The Time Taken to Understand (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Three~ Alec

Alec's hand was still in a fist. He had been here for a long time, standing in front of Mark's door with his arm outstretched. At first, he had intended to knock, but for some reason his body wouldn't let him and he stood frozen in that spot. 

He had thought about what Adam had said about him and Mark. About how different their bond was from other people's. Alec sighed and rested his fingers against the door, trying to get over the fact that he wanted to see his best friend, but felt like he shouldn't. The door creaked as he leaned his entire body against it. 

To distract himself from his inner quarrel, he decided to go think about the new life he had just begun. Part of him felt like he was running away from his problems, but a bigger part of him told him he was following his dreams. His stupid dreams, but dreams never the less. 

Since he was a little boy, Alec had wanted to be a veterinarian. It was silly, his father always told him, grown men weren't meant to take care of puppies. This had bothered younger Alec for two reasons. One, if men weren't supposed to take care of them, who was? There were a lot of puppies in the world and not all women wanted to do it. And two, he didn't think his father should be telling him when men did while he was such a poor one himself. Alec had been much smarter when he was younger and kept this to himself, but as he grew older, so did his courage and wit. 

Which was something that he preferred not to think about. "You should really stop thinking so much," he muttered to himself, trying to ignore the dark cloud of memories that were threatening to pass behind his eyelids. "No no no no no". 

Typically, when he remembered, he would call Mark and they would talk until Alec fell asleep on the line. He sighed and opened his eyes. "You can finally do what you want now. No reason to look ba- uhg!" Mark swung open his door and let out a little a-ha! noise, and then wheezed as Alec smacked against his chest. 

"What are you doing?" Mark asked him, instinctively catching him and helping him right his footing. Alec was aware of the fact that his eyes must have been very large. "Were you talking to yourself again?" 

Alec sneered and squared his shoulders. "No". Mark smiled knowingly, and Alec ignored him, turning around and heading towards the front door. 

"Where are you going?" Mark asked, and Alec heard his footsteps behind him. 

"I should be getting home," he paused for a moment, "I don't know where I live". They had gotten there early, as they had hoped, but instead of going to find Alec's apartment, Mark had convinced him to help him move everything into Adam's room and he had stupidly agreed. When he turned back around Mark had a stupid silly smile on his face that he couldn't help but return. 

"You can take my room for the night, I'll sleep on the couch". Mark then laid down there, closing his eyes. 

"What are you doing?"

One of Mark's eyes opened and he studied Alec. "I'm pretending to sleep so you won't feel pressured to stay up with me until I actually feel like going to sleep," he said, matter-of-factly before closing his eyes again. Alec looked at the ceiling for a moment and shook his head. He couldn't believe that they had gotten to this place early to look around and they hadn't gone to see Alec's apartment. When it came to Mark, and all of his stupid ideas, Alec could never say no. Sometimes it took a lot of convincing (it had taken Mark an hour to talk Alec into moving all of Adam's things, which was actually longer than it took to actually do so), but in the end, he always agreed. This was why Mark never gave up and remained persistent.

Alec pushed Mark's long legs off of the couch and sat at the foot of it. "Saying that defeated the purpose". Mark grinned at him with very straight white teeth.