Page 45 of Margins

“It was, and you definitely don’t need to apologize,” Alex tells him. “You also don’t need to hide from me. Wanting to be alone is one thing, but I don’t want you to think you can’t stay right here where I can see you cry.”

Elijah looks like he fights back the first few things he wants to say, but then he nods. “Okay.”

“You want to talk about this one?”

“I just—they both knew,” Elijah huffs. “My grandparents both knew, and I—I’m not sure how many of my reactions to that make any sense. I’m kinda feeling it all at once.”

“Well, I don’t think there are any right or wrong ways to feel about any of this. No good guys or bad guys, right?” Alex says. “But do you want to try to get it all out, however messy it sounds?”

Elijah runs a hand through his hair and Alex watches as the curls end up everywhere at once, longing to help put them back into place and aware that the best he can do is sit back and let Elijah lean on him instead.

“I hated the idea that my great grandfather and Uncle Edgar were all alone, and then when I realized that my grandpa knew, I was—I guess I was relieved that they at least had someone they could be honest with, you know? Just that little relief when they were buried under so many lies.” Elijah wraps an arm around Alex’s waist, the two of them sort of tangled on the couch. “But now knowing that my grandma was told probably early in her relationship with my grandpa—it’s only one more person, but it feels like it changes everything. Like it was only a huge secret in those first years, but then they started letting people in, and I—I don’t know.”

“You feel like you got left out,” Alex concludes.

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like that’s very fair to them, though.”

“Eh, I’m not sure your feelings have to be fair to anybody. You were close to your grandparents—your grandpa especially—and they knew about Peter and Edgar—”

“And they must have at least guessed about me—”

Alex nods. “So, fair or not fair, you get to be hurt that nobody ever told you. It won’t change anything—or it can’t change anything, I guess—but I think it would be a lot less fair to pretend you’re fine about it, even if more of their story can offer you some answers.”

“Okay, yeah,” Elijah sighs, the smallest mewl caught in his throat before he goes on. “What about my mom?”

“The baby on the way.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“It certainly seems like they planned to tell her too,” Alex says. “I mean, hell, the end of the letter makes it sound like Peter’s finally ready for everything to change, after Edgar had been the one more relaxed about it from the beginning.”

“And that was still incredible after the night of his attack,” Elijah points out. “But yeah, it does seem like their relationship was at least going to be something the family knew about, even if the world wasn’t ready to see them holding hands anywhere else. So, something happened. And it’s gonna suck to find out what it is.”

Alex presses a kiss to Elijah’s temple. “It probably will, yeah. So, how about if we put all this away for now and go upstairs?”

“To your bedroom?”

“Yeah. I mean, unless you—you don’t have to.”

“Not sure I’ll be very loud for you right now,” Elijah mumbles.

“I—Christ, no, that’s—” Alex freezes, and then absolutely loses it the second he pulls back to look at Elijah, who’s still plenty rocked by everything they’ve read tonight, but who's also biting his lip to keep from giggling, his cheeks pink. Rolling his eyes, Alex presses a hand to his own chest in mock outrage to play along. “I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort, and I am appalled that you would think I’m using any of your vulnerability to my advantage.”

“What if I think you’d actually be doing it all for me? For my advantage?”

“Elijah,” Alex breathes, everything spinning back to something tender even before their teasing has fully tripped off their tongues. “There’s so much I want to do for you, and—”

“And?” Elijah asks, pulling Alex’s hand away from his chest so he can thread their fingers together in his lap.

“And once upon a time, you said I could take from you, too.”

“You will. Probably very soon.”

Alex relaxes into that, content to wait as long as it’s still something Elijah wants. Or something Elijah will encourage Alex to want. Or maybe a lot of both. But right now, he moves away to gather everything they’ve read, and Elijah grabs his phone, presumably to text Nora about Poe, Alex patient until he’ll be able to pull Elijah close to him again.

“C’mon, let’s go to bed.”

“You have to work in the morning,” Elijah reminds him as he pockets his phone, Alex putting the lid back on the box before they make their way upstairs.

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