Alec Tremont (fireworkatdawn) wrote in we_float, @ 2010-06-26 15:47:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | character: alec tremont, character: jimmy banks, character: mickey o'hare |
Who: Alec Tremont and Jimmy Banks
When: Saturday, June 26, 2096
Where: Jimmy's room, Anhalt Building
What: Alec goes looking for help and has something of a meltdown
Status: Log, Complete
On Thursday night, the part of him he'd mostly managed to silence since his birthday date finally won out as he sat in his room, unwilling to lie down and sleep after having to extricate himself from Jimmy's arms. The other man had fallen asleep first, as usual, and Alec wasn't stupid enough to stick around in the hopes that he would wake up the same in the morning.
Char's words about how if they integrated, he would lose Jimmy ate away at him. He hadn't said that he didn't have Jimmy in the first place, although he convinced himself it was true, and he was stupid to think otherwise.
When he saw that it was Jimmy again on Saturday, he considered just leaving the house for the day, going elsewhere and not coming back until the other man was gone again. But he'd hit a snag the night before one a bit of programming that he was doing for the v-club infiltration thing, and Jimmy was the only one who might possibly be able to help him with it, and by mid-afternoon, he couldn't put it off any longer.
He barged into Jimmy's room without knocking. "I need help," he said. His eyes were stormy, his face set with tension. It was clear from his tone that the words cost him.
Jimmy had the door cracked open; he was of the same opinion as Char that it could use some airing out on occasion and neither Andy or Mickey seemed to think of it. Just because Jimmy liked locker rooms, didn't mean he needed to sleep in a room that smelled like one that stoners lived in. But despite the open door, his head was down, his mind working his way through the code around setting up automatic privacy markers whenever Char was talking to someone. He didn't really need her blathering his business all over.
He looked up when Alec came in, smile turning to a frown at the words and sound of his voice. "Sure, pull up a chair. What's going on?"
"You may have read that they've decided to work their way into some v-clubs, looking for hate groups to try and see what's going on out there," Alec said. "I've agreed to help them with the set up part of it, and later with striking back at said groups. I've got avatars created for those who asked me to, but no matter how hard I try, and despite the fact that I've done it before with other things, I can't get thing to route the way I want it to. I don't want any of it to be able to be traced back to the network here. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and it's pissing me the fuck off." He shoved his laptop at Jimmy, opening the cover so that the code he was working on popped up on the screen. "Maybe you can make the fucking thing work. I'm sick of it."
He knew he sounded petulant, but he'd been wrestling with it since he woke up and gotten nowhere. He was ready to do violence to something, and since he liked his laptop, this was the only thing he could think of to do that might keep his rage from going to eleven.
Jimmy took the laptop and walked over to the bed, sitting down with the machine propped on his knees as he started to scroll through. After a moment he glanced up and motioned from Alec to the spot next to himself, then went back to scrolling through the code.
He could hear the warning signs in Alec's voice, but chose to ignore them for the moment in favor of focusing in on the code itself. "Tell me what you're trying to implement, and do you know yet where you think the code's dropping out and going wrong?"
"If I knew that, I could fix it," he snapped. But he did know, at least somewhat. He sat down, reaching over to scroll through, then jabbed his finger at the screen. "It's fine 'til there," he grumbled. "Then it just..." He made an exploding gesture with his hands. He got back up and paced back and forth, a few short steps each way as he explained what he was trying to do.
His fingers clenched and unclenched at his sides as he prowled, muttering to himself while Jimmy looked things over, almost eerie in his resemblance to Mickey at the moment.
Jimmy tuned him out again, going through the code and tracking variables. He opened another file, making notes as he mentally traced the code; finding bugs was one of his specialties, being that second pair of eyes for another coder. He laid everything out neatly, acting in the computer's part, and finally sat back and looked it all over.
"Wrong variable," he said quietly, finally. "At least, this is a start. You've got this," he pointed at the list of variables he'd made with their definitions in the other file, "but I think you mean to have this one. So it's putting the information in the wrong place, and from there it just spirals out of control."
Alec went back in and made the substitution, setting it up to run from the beginning. He watched as it did what he'd wanted all along. "Fucking finally," he growled. He looked at Jimmy as he stopped the program running and closed the laptop. "Thank you." He stood to go, his eyes still cloudy and dark, his jaw still set.
"Welcome." Jimmy considered Alec's expression, then offered, "Take a break?"
There was a moment where he considered saying no. He ought to just walk out the door, walk away from all of this. But he set the laptop down on the edge of the desk, turning to face Jimmy. His hands were balled tight at his sides. "Did you want something?" his tone carefully neutral.
Jimmy stayed where he was sitting on the bed. "Is there a reason you're pissed off at me?"
A thousand things rushed through his mind all at once, but he couldn't say any of them. He couldn't find the words for everything he thought and felt, and even if he could, none of it would make a difference, or probably even sense. So he just dropped to his knees in front of him, pulling Jimmy down to kiss him roughly.
Jimmy caught his balance by his hands going to cradle Alec's head, holding him as he leaned forward, half sliding off the bed to kiss him. "I'll take that as no," he said when the kiss finally broke, punctuating it with another one, trying to make it just as deep, but slower, longer. Easier.
Alec tried to relax into it, tried to let Jimmy make it all go away. But that was the problem, wasn't it? Part of it, anyway. He could let Jimmy fuck him, and for a few minutes or hours he could pretend that his life was something other than empty.
He thought bitterly of Ganesh's card, which at the time had made him laugh. Now it wasn't funny in the slightest. He would die, as everyone died, completely alone. The difference was, when he did, no one would care.
He shoved Jimmy away. "You would just be relieved," he snarled. "You only do this to shut me up."
"I do?" Jimmy sat on the edge of the bed, bewildered at the reaction. Had he read things wrong? He'd thought they'd made a start of something. He wasn't exactly sure what that something was, but it seemed to have a consistency to him. "What the hell am I going to be relieved about?"
"If I was gone. If I was dead. Everyone would be overjoyed. You'd miss the sex, maybe. Maybe." He crossed his arms, digging his fingers into his own skin. "I'm not crazy enough to think this is anything but sex. The date wasn't anything but pity on the poor idiot who'd never been on a date. I'm available. I'm easy. I get it. I shouldn't expect anything different." Red marks appeared on his arms where he tore at himself.
"Well, fuck, I was starting to think maybe it was." Jimmy pushed himself off the bed, still bewildered but unwilling to just sit back and watch as Alec scraped strips from his arms. "First off, it's mindblowing sex. Second, it was a good date, which means there ought to be a few more of them coming. Third, yeah, I'd miss you." He started to catch at Alec's hands, to try to pry them loose, then changed his mind and went to wrap his arms around the other man instead.
Alec turned, trying to get away, but Jimmy caught him and pulled him back against his chest, his hands closing over Alec's and holding them so he couldn't hurt himself anymore. Alec went still against him, leaning back. "This is me," he said softly. "I'm okay most of the time, but it's like my code... the wrong variable and it all spirals out of control. You shouldn't have to deal with that."
Jimmy kept Alec fit close against him, hands sliding against his arms as if he could soothe the damage with touch alone. "Am I the wrong variable?" Because it seemed like Jimmy himself had been what set him off tonight, and he wondered if he would do it again. If Jimmy would break him, which wasn't what he wanted to do. "And why shouldn't I have to deal with it? At the least of it, we're friends, right?" Or more. Either way, seemed like he ought to be there when needed.
Alec opened and closed his mouth several times, thinking of what he wanted to say and discarding it before the words passed his lips. What finally came out was, "This isn't just sex?"
"Started out like that," Jimmy admitted. It occurred to him that for every day he had to think about this and puzzle through it, Alec had two or three or more. "I've been starting to think maybe it's not, but I wasn't sure what you were thinking."
"You asked me out," Alec said softly. "No one's ever asked me out, or even bothered to speak to me again after our pants were back on. I tried not to hope, but you make me stupid." The words were said without malice, and the tension in his body started to ease.
"It was your birthday. I wanted to ask you out, if I could, even before you said that," Jimmy said. "It was a question of timing." Which was as close as he'd come to alluding to the arguments that had happened, how Char had been convinced she'd manage to get out for that day and do something nice with Alec. He still wasn't sure how he'd managed to get lucky, or if it was more skill than luck.
"I'm liking you so far. You've got a hell of a mind, and we seem to work well together, both work and sex. Not talking to you would only lose me decent, intelligent company that I happen to like."
Jimmy didn't have declarations to make, not yet. Not when he wanted something and wasn't sure if this was happening because he wanted Alec or because he wanted something. Most importantly, he wanted the chance to figure that out.
"You may be as crazy as I am, then," Alec said with a soft laugh. He turned his head to kiss the side of Jimmy's neck. "You're not the wrong variable," he said. He couldn't be, if he could make dissipate in minutes what had been days in building.
Except it wouldn't last. The best he could hope for was having him every few days. If Char had her way and they could switch any time they wanted, he might not even have that. For all he knew, Mickey could find a way to suppress the others completely. So what was the point? Why start when it was doomed to fail? "Don't let them make you go away."
Jimmy's arms tightened around Alec at that last, his jaw tightening. "Never. I'm real, I'm here, and I'm staying." And the others could go hang for all he cared. All that mattered to Jimmy about that was being himself, and missing as few days as possible.
He held him for a bit, warm and comfortable, then reached to tilt his head so he could kiss his lips. "I have to finish what I was doing. Stay and work on yours?" Distractions were good and the sex was incredible, but right now, Jimmy wanted to feel that sense of companionship and connection. It was amazing how alone someone with three other people in his head could feel, sometimes.
"That means I have to let you up," Alec grumbled. He kissed the underside of Jimmy's jaw and forced himself to move away, retrieving his laptop from the desk and settling on the bed with his back against the wall to get back to work. But he couldn't focus. "How do you do it?" he asked after a minute. "How do you just make it okay?"
He didn't really expect an answer, and didn't wait for one before turning his attention back to the screen in front of him.
Jimmy settled next to him, laptop propped against his knees, back against the wall. He glanced over at the question, then looked back at the screen, fidgeting with a bit of code as he thought. "Make which okay? This? Life? Us?"
"Me. I come in ready to explode, and you just... 'Here, let me hug you. You'll be fine.' And I am. Sure you're not an Ace?" He scowled at his screen, fiddling with a string of letters and numbers.
Jimmy shrugged. "Didn't do anything special, just... talked, right? If we're--" One hand raised from the keyboard, half a shrug again, not really sure what word was right for this. "That's what we do."
He shook his head, smiling slightly. "No ace involved."
"If you say so." Alec smiled back, one corner of his mouth curving up, and then he let himself be absorbed by the task at hand.