UnHappyMess

Leven

Alex woke up in his bed alone.

Moments before his eyelids had still been shut despite being awake, so his arm padded the empty space on his right when he didn't feel another body laying next to him. He sat up in a groggy state, and despite his foggy eyes, he still used them to scan his room. Lev wasn't here.

Did he leave? Alex thought. He hoped not. But if he had left, Alex wondered what had sent him fleeing the scene. Was it about their kiss? It couldn't be. They had done it twice within minutes and played a two-hour game of basketball with each other afterwards. It couldn't be about that.

Maybe Lev didn't leave at all; probably just in the bathroom, Alex rationalized. His grogginess dispelling, he carried himself out of bed and made for the door. He tried twisting the knob to get it open, not realizing that the door wasn't closed all the way, and his forehead ended up smacking into the wooden surface with a soft thud.

"Damn it..." he quietly cursed. The impact left him unsteady as he staggered into the hallway, kneading his forehead. He made it as far as the stairway before he smelled chocolate emanating from downstairs.

Like a dandelion seed travelling with the wind, Alex floated down the steps and through the living room, until he reached the kitchen at last.

"Finally you're awake." Lev stood by the dining table, stirring a packet of hot chocolate into a blue mug of hot water. The table had been carefully setup; a simple place setting on either side — one for Lev and one for Alex; each plate stacked with chocolate chip pancakes topped with whip cream — Lev with two cakes and for Alex four; a mug of freshly stirred hot cocoa on both sides; in the center of the table sat the two saucers piled moderately high with the rest of the flapjacks.

"Woah! When did you do all this?" Alex said in awe.

"While you were sleeping, genius," Lev quipped.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut as he shook his head, cradling it with one hand. His forehead was beginning to throb. "Yeah, I just meant, you must've been up for a long time."

"Not really. It's only been like an hour."

Alex's eyes blinked open as he felt the warm touch of a thumb on his forehead. Lev had materialized right in front of him, his face inches away, an act reminiscent of yesterday in his bedroom.

"Are you okay?" Lev asked, quite softly as if Alex were a tiny kitten he was trying not to scare away. His thumb rubbed back and forth slowly against the skin of Alex's forehead, and Alex leaned into it without hesitation.

"Y-yeah, well kinda. I hit my head on the door when I was leaving the room."

"You're just a walking natural disaster in the morning, aren't you?" Lev teased, but when Alex looked into his eyes, his expression was serious unlike his tone.

"I'll be careful next time," Alex promised.

Lev scoffed, cracking a smile. "No swelling here so I think you'll be fine. Come on, sit." His hand moved away from Alex's forehead and trailed down to capture his hand. Alex didn't realize he was being led to the table until Lev released his hand to pull out a chair for him. Maybe it was the chaotic pulsations in his head, but all he had paid attention to up until that point, was the feel of his hand encased in Lev's.

Alex sat down, but he wasn't hungry. He hadn't been since he woke up; since he had mistakenly thought that Lev had left without saying even goodbye; since he had discovered Lev had still been here and had been cooking for him even though he had won their bet yesterday meaning he didn't have to do any cooking. Alex was about to confess to some degree about all this, but then Lev took his hand again and stuck a torn piece of paper in his palm. The throbbing in his was finally calming down, but Alex still read its contents slowly. It was a phone number, and the name written above it was-

"Leven?" Alex said aloud.

Lev had disappeared from his side and reappeared across the table sliding into the other chair. "That's my full name, Leven Novas. So 'Lev' is a nickname, basically."

Leven. Alex had heard a lot of unique names over the years, some of them that he thought were actually quite cool despite not being particularly fond of the people they belonged to. None of them, though, held a candle to Leven. There was something entrancing about it, and it suited Lev.

Instead of saying any of this to Lev, Alex said, "my middle name is Dean."

Lev let out a low but amused chuckle. "Okay. Good to know, I guess." If it didn't already feel like someone was playing a drum set inside of his brain, Alex would've punched himself right then. Lev seemed to notice Alex inwardly cringing, as he continued to say, "you do look like a Dean though. It's nice."

Almost instantly, Alex straightened in his seat and beamed, which turned Lev sheepish, making him shrug awkwardly to himself and resort to his breakfast as a distraction. Alex grabbed hold of his own fork and knife, at last feeling starved for food.

"And before you ask, I don't have a middle name," Lev told him over a mouthful of pancake.

"You don't? Really?" Alex questioned through his own pancake-packed mouth.

Lev shrugged again and said, "yeah. My mom doesn't have one either. Runs in the family, I guess." Alex nodded into his plate. He did wonder for a second if his own father had a middle name. "Speaking of family," Lev went on, as if reading Alex's mind, "I wonder how your dad knew what my name was short for?" Alex looked up from his plate, the speed of his chewing slowing as he stared at Lev bemused. Again Lev laughed, "you Priors really have a way with acquiring knowledge."

**********************************************************

"So...I guess we're not friends anymore?" Alex said as he leaned against the front door frame, hands stuffed inside his pajama pockets so Lev couldn't see how much he was fidgeting.

Lev stood before him outside the Prior home, his duffle bag swung over him and his own hands stuffed in his jogger pockets as well. Alex wondered if he was fidgeting too. "We'll see," Lev smiled, a small one, Alex noticed.

Nothing about Lev seemed small; his body, his personality, his presence. Everything about him since the first day Alex had met him, everything he made Alex feel — it was all on a bigger scale than the nano-scopic twinkle on his lips now. It made Alex realize, Lev was just as nervous as he was right now.

"Look," Lev went on. "There's some stuff I need to get done for my mom while she's out, so how 'bout I call you later? Then maybe we can...really talk, or whatever."

His fidgeting hands eased up, and this time Alex managed a smile. "Yeah. Okay. Definitely."

As Lev had departed from the Prior residence, trailing down the mosaic tiles until he was on the sidewalk and out of sight, Alex had watched him, any hint of nervousness all flushed out of him. He fished for the torn paper that had Lev's number, and pulled it from his pocket. He had never yearned for something as much as he did this, and hopefully, officially, he would have it soon.

He spun around to go back inside, eager to save the number in his phone before he lost the paper, but then something stopped him dead in his tracks.

"What the fuck was that?"

Alex flinched, then slowly turned back to see a furious Ziro now standing in the walkway, not far from him and the front door.

"What the hell were you doing with Lev?"