Well, this was an unusual occurence. There was a note on the door of the conference room that usually hosted Dr. Barclay's study group that read, in his square, impersonal handwriting, Class is cancelled tonight. Don't practice too much on your own, and I'll see you next week. I'll be in my office if you need me before then.

Apparently, something was wrong with the professor. Maybe he was sick, or some sort of family emergency had come up (hah!), or he had had a problem of some kind with the administration, or... there was no telling.

(Actually, what had happened was fairly simple. Alexander had had a run in with someone he had never expected to see again, and he was shaken. Upset. Which is putting it mildly.)

He was in his office, right at this moment, because he hadn't felt up to doing anything at all, really. Not even going home.

There was a book in his hands, but he had given up trying to read it after coming to the end of the same sentence six times in a row.

He was worried about Keye, but he wasn't sure he could handle anyone at the moment. But he's in his office, if the boy does come looking for him.

((Buwahaha. Sammie = unpredictable.))

"What's wrong?"
Large, scarred hands pulled the book away from Alexander and placed it on his desk.
Shouldn't this be the other way around?
Keye was standing in the office, looking down at Alexander, evidently concerned. It was a warm day, but Keye was dressed in a bulky, long-sleeved shirt.

He looked up, startled.

"Nothing." Okay, it's a lie. But he really doesn't want to explain any of it, especially not to Keye. It's much too complicated to really get into details, you see.

He took in Keye's appearance, and lifted an eyebrow. He's ridiculously good at controlling his expression. "Isn't it a little warm for that sort of thing?"

"I don't believe you, but I'll let it go. 'Great Expectations'? Bleagh. Here, I have something..."
He dug around in his pocket and withdrew a slim, paperback book.
"You'll like that. It's far more..."
He paused a moment, to think of the right word to describe the 124 pages of pure, hellish confusion that is Pedro Paramo.
"...engaging. Yeah, I guess it's kinda warm."

Alexander accepted the book, laying it on the shelf without really looking at it just yet. "Maybe later. Sit down, son."

He's going to try that age old solution of forgetting one's own problems by dealing with someone else's.

"What's been going on this week?" It's almost like he's just curious about how Keye spends the time between classes, but it's not quite. He knows something happened, and that the something was bad (thanks to Bo), but he doesn't know what it was.

He sat (on the floor. Hasn't he ever heard of furniture?) and looked up at Alexander, smiling. He looked like a cute little kid, but a few times bigger, and wearing sunglasses.
When Alexander asked about his week, his face went absolutely still. His tone, when he spoke, was guarded.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."

Alexander doesn't believe that any more than Keye believed him about nothing being wrong. If there weren't Bo, there was certainly Keye's own tone and expression...

He shakes his head. "What happened, son? What's wrong?" He sounds worried, and he is, and he's not going to take no for an answer, either. He wants to know what's wrong with 'his' boy. (Yes, he feels possessive of Keye. Like a parent.)

"N-nothing! Noth...ing..."
Can't say. Won't tell.
No more.
He was afraid that Alexander woud...hate him or something. Think he was weak. Something. He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. Something in his face had faded...he looked absent, now. The lights weren't all on upstairs.

Alexander slid off his armchair so that he was level with Keye (which he managed by dint of not sitting down all the way on the floor, since Keye was so tall) and shook his head.

"What's wrong, son? Tell me. Maybe I can do something." If nothing else, he can try. He doesn't know what's wrong, but he wants to know, so that he can fix it. He doesn't want Keye to be upset, as it's obvious that he is.

As for hating Keye... certainly not. He'll be sorry that he didn't kill Logan when he had the chance, but...

He gave in surprisingly easily, perhaps because he'd been trying to go to Alexander in the first place, after it had happened.
"There was a boy in an alley. And a dead man. He choked me and he took me into a house...he r..."
He shrank back, turning his face away. He couldn't say it.
"He hurt me."

He r...

Oh god. Oh god.

"I'll kill him," hissed Alexander, before quite realizing that he had said it. "Who?"

He was surprised at the strength of his own reaction, but that didn't matter. You don't hurt his son and expect to get away without any consequences. It doesn't work that way...

He wanted to wrap his arms around Keye and hold him close and tell him that he wouldn't let anyone hurt him again, but... Keye was so unpredictable about touching. He never knew if it was a good idea or a bad one. Hell.

"I don't know." He replied miserably. "Never told me his name. He c-c-cut me all over. I was going to come...to go to...to your place. Never made it. Prolly not a good idea anyway. He's like half my size. Maybe four or five years younger."
His mouth twisted. He was going to cry again, damnit, and he hated himself.
"Pathetic."

"Damn. I'll find him anyway. It's a promise." Alexander is very displeased with Logan, you know that?

"You aren't pathetic. You've thrown me around; that takes some doing." He'd always been off guard, granted, but still. Keye was not pathetic.

"And you can always come to me. I don't care what happens, you can always come to me, and I won't turn you away."

((Sammie: *makes Alex say things he's going to have to eat later*))

"But I didn't even fight! I didn't even try to run away." It came out almost as a wail. Keye used his feet to push himself backwards, slamming himself into the office wall.
It was taking all the strength he could muster to keep the torrent of words inside: Pathetic, worthless, useless, disgusting, horrible, ugly, stupid... and it went on and on.

Alexander stood up when Keye shoved himself backward and shook his head firmly. There wasn't anything he could say to that, really, but he didn't care. His boy wasn't pathetic, or any of those other adjectives that Keye was applying to himself mentally.

He took two steps and was at Keye's side, pulling him close to his chest and shaking his head still.

"Shh, son. Fear can do things to us that we can't understand." Uncommonly wise, there.

A gentle hand smoothed Keye's hair. (Well, as much as Keye's hair can be smoothed, anyway.)

"Shh."

Keye's head is warm...a little too warm. He's sick, which probably explains some of his hysteria.
Surprisingly, he doesn't pull away. Instead, he presses close, sobbing brokenly, his nose pressed (uncomfortably) into Alexander's sternum.
He babbled, too, as he cried, though most of it was unintelligible. One of the things that came through clearly was that Keye wanted to die, and that he hadn't slept in nearly a week.

Not this again... "Keye, I'm not going to let you die." It's just not an option. Keye is not allowed to die, and he's not going to get the chance, if Alexander has anything to say about it. He'd like to think that he does have a say.

As for sleep, well... he can fix that, too. If he has to, he'll put Keye to sleep without the boy's permission.

But for now... let him cry himself out. He thinks that's the right thing to do, and anyway, he doesn't know anything else to do.

It seemed like a long time before Keye calmed down, his sobs subsiding into sniffles and hiccups. He didn't move, though he did turn his head to one side, in order to stop squashing his nose. He didn't want Alexander to let him go again. In his mind, he'd associated not being in contact with being alone, and he didn't want to be alone.
"Why not?"

"Didn't we go through this already...?" He doesn't want to have to admit that he is very much emotionally attached to Keye aloud again. Call it embarrassment, maybe, but it's rooted in the fact that he doesn't like to appear weak anymore than Keye does. And somehow, in his mind, the idea of having emotions like a normal human being is associated with being weak.

It must be the company he keeps.

"But I hurt."
He twisted his neck to look up at Alexander, then fell back against his chest.
"I feel cold. Physically, I mean."
He shivered.

"I'd offer you something to wrap around yourself, but I don't actually have anything you could use..." Well, he has his sport coat, but he's actually wearing that, and he doesn't want to let go of Keye to take it off. So he pulls Keye closer and tries to warm him up that way.

Body heat, you know.

"I couldn't sleep at all last night, because I was so cold, which is weird 'cause my apartment's always real hot."
He doesn't take very good care of himself; here he is, sick and feverish, and he doesn't even know it.

Alexander frowned, putting Keye back from him a little bit so he could feel his forehead. His eyebrows rose, and he shook his head in dismay.

"Keye, you're burning up," he exclaimed. So Keye was sick, had been raped and tormented in the past week, and he wasn't sleeping. Good grief, did the boy need someone to watch over his every step or something?

Yeah. He probably did. God knows he wasn't going to do it for himself.

"'m not burning up. 'm cold." It's strange how someone with an eye for minute details can be lacking so much in self-awareness.

"I mean you have a fever," Alexander answered, frowning. Fever, fever, what did one do with a fever? It's been a long time since he's dealt with his younger siblings getting sick and all that.

Probably there was something over the counter Keye could take. Only Alexander didn't know what.

"You feel like you're on fire." He's worried.

"I have a lighter in my pocket."
He's a little delirious too, apparently. That generally comes along with a fever. He's not comprehending what exactly Alexander's so worried about.
"You frown a lot."

"I wasn't talking about that kind of fire..." He laid a cool hand along Keye's forehead again, still frowning. Of course he frowns a lot; Keye is obviously sick, and he as obviously hasn't done anything about it. That's not good.

"... have you taken anything, son?"

"I took all of my medicine this morning."
None of those are anything that would help with a fever, unfortunately, but Keye isn't going to be helpful and explain that. He's never very helpful where he, himself is concerned.

"What medicine would that be?" He vaguely remembers that Keye took pills from several bottles when he was at the boy's apartment, but that was a couple weeks ago. Surely none of those were for this fever.

"Just...stuff."
He doesn't like talking about his epilepsy. He remembers telling Alexander that he had it once, but if the professor has forgotten, he's not going to remind him. He doesn't like admitting to weakness, and that's definitely a weakness in his book.
"I take them every day, twice."

Alexander remembers Keye once mentioning that he has seizures, but the word 'epilepsy' was never actually mentioned. So what precisely the medication is for he doesn't actually realize. But it's not for fever.

"I see..."

... Tylenol's supposed to have some kind of thing that works on fevers, isn't it? Or maybe he should just take Keye to a doctor. Which would probably make the boy unhappy, come to think of it, but...

Decisions, decisions.

"Aspirin does something, I think. It says on the bottle: pain reliever and fever reducer. It's in...well, aspirin, and advil and tylenol and ibuprofin."
Keye looks up at Alexander, one of those looks that says 'Did I do a good job?' Really, he only wants Alexander to cheer up and stop frowning like that. It's bothering him.

And the fact that Keye is obviously sick is bothering Alexander. He doesn't want Keye to be sick; that means more worry on his part.

"... hm? Oh, yes." Funny, had he actually said anything aloud about Keye not having taken anything for the fever? Oh well. He had mentioned that he was worried about Keye's fever. Sort of.

"I don't have any." Here, anyway. "Come on. We'll get something over the counter for you."

"You asked if I'd taken anything." he explained. His speech was slurred slightly, but not too bad. He'd really like to make it slur more, actually.
"God, I need a drink. If you take me up on that, I'll kill you."

"I wasn't planning to take you up on it," Alexander answered, his frown changing subtly from 'worried' to 'stern.' Drinking is a very bad idea when you're sick. (It's not that great an idea when you're not sick, either, if you over do it.)

"I meant we'll get you some tylenol or something. You're sick, son." He began to stand up, which necessitated using his arms for something other than holding Keye. Like gripping the side of his desk so he didn't fall back down.

Sitting on the floor isn't exactly a habit of his.

Making sure that his glasses were firmly pressed on his face, he stood. After all, he was going out to where there would be people he didn't know. He had to make sure they couldn't see.
"Okay. Good."

"And then you are going to sleep." And he's not going to take any argument on that point, either. If Keye refuses to let him put him to sleep, he'll do it anyway, and he'll take the consequences, too. It's more important that Keye be healthy than... well, never mind.

(Well, this had certainly taken his mind off that old friend. Which was something he wanted to happen.)

"Nope."
He shook his head. Nope. That's just not happening. Nuh-uh. No way. And in case the head shaking hadn't been enough to get his point across, he said it again: "Nope."

"Yes. No argument, Keye. You have to sleep, even more so now because you're sick." Alexander is stubborn, and he has the advantage of power over Keye. He is not about to let Keye get away with just promising to try to rest again.

He doesn't believe that Keye managed to sleep then, and so he's going to make sure that Keye sleeps now.

"I slept for an hour last Saturday night, and most of Sunday morning! C'mon!"
He gave Alexander a pleading look. Most people can't resist it; then again, most people aren't as stubborn as he is.
Besides all this sleep happened a whole week ago. It's ridiculous for Keye to think that it was enough.
"I'd rather go dancing. And I really don't want to go dancing right now."