Notes: This takes place between parts XIII and XIV of Affinity. It stemmed from a one-sentence exercise I did (the italicized floating text below). I showed the specific prompt to Laluzi, who requested a stretched out scene. I went a few steps further than that, I suppose.

Rated for the mandatory angst that comes from an Alex Mercer character study.

xxxx

"There were times Desmond found himself holding a shaking Alex, because his limit of human understanding left him helpless in such a way that his strength could not save him."

It was like he wasn't even on Earth anymore. That was Alex's first thought, standing out on an indistinctive road he recognized as Tenth Avenue, somewhere deep in Chelsea. He had to wonder how he knew that, though.

For one thing, there were no people, no cars – no other signs of life.

And for another, there were no discernible features of the road – not even color. It wasn't black, or white, or grey or red or blue – there was just no perception at all. Just an entire picture of unspecified, swirling, Nothing blanketed over by clear fog. As soon as he made out something resembling ground, or sky, or a lamp post, and moved onto another detail that he could study just a few degrees away, he could almost see the object shift out of focus – no, not even that, it was as if it was slowly disappearing from reality all together - until he turned his eyes back towards it again, at least.

It began to give him a headache; and that was another weird thing: He didn't get headaches. At least, the Blacklight Virus didn't get headaches. And as he moved, shuffled, down the road, he realized that his feet felt… dark. No, heavy. Like dumbbells were stuffed in his shoes. That wasn't normal. Hell, nothing he was experiencing was normal. It was like a…

Oh.

Shit.

With no more room for internal debate, Alex slowly began to drag himself forward – North, he guessed, though he wasn't sure if Cardinal directions applied in a place like this.

Come to think of it, wasn't he just talking about this sort of thing? Desmond Miles, who had managed to become a friend, confident, wanted fugitive and several other things he couldn't quite classify, had asked him what he did when he himself was asleep.

Alex Mercer, as the Blacklight Virus, did not require sleep like a human being did. Yes, he needed moments where he was under no strenuous activity; no arduous thoughts, but for the most part, he could stay conscious.

But these sorts of visions had happened to him before; usually after he had taken too many blows and couldn't manage – or, perhaps, didn't want to – consume the dozens of civilians he needed to get the energy back. So he slept. Or, more accurately, passed out. But now, with all of the Infection totally destroyed, he was usually at a low risk for that sort of thing. So he hadn't bothered with the period of time most people spent unconscious.

Until now, he supposed, stopping to reach out and touch one of the buildings on the… street.

It was like touching a wall of solid water. Ice, he thought sarcastically, pulling his hand away. Because a wall of frozen water is formally just called 'ice'. But it wasn't ice, because ice was cold and it would melt so easily against his skin – the building felt effortless to manipulate; like he could sense the little shakes in the concrete it was made of; like a regular person could easily punch through the material. Yet he knew that it was only solid. Only mortar and support beams. And yet, and yet…

He didn't know. He moved on, trying to remember what he had told Desmond at least a week ago. Was there a timeframe here? He also questioned, as his mind almost immediately began to turn up the requested reminiscence. It played like a video versus an actual thought in the back of his head, or anything else he would recall in reality – this was one that he could keep half his mind on, as he prowled the streets.

xxxx

"So, what do you do?" Desmond asked the other man one night – or, more accurately, very, very early that morning, as Desmond had come home from a long shift at that club high up on the West Side and had just taken a shower. He had a few clear droplets flowing down his arms, his back, his legs, and was more than comfortable to wander the shared room nude as he gathered up some worn shirt and shorts to use as pajamas. He knew Alex was there, on the bed, not wearing eight dozen layers of clothing for once but instead in a plain T-shirt. He also knew that the older man was following his movements. Because he always did that; he was always looking at Desmond, actually. He was staring at the man when he smiled, he looked at the man when he read, and he always liked finding his dark eyes when they were hazy and at half mast as they both grappled for each other and a flat surface to fall against-

At any rate, Desmond was used to the scrutinizing man on the large bed. He pulled a shirt over his head and turned just as Alex shrugged and attempted to answer the other man's question.

"Well, sometimes I just read. Or watch TV. If it's late enough I go out; visit Dana, do laundry… anything really."

"Oh." Desmond paused to pull on some flannel pants. "Do you get the groceries too?"

"Sometimes."

"Damn. I thought maybe there was some magical gnome living in the fridge or something, because I haven't gone to a store in like, two weeks and it's still stuffed to the brim." Desmond moved to the right of the bed, hand reaching up to pass briefly over Alex's shoulder as he went. "So you play fifties housewife while I'm unconscious? Awesome." He pulled back the sheets and settled in. "Please tell me you'll do the vacuuming, too."

Alex let out a long sigh as the other man attempted to prod him with the remarks. "If you want me to wake you up at six thirty by doing chores, then I guess that can be arranged."

Desmond blanched. "Sorry. Jesus, maybe you do need a nap or something." He laid back on the white pillows and waited for a minute.

Alex Mercer climbed in on his respective side and immediately it became obvious why Desmond didn't need a quilt over him every night. It must have been all the excess energy getting out of Alex's system, he figured. That was why the other man was always a good fifteen degrees hotter than a regular person. He didn't even need to feel his skin to know that, though that didn't really stop Desmond from sliding closer to the other man and wrapping one of Alex's arms around himself, stroking the man's fingers with his own hand idly as they talked.

"Have you ever tried going to sleep?" Desmond asked, staring at the ceiling. He felt Alex shift.

"A few times, if I really need to." He paused. "I don't like it."

"How come?"

"Bad dreams."

Desmond thought about that for a moment; wiggling his toes and stretching Alex's fingers as he thought of something to say besides a biting remark.

"Everyone has nightmares," he stated. "Hell, even I get nightmares."

"I think mine are a bit different. A bit more… intense. Real."

"Like a memory flash?" Desmond murmured.

"Sort of."

"But you don't get those anymore," Desmond argued. "Not unless you repressed something…" They both stilled as they thought back to that particular incident more than a month past, back in Times Square. "You think that you wouldn't really have anything to relive now. When was the last time you tried going to sleep?"

"Two years ago," Alex admitted casually, before his voice got a bit deeper, and more sullen as he specified. "After James Heller died."

"And?"

"Didn't end well for me,"

"They might not come back," Desmond persisted.

"What, are you suggesting that I actually try and go to sleep?" Desmond shrugged against the other man's hot body.

"Only if you want – I can't exactly force you, Alex." He carried on in an impassive voice. "It'd just be… curious, to see what would happen."

"You say that like I'm your Science Project."

"You were the human Mercer's Science Project," Desmond said, pointedly rolling on his side so he wouldn't see Alex's expression as he mentioned his human counterpart. He could feel the arms curl around him, though, and Desmond knew in the back of his hazy mind that those arms that were holding him now could squeeze the very literal life out of him, if Alex was so inclined. But they only rested heavily on him, and Desmond's eyes were getting harder and harder to stay open. "Do what you want," he said openly. "But maybe you'll be fine."

Five minutes later, Desmond had fallen asleep, taking deep breaths and going completely lax against Alex. The other man moved an arm to turn off the bedside lamp, and then went back to his original position, feeling the cool dark skin of the other man through the thin shirt he wore; and the dark brown hair still damp from the shower.

Alex tried to remember something more: Had he said something? Had he sat there, watching the other man; or had he gone out to think? He walked and pondered what might have happened and tried to press his brain for more information, but then all of the sudden any notion of the exchange he had just relived through a metaphorical screen had simply… vanished. And he forgot about it, if only because he could no longer remember what he was missing.

Somewhere, much, much further down the road, he heard a scream, and began running.

xxxx

"Alex," Desmond said as he slid into the apartment. It was dark – which wasn't unusual. He slid off his jacket and began undoing the black vest that had become a part of his job's uniform. The television that hung on the wall was on at a low volume, providing a ghostly blue light against the drawn shades and deep shadows of the flat's living room.

He could make out his roommate's figure on the sofa, and called out again: "Hey, Alex. I'm back," He wandered over, only slightly bothered that his voice hadn't warranted any sort of response. It wasn't as if the other man was sleeping, because he distinctly remembered a discussion about that –

Except he was.

Alex Mercer's chest was rising and falling in deep motions. The front of his jacket had splatterings of blood, and his face was taut; eyes flickering quickly under the lids. Desmond turned towards the TV, and the screen was filled with footage of police tape fluttering in the wind on a dark street, and several civilians talking into a microphone.

"Military Grade Weapons Leaked to Gang Members," Said the main tagline. "Vigilante Saves Twenty Before Fleeing." Was in a smaller font, under that. Turning volume up to a comprehensible level, Desmond took a seat on the couch, pushing Alex's legs further back to make room for himself. He put his right hand up against the side of Alex's neck and attempted to fit the pieces together, deciding that he would let the other guy sleep it off.

xxxx

His name was Evan Barnes.

He was twenty six years old.

He had a girlfriend of two years, and clinical depression his whole life.

Blackwatch contacted him, Zeus consumed him. He had only been on tour for six weeks.

She was Rebecca Lyzer.

Eighteen, just finishing her first year in NYU. She was heading home to visit her Mother and her older brother down in New Jersey. Zeus found her on a blocked off road about to be killed by roaming Infected.

He got to her first.

She was Rosa Miceli.

Sixty-three; a recently retired school teacher, trying to see her only daughter's second born child. She didn't make it. Zeus mistook her for a Gentek employee.

They were the voices he heard late at night, when there was nothing to distract him. He could feel them creeping up the back of his neck and whispering things into his mind. He felt all of them there, inside him, wriggling around like a bed of snakes.

Alex ran down an endless stretch of street and didn't hear anything except the movement of wind as he pushed forward. No footsteps or breathing, as if his unconscious mind forgot to add them in. Another scream ripped out from behind him this time, but he knew enough about places like this; don't get distracted was a good mantra he held in place. Tried to hold in place. Alien thoughts began sloshing around inside his mind and he couldn't decipher much. Anything. He knew he had to go forward, but the reason why he couldn't seem to recall.

It didn't matter. He was here now.

xxxx

Desmond turned off the TV and felt his eyes burn in the darkness. Alex's state hadn't changed. Not a bit. He felt the sweat in his hair and desperately wanted a shower. The other man wasn't going anywhere, right? That was what he kept on telling himself.

He looked at his face in the bathroom mirror: Tired seemed to be the overlaying theme, here. He washed his hands and sprayed his face with the hot drops he held in his cupped palms. He stared at the shower stall longingly and slipped out of his shoes.

But that was as far as he managed.

He found his way back to the living room, turning on a floor lamp as he searched for a relatively recent newspaper to pretend to focus on. He settled up against the other's side, knowing that he was getting far too concerned about other people these days, or at least too concerned with Alex.

xxxx

He saw himself, then. Two of him.

One had a tie and a horrid look on his face. Sour; decaying.

And the other one…? There was no face to see; only a black mass of spikes and rough edges.

That left him.

The Scientist, the God, and…

Virus

Alex

Murderer

Alex

Deceiver

Alex

Liar

You're just as bad as they are and you know it-

No no no nonono –

He didn't know. He couldn't remember. The voices started to come back, and he felt his legs shake a bit. At the moment, it didn't matter what he was, because he wasn't doing anything now. He was just the body. The vessel, to all the remnants that plagued his mind.

Because they were more than just voices and passive recollections. That, he would always remember.

He just wanted to forget.

And now, those entities that haunted his psyche had all fallen behind one voice: His voice, and he could distantly hear himself mutter, then talk, then yell as he slowly remembered how to slide his tongue over his teeth and move his lips until his – their – thoughts had meanings.

Monster, was the first one, he knew. Monster and Killer and Destroyer and Satan were all spewed out as a testing reel. Then the real babbling began. All of the Consumed pressed their presence down on him; fighting each other for a turn. He felt a Mother and a Father, an employee, a marine, an innocent bystander, a love struck girl and a boy who had aspirations. A teacher; a paramedic; a veterinarian, a cab driver a delivery boy a soldier on leave a lover a fighter a protector a friend an enemy a son a daughter child old man womanmaneveryone were all surrounding him until he was asphyxiated by their presence. He was drowning in them; too busy being lost in his own fragmented mind to realize the massive black entity that was slowly coming forward to kill him.

xxxx

Against the dim lighting and the ruffle of The Wall Street Journal being flipped through, Desmond felt a twitch. It was Alex's left hand, which was slung over to the opposite side of his chest, resting on his other arm. He glanced over, watching a fist being made; unmade; clenched and unclenched.

His lips were moving. Not enough to sense actual words were being said, but enough to make Desmond shift in his seat and stare.

He slowly reached out his hand…

xxxx

Zeus had knocked Alex right into the wall of water.

xxxx

Desmond saw Alex grasp his hand and squeeze it tightly, and he almost smiled and said "Good morning," until he realized that his eyes were still closed.

The grip on his hand was getting tighter, though.

xxxx

They were like fingers scratching inside his skull now, and everything started to hurt. His mouth kept on moving and words kept on falling out and he long after overlooked what he was saying - trying to say because it was so obvious that it wasn't him who was talking. His face smashed into the pavement again and again and again, and he tasted blood on his teeth.

Zeus towered over him. And he – it – didn't say anything. There was a growl that went through his ears which sounded like marbles rolling around in a paint can, and he was being lifted up off the ground.

He was choking again.

He could feel threads of biomass creeping into his skin like pins and it hurt. It had never been this brutal, had it? Every time he dared to let the voices get the better of him; every time this sort of thing happened…

"You just block it out." Alex finished. Wait. No. He was still struggling for air. And Zeus hadn't moved.

He saw a flash of white before his eyes rolled back in his head. By the time he could focus again he felt fingers squeezing his jaw.

"DX – 1118 C," the human Alex Mercer stated. He felt nails digging into his skin and that hurt too. But what else was different? "Has become… rather useless." He remarked. He pressed his hands against Alex's face for another agonizing moment before pulling back; wiping off blood on his labcoat.

"Regret, compassion – emotions? He's forgotten what he is," The shadow beside the man shifted and hissed. The scientist took a few steps back and Alex could feel those tendrils sink further into his skin; digging through veins and muscle and bone and why did he even have these things? This wasn't right, he thought, over and over again, as the voices began coming back, scraping their blades over whatever else was left inside him.

"You don't believe in killing?" The dead man echoed, blue eyes shining in insubstantial ghoulishness. "It's wrong? Since when? How many have you killed, Zeus? How many has this," he felt another strong prod, this time in his heart, "thing murdered? I'm sure they can keep a tally for you – or are you trying to forget?"

Yes, yes - he was trying to forget. Because this sort of memory hurt worse than anything before. He forgot because he could not recall the things he – Zeus – Mercer – they did and keep his sanity at the same time.

It wasn't me, he was thinking desperately, as if someone could hear that, as if someone would care, and he felt more knives sink into him like he was nothing more durable than those stupid walls of ice. He had a right to forget, to move on, and not hurt and-

"You have no right to forget," and now there really was no human Mercer speaking, it was just another voice getting mixed in with the white noise of the Consumed, residing snugly inside his brain like a parasite, and he only knew it because it was his voice that was saying it (was it his mouth, too? He couldn't feel anything besides pain.) "You have no right to try and separate us – regret doesn't mean forgiveness – regret doesn't mean that you're different from us;"

Body, and everything in him burned and twisted and churned and stretched and seared and pulled and it hurt.

Mind, and there were those voices again, those people – those poor people – all struggling for peace that he was denying them, locked inside a pathetic cage forever, and that hurt, too.

And Spirit, and now Zeus was hissing again and leaning over him and spreading its blackness all across everything and now he couldn't even see and Oh God, it hurt.

So where was he? Where did he fit in, then? And there was no answer, only more words that were ripped out of his lungs and he couldn't tell if those were actually his now, because he was very certain that Zeus – or maybe Mercer – had started the slow process of strangling him – or they had just gone and ripped out the vocal chords that he shouldn't have right out of his body (he couldn't tell and couldn't see much, anyway) - and the lack of air only made the torture worse, and all the voices in his head echoed and all the veins and threads of biomass grew inside him and stabbed at everything and oh God, why did it hurt so bad?

In between the shrieks and sobs that were not his, and the names he knew held significance for someone else, he found an opening to scream.

xxxx

"Ow, Alex-" his friend was still asleep, and still clutching at his hand, driving his nails in so hard he was surprised that he hadn't seen red splotches pop up on the skin yet. "Come on, Alex, time to wake up-" he shifted against the grip and started shaking his shoulder as hard as his one free arm could manage. He breathed out through his teeth – ow, ow, ow – he felt something in his hand shift with a barely audible crack! That nearly made Desmond scream. His hand felt wet, all of a sudden, and he already knew it was blood but he didn't have time to look before the biomass began wrapping around him, slowly, unconsciously, Alex was killing him.

"Alex!" Desmond yelled out, trying to preserve his breaths as more tendrils came out and wrapped harshly around him, and he was flinching and thrashing and all the while there was just more and more of those things twisting up his arms, his stomach, his chest his neck –

"Oh God… Alex!"

xxxx

They were inside him. Everything was inside him – the victims, the enemies, Zeus, and his Creator were all there, fighting to use his corpse.

He couldn't fit them all. He couldn't he couldn't he couldn't – oh God why did it hurt this bad? He felt the streets around him fall away, and now there really was nothing to hold on to – to focus on. Without that, he felt his mind slip again; under the pressure, under the voices, under Zeus and his predecessors and the pain and he knew he was drowning. He was dying. He wasn't going to make it and he didn't even want to try to keep fighting now. He had nothing.

"Alex," the voice made his ears ring, because there hadn't been any name to tie him down. There had been Monster and Mistake and Virus, but not Alex. It was a popping air bubble as he was sucked down again – he had his identity, but that was it. He would die with that.

"Come on, Alex…" It streamed downwards in a spiral: Insubstantial and wraithlike; ethereal against nothing; clear against the static and crackling thing called sound. He felt his consciousness rise up again; was made aware of the pain of literally being torn apart at the seams in his mind and body and soul – did he have a soul? Did he deserve a soul? – "Alex!"

"Alex!"

He felt himself being torn. He let himself be torn.

And the pain stopped.

And the voices stopped.

And those other beings ceased to be.

And he woke up.

xxxx

I'm running out of air, Desmond thought frantically, desperately trying not to panic – even if it was acceptable; the normal thing to do - it meant he would only die faster.

Death by smothering or death by crushing?

It was a hard choice.

Desmond stared down at the man who was murdering him; still asleep and clutching at air and tossing and yelling under his breath. It was torture. This was torture. And it hurt – those reels around him squeezing and the hand that was so close to snapping his own apart and knowing that Alex would wake up from his nightmare to only see a new one in reality and was this really how it was going to end for him?

He could feel his feet leave the ground as the biomass lifted him up; in the back of his oxygen starved brain, he felt Alex's hand let go of his own.

xxxx

Desmond fell back on the couch with a loud thump! And he desperately whirled his head around; trying to breathe and trying to decipher how he managed to escape death that time. Eventually he found his voice; he let out a very shattered sounding "Alex…?" And started to feel like a broken record. He rubbed his throat, glancing at the other man.

Alex had been shocked. Still shocked, in fact, as he sat up on the couch and felt a dull pounding behind his eyes; an aftereffect of the dream.

And it was a dream. He had forgotten it. Not because of its realness, or because of its plausibility, but it just hurt so much that any rational thought was impossible to process.

Alex licked his lips; he could still taste the blood in his mouth. "Are you okay?" Desmond was asking as he tried to sit back up on the couch despite the pained, twisted expression he got for trying, and even now his voice sounded worlds away. Alex didn't answer right away – even though his mouth was opening experimentally a few times. Did he have a voice anymore? He was still waiting for something inside him to yell out and take over – forcing him down to live again. But it was just the empty silence and darkness, and Desmond's dark, owlish eyes looking intently at him.

It felt less like he had woken up and more like he had just landed there, on the cushions, from a mile-long fall down. His mouth still felt broken and bloodied, and his throat and ears felt raw beyond repair. He could never remember the specific details of his nightmare two years ago – had it been this bad? Had he just blocked that out, too? …Could he? His skin prickled as if thousands of needles had just been jammed through his skin, and he realized after a quick glance downwards at the rest of him that he was shaking.

He couldn't stop.

Because now there was no denying it: All of the people Zeus had consumed (He had consumed,) weren't dead; oh no, they were still there, in the back of his mind, just like during the Outbreak when their deaths were a part of the day's events for him: Just one more red splash on his coat, one more memory, one more step in the long journey of finding the truth.

But then he was done; he could tell what ethics were, and found himself fighting against the same things the 'good people' had been. And he knew that the murder and destruction he brought weren't justified then, either, but over time, he found himself gradually changing until he had morals of his own, until he saw the human Alex Mercer for the monster he was; until he demonized who he had been – Zeus – as much as Blackwatch had.

And he thought he was different – he thought that Zeus and the memories died along with the Infection. He thought that he was done with it.

xxxx

The apartment, unlike his mind, was silent. He could hear the refrigerator in the kitchen, and the air-conditioner in the window, and Desmond's breathing – across from him. But, God, there was nothing. In his dream, the pain was concrete – the total anguish and crushing pressure were easy to grasp; to understand, even if anything else wasn't. But here? Here there was nothing. Just dark walls and furniture: What was he doing here? Two years ago, he bought the place because he thought having a home was just something people needed to do – but he wasn't a part of that group, was he? He rapidly looked around the room until the shadows became solid and the fabric of the couch under him was slipping through his trembling fingers, and reality was warping into a parody of itself, just like in his nightmare, but there was no searing, hurting agony to tie him down. He was lost, here.

Against his stretched out legs, he felt Desmond shift slightly, unsure of whether to move or not.

And suddenly, Alex found his anchor.

Alex slid his legs up to his chest, and now he could see that Desmond was watching him from his tentative spot on the edge of the seat. He looked exhausted and scared and so very, very real. Quietly, he repeated himself: "Are you okay?" he asked.

"No," Alex – to his shock – found himself saying. He felt chills on his back, making everything quake – inside and out. "No, I'm not okay." And he saw his hands stretching up from his lap, and he felt himself falling forwards a bit and Desmond was holding him; gingerly at first, then tighter as he felt Alex dig his fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and a moment later there were hot tears soaking onto his shoulder. There were no words; no comforting things that Desmond tried to offer as Alex pressed his chest forward a bit and moved his head down in the shelter of the other man's neck. There was nothing in the world that could stop his eyes from burning with an aching intensity as he quickly resumed that desperate shaking in his friend's arms, and nothing could stop the revelation that his nightmare had pointedly driven home – that ugly thing that was making those wet drops that now slid out of his open eyes and wetted the dress shirt Desmond wore.

Alex was crying.

Alex Mercer was crying. Up until this point Desmond wasn't even sure if the man even had tear ducts, but he felt the other's mouth open around the fabric of the shirt and he began to weep; screams and sobs and coughs all struggling to come out and be muffled against his shoulder – as if it was too much for one throat – and his body was rocking on the verge of convulsions and Desmond could only grab him and hold him tighter and tighter and tighter as he waited, hoping it would be enough – because that was all he could do.

Because as much as Alex wished, he wasn't done with it – he would never be done with it. The voices of the Consumed would always be there, inside of him, sleeping under the weight of his own self until he could no longer keep his mind awake and he succumbed to exhaustion. They were there, under wraps, lingering ghosts that were burning and putrid and horrible. They would fester like the worst of infections, eating away at him like acid. Like a -

Virus.

And his other selves? The monster that created him, and the monster that he was? They were inside him, too. It was a demented trinity of egos, and it didn't really matter how many blockades and red tape he tried to put up; how much he tried to draw a line between this Alex and this Alex and this Alex, he knew that he couldn't exist without them – a fact that would always flash through his mind for as long as he existed.

He had a million lives in his head, and he was left wondering what he had to validate his own.

But there was Desmond: He had Desmond, who was holding onto him with a pressing force that was reality itself right now, and it felt comforting. He could feel the warmth of his skin and the smell of beer and liquor and sweat from the bar he had been at and the nicely pressed shirt he was currently ruining and he knew he had something.

He tried to still his limbs and stop the half muffled sobs that made him bite down hard on his hand, but he couldn't. Not for the longest time. And when he did manage to pull back a bit, his eyes were still sore, and his movements were jarring and sloppy. But he did pull away, and he gained control of himself again – a foreign feeling for him, now - and his spasms began to turn to gentle twitches before stopping all together, and his hysterics morphed into silent tears, and he sat, on his knees, embarrassed and thankful and relieved that the rough blackness of his mind had now been pushed back and locked up.

For now, at least. It would always be for now: The peace he felt, the calmness of his life – even having Desmond there to hold onto him was temporary. But his memories would stay with him for the rest of his days, and the thought made him push his forehead back into Desmond's shoulder.

Desmond could feel it, and he moved one hand up, to the base of Alex's neck, and he slowly sank his head to overshadow the other man. He still couldn't find anything to say; and he had a feeling that, even after all of that, Alex still had some dignity he was trying to cling to, and shushing him like a baby would not help his endeavor. Instead he waited another minute, until it had seemed that Alex was staying there just because it felt good, and then he found something to say:

"You need a shower?" Desmond asked in a very low tone, staring down at Alex's bloodstained hoodie. He wasn't really expecting an answer – he didn't know what he was expecting – but Alex made a motion to stand up again, and he rushed to walk the both of them into the bathroom.

xxxx

It was probably the least sexy shower scene Desmond Miles had ever experienced, said man mentally noted as he took a seat on the bathroom counter and began changing his gaze between a pile of ruined clothes and a very quiet Alex, sitting in a half filled bath tub. Sometimes he looked down at his left hand – he had sterilized and bandaged it, but the skin had been red and puckered; and even now it ached so badly he wouldn't have been surprised if it was broken. He would worry about it tomorrow, he reasoned. After the pain killers set in.

After Alex was fixed.

The water had an odd tinted color, and occasionally there would be small drops rippling out; either from Alex's drenched hair or stray tears that hadn't yet stopped. They flowed out lazily, like blood from a shallow cut. Alex had long since stopped noticing them, but all he was doing now was just staring blankly ahead; his eyes quickly darting about and searching for something Desmond himself could not see.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked, wondering if Dana ever had to deal with this – if maybe she had a manual, because he certainly had no fucking idea how to handle a catatonic Alex Mercer. He was trying, though, and this – and a whole lot of other options - seemed better than 'trying to kill you in your sleep,' and then 'sobbing for an hour into your good shirt'.

God, he sounded like a dick, didn't he? He hopped off the counter and slid out of his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt, setting his feet in the hot water by Alex's side. He put his dry, undamaged hand on the man's wet back and hoped to get a type of response.

"See the news today?" came a miserably small voice; croaking and meek; was that Alex?

"How many men were there?"

"Only fifteen. The weapons were the hard part… It's harder to get the energy back, now."

"You told me you don't sleep."

"I don't." Alex retorted, though the bite it might have had was long gone. "I pass out."

"How are you feeling now?"
"Refreshed," again, the monotone somewhat ruined the humor he was aiming for – but it was something, Desmond figured. It was Alex's words, just not his voice. His body, his mind, but not his… "I saw myself." He said abruptly. The water sloshed a bit as he moved his arms. "In my dream."

"Clones?"

"No. I saw me before me. The selves I hate. The ones I'm not." He got a disjointed tone as he said that, as if he was reliving the whole thing over again. "There was Zeus in his armor, and the Human Mercer… and the voices." He felt a hand reach up from his back to his scalp, gently stroking his hair. "The ones I – Zeus – we consumed. They were using me. Trying to get out. Trying to talk. I could feel all of them pressing up against my insides and I could remember their lives and then Zeus and Mercer started to attack me from the outside-" He took a deep, shuttering breath and they both heard another tear make a lone plop! in the bath water.

"You started moving, in your sleep." Desmond said after a moment.

"…Did I hurt you?"

"Nothing permanent." Alex twisted his head and saw dark red and violet lines splotching their way around Desmond's neck, arms and ribcage. His left hand was covered in white wrappings and was being gingerly held to Desmond's side. A few spots of the bandages had been soaked through with fresh blood. He reached out a pale hand to the man's chest and could feel the indentation of skin; like when someone put a rubber band on their wrist for too long.

When someone squeezed and pressed, for too long.

"I'm sorry," he said, staring at the wide lines on Desmond's stomach even though he was hurting again just thinking about it, because that was a better alternative to actually staring at the man's face.

Desmond felt his lips sliding back to show a smile, but he couldn't put that much effort into it. "I'm more worried about what the guys are going to say tonight at work."

"How about telling them you have a pretty fucked up roommate?" Alex slowly put his hand back in the water. It was cool, at least to him, and it made his skin feel funny – as water tended to. Like being rubbed with sandpaper. But now he was just starting to feel numb. It was a pathetic attempt at healing himself, and it had left him drained beyond anything he had ever felt before.

He realized Desmond had started talking again. "It's a start. Are you ready to get out?" Alex pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and nodded, wishing he could stop feeling like he had just gotten run over by two dozen tanks in a row. Wishing he could forget. It was now that he wished he could slip into an unmarred, blank consciousness for an extended period of time, and wake up feeling as if this whole thing never happened; like it was less than a dream – less than a memory.

"Alright," he felt himself saying.

xxxx

The drain made a gurgling sound as the last of the water went down the pipes. Desmond handed him a towel, not yet willing to wander out in search of clothes for the both of them.

"You know you're not like them," Desmond stated, watching Alex wrap the towel around his waist. "That's what you tell me." He stared at the watery blue eyes in front of him.

"And you believe me?"

"Does it matter what I believe?" Desmond asked rhetorically. "You're the only one that counts. Though, for what it's worth, I don't think of you as a sociopath like Mercer, or a killing machine like Zeus."

"Then who do you think of me as?"

Desmond stopped himself from shrugging and attempted to answer the question seriously. "You're Alex Mercer. You're not the first one, or the human one, or the one everyone knows, but you are Alex Mercer now. Dana's older brother; someone who is trying to help Manhattan – the news can account for that, and…" He felt his tongue slip and he quickly shut his mouth, looking to the side.

"You were going to insult me, there."

"Actually, no," Desmond admitted, and this time he did make a real smile. "I was going to say that you were my best friend." Alex still had that dead look on his face, but there might have been a spark somewhere in his eyes– or at least, Desmond did a great job of imagining it.

"Do you have sex with your best friend?" his tone still carried a defeated, melancholy edge to it.

"Only if you're lucky," Desmond replied, the nervous grin still holding, in a way a giraffe on stilts managed to stay upright. It was a sad attempt at any rate, and Alex tried to mirror it – the key word being tried – and while it was a long way off, it was a start. "Come on," Desmond said, putting a hand on Alex's shoulder and nodding towards the bedroom.

xxxx

The apartment was cold and quiet. Under the sheets, Desmond could feel Alex's spine against his stomach. His leg was draped over a clothed thigh, and Alex was holding on to Desmond's uninjured hand like a lifeline. It was nearly six thirty in the morning, and they both would have to be 'up' in another four hours or so. At that point Desmond realized that he might as well have admitted that he was in love with the man lying in bed next to him, because he wasn't sure if anything else would have made him so willing to remain awake – and stay awake, and worry and hurt and care for someone who was not himself as much as Alex did.

Even as he knew the sky was getting progressively lighter through the crack in the bedroom door, and the city was becoming more awake, he watched the other man's backside, knowing they were both very much conscious, and more than a little shaken.

They could talk again, sure – but Desmond knew Alex had some private thoughts he had to go through. All he could do was sit and watch and hope that it was good enough. This was the man he had stayed with; this was the choice he had made. His eyes were burning in the deep shadows of the room and he tried as hard as he could not to yawn or fidget, even though his hand was still killing him. No one said Alex Mercer was an easy man to get along with, of course. His entire history was a disclaimer that at some point, something fucked up would happen to the both of them. Like this. But everybody had their beliefs; their promises- even if they were ones made internally. Desmond was never one to stick it out through difficult times, but maybe, this time, he could do it.

He hoped he could do it.

Because running away from someone like Alex Mercer was so much easier than staying by his side.

And against the grey light of the bedroom, Desmond also tried to wonder if Alex ever regretted maintaining a relationship with him. If he would have been better off with someone else. And maybe, if Alex did think of such things, if he ever felt guilty for even starting that train of thought. Did Alex think about him much? Did he care about him much – did he grow a capacity for compassion for him, or did he look at Desmond like one would look at a piece of Art; a precious idol; a path he had to follow towards something greater.

Desmond blinked and dragged his body closer to Alex by a few precious centimeters, wondering when – if – Alex Mercer, the Blacklight Virus, the Conscience; the one he was almost sure he wanted more than anyone else in the world – would be back to normal.

[End]