by Ashley Rose
"Don't even fucking think about that shit!" he growls before releasing him and looking over at Remy, and then back at Bruce. "You fucks get outta my house. Both of you." He looks back and forth between the two and waits for them to leave. "Now!" he snaps when neither moves and they both jump a little before scurrying out the front door, shutting it behind them. Lex takes in the moment of tense silence before turning back to Damon.
"Um...here, you can sit down, I guess," he stutters, fumbling nervously to clear the coffee table of the drug paraphernalia strewn about as Damon takes a seat on the couch.
"So this is what you do now?" he asks softly, eyeing Lex and then looking back down to the table. He reaches to touch the electronic scale curiously and Lex slaps his hand away before grabbing it, guilt rising up in him.
"Look kid, don't lecture me, okay? This is life, this happens to people everyday. I'm making it on my own and I don't ask Mom and Dad for a damn thing," he answers before turning to carry the armload of items to the back room. "So why are you here? You want money? What's going on?" he asks as he enters the room again, standing beside the arm of the couch and peering down at Damon with an intimidating gaze. He takes him in slowly, his lean, lanky form dressed in worn jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, cheeks still a bit flushed from the cold outside, dark curls fuzzing just a bit around his boyish face. And it appears as if someone had cloned a teenage Lex and put him on the couch, right down to the look of uncertainty in his big blue eyes.
"You're my brother." His soft voice shakes a bit as he responds.
Lex sighs, running a hand over his head as he paces the room nervously before sitting down across from Damon on the wooden edge of the coffee table. "Yeah, but I mean...shit, I haven't seen you since you were ten years old, and you all of a sudden just show up today."
Damon takes a good long look at Lex now that he is finally sitting close enough so that he can really take him in, and Lex stares back into his brother's eyes with the same searching glance. Five years really is a long time, and Lex can't believe how much his little brother has grown up. He almost looks just like him.
"I told Mom and Dad I was going to town. Hopped on the bus and made it out here. I had to kinda ask around for exactly where to find you."
Lex's eyes go wide. "You've been running around on the streets asking people where I live?! That's just fucking great." He stands up abruptly and paces into the middle of the room, shaking his head.
"I just needed to come see you," Damon pleads and Lex scoffs, turning to face him and holding his arms wide, presenting himself.
"Well, here I am. Have a nice long look, and while you're at it have a peek outside, 'cause Mom and Dad will never let you out of the house again after this little stunt," he muses matter-of-factly before dropping his arms to his sides to finalize his statement.
Damon sighs, hanging his head a bit as he responds quietly, "They won't tell me about you. I feel like you died."
"Well that's not too terribly shocking," Lex grumbles, rolling his eyes but he sighs when he sees Damon's disappointed demeanor. "Look, I'm sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting. But there's nothing I can do about it."
"You could come home," Damon offers weakly and Lex groans in aggravation.
"No, kid, I can't just do shit like that. I have to get out of this business and get myself clean and—"
"So why don't you?"
Lex opens his mouth to respond angrily, but he stops when Damon's cell phone rings, and from the nervous look on his face he can tell who is calling.
Lex sighs, giving his brother a look of sympathy before answering flatly. "It's getting late. I better get you home. Come on."
"Why won't you come home, Alex? Mom misses you. She's sad," Damon finally musters up the courage to speak after ten minutes of silence in the truck.
"She's been sad for a long time, kid. And I'm twenty-five years old, I don't need to live at home anymore," he replies simply, glancing in his side mirror absently before changing lanes.
"Well you could at least come by and visit more."
"I just don't wanna be in that house. I know you don't get that, but—"
"Then tell me. Explain it. Tell me something. Anything," Damon demands in frustration, banging against his thighs with clenched fists and Lex huffs a perturbed sigh and shakes his head.
"You just...you wouldn't understand," he answers weakly.
"Why not?" Damon questions and Lex snaps at the mix of the guilt building inside of him and the anger that comes with the memories of living in that house with his parents.
"Because, okay?" He hits the steering wheel with an open palm and Damon jumps. "What do you fucking know about it? Nothing. You're the baby, the perfect kid, the loved kid. You could never fucking understand it."
"Understand what?" Damon growls back, his temper almost equaling Lex's, and there is a pause as Lex looks over at him in astonishment.
"Nothing. Just leave it alone, okay? We're almost there," he finally mutters, turning his eyes back to the road and Damon sighs with a pout, crossing his arms over his chest.
And they continue in silence.
"Alright kid, don't be pulling anymore shit on me like this," Lex grumbles once he finally pulls into the driveway of his childhood home. Well, his house, as he sees it, because while in the sense of material things he had everything he wanted, it definitely never felt like a home to him. He puts his truck in park and there is a moment of tense silence before Damon looks over at him.
"Thanks for bringing me home."
Again, that word, home. He's sure that it feels like a home to Damon, but he's also sure from Damon's reaction in their conversation just moments prior that the details of his own childhood haven't been spilled, in order to prevent tainting the image of their perfect family. Damon really has no idea why Lex left home, and while that's frustrating, maybe it's for the better.
"Take it easy, okay? And at least call or something before you just show up at my door again."
Damon nods as he opens the passenger's side door and slides across the smooth leather of the seat until his feet hit the ground. He gives Lex a sustained look before shutting the door with a sigh and ascending the remainder of the driveway, head down and hands in his pockets as he crosses the yard to the front door.
Lex takes a moment and studies the house through his open window. Perfect from the outside, just like their family had appeared. But every family has their dark secrets and he suddenly can't stop the memories flooding his mind of a time that should have been so much simpler.
The opening of the front door rips him from his thoughts and he slouches in his seat a bit, resting his elbow on the inside of his door and raising a hand against his forehead to shield his face as he peeks through his fingers. But he relaxes when he hears the warm familiar voice call out across the yard.
"Oh my God, honey. Are you okay?"
He smiles weakly as he sees his mom bustle out of the front door, crossing the yard quickly to grab Damon up in her arms, stroking his hair protectively.
"I'm fine, Mom," Damon grumbles and her face suddenly goes white as her focus shifts over his shoulder and onto Lex's truck in the driveway.
"Alex? Is...is that you?" she calls across the yard, craning her neck and squinting to make out what she can see of his face, which is now much thinner than it was the last time she laid eyes on him, her baby boy.
He sighs as he drops his hand from his face reluctantly, opens his driver's side door and slides out of the seat. He didn't want to do this. He was just supposed to drop Damon off and hit the ground running. But he can't turn his back on his mom, not after everything they went through.
"Yeah...it's me, Mom," he laughs as she approaches him quickly with disbelief in her eyes. She instantly takes him into her arms, no questions asked. He sighs and leans into her a bit, not feeling this relaxed since...well, there's only one other person who makes him feel like this.
He can't stop the memories from coming, swarming in his head as his mothe
r holds him in her arms. When he was a child he had been ashamed, too confused and young to tell his mother what was happening to him on an almost daily basis, so he had lived most of his young life in fear and longed for the quiet moments when she would hold him and make him feel like he was loved. And for a moment now he feels the very same way.
"Look at you! You're skinny as a rail. Are you eating? Are you okay?" she rambles worriedly as she holds him out at arms length and he chuckles a bit, hanging his head because he knows he must look terrible compared to the last time she saw him.
"I'm fine, alright? Just brought this kid home when he showed up on my doorstep." He smiles warmly at her and nudges Damon playfully, but his smile soon fades when he hear another all too familiar voice call across the yard.
"Alex, what in the hell did you do with my son?"
Lex sighs and rolls his eyes at his father. "He's my fucking brother, Erik. What, you think I kidnapped him or some shit?"
"Well with all the other illegal shit you do there's no telling," he answers, coming to stand threateningly close. His blue eyes are intense, and unlike Lex's and Damon's, they're cold, like ice. They're the palest watery blue, like the eyes of a ghost.
"Fuck you, man. You don't know me. You never fucking did," Lex snaps, stepping away from him.
"Hey, don't you take that tone with me! And you watch your damn mouth," his father growls, pointing a finger in his face menacingly.
"He showed up at my place, I brought him home. That's it," Lex answers defiantly, gesturing to Damon. "Why would I do anything to my own damn brother?"
"No...no, you're no brother to him. Just like you're no son to us."
"Erik, please," his mother pleads, tightening her grip on Damon protectively, but Lex holds up a hand to her.
"It okay, Mom, he's right. I've never been a son to him."
His father scoffs. "No, you haven't. I don't know what kind of sick relationship you and your mother have, but you've never treated me like a son should treat his dad."
"Oh yeah, you were father of the fucking year," Lex muses sarcastically before stating matter-of-factly, "Dads don't treat sons the way you fucking treated me."
"Alex..." his mom starts, but his father cuts her off directly.
"Colleen, please! Jesus fucking Christ!" he growls.
"Just stop it, both of you. Alex, why don't you just stay for dinner, baby," she says, putting a hand on his arm affectionately and he sighs, wanting to stay for her, but knowing he can't. He can't get her hopes up of him coming back around, because no matter how much he would want to do it for her, he's not ready to face down all of the demons of his past that linger in the memories of living in this house.
"Absolutely not. I won't have a stranger in our home," his father insists with finality in his voice and Lex narrows his eyes at him. Taking years and years of this same verbal combat was enough for him, but now in front of his own mom and brother? No, he won't stand for it anymore.
Lex waits a beat before responding without turning his cold stare from his father's eyes. "Mom, just take Damon inside, okay?" he says calmly, with that sort of unnerving controlled rage. Yes, something definitely must be said or done.
"You have something to say to me?" his father scoffs at him once his mother and Damon have finally disappeared into the house.
"I thought after enough years you would finally have something to say to me. Maybe the apology that you owe me?" Lex eyes him threateningly.
"I don't owe you anything," his father hisses snidely and Lex snaps.
"You owe me the fucking world. You owe me ten years of my fucking life that you ruined. Ten years that I couldn't sleep at night. Ten years that me and Mom had to fend for ourselves because you were a sorry ass excuse for a father and husband. Not to mention years of shit after Damon was born. Pretty much everyday I spent in that fucking house, living a nightmare. So yeah, you owe me about twenty years back," Lex replies angrily, clenching his fists at his sides and his father laughs when he sees the rage swimming in his eyes.
"Oh, are you gonna hit me, Alex? Huh? Haul off and clock your old man real good now that you think you're man enough to stand up to me? You wanna give it a go? You remember what happened the last time you did that shit."
"Yeah, I remember. I remember I made that mistake once and almost paid for it with my fucking life. And I also remember I promised myself a long time ago that I'd never end up like you. I can only hope Damon doesn't either."
"I just hope he doesn't end up like you."
Lex pushes out a disbelieving laugh at his father's response before nodding slowly, biting at the inside of his cheek in contemplation. He narrows his eyes, responding sternly and with intent.
"Does it make you nervous, Erik? Does it make you wonder why Damon left home? Surely he's not miserable, surely you don't treat him the way you treated me for years and years. Huh?" He waits a beat before continuing, smiling sinisterly as he sees that he's rendered his father speechless. "No? I didn't think so. I know Mom doesn't have to make him wear pants and long sleeves to school to cover up bruises. No, because you love him, right? Do you love him too much, Erik? I know I left home because you almost killed my ass, but what about Damon? Are you smothering him? Is that why he ran off? Loving him enough to make up for how much you hated me? Does it help you sleep at night you son of a—"
Lex hears the crack of skin on skin before he feels the throb in his cheek that makes his eyes water and the warm wetness inching down from his nose that he recognizes immediately as his own blood. He draws the back of his hand across his upper lip and nods slightly when he sees the crimson red liquid, suddenly replaying childhood scenarios in his head like a movie reel of slap after slap of his father's hands, rendering blood and tears for so many years of his life.
Usually no man hits Lex without getting the shit kicked out of them, but he takes this paternal assault without so much as a flinch, because that's what he's always done with his father. That's what he's learned to do. Just be a man and take it. He knows what happened the last time he fought back.
He laughs low and sadistic, his voice gruff and barely above a whisper as he eyes his father with disgust. "I guess some things just never change."
Without another word he climbs back into his truck and tears out of the driveway and onto the street, suddenly remembering the last time he left this house without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror, his mother standing in the driveway crying, but today she's not there, and he's the one crying. Crying in frustration and confusion because perhaps he thought that maybe, just maybe after these years had passed, his father would have something in his heart for him besides hate.
Finally pulling into his driveway, Lex breathes a shaky sigh and wipes at his tearstained face as he turns off his truck, and another wave of emotions hits him as he suddenly doesn't want to go inside his house. He's so tired of being alone even when there are people bustling in and out every single day. He still feels so, so alone, especially now with all this talk of house and home and family. Family is supposed to love you unconditionally, but Lex wouldn't know unconditional love if his life depended on it. And right now he feels like his life does depend on it.
The closest thing he's ever had to love is gone. He pushed it away, and now he needs it, he needs it so much when he's all alone and dealing with so many nightmares chasing him down. This isn't his home anymore, not when he's alone. Home is where your heart is and his heart is in rehab. His heart is moving on, and his real heart, it's shattered. He's empty. Empty and alone and that's the way he's going to stay if he doesn't change his life, but now his life just has no fucking meaning anymore.
He sniffles and wipes at his nose as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, pulling out the tiny paper angel between his shaking fingers, and he chokes down a sob as he remembers that moment. That moment when he felt so alive and loved and content and he had hope for once. And now it's gone. It's gone because he ruined it, he threw it away, the only thing he had left that m
ade him want to brave this terrible world and keep pushing even when life gets so, so hard.
A tear hits the paper, causing the ink to bleed, to bleed like his fucking heart is bleeding as fear rises in him but he knows he needs to do it. He needs to do something, anything, to make this terrible pain go away because he just can't bear it, and he needs it. He needs that angel.
Because only an angel could save him from what he wants to do tonight.
32
I knock excitedly on his door. I know it's kinda early in the morning, and I shouldn't be coming back to the house—this house of all places—so soon after I've been released. God, I've only been out for one day and I know this is a mistake but I just want to see him already.
I knock again. I wait and wait and he doesn't answer the door. His truck is in the driveway. Maybe one of the boys came to pick him up. But it's a little early for him to be out on a run already. I've been trying to call all morning and he hasn't answered his phone and normally I would just leave him the fuck alone but something inside that I can't shake is telling me that I need to come see him.
I try to call his phone one more time. Nothing.
I knock once more, my heel tapping against the concrete walkway impatiently. I know after the fight just a few days ago he probably doesn't want to see me, but I need to talk to him to make sure he's okay because I don't think he is. I know him well enough to know that something's wrong. I have to see him.
If he would just answer the fucking door.
After a few minutes I turn the knob, expecting it to be locked, and my eyes widen a little in surprise when I feel that it isn't. Lex always locks the door. I start to get a little nervous.
I push the door open slowly. No lights are on in the house and there is an eerie silence despite the fact that the TV is playing in the living room. Walking Dead reruns.
