#slooooowly

Note: There is no actual adoption in the Alex Adoption Fic but this is the important day in Alex's life when Emily and Mitch Patterson become his legal guardians (aka Chapter 17) Alex had spent a lot of time thinking about the day of the court hearing these last few weeks. He hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about waking up on the day. He’d assumed he wouldn’t get much sleep and once Willie had announced his plan of staying overnight, that assumption hadn’t changed, though for different reasons.

He’d been wrong.

Although falling asleep had proven difficult, once he’d managed that, he’d slept soundly through till the next morning until Emily woke him and he opened his eyes to Willie’s face next to his.

It was a weirdly assembled feeling. One part insisting that nothing had ever felt more right and normal, as if he and Willie had already spent innumerable nights together; the other part freaking out over being this close to Willie, having been this close to Willie for hours, sharing the same warmth, the same air, the same blanket and pillow.

He cleared his throat and blinked and croaked out a “good morning” that Willie returned with a huge smile.

Alex was all too aware of Luke bustling about behind him and so he turned his head and croaked out another, louder “good morning,” that Luke cheerfully returned.

“I’ll use the bathroom first,” Luke announced and slipped out of the room with a teasing grin and a wink.

“Yeah, I … okay,” Alex mumbled in the direction of the now closed door, unsure how to disentangle himself from Willie.

Not that he wouldn’t have loved to stay right here in bed, in his boyfriend’s arms for an eternity or two, but since that wasn’t an option, he felt incredibly awkward.

He wasn’t sure if Willie sensed it but, in any case, he sat up and shifted a little away from Alex, towards the wall, and Alex swiftly sat up as well, facing him.

“You sleep okay?” Willie asked, trying to comb through his hair with his fingers.

Alex’s mouth was dry at the sight of Willie wearing his t-shirt, sitting in his bed. After a second, he shook himself out of his thoughts and shrugged. “Better than I expected, to be honest.” He fumbled with his own bracelet, unable to keep eye contact. “Thank you, Willie.”

“Hey, I’m happy if I could help, pancake. Plus, you know, it wasn’t exactly a hardship or anything like that.”

Willie lightly punched his upper arm and Alex couldn’t help the smile overtaking his face.

“Did you sleep okay? Any more weird dreams?” he asked, finally looking up at his boyfriend again.

Willie hummed a little, nodding his head from side to side as he thought, fingers still absent-mindedly combing through his hair.

“Hm … I did dream about going to this pretty cool shop with … someone? I think it was my Mom but I’m not sure. Anyway, they had all sorts of knickknacks and stuff on a table in the middle of the room and then I found a room in the back where people were playing some board game that looked kinda cool. There was another room behind them with more games but I couldn’t really get to that. Didn’t want to bother the people, you know. But then I discovered that there was this wicked cool buffet lining the first room with all sorts of food though I’m not sure where people were supposed to sit and eat?” 

“… that sounds pretty cool?” Alex ventured after Willie had mused over this question in silence for a while.

Willie shrugged. “Yeah, it was pretty cool. I’m always fascinated by the details my brain comes up with, you know? But anyway, they sold Harry Potter napkins, so: not so cool after all, really.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah. How disappointing.”

“I know, right?” Willie huffed out an exaggerated sigh and finally gave up on combing through his hair. “Did you dream anything?”

Alex tried to think but there was pretty much just a blank in his mind where he’d been asleep. “No. I’m glad about it though. This day’s gonna be enough of a nightmare anyway, I guess.”

Willie’s face softened. “Well, you won’t have to live through it alone, at least.”

Alex swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat and just nodded. He was glad that Willie didn’t try to convince him it wouldn’t be a nightmare. That everything would be fine and peachy.

Luke returned just then and so Alex and Willie finally scrambled out of bed, Willie going to the bathroom while Alex endured a well-meaning pep talk from Luke. He was grateful, more than that really, that Luke continued to be so stoked for Alex living with them and becoming his ‘real brother’. Alex had given up on reminding him that they wouldn’t really be brothers since he wasn’t getting adopted. Mitch and Emily just would be his legal guardians.

Still, he sighed in relief as Willie returned and it was his time for a trip to the bathroom. He didn’t look into the mirror, just went through his routine as fast as he could. 

Only to then suffer through an uncomfortable breakfast where everyone was too nervous to really eat anything and there were constant glances at watches. Willie and Luke put a decent dent into the food but Emily and Mitch mostly just picked at theirs and Alex flat out refused any food. His stomach was already filled with so much anxiety, food wouldn’t mix well with that. 

At Emily’s urging though, he managed to at least nibble on a toast for a bit. She’d put on her stern Mom/nurse face so he had to give in.

After breakfast, they got ready. Which mostly meant Mitch and Emily gathering their papers and purse respectively, as well as the car keys. Alex just shoved his hands into the pouch of his hoodie with Willie and Luke at his sides. His own personal bodyguards and cheer squad. It did feel a little like going to his execution.

Alex stared straight ahead all through the drive to the court house. He was squeezed into the middle of the backseat, Luke on his left, Willie on his right. He had a suspicion that both were leaning into him a little more than strictly necessary.

His lips were dry and flaky but he kept on chewing them, watching the road ahead.

They were early but none of them had wanted to be late and they were all unfamiliar with the courthouse. 

Bobby was already waiting for them, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jacket, face grim but he mustered up a little smile for Alex, who nodded.

It all seemed so unreal. He felt more like a marionette than a person.

Reggie ran up about five minutes later, face flushed, a huge grin on his face. He clapped Alex enthusiastically on the shoulder, declaring that everything would surely go absolutely great.

Except nothing was great about this.

Surrounded by his friends, Willie, and Luke’s parents, Alex stalked into the courthouse on stiff legs, hands clenched into fists inside the hoodie pouch. He’d left his baseball cap behind and fervently wished he could pull up his hood and disappear.

He moved on autopilot, following wherever the rest were leading him. Herding him, more like. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t have found the right room on his own in any case.

There was a tremor in his every muscle, so faint as from a distant earthquake but he knew it was because he’d started to unravel from inside. Hiding in his brain, his flesh, disconnecting himself from everything.

Breathe. He had to breathe.

The others had become vague shapes, blurred, shadowy. There were voices but none of the words made sense.

He just had to follow them. Just had to breathe.

His legs itched to run, his fight or flight instinct pointing firmly to ‘flight’ but flight was impossible. As was fight.

So he followed. And breathed.

At last they stopped in some corridor. There was a bench and gentle hands were urging him to sit down but he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get up again if he sat down now so he resisted. 

The gentle pressure disappeared from his shoulder and he was left standing.

Voices washed around him as white noise while Alex breathed.

Time had lost all meaning and he couldn’t have said whether they waited for five minutes or five hours.

They waited. 

And then they went inside.

The moment he walked through the door, his senses seemed to start up again, objects and people becoming sharper until recognition settled in.

The room did not look like the courtrooms from movies and tv shows he’d watched. No wood. No jury stands. Of course. This wasn’t a criminal court and they rarely showed the other sort in the media. It resembled other utilitarian rooms and Alex took comfort from the sparse, efficient, slightly run down appearance. Some different furniture and this could have been a classroom. A cafeteria. A hospital waiting room.

It was mundane.

Strange, how something so important could happen in a room like this.

Someone ushered them to their places. Uncomfortable, utilitarian chairs. Luke and Willie snatched up the seats on either side of him, Reggie and Bobby behind them. Emily and Mitch sat next to Luke. Emily kept fussing with her blouse and hair, Mitch cleaned his glasses and then kept fiddling with the hem of his sensible blue sweater.

They all kept glancing round to see if his parents would make an appearance.

But there was no sight of the people who had born and fed and educated him anywhere. The people who had loved him for the first seventeen years of his life and would no longer love him for the rest of it.

For something as stupidly insignificant as just not being straight. They had made it his fault, his sin, his choice but it wasn’t a choice and it wasn’t a sin and with his thigh pressed to Willie’s, he knew it wasn’t a mistake.

The judge was a woman somewhere in her fifties, although the wrinkled face made her look older. Maybe she smoked a lot. She seemed stern but not unkind. He hadn’t spotted Mr Sao anywhere.

Every muscle in Alex’s body was wound so tight that he expected something to break every moment. As if all the places he’d been broken before would come undone again.

He inhaled sharply and his hand sneaked over to Luke’s thigh, palm up, all on its own. It was only after Luke had grasped his hand, warmth suffusing his skin, that he remembered that he now also had a boyfriend and that he could ask for comfort from him, too.

It still felt a little strange—his heart beating somewhere high near his lungs—to take his left hand out of the hoodie pouch as well and to extend it for Willie to hold it.

Except Willie didn’t lose a second before grasping Alex’s hand with both of his and keeping it securely in his lap.

And with every deliberate breath, he started to unwind a little, to feel warm again.

Soon, there were warm hands on either of his shoulders, squeezing.

“Okay.”

It was half breath, half croak, and so much easier than ‘thank you.’ There would be time for that afterwards. For now, he accepted all of his friends’ strength he could borrow to get through the next hour or so.

*

It didn’t take an hour. It took approximately seventeen minutes.

Judge Pearson hadn’t needed much more than the apparently thorough report from Mr Sao and the glaring absence of Alex’s parents (plus the obvious show of support Alex had with his chosen new family) to come to the quick and calm decision that Emily and Mitch Patterson would act as his legal guardians until he came of age.

There was a businesslike solemnity to the whole proceeding that felt inadequate to what was actually happening but Alex was glad of it.

Just as he was glad that the judge spared him the response of his parents to Mr Sao’s endeavors to talk to them. There was a small, masochistic part that wanted to know but as Judge Pearson said, it would have served no purpose. His parent’s decision was quite clear by their absence alone.

And just like that, he was no longer his parent’s son.

Well, technically, he still was and if they had wanted, they could have fought to get him back. They also had to pay child support since they were financially able to do so. But since there was no law that could stop them from disinheriting him, that was probably the last support he was ever going to get from them. Financially or otherwise.

Legally, he was still Alex Mercer but for all other intents and purposes, he now belonged to the Pattersons with the full consent of the law.

Once they’d left the courtroom, Luke slapped him on the shoulder and both Bobby and Reggie cheered. Willie gave him a brief hug that was much too short but soon, Emily was hugging him, too, and kissing his cheek, while Mitch clapped his shoulder and smiled encouragingly at him.

Alex, however, just felt numb.

The others were celebrating a victory but he felt like he’d played for the losing team for seventeen years.

“Sorry, I—”

He turned abruptly on the spot and followed the signs towards the nearest bathroom with quick strides. Immediately, his heart was drowned in a mixture of relief at getting away from the others for a bit and guilt for being relieved in the first place. Not to mention the vast undercurrent of mixed feelings about what had just happened and what it all meant.

He almost wished the bathroom was further away because the walking had helped at least a little but he arrived soon after he had started. Thankfully, the bathroom was quite empty. Just clean white tiles and the scent of citrus cleaner filling the room.

Except, maybe two minutes later, the door opened again and Willie entered.

Alex had been staring at his face in the mirror, still dripping from the cold water he’d splashed into it but now he turned, apprehensive in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Hey,” Willie said quietly and then continued to chew on his lower lip.

Alex had rarely seen him so serious.

“Hey.” He rubbed the sleeve of his hoodie over his face to dry off the water.

“Are you okay?”

Alex swallowed and shrugged. “Yeah …” It didn’t sound all too convincing even to himself.

Some emotion flickered over Willie’s face, pity perhaps, but then he’d suddenly crossed the room and was right in front of Alex and Alex’s breath hitched but Willie just slung his arms around his neck and pulled him close and with a shuddering inhale of breath, Alex let himself be held.

Gradually, he relaxed into Willie’s embrace and finally returned it, clinging to Willie as he buried his face in his boyfriend’s neck.

“It’s okay to not be okay,” Willie whispered after a while.

“But everyone’s so happy,” Alex protested, mumbling the words into Willie’s collar.

“Pancake,” Willie said after a moment, “they’re the ones who won something.”

Alex didn’t reply immediately. He let the words sink in and finally accepted that there was no obligation to feel the same as the others because while he had won something precious, he’d also lost something so monumentally part of who he’d been that it would need more time than a handful of months to fill the gaping holes left in his soul. All the places that had once held his parents’ love, his trust in them, the idea of family and what that entailed, had to be refilled with other things. He knew he was on a good path for that but while his body had healed slowly and painfully, his soul would heal even slower. And there would be much more pain.

He knew he’d carry those scars for the rest of his life.

*

He wasn’t sure how long they stood in the bathroom, Willie holding him, Alex holding onto him. Eventually, the door opened and an older man in a suit walked in, clearing his throat in clear embarrassment. 

With an awkward chuckle, Alex let go of Willie. He would have liked to stay longer but public bathrooms probably weren’t the best place to hang out and he did feel considerably lighter than just ten minutes ago.

Letting the guy pee in peace, he and Willie left the bathroom but soon, Willie caught his hand and entwined their fingers.

“Thank you,” Alex croaked out, swinging their hands lightly.

“Of course.”

“I hope the others aren’t too mad.”

Willie bumped into him, a reassuring grin on his face. “Nah.”

And Willie was right. When they finally found their way back to the others, only taking one wrong turn along the way, there was relief on everyone’s faces and smiles but no anger or impatience.

“You okay, dude?” Reggie asked.

And this time, it wasn’t a lie when Alex nodded. “Yeah.”

“I think we could all use a good lunch now,” Mitch said and smiled. “Anyone in favour?”

It was a little early for lunch but they were all in favour.

Later, when they’d all piled into a burger joint and were discussing lunch choices, Emily took him aside.

“It’s okay not to be happy about all of this and I hope you know you don’t have to pretend otherwise just for my and Mitch’s sake.”

Alex’s eyes prickled but he swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He shook the hair out of his face and took a deep breath before he added: “Thank you. For–for everything. I really am grateful.”

Emily patted his shoulder and smiled. “Of course you are. Doesn’t mean you can’t still wish things had never gotten here. It’s only natural, hunny.”

He nodded again. “Yeah. But there’s a lot of good here.” He glanced over to his friends and Willie discussing the merits of curly fries vs. normal fries.

“Glad to hear it. Now, I think we should get some food into this rowdy bunch.”

“Probably a good idea.” He hesitated and then blurted out: “Can I get a strawberry milkshake?”

Emily laughed in surprise and then smiled brightly. “Yes. Yes of course you can, sweetie.”

Beck had a terrible day at the office. The Mayor had sent him handwritten notes from thirty different meetings to type up, and the man’s handwriting was indistinguishable from a toddler’s scribbles. He was typing up the last page of the final report when the day went from terrible to somehow worse.

Office Martin Sandallo walked in, blue police uniform crisply pressed, one thumb hooked through a belt loop.

“Hello there, Beck.”

“Officer.”

Beck nodded his head at the man—he wasn’t an unusual face. In fact, they met up frequently at nights with the guys, but there he usually went by Fat Marty in those circles, to distinguish from Little Marty, Martin Everly.

Fat Marty held out a folder to him, just a plain manilla folder.

“For you. For him. You know what I mean.”

“I do. Thanks, Officer.” Beck plastered a smile on his face, watched the man tip his hat and exit, then whipped the folder open. Inside was a printed letter, one page, from one member of the Connell family to another. They were discussing Pat, and how to best go about confronting him with their new ‘leverage’.

The details of the document were incredibly vague, and he couldn’t be certain, but the heaviness settling in his gut knew that the leverage was that briefcase. This piece of paper could ruin Simon’s life, if and when Pat found out what the Connells had.

He pulled out his phone, and texted Simon.

Hey. Just got a letter for Pat. It’s from Connells, about ‘leverage.’ I think it’s the briefcase.

After a few seconds of no response, he sends another.

What should I do? I’m supposed to deliver, and he’s having me over for dinner.

Simon, what do I do?

His palms were getting sweaty, staring at the phone, waiting for an answer. Eventually, one popped up.

Give him the letter. I’ll take care of it.

Then another.

Ma made lasagna btw. See you at dinner.

Beck squeezed his eyes shut. Dinner with his boyfriend, his boss, and a letter like a loaded gun—this wasn’t going to end well.