Chapter Text
“In case you’ve been zoning out on the road, wake the eff up and remember you’re listening to the one-oh-four-point three, KRCT! And stop for coffee before you drive off the mountain; your guardian angel will thank you before it goes right back to slacking off.”
Alex chuckles in spite of herself as she rings up a kid that can barely see over the record shop counter. He came in with his saved-up allowance of a ten dollar bill and wide eyes, both awestruck and completely overwhelmed by the selection, nervous purple clouds circling like hawks above him. The best part of working at a record store, though, is how emotions bloom warm and golden when Alex can help someone find just the right record to take home. In this case, the kid - who awkwardly introduced himself as Henry - was looking for his very first vinyl to use with a player he’d just gotten for his birthday.
It turns out he likes country, specifically old-school country from the seventies. After a few picks that he liked but didn’t feel sure about, they came across the ‘78 Steve Young album, No Place to Fall, full of slow and reflective twang. When Alex sat him down at the listening station to take it in, she witnessed the last of those clouds evaporate into dandelion bursts and knew it was the one. Luckily the tenner is enough to cover such an underrated oldie, though Alex had been prepared to secretly pay for the difference if necessary. One of the smallest yet most satisfying benefits of having a regular paycheck.
Henry all but sprints out of the shop, presumably to show his parents what he bought. He stops right before opening the door and turns to Alex with a nearly-forgotten “Thank you, Miss Alex!” and a wave. He’s gone before she can respond, that energizing glow of excitement vanishing with him.
Alex leans on the countertop and lets out a steadying breath as her feelings become solely her own again, which is like a miniature adrenaline crash when something so bright disappears so quickly. It doesn’t help that it’s hot today, the end of July coming in with a brutal heat wave. The shop is air-conditioned just enough to keep the records safe, but not much more, and especially not closer to the front windows where the sun has its heat magnified.
There is one respite: the broadcasting studio, kept extra cool in order to ensure that none of the equipment overheats. Though, according to Steph, the system was only installed shortly before Alex took the job - last summer in that box was a different story.
She gives the shop a few minutes of her time, waiting for a rush she knows won’t be coming in during the late afternoon on a weekday. After that, Alex places a sign at the front counter telling people where to find her and makes her way to the studio that KRCT calls home, giving the door a knock to let Steph know she’s coming in. Through the window, she sees Steph pause in her air-drum jam session and look over her shoulder, beaming when she sees Alex as if she never could have guessed who it would be.
Come in! she mouths, or maybe says - it’s hard to tell from the other side of the glass. Either way, Alex slips inside and immediately feels the bone-deep relief of cool air.
“No one told me it could be hot in the mountains,” Alex says, once sure that the mic isn’t live.
Steph grins, approaching to wind her arms around Alex’s waist. “Have you considered, maybe it only just started getting hot when I showed up?” That pulls a laugh from Alex and Steph continues, “And then you came around. It’s a miracle there’s still snow up there.”
“Wow, Steph… are you really blaming global warming on women?” Alex asks with fake dismay, a hand coming to rest over her heart.
“Hey, I’m just saying, maybe someone should look into this. You know, I’ve been doing field research.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Steph nods and presses a sweet kiss to the corner of Alex’s mouth. Before she can continue the bit, Alex grabs her shoulders to pull her in for a proper kiss, deciding that it has been a few hours too long since they last shared one. She doesn’t need to see the spark of surprised delight to feel it leap and settle atop her own quiet contentment. Steph is full to bursting with strong emotions, but the fact that Alex can still elicit the best of them with such simple gestures is all at once baffling and a massive ego boost. Nothing wrong with that, really - it’s nice to imagine that she’s finally rebuilding her self-confidence after all those years of rejection.
They part as the song that’s playing starts to wind down into its final verses, and Alex can’t resist asking, “So what’s the verdict, Dr. Gingrich?”
“Results inconclusive,” Steph says, begrudgingly releasing Alex but watching as she takes her place on the couch. “Gonna need more trials, but so far the subject is proving pretty damn hot.”
Alex shakes her head, smiling, as Steph winks and turns around to review the ad reads she needs to cover today. She pulls her legs close so that she can curl up comfortably on the couch with her phone - Ethan’s working on the next Thaynor issue and wants Alex’s opinion on the cover art. At the periphery, she watches Steph ponder the sheet of paper with the reads and then drop it unceremoniously in the trash; on low energy days she’ll read right off the page, but this seems to be an improv-forward kind of day.
“Alright, kind Haven listeners, your favorite and most pretentious professor of pop-punk anthems is back. In one hand she has… an ad. In the other hand… she has another ad! Hey, a girl’s gotta eat.” She leans with one hand on the desk and pulls the mic along with her. “Speaking of which, the historic and hallowed pool hall of the Black Lantern has finally returned to its regular hours, all thanks to the hard work of the Haven Springs community. Stop on by for all the old favorites and even some new offerings like the spicy portobello burger for all those homegrown vegetarians out there. Don’t forget Happy Hour - that one’s for all the Duckies. If you don’t get that reference… then you haven’t visited the Black Lantern enough!”
Steph glances back at Alex, who gives her a thumbs-up: ad read approved.
“Bear with me a little longer, listeners, because I have an announcement of my own.” Alex raises a brow, wondering where she’s going with this. “Some of you have been missing your friendly neighborhood psychic, and… well, no, she’s not coming back. But while I won’t tell your future, I will tell you how it is, with a little help from a trusted off-mic confidante if you’re lucky. Call in with your dilemmas and get advice from someone unqualified, honest, and gay as hell, ‘cause why not? In the meantime we’re rewinding back to early nineties garage rock, so sit back and air guitar your heart out.”
Steph takes the mic off-air and starts the queue back up, a rapid drum intro filling the room that her fingers follow along with on the desk before she turns back to Alex, who lowers her phone and says, “A confidante?”
“Too weird? I didn’t ask, so I thought I probably shouldn’t put up a neon sign advertising ‘the vast wisdom of my girlfriend, Alex Chen,’” Steph says, gesturing with her hands as if to a marquee. Then she shrugs, apologetic. “It was kind of a last-second thing.”
“No, I like the idea of being the man behind the curtain. I just don’t know if I have that much wisdom to offer.” It’s not like she can tell exactly how people are feeling from across the airwaves - it’s kind of a cheat, but it’s a cheat she relies on… maybe a little too much. And if she fucks up…
“Come on, you’re still my good luck charm,” Steph says, crossing her arms with a look that clearly says be nicer to yourself or else. “We won’t ruin anyone’s life with a stupid little radio game. No more than anyone writing a response to one of those Am I The Asshole threads. But, hey, no pressure. I can solo it until you hear something you feel up to tackling.”
Alex nods, more relieved than she’d care to admit. Steph comes over and bends down to give her temple a kiss, which further solidifies Alex’s sense of reassurance.
“And you never have to feel up to it. You can just listen to me bullshit through this guru gig.”
The line rings before Alex can come up with a response and Steph quickly lets it through, though not before taking a deep breath.
“You’re on live at KRCT, what can I do for you?” she says, clearing some space on the desk so she can safely lean back against it and face Alex while having the mic close.
“Hey, uh, wow, I wasn’t expecting you to pick up so quickly…” comes the timid and young voice on the other end, nervously stalling.
“I wish I could tell you I had some huge studio operation here to keep me distracted, but instead of a wizard in a grand tower, I’m more like a wizard in a secret mountain cave with like fifteen feet of walking space,” Steph says. “But I’m a wizard either way. Air out your problem, dude.”
“Okay. Okay. So, there’s someone I really like… we’re friends, like really close friends, but I think I want to take a bigger step? The problem is, if it goes bad, I don’t want to lose my friend. That would be the worst case scenario. I don’t even know if he likes me back, he’s said stuff but it could’ve just been friendly. Should I just let it go so I can keep him in my life?”
Steph smiles, plainly endeared. “Well, here’s the good news: this fear is super common and you’re not weird or anything for having a crush on a friend. I felt the same way not too long ago, actually. Not to spoil the plot, but I call her my girlfriend now.”
Alex feels her cheeks grow warm, not helped by Steph winking at her from the mic.
“At the end of the day, you probably want any relationship you’re in to have a good foundation, yeah? Starting out as friends is honestly one of the more ideal ways to go about it. Trust me, I’ve tried other ways,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “So, I say just show him how you feel and be ready to talk it out. Maybe he’ll be into it, maybe not, but it’s worth a shot. And if it does go bad… well, chances are, it would’ve gone bad platonically too. There isn’t some crazy magical transformation when a friendship becomes romance - you’re still the same people. My girlfriend is one of my best friends, and I can tell you, it’s amazing. Totally worth the risk of barging into her apartment to tell her I wanted to be with her.”
“I-I don’t know if I’m a barging-in kind of guy, but I see your point,” the caller says, voice turning pensive. “I guess I’m just scared.”
“Everyone’s scared, all the time, pretty much forever,” Steph says. Alex idly nods in agreement - it’s definitely the color that she happens upon the most. For as many reasons there are to feel sad or angry, there are a dozen ways to be afraid of ending up in circumstances to be sad or angry at. “Some of the best things happen when you do the scary thing anyway. So go forth and kiss your friend! Y’know, with consent.”
“Right. Right! I’ve got this. Thanks, uh, mountain wizard?”
“You’re welcome to my cave anytime, in a way that’s not as creepy as that sounded coming out,” Steph says, making a face of sincere regret halfway through that inspires a snort of laughter from Alex. Once the call has ended and Steph is off the air, Alex grins up at her.
“Maybe your new radio thing should be some kind of love wizard,” she teases. “But you should keep the cave bit.”
“Of course that’s the part you’re focused on,” Steph says with a roll of her eyes, but it’s fond.
“I’m here in the cave with you, right? But if my notes aren’t appreciated, I can just go…”
“No way.” Steph points at Alex firmly. “You stay there and bask in the glory of air conditioning.”
Alex, who hasn’t so much as pretended to start moving, laughs. “Don’t have to tell me twice. I don’t aspire to be a puddle of sweat, thanks.” She fiddles with her phone in her hands and takes a softer tone, a warmer look. “It really is pretty fucking amazing.”
“Yeah,” Steph says, more like a release of breath than a word. For a little while, only music fills the room, and part of Alex expects Steph to announce that the shop’s closing up early so they can go enjoy each other’s company without the obligations of work and work-appropriate conduct. That’s more or less what happened a few weeks ago on Alex’s birthday, leading to a small afternoon gathering of friends followed by a candlelit dinner date with a little too much wine on the roof.
Then another call comes in, and the spell is broken. This one’s about a father being torn over how to apologize to a daughter, and Alex is all too happy to let Steph continue to take the wheel. She’s good at this, being quick on the draw, having an answer to everything. It’s fun just to watch her at work, making even the most ridiculous jokes land like it’s nothing. But with every piece of sincere advice she looks to Alex for support, something in her eyes betraying a well-contained beat of uncertainty. It’s a reminder that for all the confidence she projects, there are parts of Steph that she keeps locked down even around Alex, even now. Ripples in a still pond.
After all, Alex can’t shake the memory of the day she expressed excitement for the leaves to change and the air to cool, especially around October, and while Steph smiled and agreed wholeheartedly on the surface… she was suddenly swimming in blue.
It’s a thought that occupies Alex for only a few minutes before a call comes in from an utterly stoned guy trying to order a pizza, and she’s distracted by laughing at the way Steph actually recognizes this caller and talks him around the block through a wild pizza-themed adventure complete with ‘mozz monsters’ before finally telling him what to order and hanging up. The end of the work day ticks ever closer, and as much as Steph is enjoying herself, the telltale signs of restlessness are all there. Alex feels much the same, itching to get out and meet up with Ryan at the Black Lantern to kick his ass at the jukebox game once again. It’s only fair - last week he secretly loaded the jukebox with birdsong and crushed them both at avian identification, resulting in a drunk Steph making toothless threats to “throw your bird boy ass in the fucking lake, bird boy!” while Alex held her back… or rather, held her up.
“I thought keeping busy was supposed to make time go faster,” Steph eventually says, her leg jiggling impatiently.
“Maybe looking forward to something too much cancels that out,” Alex suggests. “Something like—”
“Ruining one Ryan Lucan’s whole shit for that stunt he pulled? Guess so.”
Alex snickers and nods. “Yeah, something like that. Who says I won’t ruin yours, though?”
“We’re about as evenly matched as you can get, Chen,” Steph says, eyes narrowed and lips turned into a smirk. “No chance you get me that blasted.”
“Mm, but you don’t know about my secret love… Scandinavian acid-folk.”
“Okay, liar,” Steph scoffs, but when Alex keeps her expression neutral long enough, her brows furrow. “…Right?” Alex just shrugs and Steph throws up her hands. “Whatever, I get to call your bluff in… fifteen minutes.”
Of course she doesn’t have encyclopedic knowledge of the niche that is Scandinavian acid-folk, but getting Steph to almost believe she does is entertaining enough. And honestly? A little flattering. Alex settles back when the phone rings again, letting that mischief come over her expression only after Steph turns to patch the caller through.
“Welcome to the lair of the wise wizard of the mountains, dear caller,” Steph says, having polished up her new wizard DJ schtick over the last few calls. “You’re coming in at the eleventh hour here.”
“Hey, better late than never, right?” the caller says with a casual air that surprises Alex. Not that there haven’t been confident speakers on-air already, but this feels different. “Kind of my specialty.”
Steph doesn’t immediately respond, which surprises Alex more. She sits up and looks questioningly at her, but Steph isn’t looking back; she’s unusually still and staring down at the phone like the numbers no longer make sense. After a few seconds she clears her throat and puts the smile back on to ask, “Well, you made it. Congrats. What’s your deal, miss…”
Steph hasn’t fished for any names until now. Sometimes people have given them, sometimes they don’t, but she never asks. The caller seems to pick up on this, too.
“Shit, alright, if you wanna know so bad… I mean - fuck, is this supposed to be family friendly? Dammit.”
“Sort of, but it’s not - forget it,” Steph says, clipped. A whisper of purple fades into view as Alex's focus deepens, a thin but profound hum of apprehension.
“Got it, shut up and keep talking. Call me, uh… Calla. Mastia. Calla Mastia, yeah.”
It’s one of the weirder fake names Alex has heard, and she’s heard some doozies, but there isn’t much time to focus on that what with that strain of nervousness plunging into a violet fog. It’s strong enough that Alex can feel its grasp begin to constrict her chest, but Steph remains outwardly and impressively calm.
“Alright… Calla,” she says, unable to keep a bite out of her voice. “Clock’s ticking, so what’s your problem?”
The caller, ‘Calla,’ exhales a breath that crackles through the line. “Cool. So, I have an awesome friend… an old friend from school, but we haven’t talked in years. We used to be hella close, like, I went to my first Pride with her and sh— and everything. We both looked forward to leaving our miserable little hometown, but then, uh… something awful happened.”
Purple cools into a dull grey-blue as Steph listens, the only other sign the way she crosses her arms and looks off to the side at nothing in particular. Choking grief paved over by static numbness; Alex knows that one. Steph closes her eyes and turns back to the mic. “So sorry, but I think we’re actually out of time, if you could—”
“Wait!” the caller says, a desperate note in her voice. Steph’s hand pauses inches from the button that will, with just one press, drop the call. “Please.”
The outstretched hand closes into a fist, then opens as if to press the button anyway. Steph sighs and draws back. “Fine. Just… get to the point.”
“I know she’s hurting, and I get it. She doesn’t want to come home, and god, I get that too. But… at my worst, and I know this sounds insane, I went back and I tried to make something of it. Phoenix from ashes kind of shit - sorry. I’m really proud of it, but it’s missing something. Or, I guess, I’m missing someone. I want to show my friend that it’s not just some… lost cause to bury forever in the dirt and forget. But she won’t respond to messages that have anything to do with it. How do I ask her to come visit? She doesn’t have to call it home again, I just think… I think it might do us both some good.”
It’s a wonder Steph isn’t buckling under the weight of the heavy blue that drags at her shoulders, trying to drown her like so many souls in the River Styx. Alex wraps her arms around herself as if that’ll protect her from it - it doesn’t, of course. She could try to shift focus to the music still playing in the background, something she’s been working at more to keep sudden public outbursts of emotion from ripping through her uncontrolled, but she doesn’t want to leave Steph to deal with this on her own.
“Sounds like you’ve got the message she’s sending,” Steph says after a moment. “Maybe the best thing you can do is leave her alone.”
“I will when she tells me, with her words, what that message is,” Calla retorts, and the words come with a low but blazing undercurrent. It lights a brief spark of defiant red in Steph that’s quickly extinguished by the blue waves. “Anyway, we’re putting on a music festival this year and a little fairy, or maybe a pixie… she told me how my friend’s gotten into that sorta thing more since the last time we met up.”
“This year?” Steph says with a pulse of purple. “Don’t you think you’ll have a better chance with, I don’t know, more than a few months’ warning?”
“Sure, but I won’t be around next year. My partner and I have our permanent address here, but we’re kinda… wanderers, most of the time. Working artists, you know how it is,” Calla says offhandedly. “Sounds like my friend lives in a pretty cool place, so if we reconnect I bet we can put that place on our next cross-country schedule.” There’s a pause, in which Steph remains silent. Calla eventually adds, “And… sounds like my friend also has a pretty cool girlfriend. Who could come, too.”
“I—” Steph stops, pinches the bridge of her nose. “So you’re being stubborn.”
“Like a big bad ox, dude. Those are the stubborn bitches, right?” Calla asks, her voice turning distant as she turns to ask someone else that must be in the room, wherever she is. Steph laughs in a sputtering, exasperated sort of way, entirely taken off-guard. If there’s an answer on the other side, it manages to stay off the air. It’s just Calla’s satisfied murmur a few seconds later of, “Hell yeah. Knew it.”
“Bull would’ve been more alliterative,” Steph says, blue edges softening - not enough to go away, but tempered by the subject change.
Calla laughs. “Take it easy, smart-A, I’m just a high school dropout. So, how about it, magical wizard DJ? Am I royally f…fffished? Shut up, this is hard!” she calls off the receiver to the other person or people.
Steph rubs at her face and steels with some kind of resolve. It doesn’t make her any less upset. “This is more of a fortune-teller thing, but… call your friend next week. Outside the nine-to-five. If she answers… maybe you’ve got a chance. If not, give it up.”
“Hah, I’ll roll that die. Gotta do the scary thing, right, like you said? Thanks,” Calla says, sounding both relieved and determined. “Have a good one, Steph.”
“Oh, I’ll be having something,” Steph mutters. She disconnects the call and the mic without a farewell of her own and bends forward with her palms flat on the table to either side of the mixer. The crushing blue grows with a vengeance, a tidal wave, a storm. Alex watches, concerned, ignoring the tears sliding down her own cheeks that don’t belong to her. Steph has been avoiding… something, apparently for years. She definitely doesn’t want to talk about it. It would be… well, not easy, but it would be so simple to reach out and understand more.
Alex’s hand raises and hovers, the familiar veil tangible at her fingertips. Her hesitation lasts a second too long; Steph looks over her shoulder and clocks Alex’s gesture for exactly what it is. It’s almost blinding how quickly blue turns crimson, blood in the water.
“Don’t,” she hisses, and Alex feels the word at her own lips. She bites the inside of her cheek to stop it, the fury causing her to bite too hard and draw blood. Better her own than someone else’s, anyway. Her hand lowers and she nods.
“You’re right, I don’t… know what I was thinking,” Alex says quietly, slowly, prying the anger away from every word before it leaves her. It’s not easy, but rage meeting rage is where fights begin. She doesn’t want Steph to deal with that part of her weirdness. She needs to be careful.
“Fuck that, I do. You were thinking you could help.” Steph stands up straight and turns to face Alex, taking a deep breath. The red ring of fire framing her shoulders flickers and simmers down. “You can’t. Not with this. Not by reading my shit like it’s the Sunday fucking paper.”
It’s not really like that, but Alex resists arguing even though Steph may as well be a matador waving a red banner right now.
Another deep breath, and the glow becomes mere embers. Alex feels less like she might also snap, the tension rigid in her muscles and begging for release. “So unless you can take it away and put it in the trash for good, just don’t.”
Alex’s fingers flex in and out of closed fists. She’d kept her realization that she could entirely shoulder someone’s emotions to herself, despite seeing that it did help, at least in the case of Pike. She’d been too wary of what might happen when it came to Charlotte, and she’s wary now. Alex is sure she could strip those horrible feelings from Steph, one by one, but then what? Then Alex deals with them, and Steph deals with them secondhand anyway. Not to mention… well, Alex recalls the sight of a tree that was uprooted in a storm somewhere along the hiking trails around Haven Springs, the soil violently overturned and roots mangled from trying to keep it in place. No, it’s too risky.
But god, she wishes she could.
“Is it something we can talk about… someday?” Alex asks, and she curses the audible strain in her voice from trying to keep it level. The anger’s almost too weak to affect her, she just needs to wait - but as it turns out, saying that is like dousing a campfire.
“I did want to… eventually,” Steph says without making eye contact. “Before the, um, anniversary came around. That time of year always fucks me up and I didn’t want to blindside you and your sympathy sonar. So much for that, thanks to…” Her gaze flicks to Alex and it’s only now she notices: “You were crying?”
“Uh…” Alex quickly wipes the wetness from her cheeks, bumping her glasses, but it’s too late. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Alex.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. It wasn’t exactly me.” Though it’s not powerful enough to break into Alex’s field of vision, she thinks she can recognize a tremor of guilt in Steph’s stare. “And it’s not—”
“Look,” Steph interrupts, shoulders dropping with weariness, “why don’t you go meet up with Ryan at the Lantern? I’ll close up shop for you and catch up in a few. I mean it, I won’t bail,” she adds to Alex’s skeptical look. “You’ll actually do me a real favor if you crush it at our game.”
It’s a pretty weak attempt at a joke, probably because it’s a little too true to be funny, but Alex smiles at it anyway as she pushes herself up and off the couch. Steph catches her hand before she leaves and squeezes it, following that up with a kiss. It’s likely meant to be reassuring, and it is up to a point, but Alex can’t shake the wish that they could just talk now. It’s not lost on her that her question wasn’t directly answered.
“I’ll pick out something better than that gross kiwi schnapps,” she says. “Less of a punishment.”
“I can’t believe we still haven’t finished that cursed bottle. I swear it magically refills itself when we aren’t looking.” Steph’s free hand comes up to Alex’s cheek, thumb swiping dry a spot that she missed. “See you soon.”
“See you,” Alex murmurs. With a tight smile, Steph lets go.
Alex has never been more relieved to find out that Ryan hadn’t been listening to the station. He was busy with a gaggle of kids from a summer program’s educational field trip instead, deep in the woods. There’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed something off about that call - the guy has good instincts when it comes to his friends. While Alex normally appreciates having backup for friend-interventions, she has a sneaking suspicion that outnumbering Steph on this one won’t end well. All she can think to do is wait for her to be ready, well aware of the chance of waiting forever.
True to her word, Steph shows up within the half-hour while Alex is laughing at Ryan sheepishly telling her about the prank a third-grader pulled on him. As he shows off his wallet, which has been newly adorned with googly eyes he has yet to remove, Steph throws her arms around both their shoulders at the bar and announces, “Time for Lucan to drink up!”
“Not to disappoint you, but…” Ryan picks up his glass, which has ice water in it. “No shots for me tonight. There’s another field trip coming through in the morning and I’ll need my head on straight. Yeah, I know, I’m always straight,” he says to interrupt Steph before she can take her favorite low-hanging fruit. “I’ll have a beer or two later, but the jukebox is all yours.”
Steph rolls her eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, be responsible for the kids. Just watch your back - I haven’t forgotten your dirty tricks.”
“Oh, sorry, you mean making the game possible for me?” Ryan says with a good-natured smile. “I see how it is. Warning taken.”
“You don’t have to know all the music to use the simple process of elimination,” Steph fires back, and Alex slips away to pick the first song. It’s a petty argument that she has learned will never be settled, and more importantly, it’s serving as a distraction for Steph.
Alex takes her time flipping through the selection, but she isn’t paying all that much attention to it. She has her ear on the conversation at the bar, audible even over the modestly chatty Friday night gathering throughout the Black Lantern. Ryan remains blissfully unaware of Steph’s recent emotional state - that’s not to blame him, because she’s being as social and Steph-like as ever. If Alex didn’t know better, she’d be in the same boat.
Steph wants to drink those emotions into temporary oblivion, that much is clear. Alex’s dilemma is how to counter that, or if she even should. She redirects her attention to the jukebox, brows furrowed. Would Steph’s pride allow her to throw the game if Alex made it easy, even if she wants the shots? Would making it too easy in the first place be taken poorly? Well, that’s not even a question, of course it would. Steph doesn’t believe in fudging rolls, so to speak. At least that’s what she claims.
“You’ve never taken this long to decide my fate before.” Steph’s voice comes with a warm embrace from behind, her chin finding its place on Alex’s shoulder. More softly, just between them, she says, “You okay, babe?”
“Feels like that’s the question I should be asking,” Alex says.
Steph hums, noncommittal. “Doing great.” A pause, and a sigh. “Doing better. I just want to have a normal good time with my favorite people and pass out in my girlfriend’s bed. Maybe make out first? Depends.”
“On how hard I crush you at this?”
“Does that make you want to win more or less?” Steph asks; Alex can feel the shrewd smile against her cheek. It occurs to her that maybe it’s not necessarily pride that’ll stop Steph from throwing the game entirely, but one of the other six in its company. There’s more than one way to stay distracted.
“Ooh, I really have to think about that,” Alex says wryly. “Mm, wait, no I don’t. Stop flirting and start asking questions.”
Caught unprepared, Steph draws back and steps closer to the jukebox. She keeps a hand at the small of Alex’s back as she peers at it. “I thought - it’s not the one you’ve been staring at for three minutes?”
“Nope. Four questions left.”
“Oh, fuck.”
It is, in fact, mostly a normal good time. The competition turns fierce between Alex and Steph while Ryan contributes commentary and advice ranging from unhelpful to accidentally prescient. As promised, Alex does not subject Steph or herself to the cursed kiwi schnapps but instead a series of lemon drops - given how sweltering it has been in Haven Springs lately, it’s a refreshing alternative. Steph has a somewhat stronger drink to sip between rounds instead of her usual cider, but she seems keen on making sure their sober friend and certified worrier doesn’t pick up on anything out of the ordinary.
By the time Ryan - ever the reliable referee - calls the game finished on account of looking after their alcohol intake, Alex has won… barely. She can feel the fuzz in her skull and warmth in her chest, but seeing as her only other drink has been water, she’s fairly confident she won’t hit a wall. Steph is a little further along, telling a story from her Seattle days with big, sweeping gestures that threaten every glass within reach.
“…and I was down bad, alright? Less than a week I’ve known this girl, and I’m dusting off a drum kit I haven’t used since I was fucking… thirteen or fourteen, because she needs a drummer. I’m making a pact with my friend - Pixie, she drums in a sweet pirate band you guys need to hear sometime, crazy talented - but we’re trading lessons, drumming for GMing. Suddenly I’m in a two-piece playing punk rock ‘cause, what, a pretty girl asked? Fuck me, right?”
Alex smiles at the lip of her glass, amused as well as curious to hear about this band relationship Steph had before coming here. She doesn’t know much more than a few snippets of emotional memory scattered here and there, those only being from the very end when the differences between them had become a canyon. “I can see it,” she admits, drawing a huff from Steph.
“I’m not - look, the U-Haul kind of thing, that was never me. Not before Izzie.” Steph turns on the barstool so that their knees knock together awkwardly; they both laugh and Steph rests her hand on Alex’s leg as she leans closer. “But I shouldn’t complain. Without her, I probably wouldn’t have unlocked my drum skills. Without being in a band, probably wouldn’t have gone on tour. Wouldn’t have seen some Reddit dude’s messages begging us to come to a tiny mountain town.”
Alex laces their fingers together while Ryan chuckles. “I told him there was no chance some up-and-coming city band would come up here.”
“Well, it was stupid in the business sense. But I don’t know, his enthusiasm for this town made me want to do it. I was in a huge rut and thought making someone else happy would help.” Steph’s thumb brushes along Alex’s knuckles. “I didn’t love the business of music, I loved being in a room full of people all sharing a fucking… moment together, you know? That’s why I didn’t care when it was literally just Gabe who showed up. He was so into it. Iz, not so much in the end, but…” Steph lets out a humorless laugh and shrugs. “When one door closes, I guess.”
Talking about Gabe, hearing about the man he’d become that she barely got to know, it does ache still - sometimes too much to take. But as time goes on, Alex has grown mostly grateful for the wealth of joy he left with so many people. It’s not as ideal as having her own memories by a long shot, but it does make everything feel a little less empty... on the good days. Alex leans in towards Steph, offering a small smile. “Knock, knock?”
Steph snorts. “Oh shit, is that the hotter Chen?”
“Damn, you stole my punch line. Also, uh, shots fired?”
“Can’t help it if I’m biased,” Steph says, lifting her arms to drape them around Alex’s shoulders - but in her impaired state, she accidentally bumps her arm into Alex’s ear and knocks her glasses off. Ryan catches them, having seen this coming approximately a mile away.
“Maybe it’s time for the lovebirds to clear out?” he suggests, handing Alex her glasses after they both realize a second too late what just happened. Alex sheepishly puts them back on. “This isn’t their natural habitat, anyway. They come from Africa.”
“Yeah, well, you come from… your mom,” Steph finishes with a mumble.
Ryan takes her by the shoulders and guides her towards the stairs while Alex shakes her head, following behind after she leaves an appropriate tip at the bar. Laughing, Ryan says, “That’s kind of how that works, yeah! There’s always an opening for a trainee ranger with expert knowledge like that.”
Alex can’t tell if the heaviness in her chest is her own or shared with the other two, a result of tiptoeing the strange wobbly line that exists between joking around and succumbing to grief when talking about those who are gone. Alcohol generally dulls her sense - makes it less precise, more fuzzy, easier to ignore. Like thin, splotchy layers of watercolor. Until a threshold of saturation, that is, when the layers suddenly bleed through the page and all bets are off.
“I can’t imagine that,” Alex says. “You’ve heard how much she complains when you get her to go for a hike.”
“I complain a reasonable amount for a sane person with legs, thank you very much.”
Ryan and Alex exchange amused looks over his shoulder. It’s not much longer before they reach the apartment and Steph shrugs out of Ryan’s grasp to take Alex’s arm and pull her across the threshold.
“Good night!” Ryan calls through the closing door. “Drink water!”
“You got it, man,” Steph calls back, though whether she really paid attention to what he said is up for debate as she keeps pulling Alex along. She has a familiar, wanting look in her eyes that cuts through the unfocused haze of drunkenness and still makes Alex’s breath catch in her lungs. But the arch-nemesis of all who enter this apartment too carelessly arrives with a vengeance.
Alex remembers at the last second, says, “Steph, wait, the step—”
“Huh? Shit,” Steph swears, her heel catching on the step just past the stairs to the roof. Alex catches her at the waist and - this time - stops them from both tumbling painfully onto the hardwood. It’s a near thing, though. She pulls Steph back upright, both breathlessly laughing. “I swear that thing moves just to spite me. You think that counts as a hate crime?”
“Don’t blame the step for reminding us to be humble,” Alex says, walking Steph the few paces to the bed and sitting her down. “I’m getting water before you have another ass-bruising incident.”
“Kiss me first,” Steph says, holding Alex resolutely in place by the belt loops and looking up at her pleadingly. It's almost enough, but Alex knows a trap when she sees one. It’s way too easy to get lost in the moment, and then their limbs are too heavy and minds too hazy to want to get out of bed again.
She gently loosens Steph’s grip and gives her an apologetic smile. “It’ll be, like, one minute.”
Steph groans, but she flops back onto the bed and waves Alex off. “I guess I can handle that.”
It just takes a second look back to the bed while she’s filling up two glasses to know that Steph isn’t long for the waking world. She’s staring up at the high ceiling, fingers tapping a rhythm against her leg while she hums, but the rhythm occasionally slows to a near stop before she realizes she’s fading and starts tapping again. Alex carries the glasses carefully over to the nightstand and sits on the edge of the bed, offering a hand. Steph takes the offer and sits up with a sigh - whether out of effort or something else, it’s hard to say.
“Alex?” she says after a few quiet moments, staring into her glass of water.
“Yeah?”
“Would you… hate me if I never told you about the, you know, the stuff from earlier?” she asks softly. A fine lavender mist spreads around them, like sea fog.
Alex looks at her, and though the idea makes her heart ache, she shakes her head. It would hurt so much more to betray Steph’s trust after all of her unflinching support a few months ago. She’d been prepared to fight the entire town she loves before she would let Alex’s experiences get dismissed - thankfully, she didn’t have to. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything. I’ll be here either way.”
“Even though you can see it and feel it when it gets bad?” Steph finally looks up at Alex, brows furrowed. “No offense, that kind of sounds like torture.”
“I mean…” Alex makes a face, nose wrinkling, and even she’s not sure what it means. “Okay, it wouldn’t feel great, but telling me wouldn’t stop that from happening. I don’t hate you for wanting something to be private, and if I could turn this shit off to make sure of it, I would.”
The mist evaporates slowly as Steph nods. “It’s not like I’ve never talked about it, just… not much, and it's not getting easier.” She takes a breath and pauses for a drink. “On the other hand, I’ve been there, feeling something and not knowing what the hell it’s about, just that it feels wrong? It sucks.”
“Ugh, tell me about it,” Alex says. “This thing I’ve got, whatever it is, doesn’t really help me figure out my own emotions. Kind of a rip-off.”
“Damn. I guess super-introspection is too much power.”
“Right. I have to do all my personal soul-searching manually.”
Steph cracks a small smile and laughs softly. “Uh, but seriously, thanks. And sorry. I would’ve warned you if I knew that call was coming.”
Alex leans in to press a kiss to Steph’s cheek, enjoying that it makes her smile a little brighter and chases away the last dregs of fear. “It sounds like the fact you didn’t know was kind of the point.”
“Fucking… Chloe,” Steph groans. “I mean, she’s great. She’s also the worst.”
“Calla equals Chloe?”
“Callamastia was one of her characters,” Steph explains. “I was her GM in high school for a while, even after she got kicked out.”
It looks like she’s about to continue when her sentence is overtaken by a yawn, her hand tipping the glass dangerously towards spilling what’s left. Alex takes the glass from her and sets it back on the nightstand. “Alright, sleepyhead. We can talk more later.”
Steph practically pouts, but she inches closer to Alex and slips a hand under her shirt at the waist. “Too hot for clothes, right?”
“In which way?” Alex asks.
“Every damn way.”
The next few minutes are spent unsteadily helping each other out of their clothes - flirting aside, it’s too hot for passing out in anything more substantial than underwear - and even Steph’s too tired to make a move when they’re done. Alex makes sure they both finish at least one glass of water despite every bone in her body feeling heavier than lead, and when they finally bed down beside each other, there’s not much energy in either of them for more than than sharing a slow, drowsy kiss. Steph’s hands wander but only to keep Alex close, to embrace her even though they might suffer for it when the sun rises with its heat.
“Could’ve spent all that time kissing you if it wasn’t for all the bullshit,” she mumbles at Alex’s lips, making her huff a short laugh. “Chloe fucking Price. Cockblocking me since 2010.”
“Has she, though?” Alex says, raising a brow. It's not like this mystery friend has ever stopped them before. Her glasses-free vision is blurry, but she can see Steph blink her eyes open only to narrow them at her.
“Babe, don’t tempt me like that. I cannot be the girl that passes out between her girlfriend’s legs.”
“No, I meant…” Alex grins and shakes her head. There’s too much alcohol fog in her mind to put words together. “It’s not important.” She cups Steph’s face in her hand and kisses her again instead, with a whispered, “Goodnight, Steph.”
“I…” Steph lingers on the thought, then sighs, remaining tension leaving her body as she tucks herself closer. “Night, Alex.”
Alex finds herself staying awake a little longer, and finds herself holding Steph instead of the other way around. The early minutes of deep sleep are restless ones with uneven breaths and fidgeting hands that can’t decide between holding on or letting go. Troubled emotions bleed through wherever they touch, muffled like Alex is peering at them through murky waters, or feeling them through a thick covering of wool. Whether it’s the filter of sleep or alcohol - or both - making it so distant, it doesn’t really matter.
She brushes a thumb over the swallow frozen in flight just below Steph’s collar and resists the temptation to dive in. Instead, hoping it’ll calm them both, she softly sings the one song that has managed to stick in her head despite hours of listening to the radio.
“I ain’t much of a lover, it’s true
I’m here then I’m gone
And I’m forever blue…
But I’m sure wanting you.”
Slowly but surely, Steph reaches a kinder dream, or perhaps no dream at all. The roiling undercurrents grow still and Alex begins to nod off with her, the last conscious thoughts being those of wonder. Because while Steph had been uneasy upon hearing Chloe’s voice, that’s not the only thing she was feeling - it was just the most powerful. Though nearly eclipsed, there had been veins of gold. What is that, when fear and anxiety meet joy and warmth?
Maybe that’s what they call hope.