#chencest

Alex turns the cold, still thumb over in her hand, face pinched. "You should have told me," she says flatly.

Gabe doesn't respond, just looks away, gazing out over the rooftop. Haven Springs looks the exact same way it did since Alex came back, since he came back. Even the Black Lantern is bustling beneath them, despite the fact that Jeb's been dead for months.

Jeb kept him going for a while, in the beginning. Now they need to get more creative.

He feels more than sees Alex press the thumb back against his hand, lower her mouth into her lips press against the juncture. There's the faint sting that always reminds him of a t-shot, the crackle of life bleeding slowly back through his veins. Her stubble scratches his skin, sends his veins tingling like wildfire.

Gabe doesn't ask whose emotions are bleeding into him now, which fractions of precious life force are keeping him from falling apart. Alex wouldn't tell him, and he's not entirely sure she remembers. She's not so good at keep track of these things.

Alex lifts her head and he makes himself look at her, at his hand, the swiftly fading line glistening at the base of his thumb. He flexes his fingers experimentally, watching her watching him, her eyes as sharp behind her glasses as they used to be when he told her how to find the best records on sale.

"How's it feel?" she asks, and it's funny that she of all people would ask him this question, but she's looking at him with careful eyes, like she really has no way of telling except for his answer.

Monstrous, he wants to say, but he doesn't like lying to her. And besides, she'd know. She always knows.

There are things that Alex understands long before Gabe does—partly because of her power, partly because of how she’s content to sit and watch while Gabe focuses on moving through the world, constantly seeking a place for them to live.

Like who they are, for instance. Alex figures out her own identity fast enough that they end up living as two sisters for a while, and Alex is the one who sees how “Gabby” flares gold at boy-things, boy-clothes, being mistaken for a boy. By the end she’s practically rolling her eyes waiting for her big brother to figure it out.

And she figures out who they are to each other, who they’ll always be, long before Gabe does. Gabe’s problem is that he wastes too much time trying to settle, looking for “normal,” as if Alex hasn’t broken brains and feasted on souls to keep them together, as if normal didn’t die with Mom or leave with Dad, a long time ago.

She’ll let him pretend, for now, though. She’ll let it be the two of them cuddled on the couch watching old movies in a comfortable tangle of limbs, forming a unified bubble of happy gold, opalescent love, and the faintest hints of pink lust.

Her hand passes idly over his chest and she feels his breath hitch ever so slightly, aura flickering. Alex turns her face into his side to hide her smile.