#jamestheknight

Monday comes and Aleks finds himself next to James in maths, leaning over occasionally to either help him out, or call him some variety of a “fucking moron”.

James just laughs at him.

“Bet you never thought you’d be having civil conversations with me,” He grins wide and gestures to his still-taped fingers, “Bet you never thought you’d feel bad about breaking about breaking my fingers either, eh, Aleksandr…?”

Aleks rolls his eyes when James stretches out his name, waiting eagerly to hear his last name.

“Marchant,” He says, scrawling an answer down, “Vitalyevich Tchernev-Marchant, if you want to get complicated.”

“Vitaly-?” James pauses, and shakes his head, giving up on the pronunciation, “Yeah, I’ll stick with just Marchant. What kind of fucking devil language is that from anyway?”

“Not a devil language. Russian,” Aleks murmurs as he scans the sheet in front of them, “And you know this is a fucking group activity right? You need to do some of this shit too.”

“Can you speak Russian?” James prods, curiously, dodging Aleks’s request.

“Сволочь.” He scowls, and James raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t appreciate the tone, so I doubt I appreciate the meaning.”

Aleks shrugs. “Swearing in Russian is odd. Now do your fucking half of the sheet, I’m sick of your shit.”

“Whatever you say, Aleksandr Marchant.”

Aleks rolls his eyes, ignores the way his name rolls off of James’s tongue like he’s been saying it his whole life, and wiggles in his seat to glance up at the chalkboard, wedging his pencil just between his teeth as he squints to read Mr. Adams messy scrawl. He notices the distinct lack of working noises coming from James, and spares him a glance.

He’s staring right at him.

Aleksandr sort of freezes a moment, not used to having someone’s eyes so intently on him. But there not quite on his face, there’s slightly lower, directed more so at-

The pencil in his mouth.

He pulls it from between his teeth with an audible click, and turns back to face James, choosing to ignore how James’s attention is suddenly on the paper, while simultaneously fighting off the heat he can feel rising in his cheeks.

“You got some kinda oral fixation or something?” James asks innocently, looking up with a less than innocent smirk.

So much for fighting off that blush, Aleksandr.

“Fuck are you talking about, asshole?” Aleks is quick to redirect his gaze back to the board.

“You always chew on your pens and shit. And your lips. You also used to smoke.”

“Yeah, so what?”

James grins, leans forward and toys with the pencil in Aleks hand, plucking it from his grip as he lowers his voice.

“I’m sure I could think of something better for you to have in your mouth.”

Aleks whips his head around so quickly he thinks he hears his neck crack.

“You can fuck off okay? You can just fuck right off and-”

His snap is cut off by James’s hysterical laughter as he wipes the tears that are beginning to form.

“Oh Aleksandr,” He chokes out between laughs, “You are too easy!”

Aleks chose instead to stare at the tan pants upon his legs, rather than let James bear witness to the fierce redness that was now blooming across his cheeks and nose.

“Сволочь.” He hisses, resting his head against his hand.

---

Kevin nearly chokes to death on his own laughter when Aleks tells him about James’s stupid shenanigans of the day.

“So,” He says with an eyebrow-wiggle, “Did you take him up on his offer?”

Aleks proceeds to mercilessly beat the shit out of him with a nearby dish rag, only pausing when the bell rings to signify the entry of a custom. He recognizes the customer as a regular though, a younger guy named Trevor, and returns to snapping out the dishrag at Kevin’s legs.

“Trevor, man, save me!”

“Nah dude, I’m just here for my coffee. The usual, when you stop getting your ass kicked.”

Trevor chats with Aleks a moment, bringing up his new camera equipment and some new games while he waits for his order, and Aleks chimes in on the odd occasion, threatening Kevin when he calls out from the side.

“Aleks has got a bad boy on the side, Trevor, haven’t you heard?”

Trevor’s eyebrows shot up, a grin placing itself on his face as he prepared to be filled in on whatever high-school experiences Aleks was having. Instead, however, Aleks pushed his cup of coffee into his hands, and chased him outside with the dish rag in hand.

“Don’t ask questions Trevor, he’s crazy!”

He shouted as he ushered the younger man outside, Trevor’s laugh echoing all the way back.

The bell chimes as Aleks closes the door, and scowls at Kevin, who merely laughs and gestures to the back room.

“Hurry up man, you’re on dish duty. Don’t fuckin’ slice yourself up too much.”

---

Aleks thinks he may have the least luck in the world when it comes to dishes. He scalds himself twice with hot water, and knicks his fingers about three times on knives hidden in the water. Kevin tries, and fails miserably to hold back a laugh, but tosses him a packet of Band-Aids, telling him he can take the counter for a second.

They’re just about to close up when it happens.

A man stumbles in the store, in his late-twenties, possibly early-thirties, and reeks of rum. He grins at Aleks, and sidles up to the counter.

“You wouldn’t happen ta’ be for sale, would ya darlin’?”

His slurring voice clips off the end of his words, and not in the stumbling childish way that James’s voice had when he was drunk-dialling Aleks, but in a sleazy, boorish way. Aleks finds himself taking a step back from the counter. He’s dealt with drunk customers before, but there’s something about this guy that frightens him.

“Uh,” He laughs awkwardly, “No, I’m, uh, I’m not.”

The man shakes his head slowly, and tuts his disapproval like that’s the most unacceptable thing he’s heard all day. Aleks can hear Kevin pause in the back room, sink no longer running as he listens in cautiously.

“Maybe, ya should be on the menu.”

Aleks shakes his head, and turns away, pretending to busy himself with wiping down an already clean cup.

“I don’t think so.”

His heartbeat is beginning to kick up, and the vibe this guy is giving off is making him nervous. The guy leans over the counter, towards him, and scowls. Clearly he doesn’t like the idea of Aleks not being available too much.

“Don’t be a fuckin’ prude,” He growls out, and Aleks thanks whatever god there is, because at that moment, the bell tingles to signal the presence of another customer.

“C’mon gorgeous,” the drunk continues anyway, and Aleks flinches at the use James silly nickname for him, “Just one go?”

“Gorgeous?”

And in comes James Wilson, clearly displeased with the use of his nickname.

Aleks doesn’t work on Sundays. It’s only day off he has, and the only shift he isn’t allowed to take, because, according to Eddie, he works “way too fucking hard”.

But, at four in the morning, he is woken up.

His phone is buzzing from its place on the floor, likely where it had fallen during a particularly sharp roll in the middle of Aleks’s sleep, and the ringtone is unbearably loud. Despite this, however, Aleks remains motionless for a few moments, squinting into the darkness and blinking hard, sleepy confusion wrapped around his mind from the sudden wake up call. Moments before the call is sent to voicemail, Aleks shuffles in his blanket cocoon, and reaches down to unlock his phone.

“-’Lo?”

“Aleks.”

He recognizes that voice. It slurred and mumbled, but he recognizes it.

“James?” He asks, and receives a drunken giggle, “How much have you had to drink?”

“Too much. But I’m in some serv- service station right, and- and, they sell Pepsi. It rem- reminded me of you? You were s- so ups- upset today.”

Aleks hesitates and James, in his drunken stupor, is immediately wounded by the silence.

“You won’t even s- speak to me. Like when you met m- me. Why did you hate m- me?”

Aleks can hear the sadness in his voice. Hear the thickly coated confusion over his words. But he can’t answer that question. That’s not how it works. He can’t get close to James Wilson. He can’t, he just-

“What the f- fuck, man?”

His train of though is immediately cut off. James’s voice has gone quieter, and he can tell that last sentence wasn’t directed at him.

He can hear someone else now, voice too low to make out any words, but loud enough to distinguish the threatening tone.

He hears James’s voice again.

“Don’t fuckin’ push me-!”

There’s a loud scuffle, a crack, and then Aleks is alone. The dial tone beeps at him as the call ends.

His body is a live wire, skin hot and crawling, head spinning as he tosses his phone halfway across the room, hearing it crash against the wall as he scrambles off of the bed and scrapes his car-keys up from the bedside table.

He runs.

The stairs cause him to stumble, and he trips on the last step, but he runs. Oh, how he runs.

Outside is freezing cold, and he fumbles with his car keys, missing the lock once, twice, three times before he’s finally got it, turning on the engine, and just gunning it out of the driveway. He ponders if he left tyre skid tracks along the road on his way out.

He’s speeding.

And he hasn’t got a single fucking clue where he’s going.

A service station? There’s too many to fucking count in this place. But he’ll go to every god damn one if he has to.

He’s worried about him.

He remembers Eddie coming home one night. He was a good half-hour late. But he didn’t say a word. Didn’t even respond when Aleks tried to speak to him. Just locked himself in his room.

And then that night he’d crawled into Aleks’s room. Told him everything.

“He had a gun, Al.” He’d whispered to him, “And there just kept laughing. They didn’t want anything from me. They just… They just were there.”

The city was a dangerous place at night.

Not everyone was entirely sane.

And when Aleks spotted a curled up figure in the gutter of a 7/11, he wasn’t sure whether to be grateful that he’d found him, or cry because of how he was.

The car was left running, and the car door open as he sprinted across the road, towards the leather-clad pile that was James Wilson.

He smiled so innocently when Aleks looked down at him. Cherub cheeks and turned-up lips.

“Hey gorgeous. Didn’t expect to s- see you here.”

But he hisses when Aleks tries to tug him upright, and shakes his head fiercely.

“Not happening, doll.”

And Aleks sees it.

He sees the way he’s curled in on himself, clutching at the space just below his ribs. He sees the way he tries to breathe evenly and winces with each intake of breath. He sees the way he shakes, just like Eddie did, despite the danger was gone.

And he sees the blooming red stain on a stark white V-neck, spreading from beneath James’s palms.

“James-”

“He had a knife, gorgeous.”

And Aleks, like he does in all stressful situations, resorts to sarcasm.

“I hadn’t guessed,” He whispers back, a shocked laugh pulling itself from his throat, “I’ll call an ambulance okay? Just hold-”

“No, no, don’t do that.”

“What?”

“My dad, he’ll-” James hesitates, before continuing on, “L- Look, it’s not that deep okay? Not a stab. It’s a swipe. Just probably nicked a vein. It’s slow bleeding, not quick. You’re the genius, you- you know what that means, right?”

Aleks nods. Slow, oozing blood means veins. Quick and spurting means arteries.

“Since you’re such a- a genius,” James adds on, “Do you happen to uh… Know how to fix me?”

James blinks up at him, cracks a grin like he’s asking Aleks for the answer to a simple maths equation, and not to help him close up the sickening wound on his stomach.

But Aleks finds himself nodding.

“You need to get in the car though. I know it hurts, but I don’t exactly have the right shit to treat you here in this gutter.”

James nods. He breathes in, breathes out and murmurs quietly. He’s still afraid.

“Help me up?”

----

Eddie doesn’t ask many questions when he finds Aleks in the bathroom, rifling through medical supplies. In fact, he only asks two, murmured and sleepy.

“Why’s there a stabbing victim on our couch?”

And once that was answered, “Does he want anything to drink?”

So once the wound was rinsed, anti-bacterial cream applied, and a gauze bandage taped to James’s side, he found himself in a conversation with a bubbly Puerto Rican, offering him cookies and milk at ungodly hours of the morning.

“Weren’t you the guy who accused me of be a harassing asshole?” James asks through a mouthful of cookies, and Eddie pauses, giving James a once-over.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, “But if getting stabbed is your way to get into Aleks’s house, I’m more impressed than anything.”

James laughs despite the pain, and in the bathroom, as Aleks scrubs the blood from his hands, and rinses his face, his stomach flips at the noise.

Aleks’s phone buzzes from somewhere underneath his abdomen, waking him from a dream that he cannot quite remember.

He flails around for a moment, hands patting down the sheets until they land upon his phone, and he unlocks it. He flinches back at the brightness, and quickly turns it down, squinting at the time, and at the new message:

2:36am

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bad Boy: I totally just remembebre sthat I put my number in ur phonr.

Aleks raises an eyebrow, grumbles at recognising who is texting him, and snickers at the terrible spelling.y

Are you drunk right now?

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bad Boy: Durnk on u maybe ;)))

Aleks changes the words “Bad Boy” to “Asshole”, and immediately turns his phone off.

He fucking despises James Wilson.

----

Saturday morning at the café was frosty, and Aleks swiftly yanked on a pullover over the top of his white collared shirt. He tugged his apron off of the hooks on the wall, tugged it over the top of his head and deftly tied it behind his back.

Kevin greeted him with a clap on his shoulders, pulling back when Aleks hissed in pain and ducked around him to be face to face with him.

“Holy crap, dude,” He winced at the sight of the nasty bruise smeared across Aleks’s cheek, and leaned back to take it all in, “You got fucked up, huh?”

“Yes, Kevin, thank you for pointing that out, I was unaware.”

Aleks rolled his eyes, and moved back into the kitchen, greeting Dan on the way past who pulled him up for a moment.

“Aleksandr, um,” Dan hesitated a moment, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, “I think you should stay in the kitchen today. Stick to dishwashing or hot foods.”

“What?” Aleks blinked at Dan, wide-eyed and shocked, “Dan, are you demoting me? Did I do something wrong? C’mon Dan, I need this job, you know that!”

He shook his head with vigour and gently placed a hand on Aleks’s shoulder.

“No, Aleks you’re not getting demoted, it’s just…” He hesitated a moment before gingerly tapping the savage bruise on Aleks’s face, “It’s not exactly the greatest things for customers to see. I’ll pay you your usual rate, and you can just kick back in here.”

Aleks wanted to protest, but he knew Dan wasn’t trying to be rude. He wasn’t wrong really, Aleks was quite the sight, and he doubted the parents that came in would want their children to see him quite the way he was currently.

He simply sighed, and turned around heading away from the doorway, and towards the sink.

“Fine,” he murmured, “Dishwashing gets easier after midday anyway.”

Dan apologises to him, but Aleks shrugs. Dan’s a good boss, and he means well. Jordan, another worker, pokes his head out from behind a wall and raises an eyebrow at the commotion.

Dan waves him off, and the day continues like clockwork.

----

Midday rolls around eventually, and slowly the customer count begins its decline. By one o’clock the place is empty, and Aleks is sitting up on the counter like usual, while Kevin applies Band-Aids to the individual knicks and cuts caused by stray knives and broken ceramic mugs.

“I don’t know how you even managed to do this to yourself man.” Kevin sighs with a shake of his head, and dabs at the edge of Aleks’s palm with a damp paper towel, before gingerly taping gauze to a larger cut on the side.

Aleks shrugs and Kevin sighs again, resigned, as he wraps the final Band-Aid around a deep cut on Aleks’s index finger.

“You were only washing dishes, and you still come out like you’ve stuck your hand in a mincer.”

“Piss off.”

“That’s the best you can come up with?”

Kevin’s voice becomes distant as he wanders out back, throwing out Band-Aid wrappers, and shouting at Aleks.

“You want a sandwich?”

“I’m good, Kev, thanks.”

The bell tied to the door jingles and Aleks sighs. A moment passes and there’s a dull thud on the counter, followed by a sad, muffled voice.

“Aleks,” James murmurs, “Aleks, I’m absolutely ruined.”

Aleks turns, recognising the voice, and blinks at the sight of James resting his head in his arms.

“Hungover?” He asks, quiet enough not to hopefully give the man a headache.

James merely grunts in return, and Aleks can’t help but stifle a laugh at his misfortune.

“Can I please have a cappuccino? I’m dying.”

“You know,” Aleks murmurs as he slips off of the table, “Caffeine actually makes headaches and nausea a lot worse.”

But he makes him a cappuccino anyway, and adds three extra sugars more than he normally would, and makes sure there’s plenty of froth.

Hangovers suck, and he knows from experience that a shit coffee wouldn’t make anything better.

As the mug clicks with coming into contact with the counter, James looks up.

There’s a bruise on his face. It spreads from his cheekbone up to the hollow of his left eye socket, a sickening blue-black, purple spotting surrounding it.

Aleks stares open-mouthed as James sips at his cappuccino. James looks back up at him, smiling weakly and uses a finger to push Aleks’s jaw closed.

“You’ll catch flies, gorgeous. Good coffee, by the way.”

“What happened?” Aleks blurts out, too shocked to even react to James’s stupid nickname and action.

James shrugs as he takes another slow sip.

“No idea. Probably kissed somebody I shouldn’t have.”

For some reason, that hurts.

Aleks feels his heart sink, a strange feeling in his chest.

“But hey,” James continues with his usual grin, albeit somewhat weaker due to the hangover, “You should see the other guy.”

Aleks swallows and nods, his stomach beginning to churn.

James is the exact guy he thought he was. A leader, a player, a jerk.

Of course he never actually felt that way about Aleks, he knew that. He knew it was false, and he knew it was just some stupid game.

So why does it still hurt so much?

“You okay, gorgeous? What’s up?”

James raises an eyebrow, and Aleks merely shrugs.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

“Gorgeous-”

“Aleks!” Kevin, ever the saviour, shouts from the kitchen, “Can you help me out with these dishes?”

“I’ll see you around, James.”

Aleks immediately moves to the back, where Kevin awaits with not a dish in sight. Kevin doesn’t say a word, just pats a stool that stands next to his own.

Aleks takes the seat, and Kevin reaches out, to ruffle his hair, and pull him into a hug.

“I thought you hated him.” Kevin murmured, and Aleks nodded.

“I do.”

“So why did that hurt you so much?”

“Why are you listening in?”

Kevin chuckles, and Aleks closes his eyes and sighs. Kevin gently pokes one of the Band-Aids on Aleks’s hands, getting him to open his eyes again.

“Why did that hurt?”

Aleks stares at Kevin a moment, and then at the tiled floor.

“I guess I just wanted somebody to actually think something of me. And I thought he did. But it was fake. Even if it annoyed me, it was still nice, you know?”

They sit in silence a moment.

Aleks wishes this school bathroom had mirrors; he’s not sure why it doesn’t. But because of being unable to see his own face, he’s seated on the counter, and James is the one dabbing gently at the corner of his lip with a square of damp toilet-paper. He sighs, and James leans back slightly and squints, before using the tap to wet another square of toilet paper, and lean back in to wipe at the blood underneath Alek’s nose, and the top of his lip.

“I think you fractured your nose.”

“Joy. I thought I’d heard it crunch.”

“I don’t think you should have to get it re-straightened. I should take you to the hospital though, just in case.”

Aleks winces at the thought and James chuckles.

“I’ll hold your hand through it, don’t worry.”

Aleks rolls his eyes, and James returns to silently dabbing at the blood stains on his face, being careful not to bump any injuries. Aleks closes his eyes, and sighs again,

“Aleks,” James frowns, “Can I ask you something?”

“I guess.”

“Why do you hate me so much anyway? Like, from the moment we met, you just fucking despised me.”

Aleks hesitates, but he figures the least he can do is give James some closure.

“I’ve been to quite a few different schools. At every single one, there’s the egotistical douchebag. They suck up to you, and think they’re king of the fucking world, and then once they get what they want, they’re gone.”

James is quiet for a moment, and he pauses in his dabbing to look Aleks in the eye.

“You thought I was gonna be like that.”

“I did.”

“I’m not like that.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

James smiles and he tosses the wad of paper into the bin, before wetting another square and gently tilting Aleks’s head to the side.

“You’ve got a graze on the back of your head.”

“I hit the concrete.”

“Ouch. It won’t need stitches though, you’re lucky.”

“That’s a word for it.”

There’s another pause in the conversation, and James hesitates before he speaks again.

“I didn’t start the rumour.”

“I believe you.”

James dabs at the graze a couple times, and then turns Aleks to face him again. He gives him a quick onceover and a smile, and then offers his hand to pull Aleks off of the counter.

Aleks doesn’t take it, he hops off the bench on his own, but James doesn’t complain.

“C’mon gorgeous,” He says, gesturing with his head to the carpark, “I’m getting a lift with Seamus. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

----

Seamus raised an eyebrow when he sees Aleks clamber into the backseat, but he didn’t question it. He’d asked if he was okay, and when Aleks agreed, he didn’t push it further.

The hospital visit was long, and pretty uneventful, save for the doctor prodding Aleks’s face, James trying not to laugh at Aleks wincing, the doctor giving Aleks a stern look for telling James to ‘quit being such a fucking asshole’, and Eddie calling just as they left.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“I’m about to get yelled at,” Aleks said with a sigh, answering the call, “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you Aleksandr? Its five o’clock and I’m freaking out! The last thing you told me was that you punched a guy, and I’m here thinking you got jumped or something for it!”

Close to it, Aleks thinks.

“I’m uh, I’m at the hospital.”

There’s a pause, followed by a concerned shout.

“You’re what?”

Aleks winces, and moves the phone slightly further away from his ear, ignoring James’s laughter.

“Look, I’m coming home now; I’ll explain everything, just, calm down. Take a Valium, or something.”

“Don’t be a dick-”

Aleks hangs up, and sighs.

“That was my friend Eddie. He’s freaking out, so if you could take me home, that would be great, and he’d probably be forever devoted to you.”

Seamus rolls his eyes, but he smiles as he starts the car.

“I’m all for people being forever devoted to me.”

----

Eddie’s waiting for him out the front, standing by the side of the road; arms folded, and thoroughly pissed off. His expression changes when he sees Aleks being helped out of the car by James. Aleks curses at James that “he doesn’t fucking need help” but James helps him anyway.

“You!” Eddie shouts at James, and James looks up as Eddie stalks over to him.

“Huh?”

“You’re the asshole that’s been harassing him. You’re the whole fucking reason he got hurt!” Eddie hisses at him with venom, and James holds up his hands in defence as Aleks steps between them.

“Eddie, it’s cool. Massive misunderstanding, I’ll explain, but right now, can we please go inside?” Aleks pleads with his friend, and Eddie glances between him and James, before sighing and giving in to his friend’s plea.

“Fine.”

He follows Aleks to the door of their tiny house, and turns for a split second.

“You’re still an asshole though!”