13. Knock knock

It had taken Alex almost three weeks to finally gather up enough courage to walk over to Ed's apartment and knock on the door.

He still had no real plan what he would say, specially considering that the last time he had spoken to the guy he had drunkenly proclaim his love to him right after puking in front of him.

It had been so embarrassing that he was almost glad he didn't really remember what had happened afterwards. Still something in his mind told him that it was even worse and that if he continued to put off speaking to the big guy it would definitely not be good for there relationship. What ever there relationship was at this point.

"You can do this." He mumbled to himself and then with a shaking hand pressed the doorbell. He held his breath and listened closely. The ring echoing through the apartment but otherwise he couldn't make out any other sound from behind the door.

He sighed and once again tried to fix his messy, black hair to look at least somewhat presentable. He knew it usually took Ed a while to answer to door so he so when the door suddenly got opened it almost gave him a heart attack.

He looked up, happy to finally see his big grumpy bear again but his smile quickly faded.

Instead of Ed there was a larg, chubby man standing in front of him that he didn't recognize.

"Who the hell are you?" He muttered and looked the guy up and down.

The guy blinked slowly and scratched his bold head, seemingly just as confused as the boy.

"I could ask you the same thing cupcake." He replied, his voice sounding rough and kinda like he smoked at least two packs a day and gargled with gasoline or something similar in the morning.

Unlike Ed's deep, soothing deep voice that always gave Alex tiny shivers down his spine, this guys voice instead made his hair of the back of his neck stand up and gave him an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

The guy squinted his eyes and leaned down to him, Alex barely managed to suppress a gag because the guy stank as if he had bathed in weeks. He quickly took a step back to get a little bit more space between him and the creepy guy.

"Wait aren't you Ed's boy? Axel or something?" The guy then blurted out.

"It's Alex." He shyly corrected the older guy, who in return rolled his eyes and snarkishly replied, "Right."

The older man shook his head but then a wide grin spread across his face, showing his yellow, crooked teeth that had probably not seen a dentist in ages.

Then he suddenly grabbed Alex arm and pulled him forwards, while ordering him to get his ass in side of the apartment.

The guy had shoved him so forcefully that he stummelte and almost face forward onto the dark blue, worn out carpet feel. When we found his footing again he quickly turned towards the guy, not wanting to leave him out of his line of sight for even a second.

To his horror the stranger had closed the door and was now leaning against it blocking his only way out.

He swallowed hard and then meekly asked where Ed was, praying that he would finally show his face.

But his hopes got crushed  when the creepy guy shrugged and said, "How the fuck should I know? He only asked me to stay at his apartment for a while and to take care of his cat."

Alex took a few shaky steps back in order not to be in arms reach in case the guy tried anything.

Even if Ed, for what ever reason, trusted this strange guy to look after his place and Salam, that still didn't mean he had to trust him too. He had heard enough real life horror stories to know that this guy was checking all the marks when it came to someone you should definitely not be alone with.

"But... then why did you drag me in here?" Alex asked weakly, hoping that he would at least get an explanation for this guys suspicion behavior.

The guy tilted his head and seemed to think for a moment before he with a toothy grin asked in turn, "Do you want a beer?"

Alex could feel his body tense up.

There were already to many read flags but now this guy even wanted to get him drunk and probably do who knows what. He frantically shook his head. "No I want to leave." He whimpered and stepped back even further.

Panicked looked around for another way out.

He was familiar with the layout of the apartment because both his and Ed's had the same, so he knew that it was hypothetically possible to get from Ed's balcony onto his own but considering that he wasn't the best climber, it was most likely he end up falling down.

Was it possible to survive a fall from the ninth floor? He thought to himself but before he could continue to think about his possible neck braking escape the guy sighed in defeat and grumbled, "I'm not gonna bite, kid. I just want to talk to you for a bit." 

He then stepped away from the door, allowing Alex to leave.

Relief washed over him and he rushed over but when he was about to open the door the guy put his arm infront of him blocking his way once again.

"You know I didn't mean to come off as wired. I just thought you maybe wanted to hear some old stories about the shit me and Ed did when we were your age." The guy apologetically said and took his arm out of the way again.

The mentioning of stories from Ed's youth made Alex reconsider. He desperately wanted to know more about the guy but with him being so tight lipped he never had expected to get much out of him.

"Wait you know Eddy for that long?" He cautiously asked, still feeling a little bit frightened by the bold older man but also intrigued about the perspective of getting to hear more about Ed.

The guy grinned and then cheerfully replied, "Hell yeah. We grew up in same town. We are best buddies since for ever."

He then put his hands in the pockets of his gray jogging pants and asked, "So you wanna hear about it?"

Alex nervously fumbled around with his sleeves. He then quickly weight the pro and cons in his mind but in the end his desire to finally have a opportunity to get to know the man he loved more won.

He nodded and said, "Uhm...yes that would be nice, mister...."

He had tried to sound as polite as possible to show his appreciation but the older guy just laughed and walked off to the kitchen while telling him, "Just call me Wilhelm, kid."

Alex took one last look at the door and then followed Wilhelm.

When Alex stepped into the kitchen he saw Wilhelm rummaging through the fridge. With a 'Here you go' he then pulled out two cans of beer and pressed one into Alex hand.

"Uhm I don't really drink." He said and tried to put it back but before he was able to do so Wilhelm already had closed the fridge and leaned against it.

"From what I heard you do." he older man jokingly said and cracked open his beer.

He took a big gulp and then added with a cheeky grin, "Besides if you only ever drink at parties you will never build up a tolerance for it and continued to throw up because of it. So bottoms up."

Finally Alex understood what Wilhelm meant. He blushed and shyly asked "He told you about that?"

"Oh he told me tone about you loverboy." Wilhelm replied with a wink, making Alex blush even harder. Nervously he took a sip from the beer in the hopes that it would lessen his nervousness.

"So what about those stories?" He asked, hoping to change the topic of there conversation.

"Hmmm... where do I start?" Wilhelm mumbled to himself and tilted his head, seemingly lost in his thoughts for a moment but then he slammed his hand onto the kitchen counter.

"I know! How about the story how me and Ed stole all garden gnomes of the entire village and then put them onto the roof of the school?" He blurted out and Alex eagerly nodded.