Kyle (brainoverbrawn) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-05-10 20:01:00 |
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It had been a week, or just over a week, since Kyle had started avoiding Alex. He had a feeling he knew why. Three days ago he'd had what he could only describe as a nightmare where he was at high school, bruised and aching and sore from being Jesse Manes' kid. They'd started a new semester, he'd be turning fifteen soon and he was excited but Kyle... Kyle had changed. He called Alex names not fit for repetition and in a matter of literally seconds they went from being best friends to being... well, bully and victim.
He had no idea - in his dreams, at least - why Kyle had changed. Why dream!Kyle had changed but as an adult looking back he had a feeling he knew why. He just didn't want the dreams to keep going.
Well, they weren't an exorcism, that was for sure.
But he'd had enough of being avoided, so he'd perched in the lounge of Kyle's place, Biscuit on his knee, and waited for Kyle to come home. When he heard the familiar shuffle thump of a bag hitting the floor, coat being hung up and keys being tossed onto the side table he raised his voice.
"How long were you planning on just... avoiding me, Valenti?"
Never let it be said Alex Manes didn't face a problem head on.
Kyle had in fact been dreaming. Vividly so. His latest dream had involved high school, him being a complete and utter dick, a giant homophobic dick at that. Not to just anyone, no, that would be too easy. Apparently he didn't do anything easy because the person he was being a toolbag to was one Alex Manes, his best friend, Alex Manes, who apparently had been his friend but then come out as gay and sent dream!Kyle into this weird spiral which honestly made more sense to him now than it did in the dream.
Of course he knew about the dreams and he knew that this weird shit happened but nothing really prepared you for coming face to face with a total asshole who honestly should have had his ass kicked a thousand times over. Hell if there was any sort of line he'd be the first one in it because what the hell, dream!Kyle? Deal with our own issues rather than taking them out on somebody else who just happened to be a whole lot braver than you.
Simple.
Of course facing Alex in the present day had definitely proved difficult and Kyle just hadn't, he'd totally opted out, went into full avoidance mode and spent as much time at the hospital as he could and put in extra hours wherever possible. It wasn't like he and Alex lived in each other's back pockets after all, Alex had his life and Kyle, well, he had something that passed for a life and it was easy to blame conflicting schedules and other things for why they were never in one place for long enough to have an actual conversation.
Alex however was clearly tired of the charade if the raised voice was any indication. Kyle pulled in a breath and rolled his neck before approaching the doorway into the lounge, shoulder resting against it and arms folding over his chest. "I was thinking maybe to the summer, you know, nice long extended period."
"We have an actual friendship," Alex drawled, unamused, "not a TV hiatus schedule." He didn't get up, from where he was sat like the strangest Bond villain, Biscuit's head still in his lap even as she looked reproachfully at Kyle for not actually coming in and fussing her. Her tail thumped rhythmically against the cushions, torn between continuing to get the head scritches and going to see Kyle to greet him properly.
He glanced up and frowned at the tension across Kyle's shoulder and shook his head, patting Biscuit's side and she lolled off the couch and onto the floor, skittering and pattering her way over to Kyle, tail carelessly whacking everything in its path.
"When do I get to call bullshit and have to remind you that whatever the fuck's going on when we're asleep isn't actually our reality?"
"Hey gorgeous," Kyle said with a smile as he came down into a crouch and rubbed his hands over Biscuit's ears and scratched under her chin a moment later which thankfully seemed to make her forgive him for not having greeted her right the first time around.
He blew out a breath and then rose back up to his feet, straying in to settle on the other end of the couch where he braced his elbow against the back of it and leaned his temple into the palm of his hand.
"Easier said than done when you vividly remember just how many crappy things were said, in your voice, towards your friend."
Alex shook his head, trying not to think about Michael waking up with a brand in his arm, trying not to think about the strange sense of fear that was replicated in the dreams when he saw his father. Trying not to think about the fact that he vividly knew what it was like to be shoved up against the lockers by someone who he's always considered his best friend, hard enough that bruises already sore and painful got worse.
"It's not real."
“Felt really fucking real,” Kyle countered as he pushed a breath out of his chest. “Too real if you ask me.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face and blinked away the tired. “But whatever and whoever that was he was and still is wrong.”
"Well, he's not you, and I know that difference," Alex pointed out, quietly, though it didn't feel like it was enough, not when the echoing pain of being slammed against a locker radiated through his skull in the mornings. What was worse for him was he had a feeling he knew what would happen next. He knew what was coming and that apprehension struck him like a hammer-blow to the chest.
He sighed. "Whatever these are... they're not us."
Kyle looked at Alex for the first time properly in a week and just nodded. “Okay because I would never hurt you. Not intentionally.” And he wouldn’t and he hadn’t. If anything he’d been one of Alex’s biggest supporters when he’d come out.
“I just don’t know why we’re even dreaming this stuff in the first place.”
"I know you wouldn't," Alex reassured, leaning forward then thinking better of it, stretching his leg out over the cushions instead and poking Kyle's thigh with his toes. "This... dream world, whatever it is, it's not here and now and-" his mind flicked to Guerin, screaming himself awake because of what was happening, how the dream injury translated across into the real world. His stomach twisted. "It's not real."
Kyle snorted quietly as Alex poked him with his toes before he blew out a breath, wishing he could shrug it off like it was nothing. It was horrible, confronting that... vitriol. Even worse when you were the cause of it.
“So it’s not like a Freddy Krueger thing?”
Alex blinked, opening his mouth to say no when he realised that right now Kyle would know if he was lying. He shifted a little and shrugged. “I don’t think we’ll die.”
Kyle watched the goldfish impression and arched an eyebrow. “What? You were going to say something but then changed your mind.”
"I think maybe it's a bit more Freddie Kreuger than we'd like it to be?" Alex offered with a grimace.
Kyle stared at Alex for a moment. A long prolonged moment of silence. “...what?”
"I just- I mean there's been a case where someone dreamed something and got hurt and it came over into like, their awake-ness." Alex frowned, "I mean they had the injury when they woke up."
Kyle let that sink in for a moment and rubbed a hand over his jaw in consideration. “Well that’s fucked up.” And what if you actually died in the dreams, what happened then? Did that carry over or...?
"You're telling me," Alex muttered, unable to shake that cold chill in the pit of his stomach that tasted like a fear he hoped he'd never feel again. "But I mean, the whole... bullying thing aside ours are relatively innocuous so I don't think it'll happen to us."
“So far,” Kyle pointed out. He was a realist first and foremost. “Here’s hoping that the trend keeps up.” Still, bad enough being a total homophobic asshole without throwing death in there.
Alex snorted. "Yeah, here's hoping. I mean- I'm guessing if there were people dying dream-related deaths it'd be something you'd have heard about."
Kyle nodded his head. "You'd think." He blew out a breath and rubbed at his hair before rolling his neck until something cracked though admittedly it still hurt. Tension was a bitch, it really was. "Unless of course it's one giant government conspiracy." And he was totally joking.
Alex laughed, "I wouldn't be surprised," he said after a moment's musing on it. "But I guess we'll find out. But you and me, we're- we're good right?"
Kyle met Alex's gaze and nodded his head. "Yeah, we're good." He waited for a beat before he leaned across and wrapped an arm around Alex's shoulders, drawing the other man into a hug. "I'm sorry dream!me was a dick to dream!you."
Alex relaxed immediately into the hug and curled his arms around Kyle in response, shuffling a little closer so they weren't stretching across the appropriate no-homo distance.
"You don't have to apologise for what an alternative you did, man."
A breath was blown out of Kyle's chest, a chest which he only realised in this moment was tight, way tighter than it had been in a long time. "Still, feels like I should." He squeezed Alex's shoulder before he leaned back, hand closing around the other man's arm where it squeezed. "I'm gonna grab a shower and sleep for a week."
Alex chuckled and nodded, curling his fingers around Kyle's wrist and then letting go, allowing him his space. "Don't do that again, okay? Don't pull away 'cause of some dream shit. We're better than that."
Kyle nodded. "Same goes for you, alright?" He liked to think that he and Alex were close, hard not to be when you'd basically grown up together and you hadn't gone full asshole in highschool.
Alex nodded, because what were the chances that his dream life would be even remotely similar to his real one - despite the cold feeling in his gut that it would be? "Yeah, of course."
His gaze lingered for a moment before Kyle nodded. "Alright, good." He pushed himself to his feet and with a further parting smile he headed in the direction of the stairs.
Alex smiled and stretched his arms out over the back of the couch, clicking his tongue and giving a sharp whistle which redirected Biscuit from where she was dutifully going to try and follow Kyle so she could lick at him whilst he was in the shower. He yelled up the stairs, "I've ordered pizza!" Because though he hadn't, that was his next order of business. Pizza and a beer and things would go back to normal.
About fucking time.