Fic: Excuses and Secrets (Thunderstreak's Adventures Ch 14)
Chapter 14
Title: Excuses and Secrets
Pairing: Mentioned Sam/Bee and Alex(Thunderstreak)/?
Rating: PG for slight romance and suggestive themes
Summary: Post RotF. Takes place in the same timeline and after the ‘Ponderings’ series. James resolves to find out exactly what Alex is hiding.
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, nor do I make any money out of writing this.
Being the best friend of Alex Witwicky for over seventeen years had greatly elevated James Lennox’s awareness of covert operations. James had always been the cautious one out of the two of them, often going along with Alex’s grand schemes simply to make sure he got out of them in one piece.
So it was no surprise to James that Alex appeared to be up to his old tricks again. The pattern would appear random to anyone not familiar with Alex’s behavior, but James knew better.
The procedure was always the same, though James had yet to make any sense of the timing between occurrences. Alex would always ask James if he could come over, usually for at least several hours, and then once there within the first few minutes come up with a flimsy excuse to leave and return later. James had been keeping track of the various excuses and so far the most pathetic one was Alex having forgotten his toothbrush and spending almost two hours going back to get it.
James wondered if Alex even remembered the numerous times they shared things like toothbrushes and shampoo in the past several years.
Though it was obvious from Alex’s behavior that something weird was going on, his best friend denied any ulterior motives.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about man. I’ve just been a bit more distracted lately, you know how I am.”
The problem though was James did know how Alex was, and it wasn’t forgetful. That was James’ specialty. After all, he was the one who’d had to set out numerous sticky notes as a reminder and still almost forgot the rings for his sister’s wedding.
So something was up with his best friend and since he wasn’t talking, it was up to James to find out exactly what was going on.
Blame it on his medic training, but James couldn’t fight the urge to make sure his best friend wasn’t doing anything illegal or hazardous to his health.
Thus the decision to tail Alex had been made. James had assumed that tracking his best friend wouldn’t be that particularly difficult, what with him being a blue Jeep with yellow stripes, but he’d forgotten the small detail of exactly who his parents were: an unparalleled scout and a paranoid worrier. Alex’s training made it nearly impossible for James to track him, at least the first few times.
James eventually had a lucky break. He’d finally tracked Alex successfully, but the destination wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it was perfectly normal; the local twelve screen movie theater. It didn’t make sense for Alex to be sneaking off to the movie theater that his parents knew he went to regularly, by himself and with friends.
The next few times brought the same types of results. James followed his best friend on three other separate occasions and each time the place was a typical hangout of Alex’s to begin with; the mall, a vintage video game and music store, and a pizza parlor.
It wasn’t until the following time that all the details came together and James felt he understood exactly why Alex was behaving the way he was.
The fourth trip tailing Alex brought James to a coffee shop that was popular with the local college students due to its close proximity to the nearby university. Alex was a certified coffee junkie and had dragged James to this particular coffee shop at least a dozen times. The building was small and hosted two entire walls made of glass, giving James a perfect view of the fact that Alex was not enjoying his coffee alone.
From the look in his eyes and the way he touched the other man’s hands with his own that was just on the passable side of publicly acceptable, James knew that Alex had fallen hard and the man in question was the reason for his best friend’s secretive activities.
James now knew that Alex was using their hangouts as a cover for meeting up with his boyfriend, sneaking out so that his parents wouldn’t know.
It wasn’t that Alex’s parents would have been angry about the fact it was a man, James was certain. It was the fact that the man in question appeared to be six years Alex’s senior.
Alex had always liked and had crushes on older boys. When they started high school together it was the seniors and when they were seniors it was college guys.
The man sitting across from Alex and receiving his affections was definitely under thirty, but also not a day younger than twenty four. His short, dark hair was gelled in the small spikes of the typical male and his eyes, a bright piercing blue, were the same shade as Alex’s father, but were filled with a calculating cool that was the complete opposite of the gentle warmth that was found in Bumblebee’s.
Sam might have been accepting of the man his son was in a relationship with, but James was pretty sure that Bumblebee would short at least a few circuits before ending the guy’s existence.
Feeling a mixture of embarrassment and concern, James watched from afar until the two men came out, waiting until they parted ways after a short goodbye kiss, before booking it back to his house as fast as possible.
On the drive back, James thought over what he was going to decided to do. Most of his thoughts were divided equally in two. He understood the dangers and concerns with dating someone that much older than you and the problems it might cause in a relationship. But he also thought that at nineteen, Alex was legal and old enough to make his own decisions about who he dates.
In the end, he went with the middle of the road. If Alex asked, he’d voice his concerns, but otherwise he’d be there to support his friend whenever he felt it was the right time to tell his parents about who he was dating.
It was a good thing that James made up his mind so quickly, because Alex called him on it the very next day.
“Cade said that you saw us in the coffee shop yesterday.”
James nodded his confirmation and waited for Alex to continue.
Alex heaved a sigh before dropping the big question.
“Are you going to tell my folks?”
James shook his head in the negative, locking his eyes with his best friend of seventeen years.
“No, I’m not. That’s your business to deal with, but I’d definitely tell them before they end up catching you. I’m fine with being your cover you know, you could have just asked instead of giving me all those crappy excuses.”
Alex’s face lit up at hearing that, a grin stretching wide from ear to ear.
“Yeah, they were pretty sad weren’t they?”
James snort of amusement was loud enough it might have been able to be heard downstairs.
“Seriously though, ‘I forgot my toothbrush’? What were you thinking, that I had miraculously gone brain-dead?”
The relief and happiness in Alex’s laughter was enough to let James know that he’d done the right thing by his best friend.
A/N: The identity of Alex’s beau will be revealed in the next chapter.