xp_logs | Saturday Morning- Alex and Lorna

The next morning, Lorna makes breakfast and they talk. It's very domestic despite the trauma.

Oddly enough, dates don't go very well when you finish the evening with 'Sorry, no dessert, my ex-fiance is waiting for me at home.' Lorna considered that short-sighted and narrow-minded. Alex had been asleep when she arrived, curled up with Crush and Lili. "Traitorous mutt," Lorna accused affectionately from the doorway. The little cavalier thumped her tail cheerfully but remained where she was snuggled tight to her Crush and his boy. As far as Lili was concerned, it was Lorna who needed to be joining them, not Lili leaving.

The next morning, the small dog expressed her feelings by destroying a pair of Lorna's shoes. Lorna sighed and started making waffles.

It was the sound of rattling around in the kitchen and the sudden bounding of two dogs jumping over him to get to the doorway as their breakfast hit the floor that woke Alex up the next morning. It took him a few moments to reorient himself and remember why he wasn't in his room in the mansion and why he felt so drained still, but it didn't take long for it all to come rushing back. He laid back and stared up at the ceiling for what felt like a long while as he contained himself. Finally, remembering what he'd said to Lorna last night, he rolled out of bed and got dressed before venturing out, not sure what he was going to say, but determined all the same.

There were waffles, bacon, eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, grapes and sliced melons, tiny quiches. Muffins and biscuits. It was enough food for five people. Lorna was eating cottage cheese and a grapefruit. She looked up when he came in and stood immediately. "Sit down, I'll get you a plate. You're going to be starving."

Alex didn't even comment on the food or how well she still obviously knew him to prepare all and know he was probably going to eat it all. He just sat and let her place the full plate in front of him. With a soft 'thanks,' he tucked in.

She sat back down again to finish her own breakfast then lingered over her coffee, carefully not watching him while she waited for him to speak. There was little that she could guess, enough to have some suspicions but not enough to go...question anyone yet. Her focus right now was getting Alex back on steady ground anyway.

For that he was grateful because Alex still felt like his world was tilting off its edge. Sleep had helped but talking would too and at this point, the more help the better. He was not letting this get him again. Not again. Finally, he was carefully munched on a piece of muffin, looking down at the patterns the blueberries made in pastry when he finally spoke softly, "Shiro's been showing symptoms of when he lost his powers whenever one of us left for a few days. I think...no I'm sure...well you remember the Kick thing, I think it's that all over again. Except this time...it's me he's addicted to. Or well, not me, my powers. I kinda freaked and had to get out of there." It was a very over simplified version but simple was a start.

She was going to put him through a wall, she decided as she sipped her coffee, right through the nearest wall and damn the consequences. The thought lifted her mood enough that she actually managed to sound almost reasonable when she spoke. "I think you did the right thing. It's not...it's very hard to be in recovery. If you're right, then you were both in danger."

With a small defeated sigh, Alex nodded, his gaze never leaving the muffin. "I know. I mean, I know I had to get out of there, for both of us, but...It was Shiro." He finished that statement as if that was an explanation of itself.

In many ways, it was. The line between trusting your friends and saving yourself was often too thin and blurred to be clear. How much would you harm the people you loved in trying to do the right thing? And was it worth it, in the end, if you lost them in the process? "Have you spoken to the doctors about this? What do they think?"

Exactly.

Alex played with some crumbs on his fingers before sucking them into his mouth. "I made Shiro go to the doctors when I got home this time, because three times of him being sick when one of us left was more than coincidence." And the demanding of sex but Alex wasn't even ready to approach that. "They did some tests that won't have results for a few days, but they compared it to when his powers returned after he burned them out. Which it really was since he was really sick then and his powers came back suddenly when I touched him. I put two and two together and well...yeah."

Lorna just...looked at him for a while, letting her thoughts run as they would before reining them in. "Did he have any idea what he was doing?"

"I don't know..." His voice cracked slightly because he didn't really want to think about it. What if Shiro did and didn't care?

"He didn't say?" Lorna frowned. It wasn't exactly comforting either way. The idea that Shiro wouldn't recognize the feeling for what it was or that he did know and was lying and using Alex. Standing she began to clear the table of the remains of breakfast, letting the action cover the fact that she had no idea what to say.

Shiro's actions had spoken quite loudly in fact, but if he had been so far into his addiction he may not have been thinking clearly enough to control them. Alex really didn't want to think about it at all. "He was an addict. Who knows what he was thinking?" He said for filler as he now switched to holding a glass of orange juice between his hands, the muffin eaten.

Lorna came over to where he was sitting and rested her hand on the back of his chair. "I'm really sorry, Alex. You don't deserve this. I...you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

Alex looked up at her and managed a small smile, which felt oddly good. "Thank you, Lorna...I...yeah, thanks." The relief showed not only in his face and voice but in his entire body.

She wanted to do more, say more. Fix this. But there was only so much that she was able to offer Alex. So much that she was allowed to do now that they weren't...now that their relationship was the way it was. "So...other than Shiro, have you had a good holiday?"

Pausing to take a sip of juice to settle himself into a topic change, Alex grinned, more genuine this time. "I did. I went up to Alaska. Grandma and Grandpa say hi by the way and want to send you cookies."

"That's sweet of them to think of me but I'd settle for more of your grandmother's recipes instead." Lorna took a seat again, flopping into the chair next to him. "One of these days she's going to actually hand them over and on that day, oh, worlds will be mine."

Alex chuckled. "They had a whole section in their will devoted to those recipes, or so the joke goes. Maybe you'll get lucky. She definitely likes you enough." This was nice and comfortable and exactly what Alex needed, more than he thought even.