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Alex made a vague gesture that could have meant anything from the contents of the room to the state of the world in general.
Which…fair.
"You've got a lot on your plate right now," Jakob said, leaning back in his chair as he studied the puzzle before him. "But it's a mad dog that bites the hand trying to feed it. No one's going to hurt you here, Alex. Nobody except yourself."
Alex's shoulders hunched inward at that, his head dipping as he looked away.
"Sorry," he muttered, his tone just miserable enough that Jakob could believe he actually meant it. "I think I'm just… in over my head, maybe."
"This about Cassie's friends coming over later today?"
Hesitantly, Alex nodded.
"Cassie… She was showing me all these photos. Like I’m supposed to remember names and faces of folks I never met?" Alex snorted, then frowned. "Some of them… I didn't know she had friends who were…"
"Some of them areveryout, aren't they?" Jakob asked, his mind easily calling up images of Cassie's friends like a flipbook.
"Yeah," Alex sighed. "Guess so. It shouldn't matter, though. What the fuck do I care about some strangers?Orwhat they think of me?"
"Sure. But… that doesn't erase the fact you do," Jakob told him, Alex's little half-shrug confirming his suspicions. "Look, you don't have to tell anyone anything about yourself that you don't want to. I promise, none of Cassie's friends would purposefully pressure you to do something that you aren't comfortable with. But on the other hand, if anyone's going to understand? It'll be that group. Might be nice to have some… support, right?"
Alex just grunted in reply.
"When I said that stuff in the mall yesterday? I, uh — I wouldn’t have if I’d… I mean, If I knew you wereactually, um…"
"Don’t worry about it," Jakob told him. "Good as forgotten."
"I… shouldn't have made fun of Cassie's stockings, either," he said after a moment, looking up; his copper bright eyes swirling with shadows. "Please don't tell her I said those things."
Jakob nodded.
"Know they aren't the prettiest, but… it's tradition. It'sourtradition," Jakob corrected himself. "Sure, none of the stockings are perfect. They aren't supposed to be — because none of us are perfect. But she made each of them just as unique and special as the people they're for, and… I've always thought that makes them pretty magical, all together like that. Much better than store-bought, even if they're a little rough around the edges these days."
Alex stared at Jakob for a moment, then snorted.
"You're corny as hell, you know that?" Alex informed him, but there was no heat in it at all. Instead, there was something… something almost shaped like longing in the kid's tone as he looked over at the row of stockings again, staring hard. As if he was actuallyseeingthem now. As if —
Jakob glanced over at the stockings, and then back at Alex's expression; an idea forming in his mind…
It's not that Jakob didn'tlikeCassie's friends.
He did, actually.
Really.
They were an interesting collection of very individualistic kids; smart and so very aware of the world in a way he sure as shit had never been at that age.
Maybe still wasn't, to be honest.
He could barely keep up with the thread of their rapid-fire conversation, only just catching the general shape of it. From the recent appropriation of cultural designs by some big brand; to lamenting the state of fast fashion's effects on the environment; to discussing the exploitation of workers because of some new crochet trend — they seemed to cover it all.
Flitting from topic to topic like a flock of chattering crows, all the while laying out their offerings across every available surface in Jakob's living room; items glittering here and there in the blinking lights of the Christmas tree.
They were an interesting assortment of kids, sure. Eye-opening too, deliberating over this topic and with the speed of a generation raised on memes and video clips. But…
It's just that — collectively, anyway —
They were so damnloud.
