It's In The Blood (39+40/44)
Title: It's In The Blood (39+40/44)
Author: chasingxrabbits
Pairing: Jalex (Also Gabilliam, Ryden, Very slight Sykecest, More pairings soon.)
Rating: PG13 (Over all NC-17)
Dedications: My favorite person in the WHOLE world, beside Alex Gaskarth, Lydia (wooden_roses )
Disclaimer: Title belongs to AFI. I only own the story and maybe someday, Alex too.
Authors Notes:
Masterpost
“Just sit still!” Tom yelled in distress as Oli groaned and again he dabbed the deep lash in his older brother’s arm with alcohol. The rag was completely soaked in blood, as was the three towels that Tom had layed over the mattress in an attempt to keep everything somewhat clean.
“I’ll be right back; I have to check on the rest of the laundry.”
Oli nodded, letting out a pained breath as Tom stood and picked up the basket of clean clothes before tromping off to the wash room.
“God damn,” he groaned as he pulled the cloth off of one of his cuts and let it drop back onto the floor. His body was simply exhausted. It was as if he’d been swimming for hours and his muscles felt numb, life being nearly completely drained from him. If you’ve ever seen an old film, you’d know what his vision was like; grainy and surreal to even himself.
“Why don’t you go sit with Tom on the couch and I’ll let you open up one of your Christmas presents?” their mother suggested and Oli nervously fisted the fabric of his pajama’s in one of his hands.
“But I wanna help make cookies with you,” he objected, strong accent making it almost impossible to understand him at that age.
“Well, I have enough help, love. Go sit,” she dismissed and Oli, face falling to disappointment, did as he was told. Tom gave him a billion watt smile as Oli crawled onto the couch next to him.
“Why are you so sad, Oli?” Tom asked, handing up a present to his brother. “It’s Christmas!”
“Don’t be dumb, Tommy. It’s not Christmas yet.” Tom frowned a bit at the elder’s scolding.
“Well, open it already.”
Oli felt the wrapping under his fingers and smiled a bit. “Yeah,” he agreed and pulled the bow ontop until it fell in a pile. Tom proceeded to help un-wrap the rest and the room was filled with ripping sounds.
Tom pulled the top of the box off and revealed a shiny toy car, bright cherry red and new.
The youngest squealed with excitement but Oli scowled heavily.
“This is for both of us?” he asked sharply and Tom nodded.
“That’s what the tag says.”
“I don’t wanna share with you.”
Tom’s smile fell but only for a second before it returned, even brighter than before.
“That’s okay then; you keep it.”
Fourty
Alex dreamt of Oliver.
Dreamt of crimson blood dripping from every part of his body and onto the pristine white floor.
“Why are you doing this, Oli?” he had asked in the dream but the elder didn’t answer, simply pursed his lips tighter.
When Alex woke, Jack was kneeling on the bed next to him, speaking his name in worry.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” he asked, sitting up in bed quickly to meet the boy.
“Tom is on the phone for you. He says it’s urgent,” Jack whispered and handed Alex the phone. Alex rolled his eyes, squinting at the bright light of day. He spared a quick glance at the clock that read 3:37 pm.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked into the phone and Jack could hear Tom talking on the line but making out what he was saying was a different thing all together.
“Tom, just calm down. How much is he losing?” Alex asked and Jack decided that he’d try to roll over and go back to sleep but that proved invalid when Alex stood, pushing back the covers and tromping into the bathroom.
Jack sat up and clutched the duvet to his bare chest. He stared at the bathroom door for a few minutes until everything behind it when silent and finally, the door knob turned and it opened slowly.
A couple seconds later, Alex was crawling back into the bed and pulling the covers over himself again. He looked over to check on Chris and David in the other bed and saw the blankets over them rising and falling steadily.
“Lex,” Jack whispered, reaching out and stroking the vampire’s cheek. “Is everything okay?”
Alex nodded stiffly but stopped after a second to reconsider. “No,” he answered and Jack’s face fell.
“Why?” he asked innocently, leaning closer to Alex and moving his hand from the man’s cheek up to his hair.
Alex opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He knew that he had to chose his words carefully to spare the boy any grief but that was nearly possible in the current situation.
“There’s just a lot going on, okay?” he groaned.
Jack rolled his eyes and huffed at the answer. “Like what, Alex. Are you just going to keep me in the dark?”
“It’s not like that, Jack. Okay? I just don’t want you to worry.” He reached a hand out to stroke across Jack’s cheek in comfort when a horrible scene flashed across his mind.
"You shouldn't worry, Alex." Oli’s voice rang against his ears though the man was no where in sight and Alex clenched his teeth tight. A pang of distress bubbled in his chest; he felt like a cornered dog, fighting away from the catch poles.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked abruptly and sharply.
“That’s,” Alex started, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long breath to relieve stress. “That’s what Oli said when I asked him.”
“Asked him about what, Alex? What did he say?” Serious confusion bled into his words as he talked, obviously trying to keep quiet for the sake of the sleeping pair in the other bed. The bright, lightened room was an uncomfortable sign of just how wrong the situation was all together and it made Alex rolled his eyes in distress.
“Can’t we talk about this in the night?” he asked but he saw the bitter annoyance in Jack’s eyes.
“God damn it, Alex. If you don’t think I can handle what’s going on, you’re stupid; I’ve handled way worse than that. So go ahead and keep avoiding the subject, Alex. We can talk about it tonight,” he said and Alex cringed at the loathing for the situation in his words. Jack stood and tromped to the bathroom, but not before adding, “Or never if you wanna be a dick about it. I couldn’t care less, for fuck’s sake.”
The last of his words were from behind the bathroom door and Alex took a few seconds of just biting his lip before he groaned, rolled his eyes and crumpled into the bed further.
And when he woke again, Jack was laying next to him, as far away from the vampire as the bed could possibly allow. He’d pulled nearly all of the blankets onto himself and snuggled into them, leaving barely anything for Alex.
The vampire sat up in the, much more, comfortable dark room and rubbed at his tired, sore eyes. He knew that he was being unfair to Jack. Actually, he was willing to admit that unfair was an understatement for how he was treating the boy, but how fair was any of this? It wasn’t fair to the clan that Oli could just not tell anyone what was happening, leave them all in the dark to wonder if he’d ever be okay, it wasn’t fair to Alex, who would succeed Oli as Head of Clan to not know anything that was going on and more important than anything, it wasn’t fair to Tom. None of it was. The boy had done nothing but help his brother through the years and he didn’t even deserve to know? To have time to prepare for his brother’s absence?
Nothing was fair, but if there was anyone that Alex cared about, it was the distressed boy next to him and, of course, Alex was left with the task of fixing things that weren’t his fault. It seemed that that was the case more and more these days
“Jack,” he whispered, reaching forward and shaking the boy’s shoulder gently. “Baby.”
“What?” Jack groaned and rolled over. Alex’s mouth dropped open when he saw the tear stains on his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot and sore looking, Alex guessed from crying.
“Jack,” he whispered, obviously upset and he laid back down and instantly pulled the boy into his arms. Jack objected though by breaking free of the vampire’s hold and wiggling away to dry his eyes.
“No,” he whined as another tear slipped out of his eye, shut tight.
“Come here, Jack,” Alex demanded lightly and reached out to wipe away the moisture from Jack’s face. “Com’ere, baby,” he cooed again as Jack sniffed back his runny nose.
The boy gave in with a sniffle as he rubbed at his sore nose and Alex tugged him closer.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Alex. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” Jack said and Alex had to strain to understand the boy. Not only was he talking into Alex’s, now wet, shirt but his words were made even more unclear by the loud sobs that escaped his lips.
Alex pulled the boy off him a bit. “Calm down, baby and tell me what’s wrong.” The boy’s skin was cool and clammy with sweat and he was blubbering something through his hiccups.
“Baby, It’s okay. Just calm down,” the vampire said gently, trying to coax the boy into a more steady state. He sat up when that didn’t work and picked the boy from the bed before laying him across his lap. He held the boy tight, rocking him back and forth gently in his arms.
“Lex, I-”
“Shh,” Alex hushed, placing a hand on the side of the boy’s head and pulling him in tighter. “Just calm down first and then you can talk.”
Jack nodded gently as he buried his face into the crook of Alex's neck when the vampire started to hum something soft and comforting. He stroked his fingers through the boy’s skunk hair and just being there to help him over it was making an obvious change in Jack's mood and over all behavior.
It took a few minutes of that before the boy’s breathing had slowed and his eyes were, more or less, dry of previous tears. But instead of insisting that Jack talked, Alex simply waiting for the boy to decide he was ready to say something.
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
The vampire shook his head when Jack looked up at him.
“I’m sorry that I yelled at you and for now; this,” he added, gesturing to the both of them like they sat.
“Don’t be sorry. You have every right to be upset with a hypocrite,” Alex said with a soft smile and Jack rolled his eyes a bit before snuggling back into Alex’s chest.
“I...It just bothered me that you would say something. Now I know why,” Jack said and laughed bitterly as he clutched the front of Alex’s shirt.
A strip of pain traveled through Alex’s chest and bubbled in his stomach at Jack’s words. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked and Jack choked back a wave of tears as he nodded.
“Oh, god, Jack. How?” Alex asked, pressing the boy as close as he could as he felt the tears drip onto his shirt again.
“Tom called.” His answer was simple but Alex wanted to cry at the obvious pain and worry in the boy’s voice with the two words. "He said that you two were fighting over something and he wanted to know. I put two and two together." By the time Jack was done speaking, Alex could hardly understand him again. His voice was wavering and jagged as tears fell from his eyes again.
“It’s okay, Jack. It’ll be okay, baby,” he assured as Jack let out a choked sob. “You can cry. Go ahead and cry, love.” He figured it probably sounded dumb, telling Jack to cry but he knew it was only natural for humans and the last thing that Alex wanted was for Jack to feel self conscious around the vampire; that's not how you build relationships. Just like you didn't build them by not telling each other vital information. He remembered a time when he cried over everything and it felt good to let it out, he remembered that.
He heard the pair in the other bed stir a bit before David was sitting up and rubbing at his eyes tiredly.
“What’s going on?” he asked shyly and Alex just gave him an assuring smile.
“It’s no big deal, really. Do you think you could wake Chris and get him ready? There’s a 24/7 restrant down stairs. We’ll meet you down there.” David nodded at Alex’s request and instantly reached a hand down to prod gently at the sleeping boy next to him.
“Christofer.”
The boy only wiggled a bit in his sleep and reached up, pulling David back down abruptly and clutching him to his chest.
Alex chuckled at the horrified look on the elder of the two’s features as he tried to pull away from Chris’ grasp.
“Help,” David laughed nervously and Alex shook his head.
“Chris, pancakes,” he called loud enough to wake the boy from his heavy slumber.
“Oh my god, really?” the boy asked, letting go of David who stood abruptly, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. “Oh, sorry,” Chris giggled at the blushing boy, realizing fully what was going on then.
“No pancakes, love. But get ready and we’ll get you fed,” Alex said, still rocking Jack back and fourth in his arms.
"What's wrong with Jack?" Chris asked worriedly, crawling over to the other side of the bed to peak into Alex's arms. Alex had Jack facing the opposing way in his arms which made the tears easy to cover up. Though Jack heard the boy's question, he remained quiet, just staring blankly at the wall ahead.
David helped get the boy ready and they headed off down stairs. It wasn’t until they were gone that Alex picked the Jack off of his lap and sat him up against the head board of the bed with care.
“Here, baby. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, getting a wash cloth from the bathroom and wetting it. He dabbed around Jack’s eyes before letting the boy clean the rest of his face with it.
“Thanks,” Jack sniffed. “But I don’t think that this is going to help.”
“Don’t worry about it, baby. Everything is going to be okay.”
“No, Alex. It won’t,” he said and Alex could hear the tears coming again.
“Shh,” he hushed again, stroking the boy’s cheek gently. “It will. Our family is so strong.”
Jack sniffled again, bottom lip quivering as he stared at Alex, finding the truth in his chocolate eyes.
“Okay.”
Author: chasingxrabbits
Pairing: Jalex (Also Gabilliam, Ryden, Very slight Sykecest, More pairings soon.)
Rating: PG13 (Over all NC-17)
Dedications: My favorite person in the WHOLE world, beside Alex Gaskarth, Lydia (wooden_roses )
Disclaimer: Title belongs to AFI. I only own the story and maybe someday, Alex too.
Authors Notes:
Masterpost
“Just sit still!” Tom yelled in distress as Oli groaned and again he dabbed the deep lash in his older brother’s arm with alcohol. The rag was completely soaked in blood, as was the three towels that Tom had layed over the mattress in an attempt to keep everything somewhat clean.
“I’ll be right back; I have to check on the rest of the laundry.”
Oli nodded, letting out a pained breath as Tom stood and picked up the basket of clean clothes before tromping off to the wash room.
“God damn,” he groaned as he pulled the cloth off of one of his cuts and let it drop back onto the floor. His body was simply exhausted. It was as if he’d been swimming for hours and his muscles felt numb, life being nearly completely drained from him. If you’ve ever seen an old film, you’d know what his vision was like; grainy and surreal to even himself.
“Why don’t you go sit with Tom on the couch and I’ll let you open up one of your Christmas presents?” their mother suggested and Oli nervously fisted the fabric of his pajama’s in one of his hands.
“But I wanna help make cookies with you,” he objected, strong accent making it almost impossible to understand him at that age.
“Well, I have enough help, love. Go sit,” she dismissed and Oli, face falling to disappointment, did as he was told. Tom gave him a billion watt smile as Oli crawled onto the couch next to him.
“Why are you so sad, Oli?” Tom asked, handing up a present to his brother. “It’s Christmas!”
“Don’t be dumb, Tommy. It’s not Christmas yet.” Tom frowned a bit at the elder’s scolding.
“Well, open it already.”
Oli felt the wrapping under his fingers and smiled a bit. “Yeah,” he agreed and pulled the bow ontop until it fell in a pile. Tom proceeded to help un-wrap the rest and the room was filled with ripping sounds.
Tom pulled the top of the box off and revealed a shiny toy car, bright cherry red and new.
The youngest squealed with excitement but Oli scowled heavily.
“This is for both of us?” he asked sharply and Tom nodded.
“That’s what the tag says.”
“I don’t wanna share with you.”
Tom’s smile fell but only for a second before it returned, even brighter than before.
“That’s okay then; you keep it.”
Fourty
Alex dreamt of Oliver.
Dreamt of crimson blood dripping from every part of his body and onto the pristine white floor.
“Why are you doing this, Oli?” he had asked in the dream but the elder didn’t answer, simply pursed his lips tighter.
When Alex woke, Jack was kneeling on the bed next to him, speaking his name in worry.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” he asked, sitting up in bed quickly to meet the boy.
“Tom is on the phone for you. He says it’s urgent,” Jack whispered and handed Alex the phone. Alex rolled his eyes, squinting at the bright light of day. He spared a quick glance at the clock that read 3:37 pm.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked into the phone and Jack could hear Tom talking on the line but making out what he was saying was a different thing all together.
“Tom, just calm down. How much is he losing?” Alex asked and Jack decided that he’d try to roll over and go back to sleep but that proved invalid when Alex stood, pushing back the covers and tromping into the bathroom.
Jack sat up and clutched the duvet to his bare chest. He stared at the bathroom door for a few minutes until everything behind it when silent and finally, the door knob turned and it opened slowly.
A couple seconds later, Alex was crawling back into the bed and pulling the covers over himself again. He looked over to check on Chris and David in the other bed and saw the blankets over them rising and falling steadily.
“Lex,” Jack whispered, reaching out and stroking the vampire’s cheek. “Is everything okay?”
Alex nodded stiffly but stopped after a second to reconsider. “No,” he answered and Jack’s face fell.
“Why?” he asked innocently, leaning closer to Alex and moving his hand from the man’s cheek up to his hair.
Alex opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He knew that he had to chose his words carefully to spare the boy any grief but that was nearly possible in the current situation.
“There’s just a lot going on, okay?” he groaned.
Jack rolled his eyes and huffed at the answer. “Like what, Alex. Are you just going to keep me in the dark?”
“It’s not like that, Jack. Okay? I just don’t want you to worry.” He reached a hand out to stroke across Jack’s cheek in comfort when a horrible scene flashed across his mind.
"You shouldn't worry, Alex." Oli’s voice rang against his ears though the man was no where in sight and Alex clenched his teeth tight. A pang of distress bubbled in his chest; he felt like a cornered dog, fighting away from the catch poles.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked abruptly and sharply.
“That’s,” Alex started, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long breath to relieve stress. “That’s what Oli said when I asked him.”
“Asked him about what, Alex? What did he say?” Serious confusion bled into his words as he talked, obviously trying to keep quiet for the sake of the sleeping pair in the other bed. The bright, lightened room was an uncomfortable sign of just how wrong the situation was all together and it made Alex rolled his eyes in distress.
“Can’t we talk about this in the night?” he asked but he saw the bitter annoyance in Jack’s eyes.
“God damn it, Alex. If you don’t think I can handle what’s going on, you’re stupid; I’ve handled way worse than that. So go ahead and keep avoiding the subject, Alex. We can talk about it tonight,” he said and Alex cringed at the loathing for the situation in his words. Jack stood and tromped to the bathroom, but not before adding, “Or never if you wanna be a dick about it. I couldn’t care less, for fuck’s sake.”
The last of his words were from behind the bathroom door and Alex took a few seconds of just biting his lip before he groaned, rolled his eyes and crumpled into the bed further.
And when he woke again, Jack was laying next to him, as far away from the vampire as the bed could possibly allow. He’d pulled nearly all of the blankets onto himself and snuggled into them, leaving barely anything for Alex.
The vampire sat up in the, much more, comfortable dark room and rubbed at his tired, sore eyes. He knew that he was being unfair to Jack. Actually, he was willing to admit that unfair was an understatement for how he was treating the boy, but how fair was any of this? It wasn’t fair to the clan that Oli could just not tell anyone what was happening, leave them all in the dark to wonder if he’d ever be okay, it wasn’t fair to Alex, who would succeed Oli as Head of Clan to not know anything that was going on and more important than anything, it wasn’t fair to Tom. None of it was. The boy had done nothing but help his brother through the years and he didn’t even deserve to know? To have time to prepare for his brother’s absence?
Nothing was fair, but if there was anyone that Alex cared about, it was the distressed boy next to him and, of course, Alex was left with the task of fixing things that weren’t his fault. It seemed that that was the case more and more these days
“Jack,” he whispered, reaching forward and shaking the boy’s shoulder gently. “Baby.”
“What?” Jack groaned and rolled over. Alex’s mouth dropped open when he saw the tear stains on his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot and sore looking, Alex guessed from crying.
“Jack,” he whispered, obviously upset and he laid back down and instantly pulled the boy into his arms. Jack objected though by breaking free of the vampire’s hold and wiggling away to dry his eyes.
“No,” he whined as another tear slipped out of his eye, shut tight.
“Come here, Jack,” Alex demanded lightly and reached out to wipe away the moisture from Jack’s face. “Com’ere, baby,” he cooed again as Jack sniffed back his runny nose.
The boy gave in with a sniffle as he rubbed at his sore nose and Alex tugged him closer.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Alex. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” Jack said and Alex had to strain to understand the boy. Not only was he talking into Alex’s, now wet, shirt but his words were made even more unclear by the loud sobs that escaped his lips.
Alex pulled the boy off him a bit. “Calm down, baby and tell me what’s wrong.” The boy’s skin was cool and clammy with sweat and he was blubbering something through his hiccups.
“Baby, It’s okay. Just calm down,” the vampire said gently, trying to coax the boy into a more steady state. He sat up when that didn’t work and picked the boy from the bed before laying him across his lap. He held the boy tight, rocking him back and forth gently in his arms.
“Lex, I-”
“Shh,” Alex hushed, placing a hand on the side of the boy’s head and pulling him in tighter. “Just calm down first and then you can talk.”
Jack nodded gently as he buried his face into the crook of Alex's neck when the vampire started to hum something soft and comforting. He stroked his fingers through the boy’s skunk hair and just being there to help him over it was making an obvious change in Jack's mood and over all behavior.
It took a few minutes of that before the boy’s breathing had slowed and his eyes were, more or less, dry of previous tears. But instead of insisting that Jack talked, Alex simply waiting for the boy to decide he was ready to say something.
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
The vampire shook his head when Jack looked up at him.
“I’m sorry that I yelled at you and for now; this,” he added, gesturing to the both of them like they sat.
“Don’t be sorry. You have every right to be upset with a hypocrite,” Alex said with a soft smile and Jack rolled his eyes a bit before snuggling back into Alex’s chest.
“I...It just bothered me that you would say something. Now I know why,” Jack said and laughed bitterly as he clutched the front of Alex’s shirt.
A strip of pain traveled through Alex’s chest and bubbled in his stomach at Jack’s words. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked and Jack choked back a wave of tears as he nodded.
“Oh, god, Jack. How?” Alex asked, pressing the boy as close as he could as he felt the tears drip onto his shirt again.
“Tom called.” His answer was simple but Alex wanted to cry at the obvious pain and worry in the boy’s voice with the two words. "He said that you two were fighting over something and he wanted to know. I put two and two together." By the time Jack was done speaking, Alex could hardly understand him again. His voice was wavering and jagged as tears fell from his eyes again.
“It’s okay, Jack. It’ll be okay, baby,” he assured as Jack let out a choked sob. “You can cry. Go ahead and cry, love.” He figured it probably sounded dumb, telling Jack to cry but he knew it was only natural for humans and the last thing that Alex wanted was for Jack to feel self conscious around the vampire; that's not how you build relationships. Just like you didn't build them by not telling each other vital information. He remembered a time when he cried over everything and it felt good to let it out, he remembered that.
He heard the pair in the other bed stir a bit before David was sitting up and rubbing at his eyes tiredly.
“What’s going on?” he asked shyly and Alex just gave him an assuring smile.
“It’s no big deal, really. Do you think you could wake Chris and get him ready? There’s a 24/7 restrant down stairs. We’ll meet you down there.” David nodded at Alex’s request and instantly reached a hand down to prod gently at the sleeping boy next to him.
“Christofer.”
The boy only wiggled a bit in his sleep and reached up, pulling David back down abruptly and clutching him to his chest.
Alex chuckled at the horrified look on the elder of the two’s features as he tried to pull away from Chris’ grasp.
“Help,” David laughed nervously and Alex shook his head.
“Chris, pancakes,” he called loud enough to wake the boy from his heavy slumber.
“Oh my god, really?” the boy asked, letting go of David who stood abruptly, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. “Oh, sorry,” Chris giggled at the blushing boy, realizing fully what was going on then.
“No pancakes, love. But get ready and we’ll get you fed,” Alex said, still rocking Jack back and fourth in his arms.
"What's wrong with Jack?" Chris asked worriedly, crawling over to the other side of the bed to peak into Alex's arms. Alex had Jack facing the opposing way in his arms which made the tears easy to cover up. Though Jack heard the boy's question, he remained quiet, just staring blankly at the wall ahead.
David helped get the boy ready and they headed off down stairs. It wasn’t until they were gone that Alex picked the Jack off of his lap and sat him up against the head board of the bed with care.
“Here, baby. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, getting a wash cloth from the bathroom and wetting it. He dabbed around Jack’s eyes before letting the boy clean the rest of his face with it.
“Thanks,” Jack sniffed. “But I don’t think that this is going to help.”
“Don’t worry about it, baby. Everything is going to be okay.”
“No, Alex. It won’t,” he said and Alex could hear the tears coming again.
“Shh,” he hushed again, stroking the boy’s cheek gently. “It will. Our family is so strong.”
Jack sniffled again, bottom lip quivering as he stared at Alex, finding the truth in his chocolate eyes.
“Okay.”