Chapter Text
Steam and condensation obscured his reflection in the bathroom mirror, and Alex swiped at it with his towel. He eyed himself critically, looking at his thin, bruised body; his dark hair and eyes, reminiscent of his mother; the face his friends had labeled ‘sweet’ and his brothers had labeled ‘girly’. He decided his arms would be fine in short sleeves, but that the bruise on his ribs would mean not changing in front of his roommate for a while. A baseball bat did a lot of damage, and the cracked ribs were healing, but his entire right side was still black and blue. Curious, he turned around and craned his neck to see his thighs in the mirror, hissing about how bad it hurt to twist. The welts were almost gone, and they hadn’t bled, so he didn’t think they’d scar.
A check of his phone showed him that it was 5:38, leaving him just enough time to gel his hair, brush his teeth, and get dressed before he was expected to be at parade rest with his backpack by the front door. The Jeep was already packed with literal military precision with everything he was taking aside from his toiletries and clothes from yesterday.
Alex had planned his appearance for the day carefully. He was wearing clothes that he thought of as too big, which equaled ‘less gay’ to avoid attention from his father. Plain black shirt, plain blue jeans, plain black Chucks. No jewelry other than piercings. Definitely no eyeliner. The only hint of personality he had were his alien socks, a tribute to Roswell that he was taking with him to Albuquerque. He shoved everything he had left in his backpack, including the book he’d been reading the night before. He wasn’t the bookworm that Max Evans was, but he did enjoy reading as an escape.
He arrived at his assigned post by the door ahead of schedule and stood silently with his backpack at his feet. He didn’t fidget or look at his phone. He didn’t bite his freshly un-polished nails. He just stood still. Best way to avoid any new bruises his first week at UNM.
At precisely 6:00, Jesse Manes emerged from the kitchen, travel cup of coffee in his hand. He was dressed in casual clothes, but they might as well still be BDUs. Alex had never seen his father relaxed, even out of uniform. Not even when he was drinking. When he indicated that Alex should move with a sharp jerk of his head, he grabbed his backpack and hastened to open the front door and stand on the porch while his father walked through and locked the house. No one else was home, all three of his older brothers were currently deployed, and his mother had long-since disappeared. The pain had faded in the intervening years, and he only cried now when he was in too much agony to feel anything but her holding him as a terrified first grader who’d been corrected with a belt to his backside for losing his lunchbox.
When his father unlocked the car, Alex stowed his backpack behind the passenger seat before buckling himself in. He prayed to a god he didn’t really believe in that he’d manage to be ignored for the next three hours. He’d been surprised when his father had agreed to take him to school, rather than leaving him to fend for himself out of punishment for taking a scholarship to UNM instead of enlisting, but he'd realized it was because he just couldn’t wait to be rid of him.
They were silent for at least 15 tense minutes before Alex finally relaxed a little. His father turned on the radio to a conservative news station that he could easily tune out. He’d never listened to music in the car as far as he knew; his and his brothers’ love of music had been inherited from their mother. He and his oldest brother, Flint, each had one of her guitars. He remembered a few rare soft moments when Flint, who’d been finishing his senior year in high school when their mother had left, helping with the fingering his mother had taught him but wasn’t possible with his little eight-year-old hands.
Alex started when his father broke the silence. “What dorm are you in?”
“Laguna De Vargas.”
They lapsed back into tense quiet. When the buildings of Albuquerque came into view, Alex breathed a quiet sigh of relief. UNM was right in the middle of the city, and there was always traffic, but still. They were almost there.
The campus was beautiful, in a southwestern way. Alex had seen it already, when his best friend Maria’s mother had driven them to the freshman pre-registration event. He was relieved that he’d already have a friend at school on the first day. Just a little stability, that’s all he needed.
“This it?”
Alex looked through the windshield at freedom in the form of pueblo-style architecture. “Yah.”
As soon as his father parked, he was out of the Jeep. “I have to do a check in thing.”
“Do it.”
He nodded quickly and walked up the shallow stairs to the entry of the main hall. There was a desk with a student assistant, and he approached with about half the confidence he was showing with his body language. “Hi, I have an early check in for today.”
The pretty blonde smiled. “Sure. What’s your name?”
“Alexander Manes.”
She consulted a clipboard. “Great, you’re in 214 in Laguna 1. I’ll call your RA.”
The entire time Alex was talking to the resident assistant and signing forms, in the back of his mind he was worried about leaving his belongings, especially his guitar, with his father. He won’t make a scene, he assured himself. Destroying all his stuff would definitely cause a scene.
Room 214 was exactly as he pictured it. Two lofted beds with desks beneath, two closets, a shared dresser, small fridge/microwave combo, small bathroom that connected to the double room on the other side of the suite. Plain cream-colored walls, plain grey carpet. One window. To anyone else, it was a dorm room. To Alex, it was a sanctuary.
Keys in hand, he took the stairs down to the lobby. There was an elevator, though, and since it was a week before the actual move-in week, there were flat-bed dollies waiting for students to cart the material evidence of their short lives into the tiny shared rooms.
Alex was surprised to see that his father had unloaded his boxes and bags. “Oh, thanks, Dad.” He felt warm from the nice gesture. His dad wasn’t always bad.
“Let’s load this.”
With the dolly loaded, Alex only had to carry his guitar, backpack left in his room. He started pushing the dolly to the ramp by the front doors and heard his father snort. He had no idea what he was doing that was amusing or embarrassing, but he was embarrassed anyway. Pushing the heavy cart hurt. He refused to show it.
Alex was dreading being trapped in the elevator with his father, but to his relief, three other students were going upstairs, and their cheerful conversation kept him from being the focus of his father’s attention. When they exited on floor two, they all said goodbye to him, and he heard a whisper about his butt as they went down the hall. He blushed and didn’t look at his dad.
He let himself into the small room. It took less than five minutes to stack everything he owned on the side of the room with the door to the hall. His father turned to leave without speaking, and he followed him down the hall to the elevator. He left the dolly with the SA and followed his father outside. “Dad, wait.”
Jesse Manes turned around, face as expressionless as ever. He raised an eyebrow.
“Thanks for helping me. I appreciate it.”
He just stood there for a moment before saying, “Behave yourself, son,” and walking away. Alex had had some vague idea about getting a hug, or at least a handshake from his only parent before he started college. He had clearly been deluded. He waited on the steps until he couldn’t see the black Jeep anymore before going inside.
He refused to cry.
Back in his room, he looked at the boxes and bags, knowing his laptop (inherited from Chris when he wanted one that was better for gaming) was in there somewhere. He kind of wanted to listen to music, but also kind of didn’t want to try to get to it. “I should get iPhone speakers,” he mumbled to himself. Sighing, he decided to just start with the top box and unpack what was in it first.
It was sheets, towels, and blankets. Maria had teased him about how emo was over when he picked out black. She didn’t understand. He already had black sheets but needed new ones. Blood doesn’t show on black sheets. Besides, emo was not dead, thank you very much. And they hadn’t had black towels, so he’d gotten gray. Mimi had insisted that he take a second set of sheets and towels, and an extra blanket and pillow with him. He left those in the box, put his towels away, and made his bed.
A little smile crept onto his face. This was his space. He could do what he wanted with it. He ripped into the next box and found the poster tube he’d hidden in it under clothes. The upside of having two part time jobs over the summer was that he could buy stuff for school, including posters for his room. He rooted around through the other stuff and found the bag full of office supplies and dumped it on the desk to look for the poster tac. Opening the tube, he carefully slid all the rolled posters out, and separated them enough to decide which one to hang up first, over the head of his bed. It wasn’t a choice, really. My Chemical Romance. Of course.