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Ew was right. Alex had to laugh at his reaction though because she'd become so desensitized to it over time. It was a running joke that she'd made her twin brother's ringtone for her loud sex noises, but she was going to keep that to herself because she didn't want him to know what she was actually like further than this. Besides, if he was an official, she had to be careful telling him what kind of fun she had with her ability.
Looking at him made it difficult to consider that he was supposed to be an authority figure. He didn't act like one and he didn't look like one. But he knew enough about abilities as a whole to sound like one. He asked the right questions when he wanted more information about her circumstances. She could respect him for that. His suggestion was one she'd thought about every single day since she manifested. If not for herself, at least for Sam. Alex worried about her brother's heart condition more than she worried about her sanity. If she ended up in a padded cell, that was fine, if Sam's heart exploded from liars, well, not so fine.
"I don't sleep, but I also don't..." She cut off abruptly before continuing with how she didn't make friends. Her eyes dropped and she just shook her head.
This happenstance took a turn for the serious and Wes realised that he had a class to go back to. He gave a cursory glance to his watch and cursed under his breath. Alex didn't seem the type to be this open with anyone and Wes enjoyed her company, what little he had had with her.
And if this wasn't a clear cry for help, Wes didn't know what was.
He ran his fingers through his drenched hair and looked at Alex with a raised eyebrow. "Don't make friends?" He asked, connecting the dots. "I didn't think you would. But you do have someone to talk to about this, don't you?"
If there was a way to turn on her filter, she would have. It was likely that she opened up to strangers because she was looking for something. Some kind of help. Alex couldn't talk to her brother about the problems that she had because they were minor comparatively. Anybody that listened to her for longer than five minutes, she found herself unloading information without being able to stop. It had happened with the German man she met and it was happening with him.
At least he was part of the academy and she knew she should have been able to talk to him about it because he could help her. Or find someone that could help her. Even so, she was starting to become aware of the oversharing, another side effect that she had. Alex had clammed up, her mouth staying shut as he spoke. He'd drawn the conclusion that she was getting at and all she could do was stare at him. It wasn't fair that he understood, she wished that she was a computer that only spoke binary so that she couldn't do this as often as she did.
"Yeah, sure," She said stiffly. Alex sighed and laid back on the cement of the roof, looking up at the sky, "I'm sorry, it's just a side effect. I start going and it's hard to stop."
Wes wasn't equipped with the tools to help students mentally. He'd been assigned to work on abilities. He was good at that. He may not be as good with the personal aspect of it, but he helped in any way he could. And Alex was someone he could and wanted to help.
When she clammed up, he took a deep breath and shook his head. "I didn't ask you to stop." He responded. "You don't have to talk to me obviously but you can." He shrugged.
He hadn't asked her to stop, but she was internally begging herself to stop. She'd been holed up for so long that any little attention made her unload and it was sort of terrifying. Alex didn't want people to know her, she didn't want them to know what her life was like before or during her time at the academy. If she kept on this track, he was going to know it all and then she'd have to stay away from him. There was no way she wanted to give him the ammunition to use against her all of the weaknesses that she had.
"I'm not your student. Why do you care?" She didn't look at him. Alex just continued to look up at the sky and did what she could to steady her breathing. The biggest problem with talking to him was that she didn't see him as an authority figure, she saw him as just a person. If she looked at him that way, she could get in trouble.
Alex sighed and laid her arm over her eyes, "I appreciate the concern, but it's not worth the time. I'm sure you have your own students to work on."
An eyebrow raised on Wes' face and he looked down at the woman. It was classic lashing out and it wasn't like he didn't get this every damn day training the little monsters. She was just older. And has had a lot more time to stew on the misery. And judging by her earlier response, she'd had to do it alone.
He kept quiet and let her continue. Her continuation didn't appease him either so he sighed and got up. "Alright then. I'm not pushing because I don't know you that well. But we're in the same school. We have a shared compound. We're bound to run into each other again and I'm going to ask you how you are every time." He slipped his hands into his pockets and looked down at her.
"And one more thing, I'll be the judge of what's worth my time or not, yeah?"
Alex pushed herself up on her elbows when he stood and she looked straight at him as he spoke. He was giving her an offer, an offer that she wanted to take. If she took him up on it, he would learn all of the things that she did her best to hide from people of power. If she didn't, she continued to struggle alone with her problems. Either way he was going to ask about her when he saw her and she knew that she couldn't very well avoid him forever, even if she tried to.
She sat up again and pulled her knees up to her chest, her eyes dropping. She wanted to talk to somebody, but she struggled with who she let close. Her trainer, she hadn't had a choice with. She had a choice with him and he was being kind enough to give her that choice.
"Answer my question first; why are you doing this?" She rephrased the question so that it didn't sound as harsh, but she was still hesitant. Alex had to believe that he would understand why she was hesitant in some regard. He didn't need to know the whole story, but there was enough there for him to get it. And he clearly wasn't dense. "I know it's your job to help students, but...but why are you trying to help me?"
She asked the same question from earlier but in a much...nicer way. He had to give her points for that and he smiled. "I'll give you my honest answer because I expect honesty from you too."
He squatted so they were eye level and he smirked. "You're gorgeous. It's a mechanism for guys to want to help beautiful women. Hell, it's just an ingrained mechanism to help beautiful women." He pulled a "What can you do" look complete with hand gesticulation.
"And because I know people like you. It's never good to leave people like you to deal with shit alone."
When he knelt down to her level, she looked at him levelly and waited for an explanation. The one she got was, while honest, a little ridiculous. Alex didn't pay attention to her own looks, she knew she wasn't ugly and that's all she cared about. She was more interested in the way others looked and she supposed she was curious about how they looked at her. Being told upfront that she was beautiful was one way to have her curiosity taken care of.
Before she could open her mouth to protest to what he said, he continued on and she tilted her head slightly. What kind of person did he think she was? Her teeth sank into her lip slowly and she considered his words. He'd been honest and she couldn't help but appreciate that. Maybe it was from spending so much time with her twin, but she would rather have honesty than some stupid lie that she could see through.
Alex sighed, "Okay fine. But just don't...don't push too hard, okay? Be gentle." She had to smirk at her choice of words, she realized that she was starting to get the hang of letting her personality out in smaller doses.
Wes smiled widely when Alex finally relented. He wasn't going to push. Although if Prue caught wind that he was helping a troubled student, she was going to insist he do it well and good. Best not to let her know. It was unlikely that Alex and Prue would even know each other, right?
He held his hands up and stood to his full height. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not the pushy one. We'll go at your pace. Whenever you want. I'm assuming you're good at numbers so I'll give you mine and I hope you actually use it." He listed his number and nodded.
"Alright, little monster. I'll see you around." He gave her a two finger salute and dropped off the side of the building, concentrating hard so the ground was malleable for his impact. He landed one on knee and stood up. Oh yes, Wes Archer was definitely a show off.
