recommended daily dosage (Hyper)

@"hyperhurricane"

Alex was on the way to a decent day. He'd had a good run in the morning, his workouts were going well, he managed to get some money through running odd jobs, almost literally, and he'd gotten his hands on some good pizza. Sausage, with cheese - a weird mix, but he liked it, and it was a good enough stand-in for his actual preference which was out of stock. And a few days back, he sent that little apology present to Coral; the fact that there was no angry response or no Coral suddenly calling him out was reassuring. He was in such a good mood that he ran back to where he got those vitamins to thank the storeowner.

Then the storeowner laughed and explained.

"What - the - fuck?" he exclaimed as he blazed off to fix his mistake, each word punctuated by several hundred meters being covered. He ran off as fast as he could, hoping that she didn't see it yet through some miracle. After all, what was in those discounted vitamins were...

...breeding supplements.

"Thisisbadthisisbadthisisbadthisisbad..." he groaned as he ran at top speed, whacking his face on a lamppost he passed by for good measure. People in the streets were probably confused by the yellow blur suddenly zooming by and slamming itself into random objects, but Alex couldn't care less. Right now, he had something to fix.

Within moments he arrived at Coral's doorstep, to the confusion and judgment of some other people in the dorms, but he ignored their whispering and eyeing. He knocked in panic, and then realized another unfortunate thing.

He had sausage pizza with him.

Now, he wasn't much when it came to social things, but he knew that after sending a girl breeding supplements by mistake, showing up at their doorstep with a sausage pizza was not the wisest thing to do. He blanked out on a course of action, and before he could figure out what to do, the door opened.

"Heeeeeeey, Corl..." he smiled nervously. "I'm here because of my package - the package I sent, and, um... nothing I can say right now is going to make this any less weird, is it?"

@"hyperhurricane"

Once Coral entered his field of vision, Alex's hand immediately shot to his right cheek, and he had to forcibly remove it from there, not least because it was the wrong cheek - he was slapped on the left and it became some idiotic habit to grab at the right.

Immediately, Alex snapped right into explanation mode. "See, uh - I see - I mean I think you saw what was in that little bit of mail. It - so I found out when I dropped by the store this morning that it was... yeaaaaaaaaah."

The free hand shot to Alex's hair and he scratched at his head doubtfully, all the while avoiding Coral's gaze. He stared so intently at the doorpost and all of its corners, and when there was nothing left to observe on the wood, he turned and stared instead at everything that wasn't her. Even if he'd managed to get over the fact that she looked exactly Crystal, except with glasses and different eyes, she still proved a bit too bright for him to stare at for long periods of time.

He eyed her finger twirling around in her hair, amused and distracted at the same time. It was a sight he could both look at forever and not look at, the former because it was a thing of aloof beauty, and the latter because, well, he was Alex. He did say aloud that he found her attractive a bit earlier on and he stuck with that opinion.

Remembering that there was a pizza in his hand, Alex stopped staring and spoke up nervously. "Oh, uh, so I'd offer you some of this but after what I accidentally sent it might, um... come off wrong. It's sausage. Again... yeeeeaaaah. Unintentional."

Everything so far was proving awkward and weird. Hell, everyone so far was proving awkward and weird.

There wasn't much reason to suspect this would stop being the case.

@"hyperhurricane"

She was blushing, which may or may not have been a good thing, and he guessed it wasn't. The sudden slamming of the door proved him right.

"Shoulda seen that coming," he said, dropping his head with a sigh. He never did know what to do in these situations, and a small part of him felt terrible about it; a part that grew bigger and bigger whenever he interacted with anyone that wasn't a mirror.

He thought of Alec and the recent trend of his thoughts - how he, despite generally disliking him, was incapable of fully loathing the man, and how he envied him, all self-assured and more importantly, capable of societal function. It was to him a cruel idea, having been specifically created as a better version of him and yet be infinitely worse with the things that he cared for.

Now, it seemed that he'd unwittingly messed up again. That door closed in front of his face seemed to be taunting him for his lack of sense, and that redness on Coral's face. ... what else could it be other than sheer dislike? Why else would she so aggressively deny him entry or even further conversation? All he meant to do was make amends, and instead he dug a deeper grave with a vitamin bottle's cap.

He'd actually been contemplating the concept of fate for a while now, seeking something beyond his power to blame for why he was what he was. However, try as he might, he couldn't blame anyone but himself. It was his own idiocy that led to sending that package, his own lack of sense that led to his stealing a kiss from the girl behind the door, who now had more than enough reason to loathe him.

It was his own fault, he thought, but now that pocket of resistance in his head kicked in, clawing at the annals of his thoughts, trying to find a way to shirk responsibility. The two voices argued and argued, and were he able to comprehend either voice in full, there could perhaps have been a resolution but as things stood, he was just confused, and the internal argument drowned out the sound of the door opening.

Faintly, he heard Coral's apology, but it didn't quite register amid the imaginary sound of philosophical debate, and maybe it was the fact that it was a question which made Coral's invitation enter the debate.

In the milliseconds after the question entered his ears, the debate suddenly stopped, but the sudden cessation made him blurt out the weird, muddled mixture of the main thoughts in his head: an apology, a brief analysis of why Coral was hard to interact with, his lack of blame, and for whatever reason, a short philosophical treatise on his general liking of flight.

"I'MSORRYIT'SNOTMYFAULTYOU'REHOTANDCANFLY," he hastily blurted out, and a second after the fact, his head caught up to his tongue, and he asked aloud with a confused look, "...the hell did I just say..?"

Another second passed and he blushed furiously, finally catching the words. He put the pizza in Coral's hands, and put both of his palms to his face. He messed up again, but while he was frozen, his head started thinking of ways to salvage the situation. He ended up thinking that, well, at this point he couldn't possibly make it any worse and so he took the pizza again, said, "I mean, yeah, I, um, want to come in if that's fine," before dashing past Coral and staying in the living room.

@"hyperhurricane"

Coral was good at recovering from her reactions. She quickly regained control over the situation... which Alex couldn't quite do. His embarrassment showed very evidently on his features, from the mild sweating to the red on his face, and to the very subtle rapid tapping of his fingers on his thigh.

Of course, deep under, there was so much more going on. Internally he was close to breaking down, trying to keep his natural instincts of both flight and fight under control. Were this any other threat he'd have abused his speed already by landing several blows and being on the other end of the hallway before she could realize, but that wouldn't work. It probably would, but he wouldn't like anything that would come from that.

He sat down on the couch all stiff and took a deep breath, which let the red in his face recede somewhat. Though his heart still felt fit to burst, his body was more than equipped to handle such pressures. It was his mind that was proving problematic.

It hit him that there was a chance to talk when Coral plopped down on the bean bag. It also hit him that she wasn't looking him directly. It stung a bit, even if he opted not to read too deeply into it.

He bit his lip and shut his eyes to calm down even further, which took three seconds. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically calm, and there was a hint of a pained smile on his lips as he looked down on his fidgeting fingers. "I know, I considered that, but I think I should still drop by in person... and I wanted to drop by in person. Is it weird that I think that? Actually, I think it is. But I wanted to show up, say sorry, and maybe try to start over? Got off on the wrong foot, and oh, look at that, I'm rambling again. You know what, I'm going to shut up for a bit."

@"hyperhurricane" you're going to have more shit to reply to now

"Ah."

In hindsight, Alex should have expected questioning about these things. They were after all for the most part the bit of him that people would find interesting. He gritted his teeth and cricked his neck a bit. At the very least, this meant he'd have a chance to explain things. "Crystal is - was the only person I had in the past. I think I mentioned how we were experiment kids? She and I were down in the lower levels, and I only ever had her around. It's, uh, she's the only person I learned to talk to? If that makes sense..."

Now that he'd started talking, it was getting easier to keep going. The only thing he had to keep in track at this point was not talking too much and accidentally spill secrets he didn't want to. And at least now he felt calm enough that he could look her in the eyes as he spoke. "You look just like her, which, uh, um... you know what happened. I'm still sorry for that. Yeah. Except she had different eyes, and had these nifty ice powers that they used to keep me in check."

His abashed grin faded into a darker look as he moved on to the next person on the agenda. "The other guy, Alec... I'm a clone of him, except modified specifically to have more power, and possibly more mentally damaged. I absolutely resented him, because while me and Crystal were down in the basements and the labs he was being taken care of and having a family - and then his family's little breakout attempt got dozens of kids killed, and Crystal's been missing since."

Once again his face fell. That particular bit of information was hard for him to share, and the next part would be even harder, as it involved a confession of sin. Then again, he figured she had a right to know. Which made no sense.

"Okay, so, um... we broke out and I washed up here, and she was gone," he began, shaking his head and clenching his fists. It took effort to not let his bitterness show too much, and it only manifested in the smaller pieces of his look, like the subtle sharpness of his gaze or that light furrowing of his brows. "I woke up and couldn't find her, and I... I got so mad that I ran back to that hell. They were still fixing up the hole we broke out of, and I... okay, this part's going to be a bit morbid, so I'm sorry if you don't like that."

Alex gulped, wondering why he felt compelled to share this information with Coral. It wasn't just the way she looked, it was something else. Something he couldn't place quite yet. "I went back there and I punched the guy in charge of the project in the gut, again and again until he fell to his knees... then I dragged him face first across the floor and the ocean at top speed all the way back to Manta Carlos. He's somewhere on the seafloor now without a face."

An inappropriate and bitter chuckle escaped his lips alongside a sigh. "Great job, me. I just got a chance to start over and I ruined it with a confession of some sort of crime. Well, uh, sorry, and if you want to turn me over to the authorities that's fine... okay, I have no idea what I'm going on about anymore again. I'll shut up now."