Where Clover Whitens (Jalex)

Anaphora

To you, my aquiline demon,
I apologize. In a flash –
as if over a coffin – I realize
it was always too late to save you!

Even as I tremble – it may be
I am dreaming – there
remains one enchanting irony:
for you – are not he.

-Marina Tsvetaeva,"Girlfriend, Poem 1"

"Alex? Hey, Alex?"

A familiar voice was calling to him, saying his name over and over, almost like he was being worshipped. That thought was ridiculous, but if it were true, surely he needed to open his eyes and see who his acolyte was. It took a few tries, but Alex finally lifted his heavy eyelids. His vision went from a dark void to a light so blinding that he winced.

"Hmm?" Alex murmured, blinking profusely. He heard a sharp outlet of breath. Where the fuck am I? He thought to himself.

"Oh, thank God. You're okay."

As Alex's eyes adjusted to the pink and purple sunset, he was able to see who had their strong arms around him.

"Jack?" Alex asked, moving to sit up. Jack didn't let him, though, shaking his head and tightening his grip around Alex's body.

"Hey, stay still for a minute. You don't need to get up too fast."

Maybe Alex should have been upset about Jack holding him down and telling him what to do, but he felt weak and dizzy. His stomach was a bit queasy, too. He yawned and then rubbed his eyes. "What happened? Where are we?"

Jack raised an eyebrow, a look of concern flittering across his features. "You don't remember?"

That was concerning. Alex could remember going with Beau to the restaurant, having a couple of drinks, and trying to have a conversation with Jack. That was kind of it, though.

"I mean, I know we were at Cara," Alex said with a shrug. "Where's Beau?" He didn't want to ask about Caitlin, but he did know she'd been with them.

A look that Alex couldn't identify passed over Jack's face, but as quickly as it came, it left. "Still at the restaurant, I guess," Jack replied before sighing. "You passed out, Alex."

"I did?" Alex asked with a frown. It wasn't necessarily jarring to hear. Alex had dealt with pretty severe anxiety for most of his life. When he was a teenager, he fainted when he became too overwhelmed. It wasn't necessarily a frequent occurrence, but Alex still hadn't fainted in years. He'd had anxiety, sure, but he also carried the Ativan his doctor had prescribed to him years ago with him everywhere he went.

"Yeah," Jack replied, reaching up and brushing Alex's hair from his eyes. The action had Alex's heart fluttering, but he also kind of wanted to slap his hand away. It seemed like Jack shouldn't have those privileges anymore; the intimacy that had always existed between them was inappropriate now. "We were...," Jack trailed off, eyes glazing over. "We were talking," he finally settled on. "And then you stood up and hit your knee and passed out."

From the way Jack's eyes drifted around, the way he wouldn't meet Alex's eyes, made Alex believe that he was hiding something. Jack had said that he'd fainted in the restaurant, but they were outside now, on a grassy knoll. He opened his mouth to ask where Beau was, but he stopped when he felt Jack's hand squeeze his arm.

"A lot was happening," Jack went on, thumb absentmindedly rubbing circles on the inner part of Alex's elbow. "I think you got overwhelmed, like that time in Jakarta?"

That had been one of the only times Alex had fully fainted from anxiety. They'd just finished a show at a festival and somehow, a horde of fans had managed to get in the space between the backstage area and their bus. They'd been swarmed and it was far too hot; Alex was completely trapped. He'd fainted from the nervousness and had woken up on their bus with a cold washcloth on his forehead, Jack and Flyzik staring down at him. They told him later that Jack had caught him and with the help of Zack acting as a linebacker, he was able to carry Alex out of there.