty in an argument if I wanna win."
He kept ringing, got through Holly's stack, and into Tandy's. The moving in, he'd known. The dancing part was new and he wondered if it was at all related to the moving in. "And you should totally have a housewarming party," he agreed. "You're like...warming the house, for him?" He finished with Tandy's books and picked up Billy's single issue of Oblivion Song, scanned it, and handed it back. "So uh..." He leaned back, looking at the screen. "Housewarming presents and cosmic comic karma are $211.14 today."