Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

New York was cold.

It was night, not that that sort of thing mattered in New York. New York was always alive, at least in the New York city proper, it was always moving like a beast of its own. The air was biting, windy and drizzling with freezing rain, somewhere between winter and spring weather. The rain reflected off of the pavement and off of the glass in vibrant colors, magenta and green and blue from the lights filling the streets.

It was beautiful, in a sharp way. John didn’t like it.

“Jesus fuck,” he mumbled, pulling his jacket tighter around him as he stepped out of his apartment building. Next to him, Alex laughed, the sound swallowed up in the breeze and the noise of the city. His hair was dancing around his face.

“This is what we get for living so far north, John. We had a choice. Everybody else, those poor people who grew up with it—those are the real sad people here.”

“This is what we get for going out in a windchill of ten degrees,” John corrected, scanning the cars for their ride. “C’mon. I wanna get drunk.”

Inside the car was muffled and warm, like being in a glove or a bed, a little hidden pocket to the rest of the city. John wished he was in a bed.

You’re going out and you’re going to like it, he told himself firmly. You’re going out with your hot boyfriend to party with your friends and you’re going to have fun. You like parties, yay, parties!

He was hoping if he said it enough, he’d believe it.

Alex gave Laf’s address to the driver, bouncing a little in his seat as he got buckled. Alex was actually looking forward to this. It was spring break and he was caught up on homework and he was going to his friend’s bougie penthouse (Alex’s words) to get drunk with a million people around. Of course he was happy. That was all of Alex’s ducks in a row.

Alex, out of the two of them, was the organized one. That was the problem, really, John reflected. If John was more organized, he’d be less stressed all the time. It just never seemed to go that way for him. He got organized, he got disorganized, he fell into disarray—it was really inconvenient. All that to say—he didn’t exactly have all his ducks in a row.

John Laurens had a secret.

Alex’s voice faded into his awareness: “People act like it’s an individualized issue, but it’s not—I mean, nothing really is, society shapes us and all, but people act like loneliness—isolation, I mean, really, but they call it loneliness—is a feeling that arises independent of, you know, outside factors. People feel lonely, they’re not made to feel lonely.” He was moving his hands like he was giving a Ted Talk again, purposeful gestures in the lowlight of the car’s windows. He indicated two invisible boxes in front of him to show the categories.

“What I mean is, there are people living on the margins of society, you know, they feel lonely,” Alex said. “And the way people treat loneliness, it’s like, you know, a mental illness or something—” Alex didn’t notice the way John looked up— “which is understandable in a way because it kind of maps like one, but that completely ignores the societal root of the problem. It’s this it’s all in your head type bullshit that ignores the idea that people on the margins of society maybe aren’t on the margins because of some personal weakness that they need to overcome.” 

Alex frowned, tilting his head, staring off into space as he calculated before snapping back to the present. “By which I mean, individualism is great in a lot of ways, but I think people use individualism too often as a way of dodging social responsibility, like, if somebody’s lonely, it’s easier to imagine it’s their own fault instead of confronting the fact that we as a society pushed them there. To the margins, I mean,” he said. 

“And the loneliness is really important. Obviously there’s other disadvantages to being in the margins, but the loneliness—they’ve done studies on this, humans need socialization, you know, so isolation—it’s this incredibly effective tactic for absolutely ruining a person. You isolate someone, you don’t give them the means to reconnect with society—or you put obstacles in their way—and it kills them. Literally, sometimes, you know it can lead to increased risk for heart failure and loads of other shit.” Alex paused to brush his hair out of his eyes. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” John said. “I always am, you know that.”

It was the right answer. Alex gave him a pleased look. “Not always. I’m too wordy, it’s my biggest weakness.”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” John said. “We’re going out, you’ll get them anyway.”

Alex smiled, pleased again. “I like hearing it from you, though,” he demurred. “Anyway, my point—”

John Laurens had a secret.

More than one, if you wanted to get technical. John didn’t. One was enough, two or three was excessive. Just fed his guilt. Or his… whatever.

This happened sometimes, okay? He was—he was trying.

Try harder, the voice in his head said, almost making fun of itself. Do better.

The problem was just that he was tired, really. Which made him sound overdramatic, but… he was tired.

He was tired, and it was making him irritable, and he was annoyed that he was irritable. Outside, traffic crawled by, the loud noises and lights of New York ensconcing them like an overwhelming hug.

Dramatic ass, John told himself huffily, and turned more to face his boyfriend.

He liked watching Alex talk. The way he moved his hands around, the way his expression bounced between distant, piercing, analyzing things other people couldn’t see and fully present, energized and alive in a way lots of people weren’t. It was vicarious, almost, the feeling John got. Alex had a charisma about him that drew people in—the dark eyes and the dark hair and the cheekbones, yes, the way he moved and the way he held himself, yes, but more than that. It was like watching a fire, or candle, or lightning. 

Alex could have his run of the world, if he wanted it. There would be no shortage of people entranced enough to give it to him.

Alex wouldn’t agree with him. Alex would say most people didn’t give him the time of day. Which was… John had seen that happen, too. It wasn’t all in Alex’s head. But John wasn’t sure that Alex knew how much the inverse was also true. Of course, if Alex knew fully how to harness the sway he had over other people, he would’ve used it to conquer the world by now.

For John—the world was moving around him, but he couldn’t feel it.

Traffic inched forward.

“Insanity is trying the same thing multiple times, even when it doesn’t work, right?” Alex said, cutting into John’s consciousness. “So, like, if people are trying to interact with other people, but keep facing discrimination or whatever type of negative consequences for it—it’s reasonable that they stop trying. That’s what I mean, individual versus societal issue.”

“Reinforcing neural pathways to avoid pain and suffering is how humans evolve to survive,” John agreed, to prove that he was listening. Alex lit up, leaning back against the window to have room to wave an excited arm at John.

“Yes, that, exactly. Psychological warfare, you teach them patterns of behavior that aren’t conducive to survival.”

They made it across an intersection. Fucking finally, John thought, a little bitterly. New York kind of sucked sometimes. He liked it, but it sucked.

He was reminded, oddly, of Geneva, where everything closed early. It wasn’t like this—Geneva was still, peaceful, in a way New York never was, even though Geneva was a big city too. The nature made it more peaceful, he guessed, and the local culture. When he’d been in Geneva, he and his friends had partied in—stayed over at one person’s flat or dorm room or house, for the whole night, and bought things ahead of time. It wasn’t all so touch-and-go as in New York.

Well, some things weren’t as touch-and-go.

At least it wasn’t London. Though, London would’ve been alright if he’d been there under different circumstances.

“I mean, I guess what I’m getting at is that it’s good that we’re going out,” Alex said. “Neural pathways—habit paves the road to revolution, if you’re doing it intentionally.”

John laughed a little, because it felt like he should. “Parties make revolution,” he said. “With Lafayette, I guess I could see it.”

“Nooo,” Alex pouted at him, put out but mostly for show. “That wasn’t my point.”

“Hush. I’m summarizing.”

“You’re summarizing wrong. Who’s doing the party? Like, Marie Antoinette, that’s a whole different can of worms.”

“I mean, that party did make a revolution. By exclusion, in the mythos at least.”

“But that’s not what I was talking about.”

“I know. We’re the underdogs, sure.”

Alex frowned, side-eyeing John. “I know that’s a summary, but I’m really tempted to correct you on it.”

It was easy, to banter back and forth like this with Alex—he had enough practice at it that he could probably do it in his sleep. Alex did do it in his sleep—he was a sleeptalker, and John’d had a couple almost-normal conversations with him, only marred by the fact that the subject matter was more often than not ridiculous. John was grateful for it now, the fact that he could still maintain the structure of the conversation while his mind felt dragged through the mud.

Going through the motions of your relationship isn’t something you should be proud of, John’s mind said.

He pushed that thought away, with some difficulty, because it was clear and loud. You’re going to a party and you’re going to have fun with your hot boyfriend, yay!

Yay.

“Sometimes you need to summarize,” John murmured, looking out the window of the car as it pulled closer to Lafayette’s building. “People like things simple.” he glanced back, giving Alex a weak grin. “Well. Some people.”

Alex rolled his eyes, but he was grinning too.

The driver let them out fairly close by, and John left a tip—he wouldn’t tell Alex, but it was easier to remember to leave big tips when Alex was around. Only because Alex went on about tipping all the time, he was like a visual reminder. But Alex wouldn’t take that well. Anyway, John had become much better at leaving big tips since he’d started hanging around Alex more.

They made the mad dash from the car to the lobby of Lafayette’s building, John holding his jacket over his head to try and block the rain that was coming down a bit stronger now. It did not work in the slightest. Too windy. But he didn’t want to stop and put his coat back on, the building was right there, and his entire being stung stiffly from the cold, the wind making his eyes water.

The lobby was warm and bright and elegant, the antithesis of the cold neon-dark rain outside. Alex smiled at the footman politely, and didn’t speak until they’d been logged in and were past him, heading into the elevator.

“Fuck, it’s cold out,” Alex muttered under his breath, casting a glance back at the lobby. “Tell me why I moved to New York again, John.”

“To follow your dreams.” John hit the button for Lafayette’s floor.

“Oh, right.”

The elevator doors slid closed, and the elevator lurched before beginning its smooth glide upwards. Alex shrugged his coat off, folding it over one arm. He turned to John. “Hey. Lemme see you.”

John stood there dutifully as Alex fiddled with the curls framing his face, the ones that hadn’t gotten swept up in his hasty ponytail when he’d left his apartment. They’d probably been fucked up by the wind, though John couldn’t see it.

“You look good,” Alex said, moving his hands and eyes from John’s face to his shoulders.

“So do you.”

Alex glanced back up at John. His eyelashes were long from this angle. “Hey. Are you okay?”

John gave him a questioning look, trying to swallow down the panic that rose in his throat, trying not to react by jerking back like he’d been electrocuted. “What do you mean?”

“I just—you were saying you were tired, earlier,” Alex said. “And you’ve been—quiet. I guess. Maybe it’s in my head,” he said, looking away awkwardly. John felt a pang of guilt— no, it’s not— “But, I don’t know, if you’re getting sick or something, or if you don’t wanna stay, we can leave early, yeah? Everyone’s probably expecting us to leave early anyway to get it on.”

John laughed automatically. “‘Get it on?’”

“Not the point of the sentence.” Alex frowned at him, pinning John with his gaze. Fuck. Okay.

“You’re sweet,” John said, brushing Alex’s sidebangs away from his face a little. The words brought a strange rush of—of grief, maybe, or guilt. He didn’t deserve Alex, sometimes. “I’m fine, really. I told you, I never get sick.”

The elevator lurched to a stop. Perfect timing. In John’s mind, anyway. Alex frowned at John with a scrutinizing look, pulling away a little. “If you’re sure. But, you know, you can—talk to me and stuff, right?”

Some other time, John might’ve made a joke about how awkward Alex was being, but he wasn’t sure if it would sound too mean or not in his current mood. Either it would reassure Alex or it would really not reassure him, and John didn’t want to find out. So— “I know. I love you. Everything’s fine, okay?”

Alex smiled at him, looking at least a little reassured. “Love you too, nerd.”

Lafayette greeted them at the door with an excitement that said he was already at least a little bit tipsy. “We’ve all been so lonely without you,” he babbled earnestly, taking Alex and John each by one arm and dragging them across the threshold. John closed the door behind them, because Laf made no move to do it himself.

“Alex, I think Meade is here somewhere,” Lafayette said, pulling them in further before stopping suddenly. “Oh—take your coats.”

Alex laughed, heading for the coat closet. “How much have you had to drink by now, Laf? The night’s still young, you’ll be dying tomorrow.”

“Au contraire,” Lafayette said. “The night is still young, but you two must catch up. You’re late, anyway.”

“Blame traffic,” John said, peering past Lafayette into his living room. There were people scattered around in groups, chattering amongst themselves. The biggest congregation was around a group playing cards in the corner, with others leaning over them, intensely invested.

“Blame John ‘cause he didn’t want to take the subway at night,” Alex said, appearing at John’s side again. “Wuss. Where’s your alcohol? John wants to get drunk.”

“Don’t come to me when you get stabbed,” John deadpanned. “How late are we, really?”

“Oh, not really,” Lafayette waved a hand, beckoning them to follow. “It only just became a proper party, before it was too quiet. The awkward stage. I could have used you two, though,” he threw over his shoulder, weaving through groups of people scattered in seats and sitting on the floor. “You’re both good at—you know, livening people.”

“Debatable,” John said. “But thanks.” Mary Hays, seated on the floor a little ways away, waved at him with an awkward smile, and he waved back, still following Lafayette towards the kitchen area.

“You know, I like the big windows in your apartment during the day,” Alex said thoughtfully, glancing around at said big windows as they arrived at the long granite countertop Lafayette had set up as a bar. “During the night, I don’t know. Don’t you feel exposed like this? I’d be too paranoid to have sex in the living room, even. I know it’s a high rise, but somebody could be watching me from a helicopter.”

“I know, I need curtains,” Lafayette said mournfully, then paused, thinking it over. “Not that I’d have sex in the living room otherwise.”

“We’re two different people,” Alex told Lafayette. John laughed automatically, making a beeline for the shots. He grabbed one for Alex, while he was at it.

“There’s vodka lemonade, over there,” Lafayette said, and John glanced down the table to see a half-full pink pitcher. “I thought you might like that, John.”

“You know me so well,” John said, angling his voice to be fond. “Here.” he handed off one of the shots to Alex, who took it without hesitation.

John swallowed the shot down, wincing a little bit at the burn—shots weren’t his bread and butter, even if he acted like it. But it was like Lafayette said, wasn’t it? They had to catch up.

Besides, he needed something to take the edge off or this party was going to suck.

“Tench Tilghman is here,” Lafayette was talking, “and Mary Hays, and Meade, I think I mentioned that already. Ben Walker, last I checked—”

“Really, Ben Walker?” John glanced over with raised eyebrows. “Did you invite the entire Columbia campus?”

Alex cackled. “Oh, that’ll be fun,” he said. “Is he drinking? Can we get him drunk and grill him about whatever the fuck is up with him and von Steuben?”

John hit Alex lightly upside the head, giving an automatic smile. “No.”

“C’mon, it’s harmless,” Alex half-whined. “Anyway, if he doesn’t want to talk he doesn’t have to, it’s just asking questions.”

“Still no. Besides, they’re public, it’s not like a mystery you have to figure out. You’d just be harassing him.”

Alex faltered a bit. “I wouldn’t,” he protested half-heartedly. “Dick. Fine. We’ll find some other fun.” He squeezed John’s arm suggestively as John moved around him, towards the vodka lemonade.

John didn’t even want to be here.

He swallowed down the thought. It was too early in the night for that kind of thought. You’re going to like this, he reminded himself, pouring himself a drink.

“Are you okay if I…” Alex was touching his elbow, looking at him with an expression too similar to the one he had in the elevator—concerned, trying to read between the lines. Behind Alex, Lafayette was bouncing on the balls of his feet like the energizer bunny.

John had missed something, probably, but he didn’t need to know exactly what it was. “Yeah, go,” he said. “You’re not my babysitter, Alex.” And then, because he wasn’t sure if that was too harsh, “Go have fun, okay?”

Alex’s shoulders untensed, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re not my babysitter, either,” he said. “I’ll find you later, okay, I just wanna do this first.”

John nodded, and just like that, Alex was gone, dragged away by Lafayette.

He cocked his head and tried to make out the music, taking a longer-than-necessary sip of his drink while he tried to muster up the energy to go talk to people. It sounded like Nicki Minaj, but it was too vague to be able to tell for sure.

He didn’t have the chance to leave the kitchen. Ben Walker stumbled out from the scattered people littering the floor, extracting himself with a sort of hopping motion into the kitchen.

“Oh, hey,” Ben said, with the air of someone trying to place a face. “Um…”

“John,” John said. “Hi, Ben.”

“Right,” Ben said, snapping his fingers. “Sorry, there’s like, a thousand Johns here… but I guess you probably get that all the time.”

“No, I know,” John said, leaning against the countertop. Might as well stay, if he was in this now. “I mean, I know John is a common name, but it gets ridiculous here. It’s like all the Johns are just drawn specifically to Columbia or something.”

“Right? You get it.” Ben’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out with a frown. John watched as the frown turned into a small fond smile.

“How is that going, anyway?” John asked, before he could stop himself. Ben looked up, caught out. John nodded towards Ben’s phone. “Von Steuben, no? Or am I making an ass of myself?”

“No, you’re… right,” Ben said, putting the phone down. “I wish I was less transparent—well, no. I wish people had less opinions. You know what I mean?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely I know.”

Ben smiled at him, relaxing a bit. “I guess you would. It’s annoying. I feel like I can’t even talk about it to anyone, because anytime I bring him up people are all, are you sure the age difference isn’t a bit large? Like, yes, I can count, thanks.”

John laughed automatically. “That’d suck,” he said. “I had a long distance relationship once—not the same thing, I know, but like, you wouldn’t believe how comfortable people are telling you the statistics of how often long-distance relationships don’t work out. It’s insane.”

“I know,” Ben said. “People just assume that they know something about your situation that hasn’t at all occurred to you—like, it’s egotistic, you know?”

“The Reddit effect,” John agreed. He took another long sip from his drink and wished he was drunk already.

“They’d flay me alive on Reddit,” Ben said moodily, looking back down at all the drinks splayed across the table. He started to say something else, but John cut across it.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” John said. “I mean, it doesn’t matter what strangers think. Right? Are you happy, that’s the question. If you’re happy and you make him happy—don’t throw that away ‘cause other people are convinced you’re not happy.”

Ben perked up a bit at that. Still got it, John praised himself, half-joking. “You’re right,” Ben said. “I just get—I mean, at things like this.” he gestured vaguely to the party behind him. “I wish I could bring him, you know? Like you and Alex. But I feel like other people would get uncomfortable. I’m being weird, sorry.”

“You’re good,” John said. “I’d be weird too. I mean, it sucks.”

He took another sip of his drink as Ben kept talking. It was a good starter conversation, he thought to himself, because Ben needed very little encouragement to keep going. Apparently this was something he’d needed to get off his chest for a while. And John didn’t always love playing impromptu therapist, but at the moment nodding and repeating Ben’s complaints back to him was about as fun as the rest of the party probably would be.

John didn’t know where Alex was, and it felt like a bad sign in his mind that he was too tired to go look for him like he normally would. He wanted to look for him. Mostly, at least, because if Alex was around he’d probably be scrutinizing John with that look again, and he just—John just wanted to be somewhere else.

A fresh start, a blank page. Clean as the paper before the poem, et cetera. Wasn’t variety the spice of life? Well, John could use some spice. Everything felt bland and tired and empty.

He made it away from Ben eventually, feeling a little bad for thinking of it that way in his head. Ben seemed nice. They didn’t know each other that well, but he seemed nice. John was just… John was just something right now.

He wandered through the party, avoiding people he knew. This wasn’t helping. This wasn’t helping. He just felt worse, being here and not… being here. Everyone was having a good time, everyone here was happy and normal and he just couldn’t.

He went out into the hallway, heading for the bathroom, with the idea of hiding out in there for a bit. Like a loser, yes, but at least he’d be away from everyone. But the bathroom had a line, which was only growing longer, and John abandoned that train of thought, wandering away, past a girl sobbing and several drunk people comforting her, and past a group of people playing cards, and past a couple making out in the corner.

What was the point of all of this? Revolution? Neural pathways? He felt dead.

He went back into the foyer, sitting down in the open doorway to the coat closet, ignoring the overdone joke. Nobody was there, and he leaned his head up against the doorway and closed his eyes, feeling the dull sting something like a headache behind them.

He just wanted to leave. Or to be somebody else. Both would be preferable.

He let out a shaky breath and pulled out his phone. Keep it together, Laurens, he chided himself gently. It’s just a party. It won’t be the death of you.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, on the floor leaned up against the closet doorway, staring at his phone and scrolling through twitter as the sounds of the party filtered in from the other room, trying to pretend he didn’t feel pathetic and lonely. Eventually Alex wandered into the foyer, face flushed from alcohol, and collapsed to sit next to John criss-cross, wrapping his arms around John’s middle.

“Time to leave?” Alex said into John’s side. John put his phone down, guilt washing over him.

“...Do you want to leave?” John said carefully, not sure what the right move was.

“Yeah,” Alex said, a bit too loudly, picking his head up. “I was getting bored anyway.”

No, he wasn’t. John knew he wasn’t. But he was lying for John’s sake, because he knew something was up with John even if he didn’t know what and even though John wouldn’t tell him.

Alex was too good for him, sometimes.

John kissed the top of Alex’s head, and Alex leaned into it fondly. You’re going to ruin yourself for me, John didn’t say. What he did say: “Let me call an Uber or something, and we can go.”

Luckily for John, Alex seemed pleasantly drunk enough to not really notice if John was being quiet or weird on the car ride home. Most of the ride was taken up by long rambling updates on the latest gossip he’d learned from everyone he’d talked to, interspersed with quieter spaced-out moments where Alex would take John’s hand or arm for his own to play with John’s fingers, leaning as close as he could from his side of the backseat.

The rain had let up, thank God, but it was colder than before, sharp silver wind and ice slick on the pavement. It was probably good that John hadn’t drank more than he did, because drunk people plus icy ground wasn’t a good combination. As it was, John herded Alex up the stairs of his building and dragged him into the elevator, half-listening to his rambling about the role psychology should play in economic theories. It wasn’t a new subject for Alex, so John wasn’t worried about being caught out for not listening.

“I thought you wanted to get drunk,” Alex interrupted himself as the elevator doors opened to John’s floor.

“I am drunk,” John said, which was somewhat true. He was tipsy, at least. “Just not as much as you.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Alex chided him, grinning as if something was funny about it.

“You’re such a lightweight.”

“Am not.”

John rolled his eyes, letting go of Alex to fumble for his keys as they reached the door to his apartment. He leaned his forehead up against the door to slide the key into the keyhole, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. Alex leaned against the wall and watched him peacefully, and John was hyperaware of the eyes on him. 

The lock clicked, and he swung the door open, turning to Alex. Alex levered himself up off the wall, taking John’s arm and pulling him inside the apartment, closing the door and maneuvering John to kiss him up against it. It was a surprisingly smooth move for a drunk person, that is, it was slightly awkward and fumbling, but it happened.

John wished he could feel something when he kissed Alex, now. Something other than lips and head bent and hard to breathe type uncomfortable. He pretended, though, for Alex’s sake—kissed him back, put his hands around Alex’s waist gently, only pulled away slowly for air, kept his head bent and stayed close.

“I love you,” Alex mumbled. He sounded tired, but content in a way John wasn’t.

“I love you too.”

It was true, John thought, but he left out the everything else to it.

John Laurens had a secret. It was lodged somewhere behind his heart, uncomfortable, like a small lego or a knife.

He hadn’t expected what he had with Alex to get as serious as it was now. Or, maybe he had expected it, but he’d forgotten what that meant—for him. John’s serious relationships—well, there was a reason he didn’t have many. It was easy for things to fall apart, for him. Anyway, that wasn’t the secret, even though he hadn’t exactly told Alex about it. He was pretty sure Alex felt the same way, or something similar.

They brushed their teeth and Alex brushed his hair and John went to get dressed in sleep clothes in a familiar dance. It was all domestic routine, and John had liked it. There was something comforting to knowing someone so well that you could navigate them like that. There was something comforting to knowing someone that was solidly on your side.

He got into bed while Alex was still in the bathroom, sitting criss-cross on his side of the bed, leaned against the headboard and flicking through his phone mindlessly. He wanted to lay down and go to sleep, but if he did, Alex would find it strange.

There were downsides to being known.

He opened his email, briefly. It was still open to the last thing he’d been looking at—a recommended packing list from the school’s study abroad office, cheery and professional. It put a sticky guilt in his chest as if he was having an affair.

He wasn’t.

“Hey—aww,” Alex had stepped into the bedroom. “I wanted to see you shirtless.”

“You snooze, you lose,” John said, still looking at the screen. He tapped out of it casually, back to his home screen, which was a picture of Alex from a month ago, sitting on the floor of Herc’s living room surrounded by books in a way that made the image look very dynamic—everything pointing towards the center, towards Alex.

He went onto twitter instead.

“You’re snoozing,” Alex muttered, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it in the hamper. “You’re in bed.”

“I’m still up,” John protested lightly, staring at his phone without seeing anything. Alex made a scoffing sound.

“John.”

John didn’t look up. “What.”

“John, c’mon.”

“No. Just tell me what you want to say.”

He had an idea, but he was getting too tired to keep up with Alex now. Alex scoffed again, rummaging around with the dresser drawers—John glanced up briefly to see he’d changed for bed. Victory, he thought, feeling slightly bad about it.

“What’s so interesting you can’t even look at me,” Alex muttered, climbing into bed next to John and nuzzling in close to try and see the screen of John’s phone. John tapped out of twitter, letting Alex see his home screen again. It wasn’t a surprise; Alex had been there when it was taken, but it was a good olive branch.

“You’re so lame.” Alex tilted his head further into the crook of John’s neck. “Twitter?”

“You’re just mad your account was suspended.”

“It was bullshit,” Alex agreed sleepily. He must really be tired if he wasn’t going on a tirade about the politics behind twitter’s suspension policies again. “You should let me tweet from yours instead.”

“I don’t want my account suspended either, though.”

“This is how justice is impeded, John. Solidarity is important.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Alex hummed, tired and happy, and shifted, tilting his head up to kiss John again. He went slower this time, a bit sloppy from drunken tiredness.

John was patient, and Alex pulled away first. “I had almost resolved,” Alex said into John’s lips, “to lavish nothing more upon you, like a jealous lover… when I thought you slighted me. My caresses. ” he grinned at the last word, clearly thinking of a certain type of caressing. “But now you’ve disarmed me, by a single mark of attention—”

John kissed him again, mostly to get him to stop talking nonsense. He pulled away quicker than Alex did, but made sure to do it with a smile. “Nerd.”

“You’re a nerd,” Alex said. “That was good, John, I should write that shit down somewhere.”

“What on earth would you write that for.”

“I don’t know. I could write you a love letter. Old-school.”

“It sounded a bit more like erotica.”

“It could be both.”

John laughed automatically. “With you? Sure.”

“It could be more than both. I’m a great fuckin’ writer, John.”

“I know you are.” Alex hummed, putting his head down on John’s shoulder again. John put a hand up, automatically, to stroke Alex’s hair. “Right now, though, you should go to sleep.”

“Boring.”

Alex laid down as he said it, settling with his back to John. John watched him for a moment, taking him in with a strange melancholy before lying down and putting an arm over him.

John Laurens had a secret.

It wasn’t like he’d applied for the trip recently, okay, he wasn’t that bad of a boyfriend.

…Not exactly, he wasn’t. He’d signed up a while ago and forgot about it until recently, because he’d figured that he’d just cancel or drop out of it or whatever unless he decided closer to the date that he actually wanted to go. And then he and Alex got serious, and New York got fun and interesting and he didn’t tell anyone about it because he thought he would just cancel his trip.

And then things got different.

John wasn’t good at being frugal. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he just—didn’t think about it, until he had the thing and then the thing was used up, and then the thing was over and he moved on. For the life of him he couldn’t find that balance between happiness and responsibility that everyone else seemed to have, that—temperance, where he could engage with things without burning through them. Without burning out.

He was mixing metaphors and mixing different issues together in his mind. Things were muddled and he was tired, it wasn’t a good time to be thinking about this. But one thing stood out as clear: if he stayed, he was going to ruin Alex. Alex was already worried and Alex had left the party early for him. John didn’t want to stay long enough to find out whether Alex’s love would outlast his frustration and resentment. Either one wouldn’t end well.

He sounded dramatic, but it was true. He’d seen from experience—John was headed in a spiraling freefall towards the ground, and if he didn’t pull himself away from it, he’d drag everyone around him down with him. And all the things that used to make him happy here were boring now. And he wasn’t even being fair to Alex, leading him on the way he was. And he needed to snap out of it.

So there it was.

John laid in the dark of the room, one arm wrapped around Alex, feeling his boyfriend’s chest rise and fall, contemplating breaking his heart tomorrow.

Chapter Text

It took Alex several minutes to fully wake up.

The room was bright, he had a mild hangover, and John wasn’t in bed next to him. These annoyances kept nagging at the groggy muddle in his mind until he couldn’t ignore them any longer, and he fumbled out of John’s bed, searching blearily for his glasses on John’s dresser.

He didn’t like to spread around that he wore glasses, ‘cause he thought they looked kind of stupid on him. Besides, people already thought he was a stuck-up nerd, he didn’t need to dress the part. But given that he spent half his time at John’s apartment nowadays, it would be a lot more effort to try and hide it. Besides, John didn’t care if he looked stupid sometimes.

His thoughts were like flyaways, mind buzzing as he wandered into the kitchen and collapsed in his usual seat at the island table. John was sitting criss-cross on the counter staring into space and chewing his lip, waiting for the coffee to drain out fully. John was better at making coffee than Alex; he put cinnamon in it or something, which sounded ridiculous but tasted good.

“Your hair’s a mess,” John said absently, pulling off the counter and drifting over to comb through Alex’s hair with his hands. His touch was gentle, and Alex leaned into it.

“Well I just woke up,” Alex mumbled, leaning against John’s side. His chest was warm on Alex’s face. “I’ll fix it later.”

John hummed. Alex closed his eyes, leaning more heavily into John. John was one of those rare people that Alex could be quiet around. He didn’t need to yell to get John to pay attention to him. Which was good, because he was too tired to yell at the moment. Maybe after coffee.

The silence stretched out like taffy, warm and sweet and salty, with the bubbling of the coffeemaker in the background and the busy New York streets sounding from somewhere far below the apartment. It was frigid outside, Alex knew, but the cold outside never seeped into John’s apartment like it did at Alex’s place. Rich people perks, he guessed.

“So,” John said.

He didn’t follow up for a minute. Alex tilted his head back to look up at him. He was staring off into the distance, worrying his lip again. He was gonna dry his lips out like that.

“I applied for a thing,” John said, breaking the silence.

Alex blinked, mind waking up a bit more. John was being weird again. “What thing?”

“I think we should break up.”

Alex blinked.

Went tense.

Pulled away.

“Wait, wha—what do—what?”

John’s hands were still on him, and he fumbled them away, staring at John incredulously. John watched him awkwardly, still worrying his lip.

“I think we should… break up.”

Alex stared at him.

The coffeemaker sounded off a friendly jingle, signalling the coffee was done.

Alex stared.

The kitchen felt too small, too warm all of a sudden. Alex thought he might throw up. Not because of the hangover… maybe because of the hangover. Not just because of the hangover.

John pulled away, looking guilty, and turned to get the coffee pot. He couldn’t look at Alex. Holy shit, he was serious.

“I just think… um, I really like you,” John said. “It’s not about you, I just… I don’t think we would work out long-term. And.”

The lump unstuck from Alex’s throat enough to speak. “We’ve worked out for three months.”

The words sounded empty in the kitchen air. Three months, that wasn’t that long.

Three months was forever, though.

John didn’t say anything. 

Alex couldn’t.

“I applied for a study abroad in France,” John said.

Shit, Alex really was going to puke.

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to go or not,” John was saying. Alex sat and stared, filled with static fuzz. “Which is why I didn’t tell you, I would’ve, Alex, but it was just like… a whim, kind of, but it’s soon and—and I’m going, and I really like you, but I just… don’t think this will work out.”

He really liked Alex.

He “really liked” Alex.

Last night he’d been saying he loved Alex.

“But we…” Alex said faintly. “But that’s stupid.”

John glanced at him awkwardly, as if he wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how. Fucking obviously, he didn’t know how. 

Alex was coming back to himself now, mind booting up and starting to catch up with the situation. A warm flush of anger bloomed in his chest, spreading into his limbs.

“That’s stupid,” Alex said again. “That’s not a reason. That’s some vague bullshit. You sound like a HR panel. We—we—how long have—when did you apply for that thing?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, standing abruptly and stalking-slash-stumbling out of the kitchen. His eyes were stinging all of a sudden. He wasn’t going to cry. Fog his glasses all up. Fuck.

Where was he going?

He wanted to punch John. He couldn’t punch John. Well—he could, but he—he couldn’t.

He needed to leave. He— “You could’ve let me had my coffee first!” he yelled. Took a shaky breath.

No, wait, he couldn’t leave, he wasn’t wearing pants.

He turned on his heel and stalked to their—the bedroom. Shit, he had stuff here. If he needed to get a box he was fining John for it.

He scrambled through the motions of pulling on pants and piling his stuff out of drawers into his bag. Good thing he had a bag here after all, then. The thought felt slightly hysterical. Maybe this was what pushed him over the edge, finally.

They’d just been so happy last night. He’d been so happy last night, at least. What had John—what had John been? He thought he could read him, but he thought he’d been happy—but—

He shook his head roughly, throwing his bag over his shoulder and stalking into the bathroom to grab his stuff off the sink and out of the shower. Should he take the shower caddy? John hadn’t had a damn shower caddy before he’d met Alex, Alex had been the one to suggest it to him, so it was at least half Alex’s. But it was a big metal thing, and what if John tried to take it from him when he walked out, and they ended up in a tug-of-war, that would be a new level of stupid—but then Alex could hit him with the shower caddy, which would probably really hurt, so maybe he should. Or he should… he should send John an invoice or something later. Could he list emotional damages? Would that be too much? Maybe not. John would pay it, probably, because he was such a pushover, God, Alex had to drag him through everything—but that wasn’t fair, John did—John did—

He swallowed back a sob, pushing up his glasses to wipe tears away roughly. Don’t cry, don’t cry. You will never live it down if you cry. He tried to grasp at that spark of rage in his chest, but it was—malfunctioning.

He avoided the kitchen on his way to the foyer to get his shoes. Didn’t want to see John’s pitying look, or whatever the fuck look he had, though, why the hell wasn’t he following Alex around and trying to make it better—did Alex want that, no, but John should be doing that, that’s what he always did.

He had to sit down on the floor to fumble his shoes on, eyes blurry with tears and hands shaky with—a breakdown or a hangover or both. Both. Yeah.

John chose that moment to appear behind him. Fucking… just when Alex decided he didn’t want him to.

“God, don’t cry,” John’s voice wobbled from behind Alex. Shockingly it didn’t help.

“Don’t fucking tell me not to cry, you just—” Alex took a shaky breath, shoes on, and stood. “Fuck you.”

He brushed past John roughly, bumping his shoulder, to storm into the kitchen and throw open the liquor cabinet, grabbing a bottle blindly off the shelf by the neck. Wine or something. “I’m taking this,” he informed John, not bothering to look at him.

John didn’t say anything. Alex didn’t look at him, trying to avert his eyes so John didn’t see how glassy they were, and stalked past him out the door, slamming it on his way out.

Then he was in the brightly-lit hallway.

Standing there.

That was… that was it.

Holy shit.

A part of him wanted to go back inside. That couldn’t be—that couldn’t be it. After everything? He—they’d been making out last night. Cuddling before falling asleep tangled together. And.

He couldn’t go back in.

John was going to France. Fuck. Alex wasn’t going back in.

He unfroze from where he was standing stock-still and forced himself to step down the hallway on autopilot. Step, step, step. In case John opened the door. He couldn’t handle that.

He lifted the bottle to see what it was through blurry eyes. Champagne. He gave a watery, half-hysterical laugh. Champagne was for celebrations.

Maybe John had bought it to celebrate breaking up with him. Maybe Alex had ruined his plans by taking it.

No he didn’t, dumbass, Alex retorted to himself. Get it together.

The next order of business was to get drunk. That was what people did after getting broken up with, and he ignored the twist in his chest at the thought of himself being someone who just got broken up with. Fuck.

John should’ve broke up with him at night, so it would be more socially acceptable to drink. But whatever, he was in New York anyway.

He wrestled with getting the bottle open as he stumbled down the stairs. Fucking… should’ve taken a bottle opener while he was at it. It was fine, this was fine. He managed to get it open as he stepped out into the street, shivering automatically at the rush of cold air.

He stuck the cork in his coat pocket and took a large swig from the bottle, wincing belatedly at the taste. He hated the… bubbly shit.

He just needed to not think right now.

He made his way for the subway station on autopilot—he’d walked the route from John’s to Herc’s enough times, he had it memorized. He wouldn’t need that information anymore. After this time.

Don’t cry.

But what the fuck was John thinking, after all this—after everything they—they’d been happy, hadn’t they? Hadn’t the past three months been like out of a fairy tale? How long—how long had John thought—?

Don’t cry.

He stumbled onto the subway and found a seat, taking another gulp of champagne. He was the odd one out. Most people in the car were going to work. Morning rush. He wondered what they thought of him. Nothing good, probably, but that was ‘cause they weren’t minding their own fucking business, so fuck them.

He wondered what John thought of him. What he’d really thought.

Don’t cry.

But it must be something John wasn’t telling him, right… ‘cause that was stupid, he hadn’t—he shouldn’t have just thrown all that at Alex at once, he should’ve talked to him about it—hadn’t Alex wondered? Hadn’t Alex asked? Alex had tried, he’d asked if John was okay, but he’d thought that it was a bad day or a bad night’s sleep or something, not—not—how long had John just been going through the motions? How long had John not actually liked—

Don’t cry.

He’d always tried not to think about it, because John hadn’t given him any reason to think that, it was just Alex was fucked up and had issues and wasn’t used to—to good relationships at all, but he’d tried to trust John and tell himself that someone as perfect as John could exist and he’d half-believed it—

Don’t cry.

He took another gulp of champagne, then leaned back against the seat, tilting his head back, and closed his eyes, feeling the shaking-moving-thrum of the subway car. He hadn’t had breakfast, he was gonna get drunk off his ass if he wasn’t careful. He was lightheaded. It was almost like he was floating away.

It felt good. Like flying, almost, but not. It didn’t feel quite real, the uncomfortable subway seat and his feet on the slightly-sticky subway floor, fluorescent lights blaring against his closed eyelids. It was like a dream, hyper-real detail and blurry big picture. Fuck the world, he just wanted… to ride the subway forever and forget about everything.

Whoooooo.

A rude awakening: the announcer’s voice filling the train car, naming his stop, the subway shuddering to a jolting stop.

He should get off. He should… be responsible.

That was what tipped him over the edge. He sucked in a shuddery breath, then let out a sob, tears beginning to fall in earnest.

He didn’t want to be the responsible one. He was always responsible. This was so… fucked.

But even as he sobbed to himself, he dragged himself out of his seat, stumbling and nearly falling. Fuck, he was… drunk.

Really drunk. Okay.

He focused on getting off the train, stumbling over the gap and into the station, trying not to sob. He probably looked… ridiculous.

Fuck, he still had his glasses on. Stupid… he could barely see anyway. Couldn’t see straight.

He wobbled up the stairs (only tripping and falling once!) and down the street, trying and failing to get his crying under control, scrubbing at his cheeks in frustration. His head was spinning bad, so a lot of effort went there… staying upright. He hiccupped. He felt sick.

At least nobody stopped to check if he was okay. New York was great.

He clutched the railing tight stepping up the steps to Herc’s place, fumbling with his keys and leaning up against the familiar green door, cradling the champagne in one arm to hold the keys. It took him… a while, to figure out the door. Didn’t know how long, just his keys were too blurry to know and the keyhole was… moving a lot.

You always had to shove the door hard to open it. This felt like one obstacle too much for Alex, and he sobbed again, but shoved up against it anyway. Responsible.

The door gave way on the second shove, and he stumbled in, tripping over and falling half on the tile foyer floor, and half on the bottom few stairs. The fuzzy stair carpets shielded his fall. A bit of champagne splashed onto them. He was pretty sure. Fuck, his deposit.

He sniffled to himself, dizzy and stomach churning, then let out a sob, laying there crumpled against the stairs, door still open to the cold street.

He’d thought—he’d thought—he’d thought John was happy.

Fuck!

Fuck!

He’d thought he was happy!

He thought—but what did Alex know about—about happy relationships?

The thought tore another sob out of him, an involuntary whimpering wail.

“Alex?”

The voice came like from a dream, and Alex was so distant he didn’t process it at first. But then there was… no more cold from the street, the noise was muffled, somebody… closed the door. Alex tilted his head slightly to see a blurry spinning… Hercules crouched down in front of him.

“I guess I don’t need to ask how the party was,” Herc said. Alex took a shaky breath, more tears falling. He hiccupped. Herc was tugging his shoes off gently but firmly. The way he did most things. “C’mon, let’s get you out of the stairwell.”

He mostly had to drag Alex up the stairs. He took the champagne, though, so Alex didn’t have to carry it, so that was good, because he would drop it, probably. “You lost the cork to this or something?” Herc said. Alex just sniffled, then sobbed again.

They finally made it up the stairwell into the living room. Alex sniffled, then hiccupped, head spinning fast. “‘Erc ‘m gonna… puke,” he mumbled.

Herc picked him up and started dragging him faster, pulling him into the bathroom and depositing him in front of the toilet. Alex wobbled there for a moment before lurching forward and throwing up.

“Thanks for the warning, at least,” Hercules said as Alex retched pitifully into the toilet, emptying the contents of his stomach. His hand was combing through Alex’s hair. Pulling it away from his face. John had combed his hand through Alex’s hair this morning. Alex sobbed into the toilet.

He finished throwing up, though the slight nauseous feeling didn’t go away, and he sat up, wiping his mouth on his coat and sniffling. He pushed his glasses up his nose from where they’d slipped down. He probably looked like a total… dingus.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Herc said. He was sitting on the edge of the tub. His voice was closer by than Alex expected. Alex sniffled, staring at him through watery eyes and trying to parse what he meant by that.

“...Talk about what?”

Hercules gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. It was harder to decipher blurry people. “Jeez, kid, do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No,” Alex said, and it came out offended. He glared at Herc, wobbling a bit where he sat. Hercules reached out to steady him. He really was dizzy. Everything felt fuzzy.

“Do you need to talk about why you came home sobbing and drunk off your ass,” Hercules clarified. Alex blinked the tears out of his eyelashes and sniffled. The bathroom floor was cold. And hard. It kinda hurt his knees.

“I… took John’s champagne,” he explained. Leaned back over the toilet, not to throw up, but to fold his arms over it and rest his head there. Dizzy. Ugh.

“...Okay,” Herc said above him. “Why.”

It took a minute for Alex to parse through that answer in his head. When he arrived at the answer, a fresh sharp hurt pierced through the fog in his mind again, and he sobbed a little.

“John broke up with me,” he wailed. He didn’t mean to wail, he’d been trying to say it reasonably, his voice just didn’t… do that. It set him off involuntarily into a fresh wave of tears, curling in on himself automatically. Fuck.

“Oh, shit,” Herc said.

After a moment, Alex was being gathered into warm arms. Herc was strong. John had strong arms too. Alex curled into Herc, sobbing harder.

“Okay,” Herc said. “Let’s get you… something to soak up the alcohol, then you should lie down, kid. Sleep it off.”

“Gag,” Alex mumbled, breathing shaky and punctuated. “I don’t wanna… food. Just sleep.”

“Did you just say the word gag?”

Alex buried his face further in Herc’s chest, closing his eyes against the dizziness of the bathroom. “I just wanna ride the subway.”

“Hmm,” Herc said moderately. “Okay. Let’s get you some food.”

Alex groaned loudly. Herc ignored it, picking him up like he weighed nothing and hoisting Alex over his shoulder. Alex watched the floor sway and tilt as Herc carried him into the kitchen.

Everything was becoming more like a dream again. There was a buzzing white-noise feeling in his head, a welcome reprieve. He really did just wanna go to sleep forever. For a thousand hours. Sleep his miserable little life away. Like Sleeping Beauty. She had it made.

He sat on a stool at the counter and ate the bread Herc put in his hand on autopilot. He didn’t wanna eat it; wasn’t sure he wouldn’t throw up again. He didn’t have the energy to argue right now.

“Bread is the stupidest invention of all mankind,” Alex mumbled softly, then took another bite.

“I made that bread myself.”

“Do better things with your time,” Alex said in a daze. “You’re better than that.”

He hiccupped.

Then the bread was gone, and Herc was guiding him (dragging him) to his room, setting him down on the bedspread and pulling his coat off. It was enough to bring fresh tears to Alex’s eyes, for some stupid reason, but he blinked them away, too tired to cry again. Probably.

Hercules left Alex slumped across his bed, half-covering him with his blanket first—the fuzzy green one. Felt nice. “Rest,” was all he said before leaving, closing the door behind him.

Alex blinked in and out. It was morning. He was tired, but… circadian rhythms. He watched the light filter through his flimsy curtains and trace across the floor as time passed. Stupid IKEA curtains. They were just cheap was all. If it was darker he could sleep. Maybe.

It felt strange, like he had taken a sick day or something. He wasn’t interested in thinking about that, though, or anything else. A numb heady haze had settled into his brain and his bones, and he just thought about IKEA and the beads on the fuzzy blanket from the washing machine and maybe he should buy a new one. Maybe from IKEA. But he wanted the same one.

In between one syrupy-slow thought and the next, his eyes closed.

In between the thought after that and the next, he dropped into sleep.

He woke up sometime in the late afternoon, hours later, feeling worse than he had when he’d gone to sleep.

Oh, so that’s why people don’t chug champagne on an empty stomach at ten in the morning, he thought blearily to himself, pulling the covers up over his head and wincing his eyes closed. He probably… shouldn’t’ve done that.

Fuck, but he was always being the responsible one.

Being responsible is a good thing, Alex reminded himself firmly. It was too soon after he’d woken up to have another breakdown.

But he’d always—but he’d always done things for John, hadn’t he? He’d encouraged him to go after the things he wanted, and helped him with anything he wanted, and—and he hadn’t been pushy about it, had he? He’d tried not to! All he ever did was support John, and—and—it wasn’t fair.

He blinked away the tears burning in his eyes and pulled the covers off his face again. He sounded like a child.

Scrubbing the tears out of his eyes didn’t help with the blurriness—his glasses weren’t on, and he propped himself up, squinting at the top of his dresser (which lived next to his bed) to see where they were sitting. A blurry plate of food sat next to them. Herc must’ve been in again.

He slid his glasses back on, sitting up fully and ignoring the deep ache in his muscles and the throbbing in his skull. His mouth felt dry and awful. And he was still wearing his jeans.

Okay. He could take care of… one of those things.

After shimmying his jeans off and opening the right dresser drawer with his foot to toss them in, he turned to the food. He didn’t have an appetite, but he was hungry. And he should eat.

It was pasta salad and a half a sandwich, which was nice of Herc, because he knew Alex liked pasta salad. Alex noted this somewhere in the back of his foggy mind as he took a bite and chewed, barely registering the taste. Normally he’d never eat in bed—bugs, gross, but he was pretty sure he’d puke again if he had to walk all the way to the kitchen.

He’d picked his way through half the plate, having to stop and breathe through the occasional woozy bouts of nausea, before he heard the slight creaking of the floor outside his door. “I’m awake,” he said flatly before Herc could knock. He didn’t have the energy to say it loudly.

The door creaked open a moment later, Hercules coming in slowly, with the air of someone trying to tame a frightened animal. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I have a hangover,” Alex said dryly, bristling slightly at the tone. Herc gave him a look. He knew Alex too well.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Hercules said, sitting down on the end of Alex’s bed. The dip and sway of the mattress didn’t do the cotton in Alex’s brain any favors, and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall and trying to breathe.

“I dunno what I’d say,” he mumbled after a moment. Opened his eyes again, looking down at his plate and picking at the sandwich to look like he was doing something. “It was kind of stupid.”

“What was?”

“The whole… thing,” Alex said, a lump forming in his throat around the word breakup. “It was all kind of… it was stupid. I don’t know.”

He knew more than that. He didn’t know how to say it. Or if he could, without crying.

I’m scared. The thought rose unbidden, quickly followed by I don’t know what to do now.

He didn’t say that out loud, now that his brain wasn’t soaked in alcohol anymore. But it summed up his situation neatly. Too neatly. Annoying.

He blinked, tears rising to the surface again. He could feel his face wanting to twist into a sob, and he took a shaky breath.

But fuck, he didn’t know what to do now. He was scared.

“Okay,” Herc said. “I’m gonna get you some water and you’re gonna drink it. You don’t want to be more dehydrated than you already are, okay kid?”

“Yeah,” Alex managed in a hoarse whisper, pushing his glasses up to scrub at his eyes.

Hercules left the room, and then Alex was alone for a moment suspended in time, listening to Herc shuffling around in the kitchen. He took another shaky breath, resolutely blinking back his tears, and put his half-eaten plate of food back on his dresser table. He wasn’t that hungry anymore.

Herc came back with a glass of water and Alex tilted his head from where he’d been leaned back against the wall, staring at the popcorn ceiling in a daze. He took the water from Herc, ice cube clinking against the glass softly. Ice cubes were fancy. They shocked your system… or something, John had told him that.

He took a gulp of water to avoid chasing that thought.

When he lowered the glass from his lips, Hercules was still there, sitting unbothered. He didn’t look like he was waiting for any answers, which Alex appreciated, because he couldn’t give them.

“I’m scared,” Alex said, fixing his eyes resolutely on the ice floating around in his cup. His voice came out shaky. “I don’t know what to do now.”

Fresh tears sprung up in his eyes; he took a shaky breath, blinked them back, and took another drink of his water. He might have to kill Hercules or something if he didn’t say anything but the perfect response to that. It was a big admittance Alex was trusting him with.

“What you do now,” Hercules said slowly, “Is drink your water. Then you shower, and rest to get rid of your hangover. Take it in steps.”

Alex released a measured breath, ducking his head. “Yeah,” he whispered, for lack of anything else to say. Thanks would probably be good, but he couldn’t seem to force it out of his throat.

“This was your first real relationship?” Hercules said. Alex nodded, face twisting again, blinking down at his cup. Herc hummed in acknowledgement.

“Then you should know that it’s going to suck,” Herc said. Wow, thanks, I never guessed, Alex didn’t say. Couldn’t speak. Herc kept going. “But the only way out is through. It sucks, and then one day it’s fine. There’s a ton of guys out there, okay? Just ‘cause this time it didn’t work out doesn’t mean it never will.”

There was a lot Alex could’ve said to that. And non-guys, if he wanted to support Herc’s point, but he didn’t really and also Herc didn’t know he was bisexual. A small part of him wanted to tell Herc off for giving him advice when he couldn’t avoid it, but that would be hypocritical of him. And most of him was dedicated to pushing back his tears at the grounded reality of Herc’s words.

It didn’t work out.

Just that morning, he’d woken up thinking he and John would be together forever.

The next several days passed in a slow-motion blur.

Hercules made him shower and eat sometimes. Mostly he sat in his room. Sometimes tried to write. It all turned out shitty and he mostly deleted them after a paragraph.

He knew Herc was worried about him. He was too subdued, he was crying too much, he was barely doing anything. Herc dragged him out of his room sometimes in the afternoons, to watch telenovelas on the couch (to “at least have a change of scenery” he said) or to go on forced walks. New York wasn’t the best place for walking. It was all concrete.

Mostly he spent the days in his head, wrestling to sort through muddy tangled thoughts.

Here’s what he knew:

1. John didn’t give a real reason. Alex didn’t know why it happened. He didn’t know what he’d done.
2. John should’ve told him the reason and he would’ve done anything to fix it.
3. That was it.

He didn’t know anything else.

John filled his thoughts, freckles and dark curls and the expressions he pulled, looking at life with some sort of optimistic humor. It was rare that he didn’t. The times when he dropped the lightheartedness, when he became deadly serious, punctuated Alex’s memories. He loved that about John, that intense passion and sense of justice hidden under the easygoing surface. God forbid someone get on John’s bad side—it was like flying free through the air and suddenly colliding with a brick wall. Never aimed at Alex, always gentle with Alex.

He wondered, if he called John now, would he still be gentle? Would he let him down gently, or talk him through his hurt, or—or was that gone now?

John hadn’t texted him. Lafayette had, and some of his other more casual friends. Most checking in to see if he was okay, which meant that word had gotten around. Probably because he’d forgotten to tell McHenry he and John wouldn’t be helping set up for his party on Thursday anymore.

It wasn’t like him. He didn’t like it.

He wondered who had told McHenry in his stead. Maybe it was John. Or maybe they’d just waited for him to show up and he hadn’t. He didn’t know which one made him feel worse.

The future yawned in a gaping dark hole in front of him, thrown completely off course. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the next quarter like this.

John still hadn’t texted him.

His lockscreen was John, his home screen was John, he hated looking at his phone; he hated the thought of changing it more. The burst of hurt he got from looking at his phone almost felt good, in a way. Validating. He still loved John. That part of him was still alive, even if it was alive like a withered plant that was barely being watered.

He couldn’t let go.

He hadn’t done any of the things he’d been planning to do over spring break. Parties, organizing his school supplies, contacting various law firms about summer internships.

He’d been planning to spend a lot of time at John’s apartment.

He was in freefall, watching the ground come closer and closer as Monday drew nearer. His goal had been top of his class; now he didn’t know how he was going to make it through his classes without bursting into tears, never mind getting good grades.

Hercules didn’t push him, although it was clear that he wanted to; he took the sticky notes sitting on Alex’s dresser and wrote a new one that said when you get knocked down, get back up again and stuck it on Alex’s wall next to his bed so he’d have no choice but to look at it every day. It was a nice sentiment, though not really helpful at all.

Classes drew nearer and nearer to resuming. And then, all at once, it was Monday, and Alex wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there.

“Are you going to classes?” Hercules asked, carefully neutral-sounding, when he found Alex in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee early Monday morning.

“Of course,” Alex said, trying not to sound annoyed. It was a fair question, he guessed, based on how he’d been acting lately, even if the thought put a bad taste in his mouth. He didn’t like being seen as anything but self-possessed. But still, the fact that he was wearing actual clothes and he’d put his contacts in felt like the answer should be obvious.

He wasn’t just going to skip classes. He’d gotten into one of the most prestigious colleges in America, he wasn’t throwing that away, he wasn’t stupid.

Even if he wished he could stay home and eat chips all day.

It was strange going back to a normal routine, riding the subway to campus and retracing familiar steps to the law building. His earliest class followed the Socratic method, which wasn’t the greatest combination, but for Alex it was usually a fun way to wake his brain up. Usually.

He’d read ahead to the case study they were doing last Sunday, but it was vague in his mind now, obsessing over John having taken up most of his brain. But he always talked in this class, and the professor always wanted him to talk less, so… he probably wouldn’t be called on if he decided to stay quiet. For once.

It was a smaller-size class, though not too cozy. Normally John had it with him, and they sat next to each other. A part of Alex was relieved that John’s normal seat was empty today, but the much larger part of him was swept up and short of breath by the overwhelming reminder that things weren’t normal; this wasn’t just another day.

He sat down and dumped his messenger bag on the carpet next to him, ducking to rifle through it for his Civil Procedure textbook. He used the opportunity to blink back the tears burning in his eyes, and took a measured breath. The class wasn’t that long, he probably didn’t have to talk much, it’d be okay.

He followed along with the class vaguely as they walked through the steps of the case. He didn’t raise his hand, didn’t speak up. The professor gave him a few weird looks for it, but Alex couldn’t find it in him to care about the procedures of Federal Courts at the moment.

If John was here, and Alex was acting like this, and they were still dating, he’d assume Alex was sick or having a panic attack or something. He’d lean over with a little frown and tap Alex’s elbow— are you okay? —and Alex would probably wave him off, or if he was feeling really awful, he’d nudge his foot under the table or something, and John would whisper-ask if he needed to leave class, but there was nobody sitting next to him now. Of course he could think for himself to see if he needed to leave class, and just… leave on his own, but it would be a lot sadder. Nobody to look after him but himself.

“Hamilton?”

Alex was pulled uncomfortably back to the present. Professor Adams was looking at him expectantly. Alex glanced at the board—it was full of shorthand notes, nothing clear enough to explain to him what he was supposed to say. “Um, can you… repeat the question?”

“We’ve decided we’re not going to go to default judgment, I’m trying to teach you about Federal Rule Twelve, what do we do?”

“Um, you… answer,” Alex said, mind working to catch up. Federal Rule 12. “You serve an answer.”

Professor Adams frowned, turning to the class at large. “Alright, but what do we have to worry about—”

“A responsive pleading,” Alex continued, speaking over Adams as his mind caught more fully up. Adams glanced back at him.

“...You’re saying that’s our answer?”

“In our position, yeah,” Alex said, not as certain as he would’ve liked. Usually he’d give a more convincing answer. A more thorough answer.

“Alright,” Adams said, turning to write answer=RP in messy handwriting on the board. “But what do we have to be—if we say we’re going to do a responsive pleading, what might be an issue with that?”

He looked back at Alex, eyebrows raised. Fuck. “Um, like… consenting to jurisdiction,” he said. Consenting wasn’t the right word, though, was it. “Not—not consenting, but, like, general…”

“Right, because we said earlier, if we file an answer, if we do too much besides contest jurisdiction it’ll be a problem,” Adams said. “But you’re saying it’s okay.” He gave Alex a piercing look. Alex could feel the awkward embarrassment squeezing his chest.

“As long as you just cover jurisdiction,” he said. “And you don’t… talk about other facts in the case.” He knew as he said it he was backing himself into a corner, and followed with a hurried, “Um, or not, actually.”

“Or not?”

Alex fidgeted. “Yeah, that might not be… right.”

“Hmm,” Adams said, turning to the class at large. “Remember, this is Federal Court.” He went to the whiteboard, erasing off half of it. “Now, what can we do if…”

Adams kept talking, but it was clear he was done with Alex, and Alex pretended to be studying his textbook really hard and let himself wither a bit inside in mortification. It was a fine cold call. Nobody would remember it tomorrow. Everybody had bad cold calls.

He just hadn’t before. Ever. So.

He hated this. He hated not having his life together, how thoroughly out-of-control he felt since… yeah. Just—this was why he usually avoided emotional stuff, why he gave a wide berth to that kind of dependence on other people’s whims, it was messy . Emotions and impulses, they were volatile, and they needed to be handled with a care that he usually couldn’t master. But God, he’d tried with John.

Probably he shouldn’t have.

He should’ve kept his head down and focused on his school, and getting a degree, he’d had a plan. And it was going to be thoroughly dashed to bits now, because of John Laurens.

He took a cool breath, trying to stabilize himself. He didn’t need to break down in the middle of class.

What he needed was a new plan. Even if he couldn’t let go of John—he wanted control of his life back. Didn’t want everything he’d worked so hard for to fall apart because one thing fell out of place. He’d picked up the pieces of his life a thousand times before—after his dad left, after his mom died, after his cousin killed himself. After the hurricane. He’d picked himself up and made some sort of order out of the chaos. He could do it again.

Last time, he thought to himself wryly. Build something that won’t fall apart this time and you won’t have to do it again.

Chapter Text

John had the kitchen window cracked, cold spring air spilling in from the open slit. It raised goosebumps on his arms, especially when he pulled them out of the dishwater in the sink to put another dish on the drying rack. He could’ve just loaded them into the dishwasher, but this made him feel more productive, and it was a good conversation buffer.

He was lucky Alex hadn’t done the dishes before he left. He knew Alex had been getting antsy about it—Alex was always strange about cleaning, in that he was a very messy person but he also hated a mess. So Alex had a habit of stress-cleaning.

“I guess I just don’t understand,” Lafayette said, sitting at the kitchen table. John had his back to him, right now, but he could feel Lafayette’s scrutinizing stare boring into his back anyway. “I’m not judging you—”

“You’d be a hypocrite if you did,” John said, trying and failing to keep the note of warning out of his voice.

“Yes, I know.” Lafayette sighed. “Sometimes I don’t understand why I came to America, either, though, so this is nothing new in that sense. Isn’t it strange,” he said, “the way I went from France to America and you’re going from America to France? We’re inverted.”

“That’s a good word,” John said distantly, picking at a stubborn piece of grit inside one of his bowls. Lafayette was quiet for a moment. Never a good sign, and the tension of it prickled under John’s skin.

“I suppose I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me earlier,” Lafayette said finally. “Like you’ve said—I’ve done this before. And—”

“So have I,” John interrupted. “I’ve been to Geneva, London, Puerto Rico—” he stopped, feeling uncomfortably like he was bragging even though Lafayette had traveled just as much as John. “It’s not—it’s not a big deal, okay?”

“Yes it is,” Lafayette said. “And I don’t just mean traveling.”

There it was. John sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I am not here to police your choices—”

“Good.”

“Why did you not tell me? One second you two are attending my party together as the golden couple—”

“Don’t call us that.”

“The silver couple—”

“For fuck’s sake, Lafayette.”

“And then the next moment, I hear you’ve broken up with him,” Lafayette plowed ahead, bravely and stupidly. “I keep on going over that night in my mind, looking for—signs. It is like I said—I don’t understand.”

John sighed, blinking away blurring vision. A cold breeze blew through the slit in the window, rippling the water in the sink, and he didn’t turn to put the dish in the dishrack, even though it was clean. “Did I not say that I don’t want to talk about it, Laf?” he managed, voice even and heart pounding.

“You’ve been different lately,” Lafayette said. John used his frustration as motivation to turn and put the bowl in the dishrack, eyes dry and expression stony. “Something about you… maybe it is just me. But I worry. You’re my friend, John.”

John wanted to throw up. Slightly. He hated—this was why he wanted to go halfway across the world, where no one would know what was different for him and he could be different in peace and it wouldn’t fucking matter and no one would care. There was nothing to say about it, which Lafayette didn’t seem to get. Any conversation they could have would be redundant. And Lafayette was pretty fucking lucky that John was being nice about it.

“I was alarmed,” Lafayette went on in the silence, “When I first heard the news—but then I was not surprised, just—I felt that—we had missed signs. We as your friends, I mean,” he said. “I—” he paused, then blew out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I’m just concerned.”

John blew out a slow, even breath, leaning forward against the sink and closing his eyes. This was one of the last conversations he wanted to have, right now or ever.

“That’s nice of you,” he said, slow and even, not turning around. He didn’t want to see Lafayette’s face. “You don’t need to be concerned. I know how to handle myself, okay? And the way I like to handle myself is privately. ” He took another measured breath, feeling himself teetering on the edge of breaking. “I’ll be fine. I just need—I need to do this, okay? You don’t have to understand.”

Lafayette was quiet.

John resumed the dishes.

He’d deep-cleaned most of his apartment—well, that wasn’t true, he’d paid someone to do most of it. But the point was it was done. Things were wrapping up, neat and tidy and clean. And that was—that was all John wanted.

“You’re a good friend,” Lafayette said, which was a statement so out of left field that John actually turned around to give him an incredulous look. Lafayette sat at the table, eyebrows raised earnestly, and waved a hand like he was brushing away John’s incredulity.

“You are,” he said. “You’re very strange and prickly, but you’re a good friend. Promise me we will remain friends when you are in France.”

John felt an odd stab of guilt and brushed it away just as quickly, not wanting it to show on his face. “Of course we will,” he said. “It’s just for the quarter, anyway, Laf.” I won’t have time to drop you he almost said, but bit it back before he put his foot in his mouth. Small mercies.

“Good,” Lafayette said, folding his hands in front of him like he was negotiating a deal. “And—once you handle whatever it is you are going through—you’ll tell me about it? Once you reach a reasonable distance in your heart.”

John let out a short huff, giving Lafayette a weakly amused smile. “Sure. Don’t hold your breath, though.”

Lafayette frowned at him. “Is that literal?”

“No—don’t hold your breath, it means—it might take a long time of waiting. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen or you’ll suffocate yourself.”

“Ah,” Lafayette looked pleased. “That’s a nice one. It creates an image.”

“I guess.” John turned around and stuck his hand in the sink again, fishing for the drain stopper in the bottom of the soapy water.

“I should send you off,” Lafayette said. John pulled the stopper up, and the sink gurgled and started to drain of water. “I didn’t get a sendoff when I left from France.”

“You snuck on the plane, that was your own fault.”

“Well, you will not sneak away from me.”

“I thought you were busy tomorrow morning.”

“Putain.”

John huffed out an automatic laugh. “It’s fine.”

Lafayette groaned loudly. John glanced over his shoulder, then turned around—yes, Lafayette was draping himself over the table dramatically. He still hadn’t touched the bowl of cheese straws John had so kindly left out for him. “I want to send you off, though,” he said into the table, voice squashed. He picked his head up. “Let’s go out tonight, then.”

John hesitated, remembering the last party he’d been to. “Um, I don’t know if…”

“This is the last time we will see each other in so long,” Lafayette said. “Come on. I’ll make sure you have a good time.”

“Categorically impossible,” John said, casting Lafayette a stern frown and leaning back against the sink. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“But you like going out,” Lafayette said, in what he probably wouldn’t want described as a whine. “We will do it quickly and responsibly. If I’d known you were leaving sooner, I would have thrown you a going away party. At least let me have this.”

Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you, John didn’t say, because he wasn’t cruel. He sighed instead, looking away from Lafayette into the distance, at the empty packed-up living room.

…If he stayed in, he’d have nothing to do until he went to bed. He’d just have to sit around in his apartment. And—if he went out with Laf tonight, he could always beg out early with the excuse of an early flight tomorrow and not wanting to be too hungover.

And—he kind of owed Lafayette. And it was just one night. Then he’d be on a plane to France.

He turned back to Lafayette, faux-reluctant. “Fine. But only because I’m nice.”

Lafayette grinned widely at him, getting up from the table. “Say what you want.”

The floor of the bar was slightly sticky near the vending machines, and upbeat fast-paced music rattled off in the background, where John could hear it but couldn’t hear the lyrics. It might not have been English. All he could hear really was a steady beat and loud talking from around him, Lafayette pressed to his side and weaving him through the crowds.

They were both slightly tipsy at this point—they’d paired up with some group of strangers for a while to do shots before the group dispersed because the one girl had found out some guy had cheated on her—which was so fucked up, but John was kinda glad that it wasn’t his problem. He was comfortably safe from having to worry about any sort of cheating, so… thank God.

He felt kind of bad, thinking that way. But it wasn’t like he could control his feelings. Wasn’t like he’d said it out loud to her, either.

He pressed in close to Lafayette so that he could hear John over the crowds, glancing around at the crowded bar and dim neon signs. “You know, this is the kind of place where people contract gingivitis,” he said, voice loud. “Or… not that, that’s teeth. Fuck.”

Lafayette laughed, boisterous and bright. John would’ve taken it as a sign that he was drunk, but it didn’t take much to make Lafayette laugh. That was why they were friends.

This was a different bar than the one he’d met Alex in, and John was grateful for that. If they’d gone to Fraunces he’d just be worried about running into Alex all the time, and this way he could just… have fun. One last night.

Lafayette tugged John into a booth, sliding in on the opposite side gracefully and leaning over the table to conspire with John, similar to a playful Alex— “So in the movies, this is where you would get up on the table—”

“I’m not getting on a table,” John interjected, pulling away, “I’m not that much of an idiot—”

“I’ve stood on tables before,” Lafayette said, making a pouting face. “Don’t you want to be a part of the club?”

John made a face, glancing around the bar. It wasn’t that he minded being the center of attention sometimes, but tonight—no. “You do it, then, if you want to so bad.”

“But I’m supposed to be supporting you,” Lafayette whined, draping himself across the booth. “You’re supposed to be the one getting on the table. Like in Ten Things I Hate About You.”

“I never watched that movie,” John said absently, looking out at the crowds of people and neon. He was thinking about getting another drink—he didn’t want to be so drunk, he had his flight tomorrow, but another drink would probably be okay, with the level of buzzed he was at the moment. Besides, he hadn’t even gotten drunk at Lafayette’s party like he said he’d wanted to. He’d had… other things on his mind, but now—

Well. “Do you want another drink?” John said, standing decisively. “I’m getting another drink.”

Lafayette gave him a careful look that John slightly hated. “Don’t drink too much,” he said. “You have your flight—”

“I know,” John said, rolling his eyes. “I can handle another drink, okay, I know myself. Do you want one?”

Lafayette relaxed slightly into the booth. “I’ll go with you,” he said, sliding out of the bench. “Do you think they sell any good wine here?”

“You don’t think they sell any good wine in all of America,” John deadpanned. “You’re not gonna find it at a bar.”

Lafayette sighed forlornly. “We should have gone somewhere else.”

John rolled his eyes fondly. “C’mon. We don’t need to dance on a table to have fun.”

“You could console my not having wine by dancing on a table,” Lafayette pointed out loudly, following him through the clusters of people towards the bar. “Like a good friend.”

“Dance on your own table,” John shot back. “Be your own good friend. Love yourself.”

Lafayette laughed again behind him. John let himself smile, slowing to a halt as they reached the bar.

He didn’t really know what he wanted. To drink, that is. He made fun of Lafayette for being a wine snob, but honestly, if they had a good wine here John would’ve preferred it. Lafayette pushed in front of him to the bar, bouncing on his feet while he waited for the bartender to notice him, and John hung back, feeling strangely lost all of a sudden.

“Don’t know what to order?”

The voice was close, and John startled a bit, looking around. There was a man standing at his left, staring up at the liquor shelves behind the bar. He glanced back at John and smiled disarmingly. It took a minute for what was happening to click in John’s mind.

Oh.

“I’ll probably just get something simple,” John said, looking away towards Lafayette. “I’m not picky.”

“Hi, not picky,” the guy said. “I’m Nick.”

“Like Nickelodeon,” John said noncommittally.

The guy—Nick—laughed, looking away and ducking his head a bit. “Oh, wow, original.”

John shrugged, flashing a slight grin at the guy. Nick. “Talk to me when I’m not tipsy and I’ll have some better jokes.”

Nick hummed, glancing sidelong at John. John wasn’t sure how to respond to it, so he ignored it. “Do I get to know your name, or…?” Nick said.

“Oh. John.”

“Nice to meet you, John,” Nick said, and he sounded like he genuinely meant it. Which stirred an awkward guilt in John—hadn’t he had his quota of dashing people’s hopes? Some part of him still felt like it wasn’t allowed to flirt with other guys. Even if he was technically… single. It felt like a betrayal—but then, hadn’t he already betrayed Alex when he’d broken up with him?

But what would Lafayette think, dragging John out to cheer him up and then finding him flirting with some other guy?

But John didn’t want to have to justify himself—he shouldn’t have to, it wasn’t like—it wasn’t like Lafayette was a mind-reader. John had his reasons for doing things, even if other people didn’t understand them (and they usually didn’t). He couldn’t—keep himself chained to other people’s opinions of him like that, or it would suffocate him to death.

“So, stop me if this is forward,” Nick was saying. Fuck. “But—that guy you’re with, is he your boyfriend?”

John glanced between Nick and Lafayette, who had caught the bartender’s attention and was having a lively chat with her as she prepared a drink. “Him? No. He’s a friend. I don’t… I’m single.”

“Oh,” Nick said, looking hopeful. “Well, in that case…”

John screamed internally. “No,” he blurted.

Nick stopped, looking taken aback. John backpedaled.

“I mean, I’m sure you’re… really nice,” John said. “I’m not looking for—” for what, a one-night stand? A relationship? “—any of that right now.”

Incredulous hurt flashed across Nick’s face. “Oh,” he said again, his voice taking on a completely different tone. He stared at John for half a beat too long before unfreezing. “Well, then you shouldn’t give out so many signals.”

John was tired, okay, he didn’t want to deal with this. He just wanted to hang out with Lafayette and laugh and forget about the shitshow for a few hours so he could sleep tonight. “I wasn’t,” he said, turning back to face the bar. “You talked to me. Sorry.”

Nick was quiet by his side for a moment. “I mean, you shouldn’t wear a rainbow bracelet if you’re like a bisexual or something.”

It took a moment for John to process what the hell that meant—and then it hit him, followed by the deep awful irony. As if flirting with a guy just after breaking up with Alex didn’t feel like betrayal enough—no, it had to be a biphobic guy—the exact type of guy that was the reason Alex let most people assume he was just gay.

“Excuse me?” John said, turning to face Nick fully. “What the hell?”

“What,” Nick said, tense and wary now. “Pride colors mean something, you know.”

“As in, they represent the queer community?” John said. “Of which bisexual people are a part?”

There was a small voice in the back of his head saying drop it. John pushed it away in favor of riding the buzzing wave of anger flooding his mind and his veins.

Nick put his hands up, looking equal parts annoyed and embarrassed. They were maybe making a scene, John realized, and he let that fuel his frustration. So the guy wasn’t even willing to back up his beliefs in public. Ha. Nice.

“Jeez,” the guy was saying. “Wasn’t trying to hit a sore spot.” Someone—one of the guy’s friends or something—had appeared at his shoulder, taking Nick’s arm as if to guide him away.

“No, you know what, yes you were,” John snapped. “Unless you’re an idiot, people know when they’re trying to insult people and they know what kind of reaction they want, and now you gotta fucking deal with it—” a hand landed on his arm, and he didn’t have to look over to know it was Lafayette, speaking soft hurried French in his ear, telling him to leave it and let’s just go— John shrugged off the hand, stalking closer to the guy.

“I’m not bi, but even if I was, bisexual doesn’t mean fake, or whatever the fuck. And just because you can’t handle getting rejected doesn’t make me fake—”

Nick’s hands were up. He looked frustrated and awkward, clearly not wanting to deal with this. Whatever, his problem. “Fucking calm down. ”

“And you can’t handle the consequences of your actions, I guess,” John said contemptuously. “If you didn’t want me to get mad, you shouldn’t have made me mad.”

“I didn’t make you mad!” Nick interjected indignantly. “ You rejected me and I was going to leave like a mature adult—”

“Oh, fuck off, ” John said, both to Nick (an asshole) and Lafayette (trying to pull him away). He yanked himself out of Lafayette’s grip and stalked closer to Nick to properly intimidate him. “Do you know what that kind of biphobic bullshit does to people who are actually bisexual who have to deal with your shit all the time, or have you never stuck around long enough to deal with the consequences of your actions—how can you go around being that gross to people when you know what it’s fucking like—”

“I wasn’t being biphobic,” the guy snapped, pushing closer to John. “Don’t make this about something that didn’t happen.”

John started forward, making Nick flinch back (nice), but before he could do anything some bartender appeared between them, putting his hands up. “Okay, that’s enough,” he was saying. John didn’t really listen, looking around him to get at Nick.

Lafayette was tugging on his arm firmly, pleading with him in frustrated French, and he was being pushed away by the bouncer, and the bouncer was saying “Break it up or I’ll call the cops,” and that finally gave John pause.

The tight-wound fury was still there—but if he got arrested, his dad would find out. And be pissed as hell. The thought only made him more mad, only because he couldn’t finish what he started. Well—what that other guy started.

“Fine,” he said tightly. Reluctantly. Turned away, letting Lafayette glance him over worriedly. John avoided his eyes, sending a death glare Nick's direction. “Let’s just go,” he muttered.

Lafayette followed him out into the bracing spring night, the sharp damp chill like a slap as soon as they stepped out of the bar. Lafayette seemed like he wanted to guide John out, but refrained, only hovering uncertainly at John’s shoulder.

“What was that about?” Lafayette said once they were walking away from the bar. John didn’t have much of a direction in mind, but he needed to move, to burn off the pent-up fury. Lafayette didn’t sound that surprised, which didn’t make John feel any better. He knew what John was… like.

“Nothing,” John muttered. “He was being a dick.”

“Biphobic?” Lafayette said. “You’re not bisexual.”

Alex’s frame flashed in John’s mind for a staggering second—late at night, a few months ago. The tension in his shoulders, curled up on his side in John’s bed, tracing a hand lightly down John’s arm. Hesitant, avoiding John’s eyes, with a forced-casual tone at odds with the anxiety on his face. I’m bi, you know.

John shrugged, pushing away the memories and crossing his arms to warm up. “I don’t have to be to care about bi people.”

“Of course not,” Lafayette said. “That’s not what I meant. Only that… was he really awful, or were you looking for a fight?”

The hesitance in Lafayette’s voice made it worse. John just wanted to go home by now. He wanted to disappear to a place where nobody walked on eggshells around him. A place where he didn’t feel like he was made of eggshells. “He was really awful,” John said hotly.

Lafayette sighed. “Alright,” he said, in a way that made it sound like it wasn’t. “I just… want to see you happy. You know that.”

John slowed down, not able to take his anger out on Lafayette after that. “I know,” he forced out, looking away into the window of a tattoo parlor. He took a deep breath, staring at the designs, bright light from the window spilling across the sidewalk. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “I ruined it.”

His voice wobbled. So did his vision, blurring with stinging tears. He blinked them away, putting up a hand to scrub at his eyes roughly.

“Oh, don’t cry,” Lafayette said, unbearably sympathetic. John felt hands on his shoulders, pulling him into a loose hug. Loose enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t, leaning slightly against Lafayette and trying to push down his tears.

“‘M fine,” he muttered. “I just—” his voice caught on a sob, and he stopped to try and wrestle it down, tears spilling over and rolling down his cheeks. He wiped at his face again, breathing shakily.

“What if I—I feel like I always leave this huge—trail of destruction behind me,” John said, voice rough and wobbly. “But I—I try so hard not to, I try to do everything right.”

He wasn’t sure what specifically he meant by that, other than talking vaguely about Alex and other things, so there was no chance Lafayette got it. But Lafayette just hummed in his ear, and John sniffled, trying to get his breathing under control. 

“Personally… do not trust what you think of your life when you’re drunk,” Lafayette said. John’s breath caught on an almost-sob that he swallowed down.

He wasn’t really that drunk, but if that was what Lafayette thought he wouldn’t correct him. Even if it felt like lying, he… didn’t know how to explain it all. Not in a way that would explain why he needed to… do this.

“We should go home,” Lafayette said, pulling away gently. “You have a flight tomorrow. You should get some rest. And it’s cold out.”

John gave a watery laugh at the last point, nodding. He couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. He averted his eyes, scrubbing at them again with the palm of his hand. “Thanks,” he mumbled hoarsely.

“Don’t thank me,” Lafayette said, somehow sounding like his usual cheery self. “Anyway, once you are in France I expect you to send me things that are not in America. Good food. Good wine.”

“In exchange for dancing on the table.”

“Exactly. You understand. You will be my man on the inside.”

John rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. He still felt half like crying, but he wasn’t bursting into tears at the moment. Distractions were good. Lafayette had started walking, guiding John along gently as he went. Okay. Distractions, home, bed, flight.

This was fine. He could do this. He’d be fine.

Lafayette guided him through the New York streets to the subway, dirty and brightly lit in the relative dark of night ( relative dark because it was New York City). He kept up a stream of mindless chatter as they went, talking about France, mostly, and what he should do and try and what he should definitely avoid and what he should send to America for Laf to have. John sat on the subway train and twisted his faded rainbow bracelet around his wrist, trying not to think about it too hard. Trying to listen to Lafayette.

John’s apartment was in a slightly quieter part of New York (which Alex called “the power of money”). It felt strange and still compared to the bustle and lights they’d left when they got on the subway. The chill in the air felt more real now, with nothing to distract from it, and Lafayette and John ran shivering into John’s apartment building.

“You don’t have to come up, you know,” John said in the lobby, while they waited for their hands to defrost. “I mean. Unless you’re staying the night.”

Lafayette gave him a searching look. “Would you like me to stay the night?”

Not really, but John didn’t want to say that and be rude. He just wanted to be alone at the moment. Stress-eat a bunch of cheese straws. Scroll through his phone mindlessly until he passed out in bed.

“Then I won’t,” Lafayette said, apparently reading it on John’s face. Or in his hesitation, probably. “But I still want to see you to your door.”

“I’m not that drunk, you know,” John said.

Lafayette waved him off. “Allow me this.”

They took the elevator, mostly quiet now that the punch-drunk adrenaline of the night was wearing off. John didn’t know if Lafayette felt it, but to him it felt like there was something heavy between them—unspoken knowledge that John wouldn’t say out loud and Lafayette was too nice to point out. John was leaving tomorrow. He hadn’t even gone to see Hercules and say goodbye. He’d dumped Alex. Whatever friend group they had… even if it survived it would come out the other side different. Shaken. It was John’s doing.

But if Lafayette didn’t notice it—John didn’t want to be the one to point it out and make it real.

The elevator let off on John’s floor. He liked living high up in an apartment like this, like he was in the sky. He didn’t actually live that high up, but the sentiment still stood. Though, he was moving to France tomorrow. At least for a bit. So. Maybe don’t think about that.

Lafayette pulled John in for a hug at his door, which shouldn’t have been surprising. John supposed it probably meant that Lafayette did feel it, the heavy thing. He still didn’t bring it up, just hugged Lafayette back and then pulled away after a moment, smiling at him. “I’ll see you later.”

“Stay in touch,” Lafayette said. “Or I will kill you when you come back.”

“I should warn you ahead of time that I’m terrible at staying in touch with people.”

“Prepare to die, then, I suppose.”

John laughed, pulling away fully to unlock his door. “Thank you for tonight,” he said, free from having to look Lafayette in the eye.

“You make it sound like we are lovers,” Lafayette said. John snorted. “You don’t have to thank me. You have done similar things for me, many times.”

John couldn’t think of a particular time Lafayette could be talking about, but he nodded in acknowledgement anyway. If Lafayette didn’t want to bring up examples, he could respect that. “Thanks anyway, though.” He pushed open his door.

“Goodnight,” Lafayette said, stepping backwards down the hallway.

“Night,” John called back, before shutting the door to his apartment behind him.

John’s apartment was dark.

His luggage (most of it, except the things he couldn’t pack yet) was sitting in vague shapes in his living room. It was eerily quiet. He flicked the lights on, heading into the kitchen.

Normally, it wouldn’t be surprising for Alex to be over at his apartment, working on his laptop at the kitchen table or the couch, wearing those orange 70’s-looking glasses he never wore out in public.

Though, Alex only stayed over at John’s about half the time normally—so maybe the empty feeling was just from everything being packed up and ready to go. Almost, anyway. He was keeping the apartment, he’d sorted everything out with his landlord and everything, so he didn’t have to get rid of his furniture or things or move them. But the smaller things that he wanted to bring with him, and the perishables that wouldn’t be good by the time he got back—those were gone by this point. It all felt different.

This wasn’t new to John—travel was a routine for him, one he’d had since he was a teenager, and even before that, traveling with his dad for business trips and shit. Packed bags and empty rooms were always a strange mix of lonely— pre-missing, he called it in his mind—and exciting. He liked a blank slate, endless opportunity. Clean as paper before the poem, or however that Sandra Cisneros went. The ceiling smooth as wedding cake, that was another one from the same book. It was a good book. Sad, though, so he didn’t read it often. Alex liked it more.

John liked traveling, but things did seem very empty, right now.

He took a steady breath, grabbing the half-finished bowl of cheese straws from the kitchen island and flicking off the light again as he headed down the hall for his bedroom. France would be good. A change of pace would be good. He had friends in France, there was good food and architecture and art and history and he would have fun there.

He set the bowl of cheese straws on the nightstand next to his bed and flopped down on his mattress, taking a straw and crunching it self-pityingly.

Everything was going to be fine.

His eyes burned with tears for the second time that night, and he rolled his eyes internally. Ugh. He already cried once, he was trying to sleep now. Or… pre-sleep, anyway. Where was his phone?

He found it after rummaging around in his jacket pockets for a bit, and he got up to take off his jacket and jeans and discard them on the floor while he was at it. Nobody liked to sleep in jeans except serial killers.

He sagged back against the mattress, tired muscles melting into the soft warmth. He rolled onto his side, turning his phone on idly.

He knew looking at a phone before sleeping wasn’t, like, good, okay. But he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts—thoughts full of biphobic guys and Alex and doubts and fears. That wasn’t good either, really. So it all shook out either way.

He sighed to himself, internally rolling his eyes a second time. He was in law school, he could see the gaps in that argument. But he couldn’t bring himself to care either way at the moment. He just… needed to not think right now.

The first time the bright bellchimes of his alarm sounded, John rolled over and snoozed it.

It wasn’t a fresh start, exactly—he woke up remembering everything from last night, remembering waiting to fall asleep and thinking about feeling better in the morning—there wasn’t any distance between last night and now, just a couple hours of restless sleep.

He laid there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and feeling vaguely restless about not getting up and getting ready for his flight, but too hungover and tired to really do anything about it, before he dropped back off to sleep.

The second time his alarm sounded, bright loud bells in the empty silence, he scrunched up his face, groaning miserably into his pillow.

He wasn’t even that hungover—tired, yes, but he’d had worse hangovers. But he was tired and sore and the sunny morning light glowing into the room through the cracks in his curtains was annoying. Not painful, it wasn’t that bad, but annoying.

He fumbled around for his phone, finding it tangled in the bedsheets, and cracked his eyes open to silence the alarm, the loud bells cutting off abruptly. There was a notification on his screen, a text from his dad with his old-man perfect grammar asking if he was up and ready for his flight yet. John couldn’t really answer that satisfactorily without lying, so he ignored it and turned his phone off. That was future John’s problem.

He laid there limply, trying to muster up the energy to get up, listening to the soft muffled sounds of the traffic and birds filtering in through his window as his ears adjusted to the quiet.

He really needed to get up.

He laid there, mind fuzzy with sleep for what might’ve been five more minutes before finally forcing himself to sit up and get up fully. He had things he needed to do today—pack the remainder of his clothes and get rid of the remainder of his food and gather everything he needed for (ugh) a twelve-hour flight. He couldn’t make it go away by just… ignoring it.

He ate the cheese straws sitting on his nightstand from last night in a daze as he got dressed, trying to muster up some form of energy. He should… probably shower, too.

He needed to be at the airport in two hours, which meant he needed to move.

The shower was hot, loosening the tension in his shoulders and steaming up the glass shower door. He shouldn’t have gotten dressed, he could’ve just walked into the shower—too late now.

He wanted to pretend that he’d been really drunk last night. If he had a hangover this morning—a bad one—he’d be able to excuse not thinking, not trying to untangle everything in his brain. He’d be able to excuse last night.

But then, it wouldn’t excuse everything.

He was trying to do the right thing. He knew that. He wasn’t sure anyone else saw it that way, because so far all he’d done was make everyone around him miserable.

He blinked back tears, pressing his hands to his eyes hard enough to make blinking shapes flash against his eyelids. He took a shaky breath.

He had to believe that it was better, at least. Better than the alternative. Or he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Alex was tough, Alex was strong, Alex would take the rejection and use it and throw himself into being brilliant, and—he’d be fine. It would be fine. And John would be fine, and he wouldn’t—slowly drag Alex down with him.

He wasn’t that hungover, but he was too hungover to think about this shit.

He finished the shower trying not to think about anything except for what he had to do this morning, and got dressed again in the cold dry air of the bathroom, running his hands through his hair to detangle it. He’d already packed his blow-dryer and diffuser. Stupid past John, now he had to go rummage through everything to get it.

He found his hair stuff in the front of his little suitcase, and carried it back to the bathroom with him reluctantly, mind already wandering ahead to the future.

France would be nice. France would be great. It would be… a novelty, and John found that when he was like this novelty helped—helped distract him, so he could coast until the worst was over. Wallowing wasn’t good for you. Wasn’t there something about introverts being more likely to be depressed? Not that it was a hard and fast rule, really, since John was pretty solidly an extrovert—usually. But—the point still stood. 

He’d be able to see some of his old friends that he hadn’t seen in years, and he’d be able to see—the nature of France, which would be nice, he’d only ever seen it in pictures. It would be something new to analyze; learn about, and there was the history too. Lots of art, lots of architecture—lots of food. It would be good for him.

He pushed away the uncomfortable guilt of his privilege. It was a frivolous fix. But—John wasn’t so… durable, as other people.

He finished holding a last clump of hair to his head, arms sore, and shut off his blow dryer. The ensuing silence felt too loud and too big, and he made a face at the empty air. What are you looking at?

Packing everything back up, double-checking everything, turning everything off and eating (cheese straws. Better than nothing) didn’t take as long as he expected it to. The restless feeling stayed, and there was nothing to distract him from thoughts of last night, of that guy… Nick, maybe?

Mostly it was just that John felt bad about dragging Lafayette into everything. Lafayette was too nice to want to pick sides between his friends, and he shouldn’t have to be babysitting John’s sorry ass just because he was kind of a mess right now, and because he was the type of person to start fights in bars.

Nick deserved it, maybe, but Lafayette didn’t. And… John shouldn’t have done anything, anyway. It was a public place, and he shouldn’t have been stupid. He wasn’t supposed to be a stupid young adult stereotype, drunk on bravado and too much emotion. This was the kind of thing…

I’m just leaving for the airport now, John sent to his dad, a delayed response to the text from earlier. He was tugging his coat on in the foyer, luggage next to him, and he was comfortable in the idea that he might not be able to respond to his dad right away once he left the apartment.

He locked the door behind him, lugged his luggage into the elevator, and then he was leaving.

He would miss Alex.

That didn’t mean he shouldn’t leave. Even if it felt like that. Even if he half wanted to go and hide in his apartment forever, or run to Alex’s and say it was all a huge mistake… it was too late for that, and he’d made his choice, and it was a good choice. It was just… normal to miss someone you cared about, even if the relationship wasn’t right. You’d miss the good, forget about the bad; John had done this before.

That was the thing, wasn’t it?

John had done all of this before. He wasn’t stupid, he knew his patterns of—throwing himself full-body into something and then pulling away. It wasn’t like he meant to—he was just—less durable, like he’d said. Something about the way he was raised and the specifics of his brain chemistry made him different from other people, more unsettled. Always moving.

He’d made his decision. It wasn’t the wrong decision, and he was… sure of that. That didn’t stop the feeling of it, the aching frustration and sadness and sense of displacement. He wanted to leave, but he didn’t want to leave.

That was his problem, he always wanted impossible things.

He closed his eyes, leaning back against the elevator wall and swallowing hard as it continued to sink to the ground floor. Either way. It would be good to remove himself from the situation.

Chapter Text

“Columbia Center for Law and Economic Studies, how can I help you.”

“Alex!” Lafayette’s voice filtered through the phone, and Alex stopped in the middle of what he was typing, straightening incredulously in his seat. “You need to be better at answering your phone.”

Alex glanced around the reception office, trying to look like he wasn’t doing anything he wasn’t supposed to be doing. It was empty, and Dr. Washington’s office door was closed. Alex could see him working at his desk through the sidelight, not paying attention to Alex.

“I’m at work,” he hissed into the phone. “I’m not supposed to be taking personal calls. You’re not supposed to make personal calls to this number.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do,” Lafayette said. “You haven’t answered your phone in ages. You’re always working.”

“I’m always busy,” Alex said, slumping back into his chair and worrying the curly cord of the phone in his  fingers. “Did you have a point for calling, or…?”

“Come out with me tonight,” Lafayette said over the line. “We haven’t been out since spring break.”

The dancing-around-implications wasn’t lost on Alex, and he wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for it or not. He decided to not be, especially since Lafayette was, again, calling him at work.

“I’ve got things to do tonight,” Alex said. “Look, call me sometime when I’m not working—”

“Come to my study group this afternoon, then,” Lafayette interrupted. “I know you want to work, so this will be a good blend. Work and socializing.”

Alex sighed.

This wasn’t the first time Lafayette had tried to get a hold of him since… the breakup. Alex got the feeling that Lafayette was trying to cheer him up, but it didn’t actually help to have a friend always sending faux-cheerful messages, acting as if nothing had happened and John never existed. It was just another reminder that things weren’t normal right now, when Alex desperately wanted them to be.

But if Lafayette was one thing, he was persistent. That was why they were friends in the first place, even if Alex wasn’t feeling very friendly as of late. He was busy—Law School was busy, and sitting around listening to platitudes from well-meaning people who didn’t get him sounded like the most miserable waste of his time he could think of.

But Lafayette probably wouldn’t let up until he said yes to something.

Alex leaned forward against his desk, cursing himself for being way too soft. “Who’s all going?”

“Not that many people, I don’t think,” Lafayette said, which could really mean anything. “I know Ben Tallmadge is going, he invited me, and Meade as well, I think. You would know most of the people there, probably.”

Alex sighed again. Tallmadge and Meade… were two more friends that were both Alex’s and John’s. He was mad at himself, slightly, for not having any friends separate from their nebulous shared group. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would ever want that. When they were dating it had been convenient that they both ran in the same circles and mostly got along with the same people.

“When?”

“Two-thirty,” Lafayette said. “I know your shift ends at two. I’ll pick you up and we can go together, if you want.”

“Fine.”

He hung up without waiting to hear a response. It wasn’t just a front, taking personal calls at work stressed him out, and he wouldn’t prolong them more than he had to.

John used to be able to skirt that rule of his. Though, John had never called the actual reception desk. Alex would just text him under the table, about how bored he was, or dumb dirty jokes, or about their plans for later—

He blinked, focusing back in on his laptop. He’d been working. Right. Work. Good. Okay.

Alex was a fairly self-aware person, he liked to think. Facing death so many times made it hard to not confront yourself at least once. He knew that some people thought he was repressed, or a workaholic, or that he had a stick up his ass, which was—sort of true, but also not at all true. He liked work. Genuinely. He liked setting goals and smoothly reaching them, solid in the knowledge that he had the self-discipline and smarts to achieve pretty much whatever he could set his mind to. It was the one thing he was really, really good at.

When he’d been dating John, Alex had… leaned into John’s personality, maybe. John was better at relaxing, at having fun and shit, which was… nice. But what was also nice was being able to be himself, to go back to being the high-achieving straight-A person that everyone else thought was a genius.

He was aiming for top of his class this year. He had a schedule and a plan and everything. So Lafayette meant well, Alex knew that; but honestly Alex didn’t need to go out and socialize and “get over it” like that. He was comfortable with what he was doing. It made him happy . Some people just didn’t get that, and he had to tolerate it sometimes, unless if he wanted to stop being friends with them completely.

Which he didn’t, but ugh, it would be simpler sometimes if he did.

There was a crumpled cling wrap next to his laptop, which had been holding his lunch and now just held the pieces of kale he’d picked out of his chicken wrap. He wished he was a healthy type of person, who ate vegetables and did yoga and stuff, so he tried. But kale sucked.

He wrapped up the kale in the cling wrap and (with a glance back at Washington’s office to see that he wasn’t being watched) tossed it across the room towards the trash can next to the door. It didn’t work, falling limply to the ground halfway from where he’d aimed for, and he had to get up and go around his desk to pick it up and put it in the trash properly. That was the real walk of shame, really.

After that, without distractions and with a lot he wanted to distract himself from, he let himself fall into his work, a calming game of arranging different things and answering the phone and generally making everything fall into place. People thought he did hard things, but it was simple, really, just arranging the dominoes so that they’d fall right when he tipped the first one over.

It was very relaxing.

Washington left the office at some point, something about attending a thing his son was doing—some kind of presentation, Alex wasn’t paying too much attention. It didn’t matter much to him, as long as the end result was getting the office to himself. No fear of critique or bad moods, just some peace and smooth sailing. He was engrossed enough in his different tasks that he didn’t notice right away that Lafayette had arrived, until Lafayette tried to shut his laptop.

Alex jerked his hand up in surprise, pushing the laptop back open. “Hey, what the fuck—”

“Hello to you too,” Lafayette said, smiling over Alex in a posh-looking coat. Alex gave him a dirty look.

“Oh, you. Ugh, okay. Let me finish this quick.”

“I love how affectionate you are with your friends,” Lafayette said as Alex turned back to his screen, clicking through the menu bar to save his proposal. 

“Fuck off,” Alex murmured. “You know you’re forcing me into this.”

Lafayette might’ve reacted to that, but Alex wasn’t looking and Lafayette didn’t say anything out loud, so the thread was dropped for the moment as Alex moved to pack up his things and clock out (fifteen minutes too late, oops).

“I’ve missed you,” Lafayette said, sitting on the floor waiting for Alex to get ready. “I have—” he pulled his phone out with a flourish— “Texts from Adrienne, from James McHenry and Ben Tallmadge, from Marianne Floyd—I had an entire lovely conversation with Hercules Mulligan yesterday—but what’s this, no texts, no calls from my good friend Alexander Hamilton—” he slumped to the side. Alex rolled his eyes, shrugging his coat on.

“Perhaps it is the new trend in America, to become private and reserved as soon as your friends are out of sight,” Lafayette went on. “Such as in Europe. Or perhaps he has simply become lazy, too lazy to talk to poor Lafayette—”

“Holy shit,” Alex muttered, picking his bag up and slinging it over his shoulder. “Don’t talk about yourself in third person. Let’s go.”

Lafayette bounced to his feet, dropping the dramatics. “I’m only saying,” he said. “It’s always nice to spend time with you.”

Alex gave him a scrunched-up doubtful look. This was the type of thing Lafayette had been doing; the false-cheer platitudes that didn’t seem… super honest. He and Lafayette were friends, yeah, but that didn’t mean Alex was magically always fun to hang out with.

“How long is this?” Alex pushed the door open with his shoulder, Lafayette following his lead. “Unless they’re giving me dinner—which I will stay for, because that’s free food—I need to get home in time to cook. I was gonna do laundry today, too…” he trailed off, rearranging his schedule in his head.

“I don’t think there is a timer,” Lafayette said. Alex broke out of his thoughts to give Lafayette a confused look before it dawned on him.

“Time limit?”

“Yes?” Lafayette frowned, in the annoyed way he did when he suspected he wasn’t being understood. “You set a timer for a time limit, yes?”

“...Yes,” Alex said, echoing Lafayette. “I never thought of it that way. Usually people don’t use it in the abstract. You say timer when, like, you’re setting a time limit on an oven or a stopwatch or something, not really when you’re just deciding a schedule.”

“Oh. Well, if you asked them for food they would probably give it to you.”

Alex decided to skip over that without comment. “What is this even for? It’s the beginning of the quarter, nothing’s happening.”

“If nothing’s happening why do you have so much work to do?”

God, but Lafayette was an asshole sometimes. Alex fell out of step, frowning at Lafayette as he pushed the building’s front door open and let Alex step out first into the icy spring air. A cold breeze swept up against him, and he pulled his jacket tighter around himself, blinking in the sunlight.

“I’m a very busy person,” Alex said, with some defensive dignity. “I like being busy, you know that.”

“I’ve noticed,” Lafayette said. Alex couldn’t tell if it was meant to be an insult or not, so he didn’t respond.

“I went out the other week,” Lafayette said. “With John. Before he left.”

Ah.

“He was very upset,” Lafayette said. “Or… tense.”

“He broke up with me, you know.” Alex looked away, across the green at nothing. Clusters of students loitered around benches. “It’s not my fault if he’s upset.”

“That’s not—I didn’t mean to say that,” Lafayette said, latching onto the conversation now. Shit. Alex felt a familiar lump in the back of his throat, a near-automatic response to John’s name these days.

“Breakups are hard,” Lafayette said. “And I care about you. I don’t want you to freeze me out and we stop being friends.”

“I’m not trying to freeze you out,” Alex said. “I… being busy makes me happy. I told you.”

This was getting uncomfortably close to the type of tangled emotional stuff that Alex hated navigating. He never knew how to respond—snapping or pushing back or shutting down the conversation usually got him feedback saying he was too intense, too rude, which he didn’t want. But trying to be nice about it was excruciating and led to the conversation lasting longer, which was the last thing he wanted.

“You could be busy with your friends,” Lafayette said. “I… you often try to do things alone, and… it was nice to see you… rely on someone.”

On John, Lafayette meant. Dancing around his name didn’t help anything, Alex wanted to say, but he stayed silent, throat tight. The wind buffeted his hair.

“You don’t have to go back to being alone all the time, is what I’m saying,” Lafayette continued. “You still have many friends. Many people.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “I get it. Laf, if I want to talk I’ll ask you. Stop assuming I’m incompetent just because I’m not dealing with stuff the way you would.”

His voice was louder than he meant it to be, but that was fine. He was stalking ahead of Lafayette now, which was a problem because he didn’t know where he was going, but Laf would chase after him, he was like that.

He did. “I’m not trying to say you’re incompetent!” Lafayette sounded upset, hurrying to keep pace with Alex. “These things are hard for everyone—”

“I know that,” Alex said, stopping abruptly. “I’m not stupid. Stop trying to fix it, you’re not helping by acting fake-happy and trying to get me to talk by dancing around what happened, okay? I don’t know who you think that’s helping, but it’s not me.”

Lafayette frowned at him, face inscrutable. Alex held the eye contact, challenging him. Try me, just try to argue.

“You don’t have to get mad at people who are trying to help you,” Lafayette said after a long pause. “That’s not fair, Alex. You can set boundaries without yelling them at people.”

“I didn’t yell,” Alex said. “And I’m not mad. You weren’t listening, so I said it plain. Okay?”

Lafayette looked down the sidewalk at nothing with raised eyebrows. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

Alex couldn’t really say the same without lying, but then Alex was less afraid of hashing things out than most people were. He took the win for what it was. “I’m going to your study party thing,” he said, turning to start walking again. Lafayette took the cue and started down the path, Alex falling into step next to him. “I’m not freezing you out, it’s a non-issue. Stop worrying about it.”

Lafayette breathed out a sigh. “Thank you for coming,” he conceded.

“It’s fine,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to.”

He just didn’t want to hear about how John was doing. A small, ignorable part of him was happy that John was upset—that Alex’s presence or non-presence mattered. The other, larger part of him didn’t want to know shit about what John was doing or saying or feeling. He wanted to stamp out John’s existence from his life, pretend it never happened. He couldn’t. Yet. But that was what he was working towards. Putting together a new schedule, new plan, new goals, forcing the ache in his chest and behind his eyes to taper off. Hurt was only good insofar as it gave you motivation to do better, reassess and improve, and Alex was determined to use it that way. He only cried some days now, and honestly it was none of Lafayette’s business, because Alex didn’t want or need to be treated like some heartbroken crybaby. What he needed was what he was doing. Fake it till you make it, and all that. Most people didn’t realize how much control they could have over themselves, if they just tried to.

The study session was… alright. Alex had mostly kept to himself and did some homework, and Lafayette had only dragged him into a non-homework conversation with the others once (although it was a long-ass conversation) as a tiebreaker on whether garbage disposals in the kitchen were considered common or not. Tallmadge had kept scrutinizing him, and Alex got the uncomfortable sense that his every move was being dissected—but that was a Tallmadge problem, not an Alex problem.

It was fine, but he probably got less work done than usual.

He’d been texting Lafayette, after that. It was a bit of a chore, but he felt vaguely bad for blowing up at him, even if he’d had a fair reason. And besides, this way he could say he was keeping in contact with Laf without getting dragged along to hours-long last minute socials. Alex would call himself an extrovert if pressed, but he did like his solitude sometimes.

That was why Saturday saw him sitting on the floor of Herc’s living room, books and papers spread out around him and a telenovela playing softly in the background. He’d already seen it, otherwise he’d turn it off until he could actually pay attention to it. 

Hercules was at work, and the sounds of the street were filtering in only quietly from outside. It was the first hot day they’d had since last autumn, and Alex had caved and bought himself a cranberry iced tea from the bodega on the corner, which was now sitting on the coffee table half-finished and covered in dewy condensation. 

It was uncharacteristically peaceful to his life. He didn’t mind it.

Of course, that meant something had to ruin it. The buzz of his phone vibrating across the table broke through the soft background noise, and Alex startled, realized what the noise was and relaxed again, rolling his eyes at himself.

Hercules, according to the screen. Alex swiped to pick up, putting the phone on speakerphone and setting it down again to turn to his work. “Hey.”

“Alex!” Herc’s voice filtered through the phone, cheery and upbeat. Alex frowned suspiciously at his phone, setting down the pencil he’d picked up. “I wasn’t sure you’d pick up, I know you’re working.”

Alex sighed. “What do you need.”

Herc, to his credit, didn’t try to feign ignorance. “I took home a pattern the other day and forgot it there. I need it today—it’ll only be, like, twenty minutes for you to bring it down, that’s it.”

Alex rolled his eyes again. “Fine. Never say I don’t do anything for you. Where is it?”

“Should be in my room, on the dresser.”

Alex got to his feet, groaning to himself and grabbing his phone to bring it into Herc’s room. “That’s all you need?” He pushed the door to Herc’s room open lightly, peeking into the stillness. He usually didn’t go in here, and it felt vaguely off-limits, like going into his parents’ room as a kid. It was just a normal bedroom, though, with a thick paper packet on the dresser.

“That’s all I need,” Herc said. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Alex said absently, taking the packet and examining it with detached interest. A blazer. “See you in a bit.”

Hercules was a very good businessman. Very professional. Alex had been to his work before, it was a tight operation, Alex liked it a lot. Herc might seem easygoing, but the odds that he would forget a pattern at home were fairly low. And an even harder to notice facet of Herc’s personality: he was nosy. Perceptive was maybe a nicer way of putting it. Either way.

The odds were fairly high that Herc had less forgotten a pattern and more planned to check up on Alex. Or make him get out of the house, maybe, and take a break. It was the kind of thing Herc would do that was usually too subtle to call him out on. He’d probably admit to it if Alex asked, though. Maybe.

Or maybe Alex was just really self-centered and Herc was a human who forgot things sometimes.

He had to put in his contacts first and find his shoes, which probably added a few minutes to his overall time because his shoes chose that morning to be lost. Even though he’d been wearing them earlier. He finally found them kicked half-under the couch behind one of the couch legs, which didn’t make sense with where he thought he’d left them earlier. For someone who liked to be so organized, he lost things kind of a lot. John used to say that.

The heat, which had been relaxing when Alex had been comfortably inside with the fan going, was less enjoyable walking down the street to the subway. The sun was brighter than it had been earlier in the morning. Loud music was blasting from somewhere nearby—he didn’t know where—and people hurried up and down the sidewalk with a comfortable white-noise chatter. He shouldn’t have worn a black shirt today, probably.

Alex did like New York, though. He didn’t want to be one of those stereotypes, moving to the big city to find freedom and he could do anything— but it was kind of the feeling that New York gave you sometimes. It wasn’t all perfect, and he got pissed off with it on a regular basis, but seeing so much different shit and weird shit all the time did kind of make you feel like the possibilities were endless. And he liked the chaos, usually.

The subway station was cold by comparison, a chill filling the air as he descended the stairs into the dark, blinking as his eyes adjusted. It was as loud as ever, people carrying groceries and ferrying children and stalking quickly to everywhere. Herc’s work was close, only a couple stops and then a short walk away. He’d been the first person to actually show Alex how the subway worked and teach him about the routes and stuff—a quick rattled-off thing when Alex had first gotten here, but still. Hercules always gave off the impression that he was aware Alex would be able to keep up with him, and he didn’t slow down because of that. It was one of the reasons Alex had become friends with him in the first place, instead of just a polite roommate-type relationship.

Alex rode the escalator back into the bright sunlight at East 86th Street, wincing and shading his eyes before they started to adjust back. He’d been to Herc’s work enough times that his feet could carry him on muscle memory now, down and around the corner.

The bell jingled as Alex pushed the door open to Herc’s shop, a storefront with a familiar slight musty smell, like a thrift store. Hercules looked up from where he was sat in the back with a mess of fabric draped over his work table.

“I should charge you delivery fees,” Alex said by way of greeting. “I was in the middle of something, you know.”

“Fuck off, I heard the TV show in the background.” Hercules took the pattern, setting it to the side without opening it. “Thanks for coming.”

“I was multitasking,” Alex said. “My homework is actually interesting right now, you know that? There’s, like, so many gaps in what’s illegal to say and shit when you do stuff on social media, it’s fucked up. But then you have to consider the question of whether we want the government regulating social media and the internet in general—you’d think that it’d just apply the same, but there’s a lot of tricky spots, like where social media falls as being used as evidence in court, can you get access to someone’s private account for evidence, like, it seems clear-cut on the surface, but it’s really messy.”

“Sometimes I forget how much of a nerd you are,” Hercules said once Alex paused to take a breath. He didn’t say it in a mean way, more amused, so Alex brushed it off. It was true, after all. “That does sound fun for you. I’m surprised you’re not more of a hermit than you already are.”

Alex scrunched up his face at him, hopping up to sit on the table and steal a candy from the nearby candy bowl. Hercules rolled his eyes but didn’t stop him. “I’m not a hermit.”

“Yeah, and it’s surprising,” Herc said. “To be fair, I guess you’ve mellowed out since you first arrived.”

“My schedule’s mellowed out, more like,” Alex said around the candy in his mouth. “You forget I’m not trying to rush a degree in half the time anymore.” He took another piece of candy. “Did you actually need the pattern, or was that just an excuse?”

“Of course I need patterns, I’m a tailor,” Herc said. Alex squinted, watching him closely, but he couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. He gave up after a minute, instead taking a handful of candy from the bowl and stuffing it in his pocket. Hercules gave him a look, and Alex raised his eyebrows innocently, sliding off the counter.

“What? It’s my payment.”

“Brat,” Herc said fondly. “Don’t forget to take breaks today, okay? And actually eat something.”

“I eat,” Alex said. “I’m not that much of a workaholic.”

Hercules raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything. “Shoo,” he said. “I have a client coming in soon, and you don’t want to sit in the corner being bored. I’ll see you later tonight.”

“No respect,” Alex said. “Fine. See you later.”

The bell jingled again on his way out.

It was getting busier out now, as the morning passed by—or it might be closer to midday now, Alex hadn’t exactly woken up early—but the subway was about as crowded as it had been when he took it up to Herc’s a moment ago. Which was to say, crowded. He ended up falling into a seat last-minute next to a girl with smooth dark hair carrying a thick book, who shifted her bag to accommodate him right before the doors closed.

He chanced a glance at her book as the doors closed, blue highlighter annotating bits of the page, glitter pen in the margins. HUMANKIND was written across the top of the page in blocky small letters.

Huh.

It was something like walking into a glass door, or off the edge of a dock by accident into cold water. John had that book—he liked to read Alex bits from it when their conversations took a philosophical turn towards humanity.

“You like that book?” Alex was saying out loud, before it occurred to him that it might come across as rude.

The girl looked up at him in confusion. “My book club is reading it,” she said. “I think he makes some good points. I don’t like the way he talks about religion. Why, have you read it?”

“Not really,” Alex said. “I mean—I know the gist. I—knew someone who would reference it a lot. It just seems… optimistic.”

The girl’s face twisted into a smile, eyebrows raised. “That’s kind of the point of the book, isn’t it? Sensationalized news and our obsession with violence makes us pay too much attention to the negative parts of humanity, and we overlook the positive things? And it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“I mean… yeah,” Alex said. “You can’t just say that’s the premise of the book to defend it, though. Doesn’t he say in the book that our current ‘civilized’ societies are built off of power-hungry people creating societies with more dramatic power imbalances? Even if humans are capable of doing good, if we live in a world that’s been corrupted for most of our history due to the power plays of humans themselves, I don’t think you can fairly say that humans are mostly good.”

“But he doesn’t say that,” the girl said, closing her book now and shifting to talk to him. “He says that humans are social creatures and so we want to help each other. It’s not that we’re good or bad inherently, but there’s hope in the fact that we’re social. And the main point is that the trend of thinking of humanity as inherently bad or evil is detrimental to overall progress because it makes people feel like there’s no point in trying to fix things or make them better. Especially because they’re afraid that they’ll only be taken advantage of in a corrupt society if they try to be kind.”

It was a strange type of deja vu, almost uncomfortable in its familiarity. Subway girl’s argument was different from John’s, but not by much. John always used to say that the point was if people felt trapped or like they had no choice between being good or bad, they’d be passive to a corrupt society. And Alex used to say—

“But his whole argument about the news focusing on the bad things makes his argument weaker. He says that the news only fixates on the bad things, but he also says that as social creatures we want to support each other, so in his model it makes sense that bad things would get the most attention, so that people can rally to help the situation. Avoiding thinking about negative things doesn’t fix the negative things that are happening. But that’s actually what we do with the news—it’s not reported on until the problem is fixed, it just goes through a news cycle and then everybody abandons that disaster and forgets about it. Even if humans might have good instincts, they don’t carry people far enough to actually do anything. It’s functionally useless.”

Even as he said it, there was something like guilt wavering inside him. As if he couldn’t say the same things to two different people—it was bullshit. John didn’t have a claim over his words. Or who he talked to or what he did. And if he ever had Alex would’ve broken up with him first.

“But they do carry some people far enough,” the girl said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You just don’t hear about the good stuff people do because it’s not in the news. And the point isn’t that they’re reporting on negative stuff, it’s that the negative stuff is sensationalized until most people feel too hopeless to do anything about it. If people don’t think there’s a way to fix things, of course they’re not going to try.”

Alex scrunched up his face, turning over her point in his mind, pushing the guilt away roughly to throw himself into the conversation. “I mean, the media has biases, but I think it’s more of a case-by-case basis on whether something is sensationalized or not. It’s an oversimplification to just say ‘news stories make things sound worse than they are.’ That’s not always what happens.”

“Fair enough,” the girl said, seeming unbothered by Alex’s (very good) point. “But you could also say that another contributing factor to people feeling hopeless is because of the power dynamics in our society. Like you said. We live in a world where pretty much our entire concept of society is tainted by the idea of power imbalances enforced by the power-hungry. If most people have this mindset that they’re powerless and that no matter what someone will always be powerless, it makes sense they’d react to things with hopelessness. That’s why it’s important to point out that power imbalances in society aren’t inevitable.”

The train rocked to a stop, Alex’s shoulder nearly bumping hers. He glanced up to make sure it wasn’t his stop, then turned back to the girl. “But if power imbalances are a possibility, don’t you think they’re kind of inevitable? Even in the egalitarian prehistory societies he talks about, people were trying to take control, they just failed. Doesn’t that kind of indicate it’s human nature? The better society would be one that takes advantage of that idea for everyone’s benefit.”

She hesitated, frowning. “What, like a dictatorship? That doesn’t usually benefit people.”

“No, not like a dictatorship,” Alex said. “If there were, like, channels created for the rich and powerful to invest in the society as a whole, which would benefit the rest of society even while it makes them feel powerful and special.”

“I mean, if it’s really human nature to be power-hungry I feel like that would only satiate them for so long,” the girl mused. “I don’t think it is human nature, though. Or if it is, I don’t think it’s the largest part. If you get into psychology, I bet you could figure out why people become power-hungry, and nip it in the bud by addressing the root cause.”

“Are you into psychology?” Alex asked, genuinely interested.

“No… I don’t study it, or anything,” she said. “It’s interesting. Why, are you?”

“No, I’m in Law School,” Alex said, trying not to come across like he was humble-bragging (even though he was). She raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips together with a smile.

“My sister thought about that,” she said. “She went into Political Science instead. What school are you at, NYU?”

“Columbia.” It didn’t count as bragging when she asked, right?

“Oh, that explains why I haven’t seen you,” she said. “My sister goes to NYU.”

“You must be a smart family.”

“No,” she said, smiling. “You should meet my sister, she’s the smart one. You two would probably get along. Or hate each other.”

“I’ve been looking for a good academic rival,” Alex said lightly, smiling at her. “But you shouldn’t sell yourself short. Most people don’t make interesting conversationalists.”

She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m mostly just good at this kind of thing, though.”

“Some people aren’t good at anything.”

She rolled her eyes, giving him a weirded out look. “You are cynical.”

He shrugged. “I’m also right.” He glanced up at the screen above the sliding doors. “Shit, my stop’s coming up. Do you wanna maybe talk later?”

She regarded him with curiosity for a moment, before apparently deciding that he’d passed some kind of test and pulling out her phone. “What’s your number?”

He rattled it off, waiting patiently for her to type it into her phone, repeating it back to him.

“What’s your name?” she said, staring down at her phone. She glanced up briefly. “I mean, what should I put you in as?”

“Alexander Hamilton,” Alex said. “Or just Alex, I guess.”

“That’s a nice name,” she said, tapping at her screen. “I’m Eliza.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alex said, because he was a polite person, and the subway train was lurching to a stop. “I’ve got to go. Talk to you later?”

“Yeah,” she said, finally looking up. “I have you in my phone as ‘Cynicalex.’” She showed him the screen.

He snorted out a real laugh, standing up. “What would you be, optim… optimiliza?” He made a face. “That wasn’t as good. I’ll think about it.”

“You better,” Eliza said. “I won’t forget.”

And then the doors were opening, and he had to leave, waving over his shoulder quickly before stepping out into the station, where she was immediately blocked from his view by the flow of people onto the train car.

He was allowed to talk to people.

He was allowed to talk to people, and he repeated that to himself on the walk back to his place, stomping up the steps to his front door and shoving it open with his shoulder, annoyed for a reason he couldn’t place.

John better be talking to people too. That was what he’d wanted, after all. He’d broken up with Alex, not the other way around. Maybe he’d get himself a fancy French boyfriend or some bullshit.

Shockingly, that thought didn’t make him feel better.

He wished he was an artist, sometimes, or that he had somewhere to write stream-of-consciousness bullshit, like a blog but not a blog because that was stupid. But he wanted… if he was going to be angry, he wanted things to be angry around him, not just inside of him, souring like a bad hangover. He wanted to scream and yell and throw stuff. Fan the flames, instead of this half-there-half-not complicated bullshit.

It almost made him want to do something stupid like text John, but he didn’t, because that would be stupid, and it would make John think that Alex had some kind of… obligation towards him, or a need to… whatever. But it was just that it felt like John got the last word, sometimes—Alex didn’t remember if that was actually literally true, but—John got to blindside him and then fuck off to France, where Alex couldn’t even blindside him back. As if he expected Alex to just… accommodate him, still, give John courtesy he hadn’t given Alex.

Alex huffed, kicking off his shoes near his computer and stalking into the kitchen. Peaceful mood officially ruined. He should, by all accounts, feel good right now. It was a good day. He’d just had a fun conversation with a cute girl. It was warm out, he had fun work to do. And a fun drink. And yet John was still getting under his skin from halfway across the world.

It was all bullshit. Really. He didn’t know why people put up with this shit.

The oven clock said it was nearly one in the afternoon. Alex tugged the fridge door open, inspecting his side critically. Nothing looked good. But if he didn’t eat now he’d get caught up in his work and then hours would pass and he wouldn’t have any stopping point and then it would be too late to have lunch and Herc would be proven right…

He sighed, shutting the fridge again, and leaned his head against the freezer handle for a moment, closing his eyes.

He should really be happy right now. Emotions were stupid.

He didn’t want to be… tied to John. Tied to… something that didn’t exist anymore. 

He pushed himself up off the fridge and headed for the cabinet, swinging it open to stare at the options and blindly grabbing the first thing that looked appealing, a half-empty bag of pretzels. He unrolled it, pulled himself up to sit on the counter next to the sink, and stuffed a couple pretzels in his mouth, the crunching sound loud in the relative silence of the kitchen.

He leaned his head back against the cabinet door, absentmindedly crunching more pretzels. His eyes were burning. He was tired of crying. It was all really inconvenient.

The tears spilled over at that, and he blinked hard, scrubbing at his eyes and sucking in a shaky breath before letting out a choked sob, pressing his hand to his eyes for a moment.

Bitter despair was hot and tight in his chest, bubbling up his throat. He pulled his legs up onto the counter with him, resting his head on his knees tensely, and sobbed.

This was really stupid. He wanted to be over this by now.

He just wanted to talk to John. 

He wanted to rewind time back to when life felt perfect. When he felt like—like there was someone who really loved him. Like there was someone who just clicked with him and understood and who Alex could trust with the worst parts of himself and John still wouldn’t. Stop loving him.

He missed John’s stupid jokes. He missed the way he made coffee, which Alex couldn’t emulate. He missed falling asleep next to someone else, and having someone to rant to whenever something ridiculous happened, or someone to celebrate with whenever something great happened. John was good at celebrating, even when it didn’t have to do with him. He missed John’s stupid curly hair and his freckles and how much he understood Alex, like they were made for each other.

Apparently they weren’t. Or. Yeah.

Alex sucked in a shaky breath, lifting his head and scrubbing at his eyes roughly.

He shouldn’t be getting this upset over… what? Talking to a stranger? A stupid book?

John’s stupid book, a voice inside his head said miserably. Alex sniffed, blinking away more tears, and stuffed more pretzels into his mouth, even though he didn’t really want them anymore.

Usually Alex was better than this, crying in the kitchen eating pretzels in the middle of the day. Usually he could manage his emotions in a more structured way, instead of just spilling over at random, the slightest thing sending him over the edge. He’d observed, when he was younger, that people in love were kind of crazy. Always acting ridiculous and irrational and dramatic. He’d never been on the other side of it until he met John. He had to say, if this was the comedown, his younger self had been about right in his assessment. Love made you crazy, and it made Alex uncomfortable, as if he’d been sucked into a whirlpool and dragged down to drown, and now he was treading water, bedraggled and freaked out and searching for land.

Chapter Text

It had been raining lately in Rouen, a bright kind of rain that made the brick roads sparkle and glimmer like something out of a fairytale. Rouen itself was like something out of a fairytale: quaint old French houses lining the streets, and in the more urban areas museums and cathedrals that looked like little castles. When John had been doing school in Geneva, Louis had always talked about his hometown fondly. More fondly than John would talk about Charleston, and he always thought Louis must be a bit strange (affectionately, of course) or Rouen must be an amazing place to live.

Well, it wasn’t the type of place John would like to live full-time, but that was about nowhere, so not a mark against Rouen. It was a lovely city, though. Even when it was raining.

Rain was good. Rain symbolized rebirth and renewal a lot of the time, didn’t it? A fresh start, a clean slate. Someplace where John could be… maybe a better person. Less selfish and focused on what he wanted all the time. Learn from the shitshow he’d left behind in New York. All opportunities and possibilities for growth came through mistakes and failure. So.

“I wish it weren’t raining, though,” Petrie said, frowning. His shoes were squeaking on the museum floor as they meandered back towards the entrance, reluctant to go back out in the wet. Well, the others were, at least. John didn’t care. “We’re going to go through all of spring break and it will have rained through all of it. It’s ridiculous.”

“Why does the rain matter?” John said. “You can still go out, you just need to not care about getting wet.”

He was speaking in French—they all were, obviously, it was France. It was strange to hear the French accent. Well, the France French accent. John had learned in Geneva, but more recently—the past several months—he spoke French more often with Alex, who formed the words with a rounded Caribbean accent, thicker than the accent he had when speaking English, a heavy, warm, musical cadence. Alex's French felt almost distinct from the "official" French language sometimes, peppered with words and pronunciations foreign to John. He'd picked it up, though, and now had to undo all of that again. Hearing proper French again in customs, wandering in a punch-drunk travel haze after his flight, had been almost jarring. 

John wasn't sure if he was grateful or not for the small distance. It still felt too close. He wished there was nothing to compare at all.

He tried to make himself associate it with Lafayette.

“It’s because he has less things to do with his girlfriend,” Martin said, coming up behind Petrie and pulling him into a gentle headlock. “And he doesn’t want to see her looking like a wet cat. It’s just vanity.”

“It is not,” Petrie said, fumbling himself out of Martin’s grip. John laughed at them softly, too aware of the few other museumgoers to be louder. “It’s a very new thing, okay.”

“That doesn’t change what it is,” Martin said smugly.

“Aww, don’t be mean, though,” John said, even though he was smiling. “Petrie’s just being romantic. You need to put more effort in at the beginning, don’t you?” He ignored the dull pang in his chest. “I think it’s sweet.”

“You’re just too nice, Laurens,” Louis said, coming up behind him and leaning on his shoulder. “Are we leaving or not? We need to find someplace for lunch.” He was on his phone, looking through restaurants in the area, and John peered over his shoulder.

“Scroll back up.”

Louis obliged. Petrie and Martin drew closer, huddling in so they were all gathered around Louis’s phone.

“We’re not going to a restaurant, are we? I’m broke right now,” Petrie said.

John glanced up, gauging Petrie’s face. He was always hesitant about offering, because sometimes it upset people more, but he was trying to be more generous, so… “I can pay for you.”

Petrie looked caught out for a moment, but not actually bothered, so John decided he’d made the right choice. “Oh—you don’t have to—”

“You’re my friend, aren’t you?” John said. “Besides, if I’m in France I want to have the food. You all need to show me the best places.”

Petrie huffed out a breath, looking vaguely pleased. “Thank you, I guess.”

John smiled at him in what he hoped was a nice way and not a smug way. “Really, though, where should we go? I don’t know any of your restaurants.”

“Louis and Martin have been here longer,” Petrie said, looking to them expectantly.

“I don’t… go places,” Martin said. “Louis?”

All eyes turned to him, and Louis sighed, frowning back down at his phone. “Shouldn’t we just go somewhere close? It’s raining,” Louis said.

“Rain is such a small obstacle,” John said. “C’mon.” He poked at a random restaurant that looked good. “Let’s go to this one. We can see the other ones later.”

“If we go to that one you’re paying,” Louis said. John shrugged in acknowledgement.

“Sure.”

“Seriously, though, the rain—” Petrie started.

“You’ll survive,” John said. “Come on, we can just make a run for it. It’s not that big a deal.” He headed purposefully for the stately double-door entrance to the museum, ignoring Louis’s amused mutter from behind him; something that sounded like “so impatient.”

He pushed the heavy left-side door open to a rush of cold wet wind and rain spraying across him and the stone museum steps. He took a minute—breathe it in—the fresh snapping air and the wet flag clanging against the flagpole, sparkling rain spraying across the weather-worn brick and stone. Trees waving their branches, letting clouds of mist down with stronger gusts of wind.

Louis was the first to come up next to him. “It’s three minutes away walking,” he said, frowning at his phone.

“See, that’s not that bad if we’re running.”

“Not all of us are jocks, Laurens,” Petrie said from behind John. John glanced over his shoulder to roll his eyes pointedly.

“You can’t run for three minutes?”

Petrie didn’t answer. Martin pushed to the front, standing himself beside John and shouldering the door. “Let’s go. We’re letting the cold in.”

True. John decided to use that as a springboard instead of feeling guilty for his oversight, and plunged into the outside, the wind buffeting his hair and water showering across his clothes and face. He scrunched up his nose, squinting to see, and looked back. “Seriously, come on,” he said for the millionth time.

Martin was already shouldering the door and stepping out after John. This was why John liked Martin. He did things instead of thinking about them.

John took Martin’s hand and started running down the steps hurriedly, rain buffeting them both. Petrie and Louis called indignantly after them— “You don’t know the way, idiot!” Petrie yelled.

John slowed for a moment, glancing over his shoulder at Louis and Petrie jogging down the steps after them. “Keep up, then!”

The wind swept up, and if John were as light as he felt he thought he’d go flying into the air, swooping and sailing on cold wind currents. Next to him Martin was chanting, still clutching John’s hand— “Run run run run run run run run—”

“Left here!” Louis called, and John laughed to himself only slightly, out of breath from the running, and took a left. The few other people who were out were giving them strange looks. It was a very American way they were acting, John supposed. Oh well, c’est la vie.

That made him laugh again; a French phrase adopted to English to describe an American thing in France.

They ran through the spraying rain, Louis calling out directions in an out-of-breath voice, for only a little longer before they slowed to a stop in front of the restaurant, panting. No use in running inside, they were soaked already. John was laughing, stumbling to a stop and putting his hands on his knees, slightly crouched as he caught his breath.

“You’re so cruel,” Petrie said. “I’m soaked.”

“You were taking too long,” John said. “Besides, you liked it, don’t lie.” He knew Petrie, and Petrie would be complaining way more than this if he was actually bothered. He just liked to be contrarian sometimes because he was a little shit.

“Do you think they’ll even let us in like this?” Martin said.

“I don’t know, but let’s not stay out,” Louis said, pushing open the door. The others followed him in, John still grinning.

The hostess gave them a strange look when they first came in. John almost missed it, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the indoor dark and brushing a waterlogged curl out of his face. Anyway, she didn’t refuse to seat them, and John nudged Martin for it, mouthing see? as she led them to a table. Martin rolled his eyes, nudging John back harder.

It was a smaller restaurant, but still lovely, with a deep, rich floral mural painted across the back wall, and soft yellow lighting that reflected off of the windows, contrasting with the darker moody weather outside. There was a wooden floor, but with carpets spread across most of the room, and dark high-polish tables that reflected the lights hanging above them. They got a seat in the corner of the restaurant, near a large window, and the hostess ran through a practiced spiel while placing their menus at each place. She seemed surprised when John responded in French (over her shoulder, John could see Louis turning away, face twisting with laughter), but soon disappeared to get their drinks.

Petrie took his jacket off to spread on the seat, shivering. “I was going to thank you for paying again, but you owe me after that.”

John rolled his eyes, a smile flashing across his face. “You’re such a little shit,” he said softly, leaning in so the other restaurant-goers were less likely to hear him.

Petrie gave him a look. “So are you. That’s why we’re friends.”

“So’s Louis, then,” John said. 

“Hey!” Louis said.

“Martin’s the only normal one,” John said, kicking at Martin under the table. “Here to keep the rest of us in check.” Martin made a face of disagreement.

“It’s just a very low bar that you people set,” Martin said primly, opening his menu. “Are you paying for me, too, John?”

“Sure, why not,” John said. “Louis, you want me to pay for you too?”

Louis gave him an amused look. “Why? I have my own money.”

“Yeah, but I’m staying in your house,” John said. “Draining your resources anyway. Besides, it just makes it easier if one person pays.”

“Technically, you’re staying in my parents’ house,” Louis said. “We’re both draining their resources. But sure, pay for me if you want.”

“You think I should pay for them to go out?” John mused, scanning his own menu. “They could have a nice date on Laurens money.”

“Please don’t,” Louis said. “Ever. The standard I would have to live up to…”

John snorted. “I mean, if you paid for their date, you’d have to use their money, so it’s not much of a gift. Or do you have a job I don’t know about?”

“No,” Louis said, raising his chin. “And that’s why I can go out to random museums with you on a whim, Laurens, remember that.”

“Do you have a job, John?” Martin said.

“No,” John said. “And that’s why I can go out to random French cities to visit you on a whim, so remember that.”

“Don’t pretend you want a job,” Petrie said. “You’re not just nobly holding back to spend time with us. You like your travel too much.”

Since Petrie was sitting next to him, John had to twist his leg awkwardly under the table to kick him properly. “I wouldn’t mind a job, thank you very much.”

“What a strong, passionate argument,” Martin said, not looking up from his menu.

John rolled his eyes. “You’re all horrible friends.”

It was a joke. John couldn’t put his heart behind that statement, not when he was so self-satisfied. Everyone was happy, they’d be able to eat nice food on John’s money, and John had been able to pull them along on an… well, sort of an adventure, if you wanted to be dramatic about it. Which John did. It was enough to feel normal, or even good. The feel of being able to build people up and help them instead of just taking and taking until he made things fall apart.

It was the feeling that he’d been guilty about, ever since he’d arrived in Rouen—hell, ever since the plane had taken off and he’d watched New York get smaller and smaller beneath him. Sweet, warm relief.  

He couldn’t exactly justify it, feeling relieved at breaking up with someone—especially since it wasn’t like Alex was a bad boyfriend, or like John hadn’t liked him—he had. But he was relieved anyway. The feeling he’d been stuck in in New York—the fear and restlessness clinging sticky to him and sitting in a lump in his throat—had subsided, melting away like the wax from a lit candle. It wasn’t that he was more sure that he’d made the right choice—that depended on what goal the choice was meant to reach. This was a retreat, a falling back, but the cool relief that had sat light and soft within him ever since he’d left… well.

He couldn’t justify it, but it also seemed to justify things. It was a horrible, guilty thought. But maybe John didn’t need to be everything for everyone all the time everywhere—maybe he couldn’t—maybe this was a good place for him, and it was a good thing to find places that were good for him. Places where he could share happiness, instead of not having anything left to give.

The de Vegobres’ house was a smaller townhouse squished in between two others, much the same way Alex and Herc’s was back in New York. But it was different, one in a line of half-timbered white and brown houses with an endearingly decorated interior. It didn’t exactly look like out of French style magazines, not with the signs of life scattered around—coats hung in the entryway and shoes stacked in an untidy pile, a deflated balloon sitting on a windowsill next to a happy-birthday banner no one had taken down yet from Louis’s dad’s birthday. But that made it more comfortable, in a way.

There was a tiny little back porch, half-open but with screen windows and a delicate-looking couch looking out on a cramped little backyard. It was a good place to get space, and the guest room John was staying in was directly connected to it, so it was like a little… haven, kind of.

John closed his eyes, leaning back against the couch and breathing deep, the misty smell of rain filtering through the screen windows. It was lightening up, now, a sprinkling drizzle of rain as opposed to a gusty downpour. It was nice, just sitting and watching the rain bounce and splash off slick dark tree leaves. But he’d come out here for a reason.

He turned his phone over in his hand absently. Calling his dad did feel like a chore sometimes. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his dad… well, he didn’t like his politics a lot of the time, but that was different. It was just that there was a lot of responsibility he had surrounding his dad, if he wanted to keep their relationship up. And he did. But it was tiring.

Alex would say it wasn’t fair. Alex didn’t know what he was talking about. Sometimes life wasn’t fair. Sometimes you couldn’t do what you wanted to do all the time.

He curled his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees and looking over them to scroll through his contacts to “home.” Heaved a slightly over-dramatic sigh. Pressed call and hit speaker.

The phone rang, the only sound mingling with the sounds of the rainshower outside. John put it down next to him on the couch, waiting. Hoping slightly that he wouldn’t pick up, and John could say he tried.

The phone picked up, a fumbling crackle on the other side of the line. John grimaced internally.

“Hello?” 

John perked up.

“Oh! Hey, Polly,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“It’s a teacher workshop,” Polly said, as if John should’ve known that already. “You’re supposed to be in college.”

“I’m on break,” John said, not sure if she was saying he was dumb or if she was saying he should be in school right now too. “How are you doing, then, Polliwog?”

“I climbed the tree to the top yesterday,” Polly said. “The big one, with the mold? I got all the way to the top, but daddy made me come down ‘cause he said I’d hurt myself. But I didn’t, I did it by myself.”

“Moss, not mold,” John corrected. “That’s really cool. All the way to the top? That’s really impressive, Polly.”

“Moss and mold are the same thing,” Polly informed him. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna be an olympic climber, so it’s just warming up.”

A smile ghosted across John’s face. He was lucky she wasn’t here to see him not taking her seriously. “I bet you could be an olympic climber,” he said. “But I don’t think moss and mold are the same thing, hon.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“Moss is a plant, mold is a fungus.”

“I think mold is a plant.” 

“Mold’s not plants or animals,” John said. “Did you know that mold can eat poison? There’s a place that’s super poisonous and humans can’t even go in there cause the air is too poisonous and they’d die right away. But there’s mold that grows down there and it’s eating the poison out of the air.”

“Really?” Polly said, dropping the question. “I wanna go there.”

“You can’t ‘cause you’re a human,” John said. “You’d die. It’s too poisonous, get it?”

“What if I wore mold to protect me?”

“Well, I think the mold might be poisonous to you too. So you’d die anyway. But that’s a good idea, though. We should ask the scientists if they’ve tried.”

“Do you have their address?” Polly asked, eight-year-old genuine. “In school, I’m learning pen pals. I could do it for the scientists.”

“You’re gonna get a pen pal?” John said. “That’s really cool, I never got to do that. I don’t have the scientists’ address. I could look it up and try to find it for you if you want.”

“Yeah—oh,” Polly said, as if suddenly distracted. There was a shuffling noise from the speaker, and someone else’s muffled voice coming from the background. “I’m talking to Jack,” Polly informed whoever it was. Some more muffled talking, and then, more distinctly— “You need to say goodbye first, Polly.” His dad, said with a patient tone.

“Bye,” Polly said into the phone. “See you later.”

“Bye, Polly,” John said. “Talk to you soon, okay?”

“Yup,” Polly said matter-of-factly, and then there was a shuffling and his dad’s voice was filtering through the phone, cutting through the noise of the rain.

“Hello, Jack, sorry about that. She’s been climbing up the walls today.”

“It’s fine,” John said. “I like talking to her.”

His dad hummed down the line. “You’re good with the kids,” he said. “It’s good that I’ve had you to help out in this family.”

It was John’s turn to hum, then, pushing down a wave of guilt and anger. The last thing he wanted to talk about was how much his dad relied on him.

“How have you been doing in France?” his dad said, thankfully moving the conversation forward. “Have you been talking to the school there yet?”

John bit the inside of his cheek, leaning back. “I’m going to,” he said, unconvincingly. Even though it was the truth. “They’re still on break, but I’m going to be talking to the director of the exchange program on Monday. I’ve been seeing my old friends again,” he added, not that he thought his dad would care. It was where John wanted the conversation to go, at least. “...So that’s been good.”

His dad seemed to hesitate over the line, though it might’ve been John’s imagination. “I know you’re a very social person,” he said. “Which friends are these?”

Something inside John soured. “Martin, Petrie, Louis.”

“Petrie… as in John Petrie, the one your uncle almost fostered a few years back?”

“Yeah.” He’s almost raised him John didn’t add, and didn’t know why. It wasn’t like his dad cared one way or the other, probably. And it wasn’t like his dad couldn’t find out, if he ever asked Uncle James about it. It wasn’t a secret. His dad probably already knew about it, it wasn’t like he didn’t talk to Uncle James on a regular basis.

“I remember how close you boys used to be,” his dad said. “I didn’t know he was staying in France.”

“He’s here for college,” John said. “He’s looking to go into bioengineering.”

“Bioengineering,” his dad repeated, more to be polite than anything. “That’s specific. You’d think, if you were inclined towards engineering, you’d pick one that pays better.”

“I think bioengineering pays pretty well,” John said, having no idea but feeling the irrational need to defend it. “People are taking a bigger interest in the environment these days. Conservation and all that. It’s probably a more profitable market than it used to be.” The words left a bad taste in his mouth, if only because he didn’t want them to be true.

His dad hummed again. “I know you like the environmental fields,” he said. “I’m not sure the general job market feels the same as you do on this one, though.”

John bit back a sigh. He didn’t have enough memorized about the economics of environmental-based ventures to argue his point without sounding stupid, but he didn’t think he was that wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the best field, but he didn’t think it was, like… doom or something.

“Speaking of the job market,” his dad said, voice muffled slightly by a shuffling on the phone. John imagined his dad tucking the phone under his ear to do something with his hands, maybe, or sitting down with the phone to his ear. “Even if they’re still on break, it would be good for you to build a rapport with your professors and the relevant faculty there. France doesn’t have better schools than America; the connection is what’s really important to widening your prospects here.”

John blew out a breath quietly, looking out at the yard, the cold spring day and the water running off the roof, splashing merrily to the grass.

“I want you to be working towards your career here,” his dad was saying. “Hard work and dedication are some of the most underrated virtues we have in our society. Back in the day, people were willing to work and they’d do it cheerfully—”

John rolled his eyes, safe where his dad couldn’t see him. He didn’t like insulting his dad, really, not even in his mind. But his dad made it… hard sometimes.

“Most people your age, they fall into the trap of wanting to keep up with their friends, wanting to do what all their friends are doing, and they forget that education requires studies, it requires diligence,” his dad was saying. “Now, I’m not saying—I’m not saying don’t have a social life, Jack, but you don’t need any prompting in that regard. I’d say, if you have to lean too far one way or the other, I’d rather you leaned into your studies. I raised you to be a hard worker, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir,” John said. “It’s like I said, I’m going to talk to the director of the exchange program on Monday.” And then, heading his dad off, “I don’t want to seem presumptuous to my professors. They might not want to use their time on break to be fielding conversations with students? I was planning on talking to them when school starts, though.”

He hadn’t actually been planning that, but if he didn’t make a plan and back it up with logic like that his dad would make a plan for him. And John really didn’t want to talk to his professors over break and seem like a suck-up. That was the kind of move only Alex could pull off gracefully.

His dad seemed to hesitate again over the line. “It’s good to be respectful,” he said. “You’ve always been a respectful boy. I will say, I’m not sure your professors would mind. It could show them that you care about the work. I’d imagine it could be a breath of fresh air compared to the other students they have. I won’t force you, but I’d like you to think about it.”

John tilted his head back, letting it bump up against the wall. “Okay.”

“Good. Now,” his dad said, with a certainty in his voice that told John he probably assumed he’d won that conversation, “How are the de Vegobres? I heard from Charlie that your friend Louis is going into Law as well?”

“I think he’s switched his focus,” John said, obediently following the thread of the conversation. “Med school.”

“A doctor?”

“Or a nurse, I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it much, he just mentioned it when he was telling me about the school. That we won’t be in the same classes.”

His dad made a noise of interest over the line. For someone so religious, he did like gossip quite a lot. “I wonder what his father thinks of that. He seemed fairly proud to have a son in Law School when we last spoke.”

“Well, you know,” John said. “Things can change, I guess. Life happens.”

His dad hummed neutrally. John took a slow quiet breath, worrying the bracelet on his wrist with the other hand, and imagined throwing his phone across the room.

His dad kept him on the line for a bit longer after that, telling him about different tips for traveling and about different things that were happening with the company (the usual—difficult clients, tales of hard work and victory, how to uphold Christian morals as a businessman—things like that). It was easier for John to get through that, even if he was getting antsy by the end. Louis was taking a shower, but after he was out it would be John’s turn, and John didn’t want to have to hurry to be able to catch dinner.

It was eventually by telling that to his dad that John was able to pull away, with platitudes and promises to call and love you, yes I’ll be good, yes I’ll think about talking to my teachers. And then he was finally, peacefully alone on the porch with the rain that had steadied out into a considerable shower.

It wasn’t that John didn’t like his dad. Truly, it wasn’t. John didn’t agree with him a lot of the time, but you could like someone without agreeing with them. If John only liked the people who held the exact same beliefs and opinions as him one hundred percent of the time, he wouldn’t like anyone.

It was just that talking with his dad always left him drained by the end of it. They didn’t speak each others’ language, John didn’t think. It was the translation of it, trying to say things in a way his dad would understand while still actually saying what he wanted to say, that was difficult. That was exhausting.

Ugh, but his dad was so fucking annoying sometimes!

John didn’t throw his phone across the room, this time out of concern for both his phone and the de Vegobre’s lovely porch. He was a guest here, after all. He punched one of the decorative pillows sitting on the couch instead. Picked it up and strangled it, wringing it out like it was a wet towel, and threw it forcefully back down on the couch, where it bounced and then laid still.

He wished he could scream without sending people running in his direction.

Okay. Okay. Fine, he was fine. The conversation was fine. He took a deep breath, trying to gain back some sense of the fresh warm enjoyment from earlier. It wasn’t like his dad had told him to do anything outrageous. Just… do good in school, make connections. John could do that, John was great at doing that, and it wasn’t anything new. His dad always told him to do that.

You’d think his dad would just trust him at this point, but—

Anyway.

He missed Alex. 

The feeling hit him all at once, a strange wave crashing over him that he wasn’t expecting. It was so surprising that he froze for a moment, startled with the weight of wanting to be back in Alex’s tiny cramped bedroom, sitting on his bed and talking about nothing for hours. A certain memory came to mind, for some reason—when John had bought Alex those glow-in-the-dark stars for his ceiling, sometime in late January or maybe early February. Alex had mentioned he’d always wanted them growing up, how they’d seemed really cool to him as a little kid when he’d been going through his space phase. And John had bought them on a whim when he was shopping one day and brought them to Alex, and they’d tried to stick them up on Alex’s ceiling for a while with no luck. The ceiling of Alex’s room was too bumpy—popcorn ceiling, Alex had said—for the stars to stick on. They’d ended up sticking them in the bathroom instead, which was Alex’s idea—better to have a light-up bathroom at night, anyway, he’d said.

It was a happy memory, and John pulled the same decorative pillow to him, hugging it tight and closing his eyes. He didn’t need to cry over this right now. He didn’t even know why he was thinking about it.

Alex had been so happy, though, when John had come over and showed him the stars. He hadn’t even been that upset when they couldn’t stick them on the ceiling. He hadn’t, like, said that he was happy, but John could tell. He’d stopped studying to put them up right away, bouncing on the balls of his feet enthusiastically while John set up the stepladder, and he kept making that awkward embarrassed face Alex made when he was having an emotion he didn’t know what to do with.

John pursed his lips, pressing his hands to his eyes hard as if that would reset his brain. Turn it off and then on again, like he was a computer.

…He should probably go shower. Showering hacked your brain, didn’t it, to make you feel happier. Especially with how frizzy his hair had been, because of the rain. Louis was lucky he didn’t have curly hair ( Alex is too, John’s brain said, and he pushed the thought away).

He’d be fine. It was fine. It was normal to miss someone after a breakup, but he just had… he had other things to do.

John didn’t end up talking to anyone from his school before Monday. He did think about it, like he’d promised his dad, but he hadn’t promised to do it. Still, in the days leading up to Monday he was never too far away from the slight needle-stab of guilt he got thinking about school. He pushed the feeling away with other things—hanging out with his friends, mostly, going to visit other cities where it wasn’t raining as much, helping Petrie pick out something nice for his girlfriend as an apology for not seeing her as much. She lived a train ride away in a nearby city (well—nearby to John. Everything felt nearby in Europe, but not to Europeans), and due to a mess of different factors he’d barely seen her all break. They were cute together, John decided.

But anyway, it was like his dad said. He was supposed to be here mostly for school.

Louis showed him the way to the school’s international affairs office early Monday morning, a few blocks across humid going-to-rain Rouen and through the hallways of a building that seemed more modern and industrial than the rest of the city. It was early enough that John didn’t feel fully awake enough to really appreciate any of it, if there was something to appreciate. He wouldn’t know.

A receptionist had taken his name down in a waiting room and directed him back to the international coordinator’s office, telling him that the coordinator would be there shortly, and John had waited.

He was still waiting.

The office was nice, he guessed. Or, interesting might be a better word—John didn’t care whether offices were nice. There was a tall dark shelving unit with glass-paned doors, filled inside with various tchotchkes, some of them piled on top of each other—there was a large octopus statue that was hanging off the edge of one shelf, and a stack of mugs sitting on another. A poster was taped to the side of the shelves that boldly proclaimed “FOR EVERY MINUTE SPENT ORGANIZING, AN HOUR IS GAINED!”

The rest of the room was in a state of calm disarray—there was a metal cart stacked with books and loose paper in one corner, with a golden sink bowl (not attached to anything) glistening dimly from the bottom shelf of the cart. The desk John sat in front of looked heavy and well-made, its surface near-empty save for a tidy computer monitor and keyboard, an old-fashioned desk lamp at one end, and a novelty drinking bird that dipped rhythmically into a glass. Behind the desk, bright light shone in from a white-latticed window, a heap of coppery gears and wires (and for some reason, a bucket of keys) resting on the windowsill.

John sighed, looking down at the carpet and scuffing it a bit with the tip of his shoe. A bit of red glitter bounced away from his shoe, and he squinted closer at the carpet. There was actually kind of a lot of glitter in it.

The door opened behind him, and John sat up a little straighter automatically, pretending for politeness’ sake that he hadn’t noticed the glitter thing.

The international coordinator was round and stumpy, with thin graying hair in a disheveled mess on top of his head. “Ah!” he said, shutting the door behind him. “John Laurens, I presume.”

“Uh, yes,” John said, watching the coordinator with vague interest as he bustled behind his desk, unbuttoning his blazer. He seemed distracted, or maybe caught off guard, even though he’d scheduled this meeting himself.

“Doctor Benjamin Franklin,” the coordinator introduced himself, sitting down at his desk. “Wonderful. Thank you for meeting me. What brings you to France, Mr. Laurens?”

“Uh,” stop saying uh, John thought to himself, and squared his shoulders a little bit. “...Travel is a good way to expand your horizons. Lots of… new experiences.” He caught himself before adding and stuff.

Franklin surveyed John over his glasses, settling deeper into his chair. “Well, I’m already here, you don’t have to sell it to me. ”

John tried to keep himself from frowning. “It’s true,” he said, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice. “Experiencing different cultures gives you an open mind.”

Franklin folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t say it wasn’t true. I know I’ve found a host of new experiences since being in France. Being a foreigner has its perks, you know,” he raised his eyebrows at John, turning to rustle in one of his desk drawers. “You’ll be a novelty, en tant qu'Américain— the rude Frenchman is largely a myth. Largely,” he said, thoughtfully. “They just don’t have as extroverted a culture as Americans do, I suppose. Oh well.”

Franklin handed John a sheet of paper printed with a businesslike format of words. John skimmed it to be polite, not really paying attention to the words. “Your class schedule,” Franklin said. “And I suppose I should get you your pamphlet, too, though you’ve been here for a fair chunk of time—how do you like it, by the way?” Franklin leveraged himself out of his chair, moving to rifle through the stacks of paper scattered around the office.

“It’s… nice,” John said. “I have friends here, so it’s been nice to see them again. There’s a lot to do in the city,” he added, mostly to have something to say. “I was worried there might not be.”

“Mmm,” Franklin said, still sorting through papers. “Nobody knows what’s outside of Paris. Not that Paris isn’t lovely. Have you been here before, then? If you have, I’ll skip the pamphlet.”

“Not to France, no.”

Franklin sighed. “Damn.”

John tactfully did not say anything about Dr. Franklin’s disorganization, instead pretending to focus on his class schedule. He didn’t really need to be here, which was a frustrating thought. He’d never been to France, but he had his friends to show him the ropes; he didn’t need a program coordinator—especially one that didn’t seem so coordinated. Alex would hate this. He hated incompetent authority figures and wastes of time more than anything else in the world. If he were here, he’d have already slipped in several passive-aggressive remarks about Franklin’s being late and losing materials.

John pushed that out of his mind. He wasn’t going to do that. And he wasn’t going to think about Alex, who was an entire ocean away. There was no point to it right now.

“Ah, here we are,” Franklin said finally, pulling a small pamphlet from a pile of paper and flourishing it towards John. “Emergency numbers, etiquette tips, et cetera—and the rules of the program. Only a few. In general, use common courtesy, and you won’t get sent home early.”

“Thanks,” John said automatically, taking the pamphlet.

“Since you have friends here,” Franklin settled back in his seat again. “I suppose I should do the cursory warning—school is still school, this isn’t a vacation, et cetera.” He paused. “Do you consider yourself a good student, Mr. Laurens?”

John hesitated. “...It depends on the subject,” he said, then, “I… get good grades.”

“Good,” Franklin said. “There’s a healthy level of humility. Don’t forget to work while you’re in France. You get out of things what you put in, as I always say.”

“Most of the time,” John said before he could stop himself, thinking of glitter in carpets. “Some things don’t have a very generous return.”

“Some things,” Franklin said. “Now, are we talking about academics or not? Because I can’t imagine you got into Columbia with that type of attitude.”

John winced internally. “I didn’t mean it to be rude.”

Franklin surveyed him with gleaming interest, and John fidgeted under his gaze. “Neither did I. Pick your purpose and act on it, I always say—make sure you know what point you’re making, that is.”

Dr. Franklin could stand to take his own advice. John didn’t say that. “I’m… not sure what you mean by that, sir.”

“Oh, I’m halfway thinking out loud to myself,” Franklin waved him off. “I only meant that there are so many people who come through this program trying to do everything at once, so they talk about everything at once. It’s a habit I’m familiar with.” Franklin gestured to himself. “But it has its downsides—a purposeful approach is often more profitable—if we’re talking about generous returns.”

John had the sense that Dr. Franklin was only halfway talking about academics, and that he should be offended, but he wasn’t sure how. “It’s a good thing that I’m very able to focus, then,” John said, words slightly clipped. He was ready to leave.

“I don’t doubt it,” Franklin said. “This is just general advice—your time here is limited, after all.”

Chapter Text

Idealiza: I mean you should really just read the book there are studies and stuff in it

Alex: I don’t have time to read the book

Idealiza: What if I sent you pictures of the bibliography and you just downloaded knowledge into your brain that way

Alex: how big is the bibliography

Idealiza: ……..shorter than the book

Alex: wow that’s a really specific and not at all ominously vague answer

“Are you still awake?”

Alex startled as Hercules flicked the lightswitch to the kitchen, bright yellow light flooding the room. “Shit, give a guy some warning,” he muttered, adjusting himself on the stool to act like he hadn’t almost fallen off of it in alarm. “You shouldn’t be surprised by this. I couldn’t sleep. I’m working.”

Herc snorted, dumping his bag on the table and heading for the cabinet to pull out a glass. “Yeah, it wasn’t surprise as much as judgment,” he said. “I’ve told you, you need to start dealing with your insomnia in some actually healthy way.”

“This is really healthy, for my GPA,” Alex muttered, pushing his glasses up. “You’re up too.”

“Your phone’s on,” Herc said. “Who are you texting that’s actually awake at four in the morning?”

“She’s not awake,” Alex said, picking up his phone to glance at it again. “I was just texting her back, I forgot to earlier.”

“Eliza?” Herc said. Alex gave a grunt of confirmation, shutting off his phone and setting it face-down on the counter. Herc surveyed him curiously before turning and opening the fridge to rummage through it, emerging with the water. He didn’t say the results of his survey. “Am I ever going to meet her? Usually I meet your friends pretty quickly.”

“We’re not—” Alex stopped, realizing how stupid it would be to say they weren’t friends. “We’re not that close of friends yet,” he said. “Besides, you usually meet my friends ‘cause they all go to my school and we’re all running on the same schedule. That’s different.”

Hercules frowned at him. “You’ve been texting her nonstop.”

“Yeah, it’s an ongoing conversation,” Alex muttered. “Not the point. Why are you awake at four AM?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Alex frowned, puzzling that out in his head. It only took a minute. “What, she kicked you out at four in the morning?”

“No,” Herc said. “I slept some and had to leave to prep for my client today. Which is a fairly unusual occurrence, so you can’t act like I’m a hypocrite here. Don’t you have class in the morning?”

Alex didn’t answer that, instead turning to his laptop pointedly and tapping the touchpad to keep it awake. “I like working at night,” he said. “It’s like a secret weapon. Extra time.”

“You’re a very strange person,” Herc said, no judgment. “Invite Eliza over sometime.”

Oh. Back to this.

Alex was pretty sure that Herc was being more enthusiastic than normal about Eliza because he thought Alex was going through a “tough time” and that going out and making friends was good for him. He knew it wasn’t that Herc thought Alex and Eliza could be cute together, because as far as Herc knew Alex was gay. Not that Alex had ever… well, he’d never really corrected Herc. Or anyone. But he didn’t lie, it was just that people saw the way he looked and the way he acted and that he’d been dating a guy, and they just kind of assumed. And it was just easier to let them assume things.

Well—it had been easier. But now the downsides of taking that shortcut through life were coming back to bite him, because he had approximately no one to talk to about the whole Eliza… thing.

It wasn’t that he was—flirting with her. Well, he was, but he wasn’t. It was just a… thing. They just talked to each other like that, it wasn’t like Alex meant it seriously, and it wasn’t like he was making any real moves on her. They were just talking.

But it felt weird.

That was why he was doing it, maybe. Kind of. Fake it til you make it, like everyone said. If you pretended like it didn’t feel like a betrayal for long enough, then it eventually wouldn’t. And Alex didn’t want this stupid attachment to John anymore; it had outlived its use.

“I don’t need you to set up playdates for me,” Alex said, not looking up from his laptop. Clicking into a different tab to resume actually working. “You’ll meet her when you meet her, I’m not hiding her.”

Alex didn’t look up to see Herc’s face, but there was a pause. “Fair enough,” Herc said after a moment.

It occurred to Alex, vaguely, that he should perhaps try to chase that thread of conversation, but he was honestly too tired to even think about putting that amount of effort into detangling… whatever it was he’d tangled up. If it was really a problem it’d come up later. Probably.

Herc left the kitchen after a moment, which only barely registered in Alex’s mind, focused on his work as he was. He hadn’t been lying about working at night earlier. Getting things done while everyone else was asleep felt sometimes like a smug secret, keeping himself ahead of the curve. And besides, night was a good time to work normally because everyone assumed you were busy sleeping. No interruptions. It was peaceful in a way that Alex liked.

What Alex was doing at the moment was mostly ahead work, prepping for future lessons and homework that hadn’t been assigned yet. His teachers usually wouldn’t give him the assignments ahead of time, but they were always listed on the syllabus, so he was able to guess where he should be looking and what he should be studying to prepare for. Like building a rough draft for an essay, except not all of them were essays. 

Here was his method: he kept a document open on his computer, titled with the same assignment name as was on the syllabus, to compile notes and research as he studied the subject the assignment was on. He’d include the basic idea of the subject, details he suspected would be relevant, and whatever bullshit legwork he’d hate to do later (definitions, stupid requirements that shouldn’t be required—things like that) that he could infer would probably be part of the assignment by looking at the syllabus. This way, once the assignment was assigned, he’d be able to do it much more quickly and easily. Also, if he got his predictions right (which he did more often than not) he’d be able to skip over all the tedious busywork that he hated and get right to the good bits.

The room slowly became lighter around him, orange sunlight slowly stretching through the window and fading to white daylight. Alex stopped at one point, around six, to stretch and shower, feeling too stiff and sore to reasonably ignore it anymore.

His joints popped as he stretched his arms above his head, taking his arm and bending it to the side, then doing the same for the other arm. He really needed to exercise more. His bones were going to atrophy or something, one of these days.

The shower was always freezing when you first turned it on. Alex winced at the break in the silence as the sputtering jet started up, hand hesitantly on the handle for a moment before the shower spray evened out and he took his hand away, stepping back. Okay.

He didn’t have, like, a fancy hygiene routine, like how people on social media did, but he did like… he liked the kind of put-together sense it gave him, feeling clean and all that. When he was a kid, his family had never had the money for things like that—they had soap and water and deodorant, and the deodorant was sometimes from the donations at church or whatever local homeless shelter was around. So now—he still didn’t have the money for anything really fancy or complicated, but he had a little shower carrier with a few different things that he’d accumulated that he kept under the bathroom sink. It was like a protective disguise or something. When you were poor, people could smell it on you. Wash away the poor, nobody would be able to tell. Especially if he wore his nicer clothes, which he got from the thrift stores near the rich parts of the city. And if he didn’t talk too much. Nobody could tell.

He went through the basic motions quickly while waiting for the shower to warm up (brush hair, face wash, check if he needed to shave, et cetera), mind mostly still on the case study he’d left in the kitchen. It was too early to really switch mental topics that quickly. John was more of a morning person, but Alex didn’t get it.

The shower was cold at first when Alex stepped in, and he flinched, but quickly adjusted to the temperature.

It wasn’t like Alex was leading Eliza on. He hadn’t made any promises of anything more, had he? Lots of people just flirted casually and didn’t let anything come of it, that was normal.

The responsible thing to do would probably be to ask her, but the problem with that was that if he asked her out loud hey are you cool with us flirting casually or are you expecting something? Then it would be an actual conversation about emotions and being on the same page and shit, and even if she said she was cool with it, it wouldn’t feel casual after that. It would feel like some sort of weird arrangement. Like friends with benefits, but for flirting.

Hell, maybe she didn’t even think they were flirting. It wasn’t like they were saying anything obvious. No pickup lines or anything.

Alex tilted his head back for a minute, squeezing his eyes shut and letting the warm shower spray over him like a cozy blanket.

This was why he liked avoiding emotional situations. They were usually more trouble than they were worth, especially when you weren’t good at them.

But this—this heartbreak, even if the word sounded melodramatic—it had to be dealt with. It wasn’t going away on its own, and so the only other option was to throw himself into it headlong, like jumping into a cold ocean before you could talk yourself out of it. Assert dominance, in a way. Fake it til you make it, and then they’ll know who’s in charge.

“You’re talking nonsense,” he mumbled to himself, his own voice loud in the shower. He shut it off decisively and pushed the curtain open, shivering involuntarily. Fake it til you make it.

Freshly toweled off and changed, with his hair mostly blow-dried, Alex wandered back into the kitchen, where he’d abandoned his things. Herc had been there and left again, according to the new dishes in the sink and the note stuck on Alex’s laptop telling him to ‘fucking eat something.’ Alex rolled his eyes, but opened the cabinets anyway.

His phone buzzed against the counter. Slice of raisin bread stuck in his mouth, Alex turned, confused for a moment what had made the noise until he saw his phone lit up. Oh.

He went to check it, taking the raisin bread out of his mouth and taking another bite absently.

Idealiza: why were you up at four in the morning

Alex smiled despite himself.

Alex: Either I was working or I’m a vampire. Pick whichever is more interesting

Idealiza: work then

Alex: ???? Vampires are interesting?

Idealiza: im being contrarian

Alex: No fair, that’s my thing :(

Idealiza: THATS what you base your identity around?

Idealiza: nvm that tracks

Alex: Hey :)

Alex: Oh that was supposed to be a frowny

Idealiza: lmao

Alex took another bite out of his raisin bread, chewing thoughtfully. Trying to think of Eliza in any sort of romantic context still felt wrong. Flirting with her still felt wrong. He kept… expecting John, like when you weren’t looking going up the stairs and you didn’t realize that there wasn’t another step, and you just… stumbled a little. Not stumbled. But.

Fake it til you make it, Alex thought, taking another bite of bread.

Alex: Do you ever want to hang out like in person

The Schuylers lived in the fucking West Village, in a house ( entire house, not just an apartment) decked in pristine white furniture and sandy tan tile floors. Alex hadn’t pegged Eliza as filthy rich before, but she didn’t seem out of place at all when she let him in, in a blue and white crop shirt and skirt that had definitely come as a pair. She didn’t seem to think anything was out of the ordinary, which he supposed for her it wasn’t.

“Do you want anything?” She asked as he followed her through the kitchen. “We’ve got… tea, water, I think we still have some Sprite left over from Peggy’s party. Peggy’s my little sister,” she added.

“What kind of tea?” Tea was calming, wasn’t it?

“Iced tea,” Eliza said. “I don’t know, I don’t usually drink it.” She stopped to open the fridge—it was the type with a screen on front, Alex noticed—and rummage around, pulling out a plastic jug of sweet tea. Sweet tea was good, it was maybe the only kind Alex liked. John liked tea, which Alex was pretty sure was just posturing on his part to seem like the type of person who liked tea.

“Tea would be good,” Alex said. “You have a sister?”

“Two,” Eliza said, moving to pull a glass out of a cream cabinet. “I told you about Angelica, she’s the one who goes to NYU, and then Peggy is still in high school. I’m the middle child.”

“I’m the youngest in my family,” Alex offered, not knowing what else to say to that.

“Yeah?” Eliza said. “Do you like having siblings? I think I couldn’t live without my sisters, but sometimes they make me want to move halfway across the world or something. Here,” she handed him a glass of tea, “Comparison, you know. Do you want to go into the backyard? We’ve got a pool house.”

“Sure,” Alex said, pretending he knew what a pool house was. “I mean, I guess I moved pretty far from home, so there’s your answer. We were never really that close.” He took a sip of tea, deciding not to mention that he hadn’t seen James since he was… what, fourteen? Yeah. “It must be nice to be close to your sisters, though.”

“It is,” Eliza said, glancing over her shoulder as she led him through a hallway and into a sunroom. “I was always shy as a kid, so it was nice to have some kind of guaranteed friends, if you know what I mean? We didn’t hang out in school or anything, but—at home.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I didn’t have that many friends when I was a kid either. Not that I was shy. I had a reputation for throwing rocks at people and I think it scared kids off.”

Eliza gave a surprised laugh, glancing back at him with a wide grin and eyebrows raised. “What?”

“What?” Alex said, mock defensive. “It’s a quick and easy way of dealing with people you don’t like. Someone calls you a name, throw a rock at them. Guarantee they don’t mess with you anymore, it works. I was a bit of a brat,” he said thoughtfully, as Eliza slid open a glass door to the backyard and stepped out, moving to the side to let him out.

“Lots of kids are brats,” Eliza said. “Preconventional stage of moral reasoning, Kohlberg wrote about it.”

The backyard was about as posh as the house, and not just because it was an actual backyard in the heart of New York. There wasn’t much grass, it was more of a hidden courtyard, framed by the tall brick buildings surrounding it and by a tall fence. Brickwork covered the ground save for the edges of the yard, which was decorated with flowers that weren’t in bloom yet. A pool—an actual in-the-ground pool—took up most of the space, with deep blue-green tiles instead of chlorine blue. In the back of the yard, there was a small little house, painted a deep shady brown and with large double glass doors showing off the inside room. Ohhh. Pool house.

Alex couldn’t imagine being that rich. It looked like something you’d find in an expensive hotel, not in a backyard. It looked like the type of place Lafayette would want to rent out for his birthday. Well—no, Lafayette would rent someplace bigger, so that more people could come. Maybe he had something like this in France, though.

“Are you in philosophy or something, then?” Alex asked, trying not to look completely taken aback by the backyard. Eliza hesitated, shutting the door behind Alex.

“...No,” she said. “I’m not actually in college right now. I don’t really know what I want to do yet. I’ve mostly just been, you know, volunteering around, trying out different clubs and societies and stuff. I want to figure out what I want to do before I throw myself into it, you know?”

Alex scrutinized her a moment. “...You and I are two very different people,” he said. “But I guess I get it. You’ve never thought about philosophy? You seem really into it.”

“I do like it,” Eliza said, moving slowly away from the door to meander further into the backyard. Alex followed her, matching her pace to walk beside her. “I just… don’t know what I’d do with it, you know? Being passionate about my work is important to me, but I’d feel… I don’t know… self-indulgent if I wasn’t putting it into practice in some helpful way. I don’t want to just be a professor sitting behind a desk and thinking about life, you know? No offense to professors,” she said thoughtfully. “It would make me feel useless. The problem is that most of my skills aren’t super useful in the big type of way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m very good at a lot of soft skills,” Eliza said. “Like, you know… being nice to people, emotional intelligence, things like that. But I’m not very good at the things you need to make those skills useful. Like knowing how to navigate a business, or set goals efficiently, things like that. That’s more my sister’s skillset,” she added, looking back at Alex. “She’s more the, you know, the modern woman type.”

“The one who’s in NYU or in highschool?”

“NYU,” Eliza said. “Angelica. You wanna dip your feet in? It’s hot out.”

Alex looked over at the pool as she gestured to it, squinting in the sun. “Sure,” he said. “I don’t have a swimsuit…”

“You don’t need to get in all the way,” Eliza said, clambering down to sit by the water and stick her feet in, still wearing her sandals. “Shit, it’s cold.”

Alex smiled at her back and crouched down to sit next to her, tugging his sandals off and glad that he’d chosen to wear shorts today.

The blue-green water was chilled and soft, and more noticeably, didn’t smell like chlorine. “Is this a saltwater pool?”

“Mm.” Eliza tilted her head back. “It’s safer, you don’t have to handle a bunch of chemicals on a daily basis. Besides, it’s good for your skin. Or something.”

“I grew up in the Caribbean,” Alex offered. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t something he usually told people unless they asked, and even then he’d sometimes deflect it, depending on the person.

“That’s cool,” Eliza said. “I’ve never been. Is it nice there?”

Alex hesitated. “...There are some good things,” he said. “I think it’s probably nicer as a tourist, you know? Once you’ve done everything there is to do on an island, that’s it. If you want something new you need to travel to another island, it’s a big hassle. A lot of people get restless.”

“That’s what you did,” Eliza said. It was a question said as a statement. “You moved here for good, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I’m not very good with a quiet kind of life.”

Eliza hummed. “We’re two very different types of people.”

It was an echo of what Alex had said before, but it felt heavier than that now to him. Maybe it was her simple confirmation, or that she just let it be. It wasn’t her—she hadn’t done anything wrong—but for a moment he was drowning in a blinding jealousy, sour-lemon bitterness towards this house and this neighborhood and this pool and everything she had. Do you know what I would give for a life like yours? Do you know what I would do with a life like yours?  

It was hard to imagine being her, primed for any possibility she could want and just… not taking any of them. Staying at home, staying quiet. He hated it here, all at once, and the thought of leaving rose to mind.

“I—” he started, but the back door to the house slid open, and they both looked over at the sound. A teenage girl with curls framing her face was crouched dramatically, as if about to fight, in the doorway.

“Elizabeth Schuyler!” she yelled across the yard. “Save yourself for marriage!”

Eliza froze. “...I’m gonna fucking kill her,” she muttered, and then, louder to Alex, “That’s Peggy. She’s joking.”

“I thought you were pure and innocent,” Peggy yelled, stepping out into the yard. She called back through the open doorway, “Angelica, Eliza’s being unholy!”  

Alex leaned past Eliza to see better, jealousy forgotten.

“Would it freak her out if I told her we were having sex right before she came out?” he directed the question at Eliza, but he wasn’t looking at her.

“Don’t tell her that, she’ll either take it seriously and never leave me alone or she’ll see through it and turn it into a joke and never leave me alone,” Eliza said.

“I mean… what’s she gonna do if I don’t say anything?”

Eliza made a face. “Who knows. Whatever entertains herself.”

A different girl appeared in the doorway, scrutinizing Alex with a piercing stare. She looked older than the other two and with darker skin, long thick ringlets of hair pulled back from her face. Angelica, Alex guessed.

“Leave them alone,” Angelica was saying to Peggy at the entrance, or at least that’s what it sounded like from where Alex was sitting. “Don’t be a jerk.”

“But she never has boys over,” Peggy said petulantly, shoulders dropping dramatically. “Don’t you wanna meet him?”

“Do they know we can hear them?” Alex asked, glancing back at Eliza.

“Probably,” Eliza muttered. “Peggy’s just like that. Do you want me to tell them to leave?” She made as if to get up.

“They can stay if they want,” Alex said, looking back at the girls by the entryway. “It’d be nice to meet your sisters, right?”

“I wanna play pool!” Peggy called, walking over. Angelica followed behind, rolling her eyes at Peggy. “Do you know how to play pool?” Peggy directed at Alex.

“They don’t have to play pool if they don’t want to,” Angelica said. “Peggy. Stop being a brat.”

“I know how to play pool,” Alex said. The church back in Christiansted had a pool table, and he went there for Peer Group on Thursdays, which was a sort of program for “troubled youth” or whatever. He’d mostly agreed to go because his foster dad said that if he went he didn’t have to go to talk therapy anymore. But Reverend Knox, who ran a lot of the sessions, let them play pool in the back when they had extra time. So Alex got pretty good at pool.

He didn’t offer any of that information.

Eliza shot Peggy a look, but climbed out of the pool. The end of her skirt was soaked with water, and it rained onto the ground around her as she offered a hand up to Alex. “You can see our pool house, then. It’s nice there.”

The pool house, as advertised, was “nice.” It was something like a small cabin, or a patio with walls built around it—there was a pool table, as promised, and a little lounge area with patio furniture and a coffee table. There was a little staircase (which led to the attic, according to Eliza) and a door on the back wall that apparently led to the bathroom. There was a shower, they explained, for after you went swimming in the pool so that you didn’t have to track water into the house.

Holy shit.

Peggy was serious about playing pool. She set up the table and handed Alex a cue stick without asking if he wanted one, calling the striped balls for herself. Eliza declared herself on Alex’s team, hopping up to sit on the edge of the pool table (which Peggy immediately complained about, but Eliza didn’t move). Angelica didn’t choose a side, only watched with interest, seeming to calculate the plays in her head.

“...So do you go to school here?” Angelica eventually asked, watching Peggy line up her shot with a keen eye.

“Columbia,” Alex said, trying to say it casually. “I’m in Law School.”

“Cool,” Angelica said. “I’m in NYU.”

Right, because Eliza had told him that, hadn’t she. “Political Science, right?” he looked at Eliza rather than Angelica when she said it.

“And Gender Studies as a minor,” Angelica said. “I’m planning on being a big name in politics, so I’m going to use the minor to know how to position myself in a way that will be more palatable to people who would otherwise discredit me for being a woman. I would’ve taken a class about race, too, but there wasn’t an opening.”

Alex watched Peggy finally hit the ball, knocking one into a hole. “That’s ambitious.”

“Yes, well, not for me,” Angelica said. She sounded slightly peeved, though Alex had no clue why. “I’m at the top of my class; I’ve got some internships lined up for this summer, everything’s going according to plan. I’m very good at this sort of thing, it’s just a natural direction to take.”

“Are you very ambitious, Alex?” Eliza said, inserting herself back into the conversation. Alex gave her a confused look.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know I am, I’ve told you about it.” And to the other two, to explain it: “I got my bachelor’s in two years, and I’m trying to get top of my class now.”

“Two years?” Peggy said, looking up from where she was crouched over the pool table. “What, from where?”

“Columbia,” Alex said. “They were good about it, I like it there.”

Angelica frowned. “That was nice of them. I don’t think you can do that at NYU. Don’t they discourage overloading your schedule so you don’t have a mental breakdown?”

“They discourage it, yeah,” Alex said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t. You just need to convince them you can handle it. I already had a plan going in for what kind of track I was going to take, so they couldn’t really say no. You just need to account for their reasons before they give them.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Eliza said. “It sounds exhausting.”

Alex made a face. “...Yeah. Wouldn’t recommend it if you like sleep.”

Eliza gave him a teasing look. “You don’t like sleep?”

“I like coffee.”

“Hit the ball, dude,” Peggy interrupted, miming poking at Alex with her cue stick. Eliza swatted the stick away, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t do that, dad said you’re not supposed to do that.”

“I do what I want, calm down,” Peggy muttered, directing her voice at Eliza. “You’re not our mom.”

Eliza gave Peggy a squinty glare, conveying something with her eyes that Alex didn’t understand.

“So did you grow up in New York?” Angelica said as Alex scanned the board.

“No,” he said. Wasn’t sure where to go from there. He’d just told Eliza he’d grown up in the Caribbean, so dancing around it would seem weird. “Virgin Islands,” he chose, because that would hopefully get a less-enthusiastic response than if he just said the Caribbean. People had more romantic ideas about the Caribbean as a concept than the Virgin Islands specifically. “But, I mean, I’m here now. There’s just more opportunity in New York. Doesn’t matter where I’m from, it’s a lot less exciting than where I’m going.”

He squared up his shot, only partially so he wouldn’t have to look Angelica in the eyes. Hit two balls into two separate holes, which was… fine, but less than he was aiming for. Oh well.

“So are you and Eliza talking or something?” Peggy said, false-nonchalant. Alex glanced at Eliza in confusion, hoping she knew what that meant, but she didn’t seem to. She broke Alex’s gaze after a second to look back at Peggy warily.

“Do we want to know what that means?”

“Talking,” Peggy said. “Oh my God, you guys are old. It’s like, the pre-dating stage.”

Eliza pursed her lips, staring at Peggy. “So like being friends.”

“Nooo,” Peggy drew the word out. “Not exactly. It’s when you’re, like, feeling someone out to see if you want to date them.”

“Is that what people do now?” Alex said, feeling awkwardly like he was intruding on a family argument. “Back in my day, people just figured out if they wanted to date someone by dating them.”

Eliza glanced at him, strange expression on her face, then back at Peggy. “Yeah, I’ve never heard of ‘talking.’”

“Peggy,” Angelica said, firm and steely. “Stop being a bitch or go inside. Really. It’s getting annoying.”

The words were directed at Peggy, but she was looking at Alex, scrutinizing him like she could see into his soul, as if she knew everything he wasn’t saying. You don’t belong here.

He knew he didn’t. He wasn’t… non-self-aware. He was a poor, brown, queer kid flirting with a rich girl to try and get over his rich ex-boyfriend, trying to pretend that he wasn’t in way over his head. No matter what he did to try and measure up, to try and fit in, it wasn’t enough for this. For this type of people, this type of place.

He felt dirty all of a sudden, as if he’d violated some part of himself by coming here. As if he was some kind of desperate…

He shook himself mentally.

“Actually, I should go,” he heard himself saying. “I’ve got a meeting with my boss…” he checked his phone for the time, not caring what the actual time was. “In, like, half an hour. Yeah. I should go, sorry.”

He pretended not to see the glare that Eliza shot Peggy, or the way that all three girls probably saw straight through his lie.

“I’ll walk you out,” Eliza said, voice gentle. “You and Peggy can finish your game another time, or something.”

Eliza waited until they were back through the sliding door into the house before she said anything. “Sorry about my sisters,” she said, glancing back at him and then away. “I think Peggy’s mad at me, it’s nothing about you.”

“It’s fine,” Alex said, to be polite. He blinked, adjusting his vision to the darker indoors. The air conditioning was cool around his legs where they were still damp from the pool. “You have a nice family.”

Eliza pursed her lips again, glancing to the side. “You don’t have to be nice. You see what I mean when I say some days I want to move to another continent.”

Alex let his shoulders and his guard drop a bit, letting out a breath. “I mean, I can’t judge. It’s like I said, I moved across an ocean to get away from my family too.” And then, because it was going to bother him if he didn’t say something, “I think you’ve got a good thing going on here, though. I wouldn’t give it up. If I were you.”

“I’m not going to,” Eliza said, glancing out of the glass doors again. “Not really. I do love them, I just…” she waved a hand. “You know, family stuff. I still need to figure out what I want to do with my life, I’m not leaving.”

There it was again, the deep frustration and bitterness, like Alex had bitten into a lemon. He reined himself in mentally, forcing himself to not be mad. Some people have struggles, don’t be mean, maybe no one’s taught her this before. Deep breaths, calm down, be a nice person.

“Just pick something and stick with it,” Alex said, trying to keep his tone even and fair. “Look, you’re in a position where you can do almost anything you want, don’t just sit around wasting time. Pick something and then figure out how it can be fulfilling to you, not the other way around.”

Eliza frowned at him, and then abruptly sat down on a nearby ottoman, implying with a tilt of her head that Alex should sit as well. He took a tentative seat on the edge of her couch, uncomfortable with just how white and pristine it was.

“It’s not that simple,” Eliza said, but didn’t chase that thought, not looking very interested in it. “What would you do if you were in my position, then?”

Alex gave her a teasing look. “I thought we’d established that we’re two very different people?”

“No, we are,” Eliza said. “I’m not asking for advice, I doubt I’d like it. But what would you do?”

Alex frowned at her, lost now. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not you. I’d probably be doing something similar to what I’m doing. Law School, maybe a Political Science minor, or business… or economics and sociology. Something where I could leverage my position to have maximum impact.”

Eliza breathed out slowly, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hand. Her eyes stared off into space, somewhere past Alex. “I don’t know what position you think I have,” she said. “I’m not part of my dad’s business. Nobody’s, like, listening to me.”

The words weren’t malicious, but Alex frowned. “Well, are you saying anything?”

Eliza looked over at him, seeming more lost in her own thoughts than really seeing him. Her eyes were a deep dark brown, matching with her hair. She was beautiful, in an understated, quiet kind of way. A strange sentiment stirred in Alex, something caring, but.

It wasn’t what he felt for John.

He wished it were. That would be simpler. But he couldn’t look at her like that, not without thinking of green eyes instead of brown, freckles and curls and brazenness instead of quiet subtlety. John’s intensity—or maybe the intensity he brought out of Alex—was something Eliza couldn’t compete with, through no fault of her own.

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” Eliza said slowly, breaking Alex out of his thoughts. “Don’t you ever worry about saying the wrong thing? Or doing the wrong thing, I guess?”

“Sure,” Alex said easily, switching tracks in his mind. “But you’re gonna mess up sometime. You can’t let that scare you.”

That seemed to break Eliza out of her trance, and she studied him with an amused look. “You’re a very interesting person, Alexander Hamilton,” she said finally. Alex got the sense that there was something she wasn’t saying, but he wasn’t sure what.

“You’re nice,” he said. “Usually people go for something more along the lines of ‘asshole’ than ‘interesting.’”

She hummed, still with that amused expression on her face. “You know, you don’t have to feel awkward here,” she said abruptly. “I think you’d fit in with us. More when Peggy’s not being a brat, I don’t know what’s up with her.”

“I don’t feel awkward,” Alex lied. Eliza didn’t say anything.

The silence stretched out, the house unnervingly silent for being in New York, until it was too much to bear. “Don’t you feel awkward when you’re going places and meeting people for the first time?” He usually didn’t, actually, but it was a shot in the dark for something Eliza would accept. “It’s not a big deal. Just… you and I have very different lives.”

He looked away, fidgeting with the end of his shorts and wishing he could sink into the floor. This was a mistake. He’d rather be literally anywhere but here.

“I won’t care if you don’t,” Eliza said. “I’ve had a lot of friends with different lives. I think it’s good, you know? To get different perspectives on life and stuff? People shouldn’t be living in their own little bubbles all the time.”

Alex looked away, towards the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t say I cared, though.”

“Didn’t say you did,” Eliza said. “Do you… you don’t want to leave your boss waiting, yes?”

She examined him, like she knew it was a lie but she was willing to play along to throw him some sort of lifeline. Alex didn’t know how to feel about that, and there was no time to puzzle it out. “Yeah,” he said. “I should go.”

He stood first, offering her his hand. She took it, leveraging herself up. “It was nice to see you, though,” she said, stepping around him easily, the hand that had been in his moving to pat his arm gently, directing him to follow her. “We should do this again sometime. Maybe not at my house? Unless Peggy starts being less annoying.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, not sure if he was lying or not. He did like Eliza, a lot. She’d been nice to him the whole time, hadn’t she? “It was nice.” That was a lie.

Eliza held the front door open for him, the warmth of the day filtering in. “Text you later, then,” she said, slightly awkward.

“You too,” Alex said, equally awkward, as he stepped out into the sun and down their front steps. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Eliza called after him. “Later!”

He waved at her and watched her wave back before turning to head towards the nearest subway station.

The ride home wasn’t long. Hercules was at work, thankfully, and Alex let himself in, strangely grateful for the worn-down carpeting and cheap molding and the sounds of the street filtering into the apartment. It felt like a retreat, it felt like cowardice, but it also felt like sweet relief. Something familiar, like standing on solid ground again.

He flopped onto his bed, avoiding the papers scattered across it, and heaved a sigh, closing his eyes. It was early afternoon, he wasn’t going to bed. But he just… needed a minute.

It wasn’t like he didn’t deal with rich people on a fairly regular basis. He went to an Ivy League school. One of his best friends was a fucking Marquis. And besides—John—

Alex squeezed his eyes shut harder, pressing his hands to his eyelids. Fuck.

He wasn’t going to cry over this again. Fuck that, that was stupid.

Still, he couldn’t help but—

He sighed.

Eliza was rich. He hadn’t known that before today. He’d known she wasn’t poor; you could just tell with people, but he hadn’t known she was rich rich. So that wasn’t… why he’d gone after her.

Yeah, you just went for her because she reminded you of your rich ex-boyfriend, a sardonic voice in Alex’s head said. Big difference. Much better.

But she didn’t even remind him of John, that much. She was different—quieter, more… something. Alex didn’t know.

It wasn’t that Eliza and John were both rich. That wasn’t the thing. It was that… Alex had fought and climbed his way into a place where everyone was rich. Or—almost everyone. It didn’t matter who he talked to or who he made friends with, as long as he was here it would always be something hanging over his head, that he was the odd one out, the one that other people would have to take pity on. He couldn’t… he couldn’t just be like them. They would always have that power over him, and the worst thing was that they didn’t even realize they were using it half the time.

John had been… well, Alex hadn’t gone for him because of his money either, but John had been something like an entrypoint. To that world Alex had never experienced before. It didn’t matter as much if Alex didn’t know how to navigate it, because John did. Like a human shield.

But fuck, Alex didn’t want another benefactor.  

He didn’t want to be… the one relying on other people for what they could give him. He hated that. More than anything.

So why did you come here, then? The voice in his head said. You knew you’d be the odd one out.

I didn’t know it would be like this, Alex thought back to himself.

Would you have stayed on the island, then, if you knew? The voice said.

Alex didn’t have a good answer to that. He wouldn’t have stayed. He knew himself, he knew he would never have really stayed. He was just… tired and dramatic.

But still.

He was tired. He worked ten times harder than anyone, and for what? He still didn’t have the leg up that everyone else did. He still didn’t measure up to them. And he felt ridiculous for even trying when it never, ever seemed to work. He didn’t want people’s pity, or admiration, thinking that he was trying so hard or that he was doing his best. Like a baby trying to climb the stairs. What he wanted…

He wanted to punch something, mostly, right now. He didn’t. He had a deposit to worry about.

He just wanted to stand on solid ground, like everyone else did. Not feel like he was the only one balancing on a tightrope while everyone around him just… walked on air.

You are tired, Alex told himself. You sound stupid.

He heaved another sigh, opening his eyes and sitting up, staring at his bedroom door.

Chapter Text

Classes were in full swing at this point, and John had to concede that Dr. Franklin… may have had a point.

It put a bad taste in his mouth, okay, the thought of having to choose. Narrowing his focus… wasn’t exactly the point of this trip. And, yeah, he hadn’t exactly told Franklin the circumstances surrounding his decision to go on this trip, but—still. He hated the feeling of… locking himself into one thing, and then—when that thing was all used up, when it became monotonous and it wasn’t a novelty anymore… well, there was no guarantee whether John had made the right choice before that, and he didn’t want to be… he wanted multiple options. So that if—if something happened, if he started feeling dead—he wouldn’t be trapped.

But John was doing fine. Things had almost become routine—only almost, still in that sweet spot of comforting novelty. But his phone alarm woke him up annoyingly early in the mornings and he would rummage through his suitcases, where things were divided into plastic zip-up organizers he'd bought on a whim years ago. He'd find something nice; nicer than his sneakers and national park shirts, more along the lines of what he would wear when he visited Charleston. He knew how to not look like a tourist.

He and Louis would set out in the early morning and John would usually buy breakfast somewhere on the way, both for him and for Louis, who would call him ridiculous for it, and they'd keep a brisk pace through the bright wide cobblestone streets of Rouen until they reached the University. It felt like a different world from the rest of Rouen, a new, industrial building. Steel stairs and white tile and posters on the walls that felt overall disappointingly the same to an American college.

Classes were, en général, the same as Law classes in America. Vaguely elitist, too light on justice and heavy on traditional baseness for John to work up much enthusiasm for it. Honestly, he always preferred the careers—the paths—that provided an avenue to make some positive impact on humanity. And he could find that in Law, but there was always the uneasy frustration of knowing that being a lawyer was, in essence, profiting off of his potential clients' misfortune. The most moral thing, really, would be in pro bono work—but then it wouldn't be a job. But John had made his choice, and he found the silver linings where he could. Somebody had to do it, had to fight for people in trouble, and of course those somebodies needed money to survive. It just wasn't in John's own personal nature, to take well to it. He always admired Alex for being able to schlep through without getting bogged down and exhausted by the more deplorable parts and people. Eyes on the prize, that was Alex. John was too much of an idealist.

But John was able to muster some discipline, at least, even if he wished he had more. He got good grades, even if they weren't the best—and he'd struck up a rapport with his professors, like his dad had told him to. He was even going to this boring-ass networking dinner thing tomorrow night that one of them had invited him to. And he was spending time with his friends tonight, see, he was balancing it. He wouldn’t have gone out—maybe—but Petrie had wanted John to meet his girlfriend, and he’d said that she would be coming to Rouen tonight, something about a job application. It seemed strange to John to meet up in a club, but as Petrie had pointed out, John didn’t live with his parents.

(“It kills the mood,” Petrie had complained. “I don’t even mean sexually. Just in general. You don’t want to flirt or anything when your parents could overhear you.”)

So John was managing fine, and he didn’t need to get rid of anything.

“Okay-okay-okay,” John said, pushing through his laughter. “New rule. Anyone who says the word ‘like’ needs to take a shot.”

“Noooooo,” Petrie said, slumping back in his seat. “I told you, my girlfriend—”

“Oh, right,” John said, frowning as well. Fuck. “Then… anyone who says the word like has to pay five dollars.”

“Five dollars?” Martin said. “I didn’t bring a lot of money…”

“Don’t say the word, then,” Louis said sagely. “Starting now?” he turned to John, and John nodded solemnly.

“Starting now.”

They weren’t drunk, okay. It was early in the evening, not a lot of people were even at the club they were in yet. And besides, John wasn’t going to get completely wasted right before meeting Petrie’s girlfriend. That would just be rude.

“Why did your girlfriend even want to meet you here anyway?” John leaned over the circle table they were at, towards Petrie on the other side, glancing around the club. It had color-changing neon light strips tucked against the ceiling and the wall, and the floor and the wall to match, and a large empty space clearly meant for dancing, even if it looked a bit sparse at the moment. It wasn’t the type of place to have a… calm night, he didn’t think.

“I told you,” Petrie started, but John cut him off.

“I don’t mean, like, here versus your parent’s house. I meant here versus, like, somewhere that doesn’t look like a place for a rave.”

“You haven’t met Petrie’s girlfriend,” Louis said. “She’ll enjoy it.”

John raised his eyebrows, flicking his eyes between Petrie and Louis significantly, then over to Martin, who grinned. Whether it was just at John’s antics or at the actual implication John didn’t know.

“Fuck off,” Petrie said. “We have a very deep connection, thank you.”

John fought down a grin. “Yeah, I bet it’s deep.”

He took a slow sip of his drink that he had to mostly spit back out into the cup as realization dawned across Petrie’s face, Martin and Louis laughing in the background.

"You're horrible," Petrie mumbled, slumping over the table and nearly toppling his drink in the process—Martin subtly slid it away, towards himself. Petrie was smiling awkwardly, though, so John didn't apologize.

"John Laurens!"

John looked around, surprised. A short black girl in sparkly earrings and an iridescent blazer was approaching their table, weaving through the growing crowd and waving, followed by a small gaggle of other people John recognized from his classes.

"Hey, Anita," John said, straightening. Anita reached his spot and pulled him up into a hug.

"Figures I'd see you here," Anita said. "This is your kind of place."

"I feel like I should be offended," John said, pulling back before it got awkward. "I didn't pick the place out, I'm here to meet my friend's girlfriend." He gestured to Petrie, who gave an awkward wave, looking between Anita and John with some confusion. "But you're here too, I guess. Guys, this is Anita Jacobson," John said, turning to his friends, who were watching them quietly. "She's an exchange student too, she's in my Physics elective. She's cool."

A chorus of greetings sounded from the table. "Hi," Anita said, shy for a moment before turning back to John. "Have you met Charlotte? She's who I came with, she's around here somewhere."

"We should've known you'd end up friends with everyone in the club by the end of the night," Louis said ruefully. "This is just the beginning."

"Oh…" Anita said, looking awkward, as if realizing she was intruding. Which she wasn't, at least not to John.

"You should bring her over," John said. "We can make a big group. Make a party. This place is too calm right now anyway."

Anita gave him a wry look, but didn't share whatever she was thinking that made her face twist that way. "...I'll see if I can find her," she said, stepping away slightly before hesitating and looking back at John's friends— "If that's okay with you?"

"Go ahead," Louis said. "This is the type of place for a crowd, anyway, isn't it?" He looked to John as if for confirmation, and John nodded.

"The more the merrier," Petrie said. Martin simply shrugged, which from Martin was an invitation—Martin didn't usually like crowds, but he'd complain if he really didn't want to tonight.

"We're good," John confirmed for Anita, sliding back into his place. "Go find your friend."

Anita nodded once and disappeared into the quickly growing crowd, as though John was a commander giving her her marching orders. She was like that sometimes—John suspected she was more introverted, so she was more comfortable following other people’s lead when she was in groups. She was a nice friend, though.

“She’s the one in astronomy that you mentioned?” Louis said, watching her leave. John nodded.

“She’s from Georgia,” he said, and then, remembering that he was talking to Europeans that wouldn’t know why that mattered, “Which is next to South Carolina.”

“Really?” Petrie said. “So you two could have known each other before!”

John made a face. “It’s not that near. She lives in Atlanta, that’s, like… five hours from Charleston? I think.”

Petrie took this in with a faintly concerned face. “...What do you think is far, in America?”

John didn’t answer, seeing Anita weaving back through the crowd, another girl following her. “That was fast,” he said, mostly under his breath, as they approached. Then, louder, “Hey! Pull up some chairs!”

“Americans are so loud,” Martin muttered. John elbowed him, and Martin punched his shoulder back. It almost escalated—Martin made a grab for John to put him in a play-headlock, and John tried to grab at Martin’s arm to block him and twist it—but Louis cleared his throat pointedly.

“We have introductions to make,” he said firmly, in that mom-friend tone that he did so well. “Stop it.”

John and Martin straightened up, glancing at each other before giving Louis twin innocent looks. Petrie was smiling around his glass, quietly amused.

“We’re not doing anything,” John said. Martin nodded.

“Don’t accuse us.”

Louis rolled his eyes and turned to Anita and her friend. “I’m Louis,” he said. “Ignore them, they’re children.”

John huffed without humor, leaning back coolly in his chair. A flare of genuine frustration splintered through his good mood, creating a sudden loud crack.

He loathed being called a child. It happened too often, as if just because he had fun meant he couldn’t take anything seriously—or be smart, or have good judgment on anything—it made his blood boil. A little too much for the situation, probably. He tamped it down internally. “Well, I don’t know why you’re here, Louis, but I’m here to have fun. You can go and be boring somewhere else if you want.”

Louis didn’t pick up on his sudden change in mood—which was what John wanted, anyway, it wasn’t fair to be so annoyed, he wasn’t trying to broadcast it, but it was annoying anyway when Louis didn’t react. John wasn’t a very fair person. “That’s John,” Louis said to the girl beside Anita, a willowy asian girl with hair dyed blonde. Charlotte, John remembered. Or Catherine? One of the two.

“Hey,” he said, raising a hand in greeting and trying to relax. “I’m John. Are you foreign exchange?”

“Mmm, sort of,” Charlotte-maybe-Catherine said. She had some sort of European accent that John couldn’t place at first.

“She moved here from Germany to do school,” Anita explained, sounding overly excited about it. “So she might stay, after, or move somewhere else. But she’s not really in the exchange program.” She glanced at Charlotte-maybe-Catherine as she said it, as if in confirmation.

Charlotte-maybe-Catherine nodded. “I just needed a change,” she said. “You know. And some distance from family.” Then, turning to Petrie and Martin, “I’m Charlotte, by the way.”

Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. John repeated it in his head so he wouldn’t forget again as Martin and Petrie introduced themselves.

“So what are you majoring in?” Martin said, sounding more like he was being polite than actually interested.

“Oh—astronomy,” Charlotte said. “Like Anita. That’s how we met. I just like the way of mapping things by anchoring yourself to something out in space—even mapping out space, just with human calculations, and learning things by discernment even so far away. But it would be nice to get closer someday.”

At her side, Anita was nodding quickly, hanging on Charlotte’s every word. John glanced between the two of them, a theory forming in his mind.

“...So are you and Anita good friends, then?” he said, testing the waters.

Charlotte and Anita glanced at each other. “I would say so,” Charlotte said, and Anita nodded some more, relaxing a bit. “I… we haven’t known each other very long. But you—you’re an exchange student too, yes? And you have good friends here.”

“Well…” John said, glancing at the others. “I mean, I met these guys before that. Petrie when I visited London for a while, and then Louis and Martin when I was in Geneva.”

Charlotte’s eyebrows raised slightly. “You’ve been around, then.”

“He’s a globetrotter,” Petrie said, leaning past Louis to talk to the girls more fully. “He travels all the time—didn’t you travel on your own as a teenager, too? And you had your luggage stolen.”

“I mean, that was once,” John said. “But yeah. Don’t travel on major airlines with valuables. It’s such a closed system, you’ll never get your stuff back.”

“Do tell,” Anita said.

So John explained the story of how a TSA agent (well, probably it was a TSA agent) stole from him when he was on an impromptu trip to Puerto Rico that he’d begged his dad for, which was a lot more fun as a story than it was to actually live at the time. From there Charlotte picked up the thread, talking about her trip from Germany and the issues she’d had getting to France, and Petrie and Anita started a side-conversation about the boarding school Petrie had gone to in London, and how much it sucked, John chiming in with details from the brief time he was there.

It was nice. John liked people, it was fun, and more people that John vaguely recognized and Martin recognized more came over and joined them after a while, and people were splitting off into different groups within their one big group, and the club was crowded now, and at some point they ordered more drinks, and then Petrie leaned over to stop John in the middle of a conversation to say his girlfriend would be there in five minutes—John wasn’t sure what the hold-up was, but he didn’t ask, too invested in a conversation with Louis about the way color theory showed up in nature for different scientific reasons, like attracting pollinators or being more intimidating—and it was nice, it was a good night. John wished he could capture it in a bottle, as cheesy as that sounded. That was always what he wanted, for nice moments, but things were always fleeting. Nothing lasted, he knew that.

He was across the room, actually, with Louis and Charlotte and another guy named Jules who was a sound engineer, when Petrie appeared out of nowhere, taking John’s arm and making him jump about three feet in the air.

“Jesus!” Sorry, Jesus, he added in his head.

“Sorry,” Petrie said, not sounding that sorry. “Julia’s here!”

Oh, right, the girlfriend. John looked past Petrie to see an Asian girl with a round face and a pixie cut hovering at his side, drawn up tall and looking slightly amused. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I didn’t know you were so jumpy.”

Petrie laughed, and John cast him a dark look. “Likewise,” he said, turning to Julia. “...Except the jumpy part. Petrie says you’re very self-assured.”

He hadn’t, exactly, but John had read between the lines well enough, and anyway, he knew how to compliment people in a way that made them perk up.

“I try to be,” she said. “You just get more done that way. But you must know about that, traveling around the way you do.”

…John didn’t, really. He wasn’t stupid. If his dad wasn’t his dad, he’d probably know more about it. But as it was—

He was reminded of Alex, suddenly, and his steamroller confidence in himself and his ability to get things done. It came with practice, Alex always said. When you have no one to rely on, you learn how much you can rely on yourself.

“I suppose I see what you mean,” John said, setting aside the thoughts. He didn’t need them right now, in the middle of a conversation. “You learn a lot by traveling. How was your interview?” he tacked on, remembering vaguely that she’d had an interview sometime before this.

She made a face. “I did well,” she said. “I don’t like that it ran so late, though. If they do that to their interviewees, imagine how late they might ask me to stay as an employee.”

“It’d be nice for you to live closer, though,” Petrie said, faux-casual.

“It would,” she said.

John half-followed along, mind racing down a different track. Thinking of his dad made him think of the other things he had to do—he had an essay for school, and he should really check his emails—which would be stupid to do in a club, but he couldn’t deny feeling kind of guilty about blowing his dad’s money on a trip to France just so he could go clubbing with his friends.

Well. Not just go clubbing. But the point still stood.

He broke off with Julia and Petrie after the minimum respectful amount of time was up—he felt bad for leaving, he knew Petrie was excited for John to meet his girlfriend, and Julia seemed cool, but he couldn’t concentrate anyway. He pushed through the crowds, letting himself drift with the flow even though it felt too slow too slow— but then he broke out of the crowd and into the clear to walk out the door, cool spring air flooding around him as if to clean his mind.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was probably something his old therapist would’ve said about this, back in that phase of his life—God, he hadn’t thought about that in a while. It was talking about his trip to Puerto Rico that made him think of it, probably. It had been just a few months after his mom had died, when he was sixteen. Some kind of crazy bid to feel closer to her, or maybe closer to his culture, had made him go. It was like an itch under his skin, because—he remembered it clearly, no one had spoken Spanish at home after she’d died. Now that he was older, he only remembered some. He could recognize what people were saying in conversations, usually, but he wouldn’t be able to respond.

He took another deep breath.

…Anyway. It was around that time that he’d had a therapist for a while, and then for a bit in college. So that was probably why he was thinking about it.

He pulled out his phone and sat down on the bench by the door, his phone screen lighting up the night with a soft glow. He had twelve notifications from different things—none from Alex, not that he expected any. He let out a slow breath.

Okay. One thing at a time.

He opened his emails first. He had some regular updates about assignments and classes from his professors—one near the top with details about the networking event he was going to tomorrow. Which reminded him, shit, he was going to be exhausted for that. He’d need to take a nap or something tomorrow. He hated taking naps.

He tapped out a quick reply, Thank you so much, I really appreciate the opportunity. I’ll see you then, sent it, and switched over to his half-finished (more like quarter-finished) essay outline that he’d thrown together earlier. He’d written a list: ISSUE, LEGAL RULE, APPLICATION OF RULE, and CONCLUSION, with a few bulletpoints after each one, barely any of them actually filled in.

Ugh, he hated doing this shit. But he’d hate knowing it wasn’t done more.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, refining his stupid essay in the cold night air. Some people came and went through the doors of the club—no one asked him what he was doing, probably assuming he was texting someone for a ride or something. Eventually, Martin stepped out and sat down next to him. John didn’t acknowledge him at first, assuming that he’d come out to get away from the crowds and probably wanted some quiet. So it was Martin who spoke first.

“I told Petrie and Louis that you and I might leave together if I could find you,” he said. John looked up at Martin—a question.

“I figured you’d be ready to go,” Martin clarified. “You seemed… done with it.”

He was choosing his words carefully. John blinked at Martin, surprised. He didn’t broadcast his emotions that much. “How do you figure?”

Martin shrugged. “You just did. You’ve been strange lately, anyway.”

John frowned, turning that over in his mind, and didn’t answer.

He thought he’d have more time before that started up again.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” Martin said, graciously letting John get away with not answering. “I know a nice museum near here.”

John tilted his head back to look over at Martin, huffing out a breath with a tired smile. “You know me so well.”

Martin hmm ’d, standing and offering John a hand. “Won’t it be closed, though?” John said, taking it and pulling himself up. “It’s late.”

“No,” Martin said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his varsity jacket to ward off the chill. “It’s… it’s kind of like a self-guided tour thing, not the type of thing that needs to close early. It’s still open for another… hour, I think.”

“Huh,” John said, following Martin slowly as he headed down the street, sure of himself and where he was going. “Not like Geneva, then.”

Everything had closed super early in Geneva. If you wanted to do anything after, like, seven o’clock, you were pretty much out of luck. It was annoying for the people John knew who had jobs that ran up to the curfew, but John had never had that problem personally.

“No, not like Geneva,” Martin agreed. “In retrospect, it surprises me that you liked it there so much. There wasn’t much to do.”

“There was a lot of nature,” John said. “I like nature. And besides, it’s more about who you’re with than where you are.”

The words felt like a trap as soon as they left his mouth. One Martin was oblivious to—just John casually shooting himself in the foot.

“I feel bad that I barely talked to Julia, though,” John said, in a desperate grab to move on from that comment. “She seems cool.”

“Petrie really likes her,” Martin said. “He gets annoyed at us for teasing him about being all grown up now, but is it strange that I’m proud of him?”

“No,” John said, eyes lingering on a mural painted across the side of a building. It meshed strangely well with the historic feel around them, creating an interesting ambiance in the night. “He’s your friend. You want him to do well, so you’re proud when he does. That’s normal.”

Martin hummed. “I forget how wise you are, sometimes.”

“I’m not that wise,” John said automatically.

“Sometimes you are. Sometimes you’re stupid, but you have a good understanding of people, I think. In general.”

“You too,” John said, vaguely touched. “You’re always noticing shit.”

“It’s because I’m not so busy talking.”

John laughed, but he knew Martin was serious.

They fell into silence, and John watched the city streets as they meandered towards whatever museum Martin had in mind. It was a nice night—it was getting warmer during the day, now, which meant the night wasn’t so cold as to be freezing. It was bracing, but not overwhelmingly so. A couple other people were out, talking in quiet throaty French, in clusters next to lampposts or heading into what storefronts were still open. The lampposts lined the streets, letting off a quiet golden glow, and a faint breeze stirred through the air. John took a deep breath, and tried to hold onto the wonder of being halfway across the world from home.

“You know, I had a boyfriend,” he started, then stopped to wonder what the fuck had possessed him to start that conversation. There was a strange sadness squeezing at his throat, and he swallowed it down to keep going before things got awkward. “Um, he used to travel all the time as a teenager. More than me.”

Martin glanced over at him, a puzzled look on his face. “This is about… the conversation we had earlier, about your trip to Puerto Rico?”

“Yeah,” John said. “That made me think of it. I don’t know. His stories were more interesting than mine, you’d have liked him. He wasn’t even allowed to travel—well, I guess he never asked—but he assumed he wasn’t allowed to travel, so he’d save up money and hustle and stuff, and then just lie to his foster parents and tell them he was doing something else. I don’t know, some school thing or things like that. And then he’d just get on a ferry or a plane or something to travel to a different island—he was from the Caribbean,” John clarified. “So there were a bunch of islands around. And he’d stay overnight at, like, hostels and stuff, and he had to lie to them about his age sometimes for them to let him stay there. ‘Cause, you know, lawsuits. He photoshopped a picture of his student ID, too, to change the age, and he’d print it out and use that to prove to people he was older than he was.”

“That sounds really dangerous.”

“Yeah,” John said. “He says that now. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty and all that. But he told me… he didn’t think about it that way back then, because when he was a kid he always just kind of felt like an adult in a kid’s body. He said it was like… being in charge of himself for a while helped him breathe easier or something. It was just something he felt like he needed to do, to stay sane.” John paused. “I think it was comforting to know that he’d be able to take care of himself, when the time came. It helped him be more self-assured or something.”

Martin hummed. “He sounds like an interesting character.”

“Yeah,” John said. “I think… I was just thinking about it because he went to Puerto Rico too, as a teenager. A few times. I mean, it was closer for him, so.”

“You could’ve met each other before you met,” Martin filled in John’s thoughts, bumping his shoulder. “Turn here.”

John followed Martin around the turn, looking away and around the street. “I doubt we did,” he said. “It’s a big place, and I wasn’t exactly staying in hostels. Besides, we always said it was probably a good thing we didn’t meet when we were younger. We wouldn’t have liked each other as teenagers, probably.”

“When did you date?” Martin said. John winced internally. He’d walked into that one, hadn’t he.

“Uh, we broke up over spring break,” he said, trying to sound like it was something he could brush off. “Before I came here.”

Martin raised his eyebrows, blinking at John for a moment before recovering. John looked away awkwardly. “I mean, I broke up with him, actually,” he said. “So.”

Martin was quiet for a long moment. “I thought you’d been acting strange.”

John huffed out a humorless laugh. “And I thought I’d been acting pretty normal.”

Martin hummed. “You do this thing when you’re upset,” he said. “Like you try to overcompensate for being sad by trying to be as happy as possible. I can tell you’re upset when you act happy and stressed at the same time. When you’re just happy you don’t get stressed about having to be happy.”

John didn’t really know how to respond to that.

“It’s good to not… wallow,” he said. “If you obsess over your sadness too much, you stop living.”

Martin frowned. “I guess,” he said. “But there’s a difference between not wallowing and just… shoving your problems aside like they don’t exist. It’s okay to be sad, and all that cheesy stuff.” Then, before John could answer, he pointed to a large old cathedral-looking building ahead. “There’s the Joan of Arc museum.”

“Oh, I like Joan of Arc,” John said, instead of responding to the first part of Martin’s little speech.

“I thought you would,” Martin said. He paused, then, slowing his walking pace as they approached the stone steps of the building. As promised, the lights were on. “I’m serious, though, John, you don’t have to act happy all the time for us. We’re your friends.”

John sighed.

He really didn’t want to be having this conversation. Especially not right now. He was tired and vaguely buzzed, maybe, from the traces of alcohol still in his system. Dwelling on sad things made him itchy and restless. Why would he want to linger on it, when happier things were everywhere, just slipping by?

“I don’t do it for you,” he said slowly. “Believe me, if I ever want to throw a pity party, I’ll invite you.” He paused as they reached the doors, Martin pushing one open and gesturing for John to go in first. John stepped into a wide entrance hall type room, dimly lit, with a brochure stand on one side and a sign standing near a large archway on the other end of the room. Large banners hung on either side of the archway, depicting Joan of Arc in all her battle regalia with the words Historial Jeanne d'Arc across the bottom, presumably the name of the museum. He took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, Martin stepping in behind him. John heard rather than saw the door thunk closed.

“Do you remember… when I visited you all in Geneva, after I’d moved for a while,” John said, as a statement and not a question. “After Francis and I broke up.” he left out the other thing that had happened. Not because Martin didn’t know, but John didn’t want to talk about it. “I was really miserable.”

“I remember,” Martin said quietly. “We were worried for you.”

“I know,” John said. “I was… drowning in it. I don’t know how to explain it. I felt like I would never feel anything again except for being tired and miserable and empty.” he took a shaky breath, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away from Martin. If he looked at him he might cry. “It’s like… I was overwhelmed by this tidal wave, and it nearly killed me. That’s why I… it’s not that I’m afraid, I just… it’s protection. You know. Taking care of myself and stuff. When you’re sad, that’s when it’s most important to remind yourself how happy life can be. I think.”

Martin was quiet for long enough that John was almost sure that he was giving John a concerned look. John almost suggested heading into the museum, almost took over the conversation to talk about literally anything else, but then Martin spoke.

“It’s good to think positively, and take care of yourself,” he said. “But… remember, you made it through that time too. You didn’t actually drown. I think you’re strong enough to feel hurt but still make it through, you don’t need to… escape it. And besides, you don’t have to do it yourself,” he added quickly. “We are your friends. Louis would love to mother you.”

John snorted, glancing at Martin quickly. “Well, don’t scare me off more. ” he dropped the smile. “I know, okay? I’m not… running from my feelings. I’m just… not letting them control me, you know?”

“If you’re sure,” Martin said. “Then good for you. See, you are wise sometimes.”

John rolled his eyes. “Once in a millennium, yes.”

“A bit more than that,” Martin said, bumping up against John’s shoulder. “Otherwise we’d have just gone through two millenniums.”

John let out a breath and didn’t argue. It wasn’t that he wasn’t… wiser than some people, but that was a low bar. There were a lot of people wiser than him, and he was still a dumb kid a lot of the time. It was just who he was, and hopefully he’d grow out of it, but if Martin was so set on saying he was wise John wouldn’t argue.

“So Joan of Arc?” he said, starting forward towards the archway. “You like her?”

Martin shrugged, taking John’s cue and hurrying to walk beside him. “She’s very passionate,” he said. “I can see why she’s inspiring to so many people. But I also think her legacy is interesting—a lot of nationalists will use her to argue for different shitty things. It makes you wonder whether she’d like the legacy she left behind. She died as a political pawn,” he said, pausing at the entryway. “I mean, that wasn’t her whole life, she made her own choices most of the time, but when she died—it was a political move. The whole thing was her as a symbol, not as a person. It makes me think she wouldn’t like people using her name that way.”

John looked over at Martin, raising his eyebrows. “So you really like her.”

“Like I said,” Martin said. “She’s interesting. Her legacy is interesting. She brings up interesting questions. Like, what makes someone a hero? Or—what makes someone passionate versus deluded?”

A slow grin crept across John’s face. “This is why we’re friends, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Martin said. “I’m surprised sometimes that you didn’t go into philosophy.”

“Too much theory, not enough action,” John said. “I need to be doing something.”

He looked out on the next room of the exhibit. Stone pillared walls with intricate patterned tiles, and different placards scattered around with the odd painting and a large elevated square in the middle of the room with a large display; text and a picture printed on, with a helmet encased in glass in the middle.

“It’s not her real helmet,” Martin said. “It’s just from the time period. This is where they held her trial, though. Where she was sentenced to die.”

John did a double take. “Really?”

Martin smiled, amused—John forgot, of course, Europe had more history than America, it saw historical places more casually. “We could walk to the place where she was burned at the stake, too,” he said. “There’s nothing about it there, though, really.” he gestured to the placards placed around the room. “You just go around and read through about her life, here. It’s nice, though.”

John hummed, glancing over the room. Martin liked the more quiet stuff. John did too, sometimes, but he wasn’t sure about it tonight.

Still, Martin was trying to be nice, and John could humor him, even if he didn’t like it.

After a few rooms, he found that he actually did like it. Joan’s story was written well, and engaging enough that he didn’t mind that it was just written out. He could understand what Martin meant about her—both about how passionate she was, and how she probably wouldn’t want people using her name in their own politics. The story painted a humble, devout girl from the countryside, who was told in what she believed to be a vision from God that she would be the one to turn the tide against the English and save France. Someone who felt she was in completely over her head, and admitted it to everyone who questioned her, but was adamant that she had to do this—that she had a mission, and she would carry it out. She wasn’t a politician, but her power came from how deeply she believed in what she was doing. She had the wholehearted conviction that what she was doing was right, and it made her seem almost unstoppable at times.

Like Martin said—it was easy to be inspired.

It was also easy to see why some people thought she was a tragic figure who didn’t know what she was doing, and who was possibly insane for having visions, but John didn’t see it that way. Maybe because he believed in that sort of thing, but even if it hadn’t been a vision from God that Joan saw, he didn’t think he’d see her as a tragic figure. She didn’t just have faith in God, she had faith in herself, in a way he couldn’t see as tragic.

Ugh, he was getting tired. He could tell because he was getting way too moody and dramatic.

It was a dramatic story, though.

He and Martin drifted from room to room, sometimes bringing up things to each other or reading out loud from the placards, sometimes just reading in silence. 

“Can I ask you something,” Martin said, when they’d doubled back to the second room. John had wanted to re-read one of the placards; he’d forgotten a specific and it was bothering him.

John looked over to Martin, frowning at his tone of voice. It was too serious to be anything John would like. “...Sure?”

“You and your ex,” Martin said, and John had the brief clarity, oh, that’s why he sounds serious, followed by the twisting hurt of Alex being called his ex. It seemed too harsh a word all of a sudden, too choppy and sharp. But that’s what Alex was. His ex.  

“You said you broke up with him,” Martin continued, oblivious to John’s internal turmoil. Fuck, he hated this! “How come?”

John turned back to the placard and huffed out a strange sharp laugh, bitter and sarcastic. Great fucking question. “...It just… it’s hard to explain.”

“Was he a dick?”

“No.” Something about John’s tone of voice must have seemed too sharp, because Martin didn’t press, and in fact immediately started backpedaling.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to…”

“No,” John said quickly, feeling a stab of guilt. His emotions weren’t Martin’s responsibility. “No, just… he was… lovely. That’s not…” he looked away again, taking a shaky breath. He didn’t want to cry, he didn’t want to cry.  

Fuck, he was too tired for this.

“That’s not why we broke up,” he said, keeping his voice miraculously steady. “We just… we had different approaches to things… to dealing with things… I don’t know. We were different. I don’t think it would have worked out. So why stay and drag out the hurt, you know?”

Martin hummed, more an acknowledgement to fill the empty air than anything. John didn’t look at him, just focused on breathing steadily without any sobs getting in the way. “That sucks.”

John laughed, because it made him feel a little less like crying. “Yeah.” He wanted to add something more, like that’s life! Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened, and all that, but he didn’t trust his voice.

“One day,” Martin said. “You’ll find someone who matches with you. It’ll work out in the end.”

John didn’t say anything. The overwhelming response that bubbled up in his throat to that was Alex and I already matched and but I love him, not someone who matches me and I’m so scared I made a mistake.

None of which he wanted to say out loud.

Martin didn’t press against his strange silence, thank God. Martin was a good friend. He only nudged John’s shoulder after a few seconds to point to the next placard over, a few feet away. “Is that the one you were looking for?”

John looked over, face thankfully away from Martin’s. “Maybe,” he said, and his voice came out startlingly normal. He was good at seeming normal, on the surface.

They drifted the few feet over, Martin reading the words out loud and John following along, only half-listening—he made more of an effort to tune in halfway through, frustrated by sitting in his own thoughts.

“‘...I do not fear men-in-arms, my way has been made plain for me,” Martin was reading. “If there be men-in-arms my Lord God will make a way for me to go to my Lord Dauphin. For that I am come.’ …This quote is often misquoted as the famous line ‘I am not afraid; I was born to do this—’ a sentiment Joan seemed to share in spirit, although she never truly said the words.”

John took a deep breath and let it out, measured and slow. Time to come down now, from whatever strange rollercoaster he was on. “That’s a good quote.”

“The real one, or the misquote?”

“Both. I don’t know.” John scanned the words, a strange wistful ache flooding his chest. “Wouldn’t it be strange… to be so certain about your life purpose? That you weren’t even afraid of opposition, I mean.”

He wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them—they were some strange product of being tired and in a weird mood—they seemed to leave him raw and exposed, all his nerves laid out as if on a surgeon’s table—but Martin spoke before John could tell him that it was stupid.

“She’s lucky, I guess,” Martin said. “Most of us don’t have a vision fall in our lap. We just have to go out searching for something meaningful.”

“Do you think it exists, then?” John said. “Life purpose, I mean.”

Martin tilted his head to the side, studying John but not really—his eyes went through John, looking at something only he could see. “...More or less. I don’t think… I don’t think it’s that we’re born for one specific thing and then once it’s over we’re… used up, or something. But I think life is full of meaning. And with meaning comes purpose, doesn’t it? We just need to… find what it is that means the most to us, and follow that to the end. I guess. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” John said. “Yeah. I get that.”

He did get it.

He felt… guilty, almost. The same guilt that had been haunting him at odd moments, the knowing that he’d chosen his own happiness and relief over… well, not over everybody else’s. Over Alex’s.

He was familiar with this feeling. It was the deep-seated frustration he always had with himself, when he stopped to think about it, to look over his track record. The way he burned through places, through experiences, as if he were greedy or selfish, when everyone around him just seemed… content. John had never learned—he didn’t think—to savor contentment or happiness when it came, he just grabbed at it desperately and drained it empty and then started looking for the next thing, before—before he felt the loss.

The idea of having a life purpose was strange to him. To feel so… fulfilled, so passionate, wasn’t something John thought he was capable of carrying out over a long period of time. Being really content and happy, instead of just… distracted by a million things and high on life.

He wanted to, though.

He just… didn’t have the faintest idea what would be enough for him. He wasn’t sure anything would. He didn’t know what he wanted. He did things—there were a thousand things he did —but. Well.

“We should probably go soon,” John said softly to Martin. “I still have that thing tomorrow night. I need to sleep sometime.”

Chapter Text

“So.”

Alex jumped, keysmashing his laptop by accident. He looked up sharply—Meade was sliding into the seat next to him, looking faintly amused at Alex’s start.

“Don’t do that,” Alex grumbled, looking back at his screen and deleting through the mess of letters.

“I wasn’t being quiet,” Meade told him. “I don’t know what else you want me to do, it’s your tunnel vision, not mine.”

Alex sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Did you come over here just to insult me?”

Meade was a fairly good friend of Alex’s. He fell into the category of “nice enough to put up with Alex’s bullshit,” but also had enough of a backbone that he’d stand up for himself and Alex didn’t have to feel guilty about accidentally steamrollering him into a pancake in an argument about the best type of salad or whatever. He was cute enough that if he wasn’t straight, Alex would’ve considered having a crush on him, except that Meade was too type A for him and Alex to ever really work out. It’d probably devolve into a battle of wills… too fast.

But he was a good friend. He was, like, the only person who knew Alex was bi, too, and he’d been cool about it when Alex told him.

(He’s not the only person who knows, Alex’s mind reminded him. Alex told his mind to shut up.)

“Some of us are going to the White Horse on Saturday night,” Meade said. “We haven’t seen you in ages—”

“I’ve been busy.” Alex didn’t look up from his laptop as he said it, deleting and rewriting a sentence as if to prove his point.

“It’ll be more fun if you come.”

“I know,” Alex said, flashing a slight cocky grin, eyes still on his laptop. “Can I bring some people?”

“When you say people, you mean like, two people? Or two thousand?”

“Dunno,” Alex said. “One to three. I don’t know if two of the three like me that much, but probably at least one will come.”

“Then sure,” Meade said. “It’s a big club, anyway.”

Alex hummed his agreement. “I’ll probably come, then. When are you going?”

At the front of the lecture hall, the professor was trying to get everybody’s attention. People were starting to quiet down. Alex looked at Meade expectantly.

“Maybe around eight,” Meade said lowly, leaning forward both to talk to Alex and then to duck down and grab his things out of his backpack. Alex rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like class had even started yet.

He switched to a new document on his computer to take notes, and surreptitiously slid his phone off the table and into his lap as the professor (finally, two minutes late) succeeded in getting the class quiet.

Alex: hey are you free saturday night

The response came almost immediately.

Idealiza: obv I’m always free.

Idealiza: ignore that just realized it sounds sad

Alex: lmao ok

Alex: do you want to come with me and my friends to a club on saturday night

Alex: they invited me and said I could bring friends. So you could bring your sisters if you want

Idealiza: I don’t go to a lot of clubs whats it like

Alex: drink dance listen to music maybe talk if its not too loud??? Its not like… complicated

Alex: it’s not scary ok it’s just like a fun party with friends. and if it is scary for you we can leave. But you should try it its fun

There was a long pause, then it showed Eliza typing. Alex glanced between his phone and the front of the class, typing out some half-hearted notes—he’d already researched this stuff on his own, and as he’d suspected, there wasn’t much more to it than what he already knew.

Idealiza: give me a minute

Alex turned his phone off and flipped it over, mindlessly switching over to his essay. It wasn’t like he was getting much out of this lecture, anyway. And it was only—he checked the time—five minutes in.

He sighed, casting an annoyed look down at the professor, who wasn’t looking in his direction anyway. Meade elbowed him in the side, and Alex glared at him. 

“What?” Alex hissed. “I didn’t do shit.”

Meade didn’t answer, giving him a look and turning back to the lecture. Meade was just like that sometimes, so obsessed with shoulds and shouldn’ts and whatever. Alex slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms, angry with nothing to do about it but stew.

He could get up and leave. That was a thought. But no, that was stupid, if he left he’d just find another place to work on his essay anyway, and he could do that just as well here.

He checked his phone quickly. Oh. Eliza had texted back.

Idealiza: Angelica wants to come. Peggy can’t, but she says you should come over beforehand

Idealiza: like to pregame or whatever? idk

Idealiza: dw it won’t be like last time

Idealiza: also she wants your number which is a concerning development but do you want me to give it to her?

Alex felt his face twist into an amused half-smile.

Alex: lmao sure give it to her I guess?

And then, because he didn’t really want to go over to Eliza’s house-slash-mansion again,

Alex: idk if I’d have time to come over or not how early does she mean

Eliza’s reply came back almost instantaneously.

Idealiza: she said she’ll text you with plans. or call you. idk she wants to talk to you. personally I don’t care unless you do?

Alex frowned. Meade was trying to see who he was texting; Alex could see it out of the corner of his eye. He tilted the phone away from Meade.

Alex: idc

He shut his phone off again, giving Meade a look. There, see, happy now? Meade rolled his eyes.

A party would be nice. Alex was good at parties. It was one of the situations where his tendency to amplify and intensify everything was appreciated, and he could… show off, in a way, without being judged as too show-offy, because the point of a party was to be entertaining and entertained. It was Alex’s element. He knew how to seduce a crowd.

He’d been… weird about talking to Eliza after visiting her house. Well—not weird, that would imply that he’d been acting different. He hadn’t, he’d just felt weird about it. Mixed. Eliza was a sweetheart, maybe too much for her own good—he’d seen the way her sisters had easily overpowered her quieter presence back when he visited, although he believed her that they didn’t mean to. But she was sincere enough and vocal enough about the way she saw the world that her kindness didn’t feel like a hoax. Alex wasn’t paranoid around her, wasn’t that guarded, which was more than he could say for a lot of people.

But at the same time that Eliza was comfortable and nice to be around, her world felt uncomfortable to him. It was… delicate, and soft, where his was more like a battlefield than anything. He felt like a bull in a china shop, with her taking pity on him and leading him around carefully. Or something.

He hated it.

So—nightclub. Alex knew how to do nightclubs, and Eliza… well, if she really did hate it they could leave, but in Alex’s private opinion (which he would never tell her because he was pretty sure it would hurt her feelings), Eliza really needed to learn to stop waiting until things were in her comfort zone and just get outside of her comfort zone once in a while. It would probably build her self-confidence, too. Doing stuff was the best way to prove to yourself that you could do stuff—Alex did it all the time.

The lecture time slowly drained away without becoming more interesting, and Alex half-listened while mostly finishing his essay, then moving on to other odd things he had to do, like going over his budget for the month (he was so shit with spending, as much as he was loath to admit it) or revising his brief for Washington’s class.

Finally, it was over. Alex hung back to pack up with Meade as students trickled out of the lecture hall. “God, but lectures have got to be the worst type of education format ever invented,” Alex said. Meade gave him an alarmed look, glancing down at the professor—who was too far away to hear Alex, he was pretty sure, and also he was preoccupied with some other student asking questions, anyway.

“It’s fine, he can’t hear me,” Alex said, ignoring Meade’s dubious look. “Besides, I’m not judging him. I’m judging the format. It’s just, ‘here, let me talk at you for several hours!’ Like, if you need to deliver information like that, just write it down and publish it or hand it out or something so people can go through it at their own pace. It’s this stupid one size fits all bullshit that doesn’t even fit anyone, there’s just people who can supplement better and people who can’t, so it’s really just a peacock party for the professor, since they’re the only one getting something out of it. Did you know that studies show that humans can only keep their attention unbroken on one source for about twenty minutes? We just had three twenty minutes, Meade.”

Meade snorted. “I mean, yeah. The education system is flawed, that’s not news.”

“I know it’s not,” Alex said, standing and swinging his backpack onto his back. “If it was news there’d be enough momentum going for people to actually do something about it. But nobody did shit, and now people are just resigned to it. Ugh, people suck, you know that?”

He pulled out his phone as he said it. Three new texts from an unknown number, and he opened them as he headed down the stairs towards the door, vaguely aware of Meade following him.

Unknown: hey this is peggy schuyler

Unknown: wanted to apologize for being a bitch the other day (dont tell my sisters I apologized  lmao) 

Unknown: and also do you want to como ver before your party thing sat

That was… unexpected? Well, he didn’t really know Peggy that well, so maybe it wasn’t. Still.

Alex: uh I accept your apology I guess. You weren’t that bad though

Alex: como ver = “like watching” in spanish

Alex: why do you want me to come over?

“Who are you texting?” Meade bumped up against Alex’s shoulder as they stepped out into the hallway.

“No one,” Alex said. “One of the people I invited to your thing. Hey,” he said, looking up, “do you think it’s, like… bad to flirt with someone to get over your ex?”

Meade gave him a strange look, caught off guard.

“...I think it’s… normal,” Meade said finally, sounding reluctant. “I guess it depends on what you mean by that.”

“By what,” Alex said, putting his phone down, then kept talking without waiting for an explanation. “I mean, it’s just that I don’t know how serious she thinks it is, but I don’t know if I would date her or anything but I don’t know if that would hurt her feelings, but it’s, like, a good outlet or something, I guess, and I think talking to her about it would ruin it, you know, like it wouldn’t be casual anymore.”

Meade scrutinized him, considering. Alex liked that about Meade—he rolled with the punches without judgment. He could keep up. Not everyone could. “Well, if you think talking to her would ruin it, you’re kind of at a standstill.”

“That’s my problem,” Alex said. “I mean, only kind of my problem, but the whole thing is just… weird.”

Meade slowed to a stop in the middle of the hall and glanced up and down it, Alex following suit. “It kind of sounds like you don’t like having an ambiguous relationship,” Meade said. “If you talked to her—”

“It wouldn’t be casual anymore—” Alex started, but Meade spoke over him.

“If you talked to her, your relationship might change, but maybe it would change into something you’re more comfortable with,” Meade said. “I mean, do you need to flirt, or do you just like having a friend? And, like, support?”

“Flirting is support,” Alex muttered, annoyed without knowing why. “Gas up your ego.”

“That’s my point,” Meade said. “If you just want support, and you figure out why you like being supported in the form of flirting, maybe you could figure out an alternative that checks off the same boxes that you’re more comfortable with.”

Alex sighed. “Why do I talk to you,” he said. “Remind me to never talk to you except for when I’m actually ready to face the truth of my situations and work on changing them instead of just sitting there in comfortable denial.”

Meade cracked a smile. “You’re a very honest person, Hamilton. Is that what you need, you want me to lie to you?”

“Ew, no,” Alex said, making a face. “I hate liars.” His phone buzzed in his pocket, an alarm he’d set earlier. “I should go,” he said, pulling his phone out again and silencing it, taking note of the new text notifications that popped up. “I’ve got a project to work on, but I’ll see you Saturday. Thanks for the advice, I guess.” he paused, a thought occurring to him. “Please don’t tell anyone? Just—I mean, it’ll be a bunch of questions if they find out I’m flirting with a girl…”

Meade nodded. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“Cool,” Alex said, relaxing slightly. “Thanks.”

He left then, down the hallway and pushing out the door into the warm spring air. Peggy had texted him four times:

Unknown: I cant go to a club im underage

Unknown: but I like being a part of things

Unknown: I’ll give you a makeover if you want

Unknown: unless ur one of those guys who gets uncomfortable with girly stuff in which case get over yourself

Alex huffed, amused. Peggy reminded him, vaguely, of himself when he was a teenager—very… eager, in a way. He still was, if he was being honest with himself. Either way, it made him think differently of her than he had the last time he’d met her. She was a kid, he couldn’t fault her some abrasiveness. Not without being super hypocritical, anyway.

Alex: sure I’ll come over. what time

Peggy had instructed him to bring a shirt that “he didn’t care about” so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting it dirty— unless you wanna wear one of elizas lol, she’d said.

He’d brought his own shirt.

Really though, it was slightly concerning to him that he didn’t know what she was planning—okay, maybe a lot concerning. He liked being in the loop. Especially when it came to things like him, and his own appearance, and especially-especially when he was pretty sure he was going to be ganged up on three-to-one. He could fight them, and win pretty easily, but it would be awkward. It was supposed to be a fun thing.

Anyway, that was why he showed up to the Schuyler residence in the West Village at five in the afternoon wearing the worn beige Eagles On Tour shirt that John had left at Alex’s apartment and never taken back. It was the shirt that Alex would most like to ruin, so it was the obvious choice. And—some illogical part of him kind of hoped that John’s wealthiness had bled into the clothing, so that Alex wouldn’t seem so out-of-place at the Schuyler’s. He had his own “blending in with the rich” clothes, from Poshmark and shit, but it still felt different. This felt like a secret plate of armor, although realistically Alex couldn’t imagine it costing more than fifty dollars. And fifty would be overpriced. It was a fucking t-shirt.

“I love the Eagles,” Peggy said, thundering up the stairs dragging him along by the wrist. She was wearing running shorts and the type of big paper number athletes wore safety-pinned to her shirt. She was on her school’s varsity team for track and field, she’d explained, and just come back from a meet. 

“Eliza and Angelica went shopping—they’re supposed to be back by now, so they should be back soon, but Eliza just gets really picky about what she buys,” Peggy said, turning to make a face at Alex over her shoulder. “She overthinks things way too much, it’s literally just clothes. But she’ll have, like, an existential crisis about whether they express her true self or if she’s putting on a mask to appease others or whatever. She’s a little crazy sometimes.”

Alex wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

Peggy dragged him into a huge bathroom that reminded Alex more than anything of the villa bathrooms his mom used to clean at the resort she worked at for a while. She would take him and James along, sometimes, when she didn’t want to leave them alone, and the bathrooms looked like this—spacious and airy, with a huge mirror and both a shower and bathtub, with the bathtub set into the wall. There was a leafy plant hanging in the shower here, which they hadn’t had at the resort. But more than that, this place looked lived-in, makeup and toothbrushes scattered across the wide marble sink top and a cluttered shower caddy standing in the shower. Alex wasn’t sure if that made him like it more or not.

“What kind of style do you usually like?” Peggy said, scrutinizing him. “Or do you have one?”

Alex made a face. “I feel like I should be offended by that.”

“You kind of have this whole rebel thing going on,” Peggy mused, ignoring him. “Like, with the long hair and band t-shirts and stuff.” Alex didn’t bother correcting her that this wasn’t his shirt. He’d worn a KISS shirt to her house last time he was here, anyway, so she wasn’t entirely wrong. “Have you ever thought about dying your hair?”

Alex did a double take. “Have… what?”

“Dying your hair,” Peggy said. “You don’t have to. But isn’t that kind of a phase everyone goes through at some point if they wanna be rebellious or something? I dyed my hair blue and yellow a few months ago. But then I dyed it back because one of my classmates said I looked like a duckling. It was fun, though. I’ve still got the stuff if you want it.”

Alex opened his mouth to say he didn’t think dying his hair would really help him look like a mature adult law student to his professors, but then closed it, rethinking. He did hate doing things to win the approval of authority figures—hated having authority figures over him, period. So with that logic… “Do you actually know how to do it?” Alex said. “Or is this like a ‘pretend you know what you’re doing and hope you don’t fuck up’ situation?” he paused. “Am I supposed to swear in front of you?”

Peggy gave him a look. “I’m seventeen, not three. And yes, I know how to do it, I just told you I did it to myself. Your hair is darker than mine, though, so it’d take longer to bleach…” she scrunched up her lips, staring at his hair like she was trying to solve a math problem. “Damn, it’d be fun though.”

“Can’t you just do it over normal hair?” Alex said. “I mean, do you have to bleach it?”

“If you want the colors to show up really bright, yeah,” Peggy said. “I guess some people dye over their normal hair. I don’t know if it would show up for you, though, your hair’s almost black. We could try it? I mean, my hair dye’s really vibrant anyway, so maybe it’d work.”

Apparently having decided on her answer, Peggy crouched down to rifle through the cabinets under the sink. “Do you want blue or yellow? Or actually, yellow probably won’t look good on you. We could mix them and do green, too. Do you know your skin tone?” she glanced up at him with raised eyebrows, pulling out two black bottles of hair dye and reaching up to put them on the sink top before going back to rifling for more things in the cabinet again.

“It’s olive,” Alex said. Peggy made a vaguely impressed noise, whether at his actual skin or at the fact that Alex knew his skin tone, he didn’t know. “I like green,” he offered.

Peggy stood, holding a blue plastic bowl, a brush, and a box of plastic gloves. “Green will go good on you,” she said. “If it shows up, I mean. Good choice.”

Peggy, despite her reassurances, didn’t seem to have any real technique other than “squirt both into the bowl, mix, and spread on hair,” which wasn’t… the most promising thing in the world. But it wasn’t like she was wrong—his hair was dark enough that if it all went to shit he could probably just dye it black to cover it and people would barely notice.

Eliza and Angelica arrived after they were well into the process, when Alex was sitting on the floor with the bottom half of his hair covered in vibrant green paste and the shoulders of his shirt smeared with bright green. Not the most attractive he’d ever looked, but oh well. Looks were only a small part of attraction, anyway.

“We come bearing gifts,” Angelica said, setting down a stack of pizza boxes next to the sink, away from the clutter of hair dye things. “One of these is vegan and gluten free, Alex, if you need that. Sorry we’re late.”

“What are you doing?” Eliza said, hovering behind Angelica in the doorway. It was strange to see her again, as if she was someone Alex had made up in his head that he was just now finding out was real, cast into hyperdetail instead of vague memory. She was wearing a turquoise tank top and jean shorts, hair pulled back in a headband. Alex felt something strange looking at her—affection, kind of, or awkwardness.

“I’m dying Alex’s hair,” Peggy said, from where she was sat on the marble sink top, swinging her legs. “We’ll see if it shows up, though, ‘cause his hair is so dark. Don’t you think he’d look good with green hair?”

Eliza scrutinized Alex. Alex waved at her awkwardly. Angelica took a piece of pizza out of the box and started eating it.

“...Yeah, I can see it, I guess,” Eliza said finally. “You’ll look like, punk or something.”

“Am I cool enough to be punk?” Alex asked, vaguely touched.

“Are you political enough to be punk?” Angelica said. “It’s not just about standing around and looking cool, you know. Historically.”

“I’m very political,” Alex said. “I annoy all my friends.”

“Y’all are insane,” Peggy said, leaning across the sink to take a slice of pizza. “Wear what fashion you want to wear, you don’t have to, like, gatekeep green hair. It’s hair.”

“Only if you’re not looking at the surrounding context,” Angelica said. Peggy rolled her eyes, but Angelica continued. “I’m serious, you can’t just take away the symbolism of something. Even if you think it’s just green hair, that doesn’t mean other people won’t look at you and see an implication of who you are and what you stand for, because it’s been a generally agreed-upon symbolizer for something in our society.”

Eliza crossed over to sit on the tile floor next to Alex, leaning up against the glass shower door and setting down her shopping bags. “Well, I think you could be punk, anyway,” she said, as Peggy and Angelica continued to debate. Or—Angelica tried to debate Peggy, and Peggy kept circling back to saying that it wasn’t that deep.

“Thanks,” Alex said. “I do like pissing off authority figures, so there’s that.” And then, more out of wanting to be nice than actual interest, “How was shopping?”

Eliza made a face. “It was… fine,” she said. “I don’t really know what people wear to clubs, and I’m not sure how good Angelica’s suggestions are. I mean, I know they’re things she would wear…”

“Ah,” Alex said, an amused smile tugging at his lips. “You don’t have to really dress up, you know. Not everyone does. Some people just show up in, like, jeans and stuff and it’s fine. It’s like I said—it’s just a bunch of normal people who want to go drink and dance and stuff, it’s not too complicated.”

Eliza paused. “Does everyone show up in jeans and stuff?”

“You don’t have to,” Alex said. “Just wear what you want and it’ll be fine.”

Eliza leaned back further against the shower, and Alex got the sense that she was trying to act confident for him. “Cool.”

He smiled at her, amused and affectionate and more relaxed than he’d been a moment ago. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

Time passed quickly, after that. It almost felt normal, joking around with them in their fancy-ass bathroom and eating pizza. Angelica seemed… friendlier than she had last time, just like Peggy had, and it almost made him wonder what had been going on last time he’d been around to the Schuylers’. Eliza and Angelica modeled the different outfits they’d bought while Peggy provided teasing commentary that Alex tried not to laugh at. After what felt like no time at all, Peggy ordered Alex into the shower (with clothes on, thank you very much) to rinse out his hair and see if it had stuck.

“Blech,” Alex stood up, squeezing green water out from his hair onto the floor. “I think I got some in my eyes. Is that safe? Should I be, like, calling poison control or something?”

“It’s probably fine,” Peggy said, holding the showerhead. This was not as comforting as she likely meant it to be, and Angelica laughed from the other side of the glass shower door.

“How do you know when it’s all out?” Eliza said, leaning up against the glass with one arm. “Do you just guess?”

“Yeah,” Peggy said. “I mean, we could dunk him in the pool a couple times for good measure or something, but.”

“Why the fuck would dunking me in the pool help?”

“Total submersion,” Peggy said, shrugging like she didn’t really agree with herself. “It’d be funny, at least.”

“How about we don’t do that,” Alex said, sliding open the shower door and stepping out gingerly now that he wasn’t dripping wet. “Do you think it actually showed up?”

Eliza squinted at him. “It’s hard to tell when it’s wet,” she said. “You have really dark hair.”

“If we’re gonna dunk you in the pool I’ll hold your phone,” Peggy said, taking Alex’s phone off the counter and sliding it into her pocket.

“What? No,” Alex said. “We’re not—” he made a grab for his phone, but Peggy held it out of reach, lighting up with a grin.

“Oh, you made it into a game for her now,” Angelica said, not moving to step in. Peggy reached for the door handle then threw the door open all at once and darted down the hallway.

“Hey!” Alex raced after her, the only thing stopping him from yelling what the fuck, Peggy being the thought that her parents could be somewhere in the house right now. Peggy thundered down the stairs and Alex followed, hot on her heels.

He chased her through the first floor, into the sitting room that housed the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard, which she flung herself at and yanked open. He took the half-a-second pause to catch up to her, grabbing for his phone again.

“Shit—” she yelped, breathless and grinning, and held it out of reach, squirming out of his grasp and darting into the backyard. He followed, more cautiously now.

“You better not drop my phone in the pool, I’m fucking serious,” he called to her, walking towards where she stood. “Unless you’re willing to pay for a new one—”

“ Fine, ” Peggy deflated, out of breath and still smiling, although her smile had faded from the wicked grin she’d held before. “Here.”

She held out the phone, and he moved closer, wary of a trap.

That was, apparently, the right call. Peggy launched forward as soon as he came near enough and shoved him to the side, straight into the pool.

For a moment it was disorienting, because he hadn’t expected it. Water filled his mouth, and all he could see was a flurry of bubbles—and then he kicked up, head breaking the surface, and everything was more oriented. He was soaked, skin cold where it hit the open air, though the water itself was warm. Peggy pumped her hand in victory at the side of the pool, still clutching his phone—fairly carefully, he noted. It didn’t make him less annoyed.

“I am a modern day siren,” she crowed, as Angelica and Eliza stepped out into the backyard, at a normal walking pace instead of racing. “Luring men to drown with trickery, womanly guiles and the object they most desire—”

“Womanly guiles?” Angelica said skeptically, scrunching her nose up, as she and Eliza arrived at the side of the pool.

“Fuck you, you asshole,” Alex said, having caught his breath. He was treading water in the pool, still, and the sisters looked down at him. Eliza looked apologetic, Angelica mostly seemed amused, and Peggy was still riding the high of her victory. “You better sleep with one eye open, ‘cause one of these days I’m pushing you in this pool, see how you like it.”

“No need,” Peggy said, handing Alex’s phone to Eliza. “Kamikaze—!” she took a running start and leapt into the pool, splashing Alex again in the process. When she emerged a moment later, gasping for breath, Alex splashed her with water to drench her again.

Eliza crouched over at the side of the pool, holding up Alex’s phone and tapping at it. Alex gave her an exasperated look. “Are you taking pictures on my phone?”

“I didn’t unlock it or anything,” she said. “You can reach your camera from the home screen, you know. You can delete them if you want.”

“It’s fine,” he said, sighing. “Just don’t drop it in the water. You’re all crazy, you know that?”

“I didn’t push you in the pool,” Eliza said. Angelica made a noise of agreement. “Speaking of, Peggy,” Eliza added. Peggy put on an innocent expression, still treading water. “You know you’re not supposed to do that. It’s dangerous.”

“It was fine,” Peggy said. “He’s not hurt, I had it under control.”

Eliza sighed, then looked back at Alex’s phone screen, biting her lip with furrowed eyebrows. “We should really go soon,” she said, then, directed at Alex, “And you should get dried off first.”

Alex got to take a shower in their luxe bathroom, which felt amazing, though it would’ve been nicer if they weren’t on a time limit. He’d forgotten how much he loved rich people’s water pressure. And their nice shampoos, and their fancy blow-dryers. As it turned out when he blow-dried his hair, the green dye did show a bit, only very darkly, a color that reminded him of a beetle streaked through the bottom half of his hair. Peggy, despite her dubious credentials, had done a good job—something she was quick to point out when he came out of the bathroom changed and showered.

The pictures Eliza had taken also looked… better than he expected. He usually didn’t like pictures of himself, but maybe the fact that most of his body was warped from the water made him look different, or it was something about the angles or the lighting. On the way to the club, Alex picked out one he actually liked, him looking right above the camera with raised eyebrows and an incredulous smile, the ends of his wet hair melting into the dark green tile of the pool as he treaded water. He posted it to Instagram and tagged each of the Schuyler sisters, feeling satisfied with himself.

So, overall, the night started out on a high note, getting pushed into a pool aside.

They met up with Meade and the others (Tallmadge, McHenry, Grayson, and some other people who Alex vaguely recognized as being more John and Lafayette’s friends than his own) in line outside the White Horse. They were already buzzed, Alex could tell, which was a problem because he and the girls weren’t. He’d meant to pick up something to pregame, but he’d second-guessed himself thinking about what the Schuyler’s alcohol standards might be like.

“Here,” Tallmadge opened his tote bag to show them a collection of mini vodka bottles clattering in a pocket. “It’s cheaper than the stuff inside, but I don’t know if they’ll let us bring it in, so we need to drink it now.”

“Smart,” Alex murmured, taking one for himself and one each for Angelica and Eliza, handing it back to them. “How are you gonna get rid of them, genius?”

“Do you want the alcohol or not, Hamilton? I came more prepared than you.” Tallmadge turned to Angelica and Eliza. “Do you know, he’s the most forgetful person alive—” Alex punched him, effectively cutting him off.

Eliza was watching them with wide eyes, fiddling with the bottle in her hands without opening it. Angelica had already drank half of hers. Alex stepped closer to Eliza, leaning over to talk to her quietly. “You don’t have to drink it, you know.”

She frowned at him, looking vaguely confused. “It’s fine.”

The line crept forward. 

The others pulled Angelica and Eliza into the fold pretty quickly, thank God. Alex turned away for a second to talk to Meade (who’d noticed Alex’s hair) and when he turned back, McHenry was knee-deep in a conversation with Eliza about all the details of how to best go clubbing for the first time. Alex nudged her subtly as they were heading inside— see? Just people, nothing scary.

The music and lights were blaring. The ceiling was painted a sparkly dark blue, and Alex led Eliza to the bar first, trailing behind some of the others—“You don’t have to get a drink,” he said loudly over the music, leaning into her ear, “But it’ll be more fun if you’re not sober!”

Angelica and one of the others (whose name Alex didn’t remember) split off from the group to get them a table in the back, where it was quieter. Alex, Eliza, and the rest of their group stayed near the dancefloor— Alex, at least, was dancing. Eliza hung back at first, laughing at them awkwardly from the sidelines, until Alex pulled her in with help from McHenry. She started having more fun then, it looked like, and Alex took a moment to mentally pat himself on the back.

The club slowly got more crowded, and eventually Alex’s feet got sore from dancing, and he abandoned the others briefly to head back to the table that Angelica had reserved for them, taking a drink with him. After the pounding music and lights, the dim lighting and the white noise of conversation was like diving underwater, muffled and sudden.

Angelica, who had been dancing but decided to follow Alex into the back, slid into the seat across from him, tugging her heels off with a grimace.

“Doesn’t it hurt to dance in those?” Alex said, toying with the straw of his rum and coke absently. Angelica gave him an estimating look.

“As much as any other shoe,” she said. “The heel’s chunky. And not high at all. If it were stilettos, that would be different.”

Alex hummed, taking a sip of his drink and eyeing the door back to the dancefloor. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Angelica—or, really, he wasn’t sure what she made of him. She was being friendly enough, but he got the sense that she still had her guard up around him. Which made him uncomfortable. But then he thought that maybe it was hypocritical of him to be uncomfortable. Because he still had his guard up around her.

“Hey,” Angelica said, breaking through Alex’s thoughts. He looked back at her warily. “You and my sister.”

“Eliza or Peggy?”

“Eliza.” Angelica gave him a deadpan look.

Alex let out a soft huff, half in frustration and half in amusement. “Okay,” he said. “Me and Eliza. What about it?”

He could feel his hackles going up, and he willed himself to stay calm—getting defensive was not going to go well for him here. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Eliza is the sweetest, most caring person I know,” Angelica said. “If you turn out to be an asshole—”

“I get it,” Alex interrupted, trying not to sound bitter. It was what he’d expected, but it still stung. “I’m not planning on hurting her.”

Angelica surveyed him, then nodded once. “Good.”

“For the record, though,” Alex said, before he could stop himself. “I don’t think she needs you fighting her battles. She’s not incompetent.”

Angelica gave him a sharp look. “It’s not about need. And you don’t know her, anyway.”

And there she was, the Angelica that Alex had first met, the one with the piercing looks that said you don’t belong here, the one that was already biased against Alex no matter how he tried to prove himself. Alex felt a flash of white-hot anger, something fed-up and furious— I just spent hours with you. I haven’t done anything to you, but you still—

Alex took a deep breath, cutting himself off at the jump before he did something stupid. He was trying to get better at that, at recognizing when a situation was pushing his buttons and thinking through his reaction instead of lashing out.

“Of course I don’t know her,” he said evenly. “We’ve barely met. There hasn't been enough time to form an opinion on anyone. That doesn’t seem to be stopping you, though. I’d get some better self-awareness before you try to play the whole righteous hero bullshit.” He stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the ground, and gave her a tight smile, turning to stalk back towards the dancefloor.

He pushed through the crowd, seething to the brim with things he hadn’t said. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and find her again and shout her down with everything he had in his arsenal—arguments came easy to him, easier than breathing, and he could think of a hundred iron-clad retorts and points and defenses that he could throw at her—but he’d only do the one.

Deep breaths.

Somebody caught his arm—he jerked away before realizing it was Tench Tilghman. “Hey, are you good?” Tench raised his voice over the crowd. “You look like you’re on your way to kill someone!”

Alex took a deep breath and let it out, trying to push down the unfair flare of fury he felt at that. “I’m fine,” he said loudly. “Where’s Eliza?”

“What?”

“Eliza!”

“She went out onto the back porch, last I checked,” Tench said. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Fine,” Alex said, not bothering to raise his voice, and pulled away from Tench, ducking back into the crowd and heading for the back door.

The cool air of the evening and the relative quiet after the door shut behind him, blocking out the sounds of the club, was like a slap in the face. Tench was right—a few paces away, Eliza was leaning against the railing, looking out over a brightly-lit and car-crowded parking lot. She turned at the sound of the door, raising her eyebrows when she saw him. Shining yellow light slid smoothly over her hair and the ribbon sleeves of her black corset top.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“So is the parking lot really interesting, or…” the attempt at a joke fell flat as he moved over to sit against the railing next to her, back to the parking lot. His voice was too tense to pull it off, and she gave him a strange look.

“I just needed some quiet. This isn’t really my type of place, I don’t think.”

Alex took a deep breath, looking away from her and trying to settle his emotions. Do you ever stand up for yourself? Why do you—why are you—

“Are you okay?” he said, cutting off his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what he meant by it—or maybe he meant lots of things. I worry about you. Do you want to leave? Do you know how to speak up for yourself?

“I’m fine,” Eliza said. “You have nice friends. I can see why you like it here.”

Alex took a shaky breath and looked over at her. It wasn’t the comforting answer she probably thought it was.

The lighting of the parking lot cast her in an almost ethereal quality, striking warm soft yellow across her face and shadows filling in small spaces, like the slight shadow of her lashes or the one stretching behind the piece of hair falling across her face. Her hair was shining, and her brown eyes were amber-warm in the light, and she didn’t seem entirely like a real person who should exist.

He slid off the railing and kissed her.

It wasn’t anything intense—it was soft and warm, and he could feel her lip gloss, and in the moment he felt maybe a bit more okay, the shaky anger and hurt and fear mellowed—not gone, completely, but weathered and smoothed like shards of glass.

She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away, stepping back. “No.”

Alex blinked at her, surprised. “No?”

“Let’s… not do that,” she said.

Alex stared.

“You—” Eliza sighed, putting her hands up sharply as if it would explain what she meant. “I’m not—you’re not—you don’t like me,” she finally said. “I don’t want to kiss someone that only likes me because I’m nice to them, okay? I don’t know what…” she seemed to lose the thread again, there, and then picked it up again after a few seconds, voice measured and slow.

“Whatever’s going on with you,” she said. “I’m not a fix for that. I’m—I know you like—having everything under control and everything—sorted and reliable, but I’m not—I know I’m not the type of person who goes in guns blazing. And whatever… warpath you’re on—it’s not a good foundation for a relationship.” She took a shaky breath, not looking him in the eyes. “You’re a sweet guy, Alex, but this—I’m sorry for whatever made you feel like you always need to—fight everything, come out on top, but you’re not going to be able to control everything, and that’s—that’s life, and—and I wish I could help you, but—we shouldn’t do this. I don’t think it would—yeah.” She wrung her hands, looking at him and then away.

Alex stared at her, a million thoughts whirling through his head, all of them too fast to capture.

The first one that he grasped through the whirlwind: I give up.

“Okay,” he heard his voice say. “Sorry you think that. See you later.”

He moved, as if in a dream, across the porch and through the door into the club, weaving through the crowd towards the front door, then breaking back out into the night air. Nobody stopped him. Nobody noticed him. He wasn’t trying to be noticed, anyway, but the observation made a dull ache in his chest.

Okay.

The nearest subway was a few blocks away. The night wasn’t that cold, but Alex was in shorts and a t-shirt, and he hugged himself walking quickly towards the entrance. Different people were crowded into storefronts and scattered around outdoor seating at a restaurant he’d never been to. A siren blared in the distance, and cars and taxis moved through the streets with bright headlights. The city that never sleeps, Alex thought idly.

He had a strange and uncomfortable sense of deja vu.

It wasn’t even like he’d liked Eliza as much as he’d liked John, so it shouldn’t hurt—but he had liked her. She was wrong. She was—

And that was as far as he could get before his thoughts scattered and split in a million different contradictions.

He descended into the subway station, all tiled walls and sleek metal, and decided to try and not think about it for now. He couldn’t.

There was a thin veil of numbness cast over him, and just beneath, a hurricane of feverish bright emotions that he couldn’t identify or put a reason to. He didn’t want to pull the veil off, had no idea what to do with what was beyond it. There was no way to express it or let it out that matched the intensity.

He took a shaky breath, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the palms of his hands into them as he waited for his train to arrive. This was the problem with always being seen as the tough one, that people never thought—

Well. People never thought.

He took another shaky breath.

Distantly, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Someone was calling him. Eliza or Angelica, he guessed, and he scrubbed at his eyes before pulling it out, planning to shut it off. They could leave on their own, they knew how, he hadn’t abandoned them.

He glanced down at his phone. Froze. His breath caught in his chest.

Incoming call from: 

☀️ John Laurens ☀️

Decline / Accept

Chapter Text

The heat seemed to rush into Rouen all at once—it was spring coolness, and then John woke up one morning and stepped outside to a muggy warmth already hanging in the air. It had stayed, after that. Sunscreen weather, balmy and blistering. There was a warm front moving through. If this were America, the air conditioning would’ve been on everywhere, a cold dunk of ice water every time John stepped indoors, but it was France, and the French didn’t seem to use air conditioning. So there was no escape: it was muggy and warm everywhere, except in the shade, and his hair stayed frizzy no matter how much work he put into it, and John had bought himself a fan for his room so he could sleep.

He’d gotten… a fine amount of sleep, but he was still tired. The result of working all the time, maybe, or the result of thinking too hard about stressful things. He’d like to think it was the first option, if only because then he could blame the University instead of himself.

John dropped his backpack unceremoniously on the floor and dropped into the seat next to Turretini, who was the best friend he had in Torts. He wasn’t a great friend—they were fond acquaintances, more like—but then again, Torts wasn’t a great place to make friends. Not just because you had to pay attention every second or else you’d fall behind, but because Torts were so fucking depressing, it was hard to have a nice conversation.

“You look chipper,” Turretini said, sizing John up. John put his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands, pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes to try and wake himself up.

“It’s Torts,” John said. “What do you expect.”

Torts were harmful acts against an individual which someone could be held legally responsible for under civil law. Basically—shit done to people that was maybe illegal. Which was… important, obviously, but John hated going through different messed-up cases and debating over whether the harm done was enough harm or the right kind of harm to have any consequences. Hated methodically learning about cases where someone vile didn’t have to face any consequences because of one or the other stupid law or precedent or definition, when the moral answer was right there and wildly obvious.

John sighed, and ducked to dig for his things in his backpack. The legal system couldn’t run on morals. He knew that. He reminded himself of that about a thousand million times a day, when he had classes. Morals were too subjective, basing a system off of them would make it rife with human error and bias—not that the legal system wasn’t rife with human error and bias.

What you can do, John reminded himself, is make sure that you’re a good person with good intentions who fights to make things right. Even if the system is corrupt.

It was a reassuring reminder, and one he used all too often.

Alex never seemed to have a problem with this type of thing. He wasn’t happy with suffering, John knew that, but learning about all sorts of fucked-up things didn’t bowl him over like it did for John. Alex formed like a diamond under pressure, becoming strong enough to cut through steel in his passion for justice. It motivated him, instead of making him feel like giving up.

But we’re not thinking about Alex.

“Seriously,” Turretini said, scrutinizing John. “What’s been up with you lately? You were weird yesterday too.”

“Nothing’s been up with me,” John said. “I’ve been.”

Normally sentences didn’t stop after the participle and before the verb. John knew this.

“I’ve been tired,” he finished.

He had been tired. In a sense. He’d been… in a weird mood, for a few days now. Just… over everything that was going on. Weird and introspective. He and Louis and Martin had rented bikes and biked out into the countryside over the weekend, which was nice—Petrie had been out with Julia. But it had been nice, and… quieter, maybe, than the stuff they’d been doing—or maybe John was just quieter.

Maybe it was the heat. Heat always made everything seem slower, lazier, made you feel like taking a meandering route instead of rushing everything as much as possible.

John was pretty sure it wasn’t the heat, though.

He’d had a weird dream, after stumbling home late from the Joan of Arc museum with Martin a week ago—probably a mix of the weird mood he was in and the alcohol. Anyway, he didn’t remember the specifics. But Alex was in it, and John’s dad was in it, and his mom, and he’d woken up with a strange crushing… homesickness, or sad longing, or loneliness. Something like that, and he’d had to lay there listening to his heart beat loud in his ears and staring up at the white-painted wooden slats of the ceiling, until he got fed up waiting for morning and went to sit on the porch—the de Vegobres’ guest bedroom was right next to the back porch, with curtained glass doors leading from one to the other.

Anyway. So he’d sat on the couch on the porch and watched morning slowly dawn in the backyard and did thoughtless things on his phone, and that had seemed to set the tone for the next week, leading to now. Strange, weird, quiet, reflective. It was like John couldn’t escape it.

Turretini frowned at him. “Are you sure? You haven’t been like yourself.”

“I’m sure,” John said, giving Turretini a wan smile. “Things have been busy lately, I’ve been tired, it’s fine. That’s life, it just happens sometimes. Yes?”

Turretini frowned at him, staring at John as if he could find some hidden clue that John had left if he looked close enough. “I suppose,” he said. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

John opened his laptop decisively, trying to look like someone put together. Like a law student. He found that law school was often more fun if he pretended he was a secret agent or an actor pretending to be a law student, who had to appear as law student-y as possible.

He’d forgotten to pull out his textbook, and he sighed, bending over a second time to rummage through his bag, feeling the illusion break.

It wasn’t there.

He rifled through his books and papers and electronics a second time—still not there.

Fuck, this wasn’t going to help Turretini’s opinion of him.

He straightened up anyway, turning to Turretini. “I forgot my textbook,” he said. “Can I share with you?”

Turretini, to his credit, didn’t say anything, only gave him a knowing look. “Sure.” He slid his book over, just as their professor bustled into the room, calling the class to attention.

John exhaled a deep measured breath. Frayed at the edges and it was only ten in the morning. He slid his phone off of the desk, quickly tapping into his messaging app and sending a rapidfire series of messages off to Petrie:

John: are you free after my class I need to do something

John: not smth specific but like just anything

John: we should bike out of town you didnt get to go last time

John: you better be free I have no backup plan to this

John: Im planning on this now dont let me down

He switched off the phone and slid it back onto the desk as his professor set up the slide projector in the front of the class. Normally he might not care about texting during class, but this specific professor was strict, and she had a policy that all phones had to be on desks during class time or you’d get marks off. Yet another reason to hate Torts.

Petrie better be free later.

John met Petrie outside of the student union after class to rent out two green bicycles, much to Petrie’s chagrin. Petrie was an indoor type of person, especially in the heat. John was probably lucky he was getting him to go biking at all, even though it wasn’t exactly going to be a hard bike ride.

“I literally did this last weekend, it’s not hard,” John said, swinging a leg over the bike and looking back to Petrie, waiting. “You’re not going to die.”

“Yeah, well,” Petrie rolled his eyes. “You’re obsessed with the gym, you’re not a good litmus test.”

“It’s pretty flat all the way out,” John said. “And only, like, twenty minutes. Maybe thirty.”

“We should stop for lunch first,” Petrie said, and pushed off. John watched him go, then followed him, slowly picking up speed.

“A short lunch,” he called. Petrie gave him an amused look over his shoulder. John could tell what it meant even without words: no such thing as a short lunch in France. Yet another thing John had needed to get used to.

“We can get lunch to go and eat it out in nature,” John said, pulling up beside Petrie. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“No,” Petrie said bluntly. “But it’s your trip, weirdo, so I guess we’ll do that.”

“You’re such a loving friend.” John took a breath, feeling the cool wind buffeting him slightly. They weren’t going fast enough to really cool down—they couldn’t, without being a danger to pedestrians—but the movement of air lifted brushed the slightly-sweaty curls that had escaped his bun off of his neck, which was better than nothing.

He tried to appreciate the moment: he was biking through France with a friend that, prior to this trip, he hadn’t seen in years. John had a really nice life, all things considered. How many people would kill for this, and he was just able to do it on a whim?

But that train of thought brought him too close to Alex, to Alex’s love of New York, how he’d taken a plane over alone with barely anything—because New York was his dream, and he’d had to sacrifice so much to get there.

Bad thoughts. Not useful.

“I don’t understand the gyms in France,” John said, circling back to a point in the conversation that had dropped by now. “You’d think they’d have air conditioning there, at least. And be open more often so that people don’t have to, like, skip work to exercise.”

“American gyms are better,” Petrie agreed, lowering his voice and eyeing the pedestrians they were passing warily. The pedestrians eyed them warily right back. “I don’t know, though. You could just exercise outside of the gym. At home, or like we’re doing now. It’s just not a big part of the culture, I guess.”

John hummed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I feel like I’d be so much less motivated to exercise, though. If I lived here permanently.”

“I never felt motivated to exercise even when I was in America,” Petrie said, slowing his bike and steering towards a little café. “So there’s that.”

The café was not air-conditioned. There was a ceiling fan going fast enough to make a rhythmic clunking noise, however, so it was marginally cooler than outside. Or breezier, anyway.

They had sandwiches sitting in the display case at the counter—Petrie dragged his feet about it, but eventually ended up agreeing to buy two from the case, instead of made fresh. For the sake of time. John was pretty sure he’d been convinced by wanting to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible.

“All the food is so good here, though,” John mumbled, half to Petrie but half to himself, as they stepped back out into the heat. John was walking slower, stowing the brown paper bag in his backpack. “I’m gonna go over my budget, ugh, and I’ll have to call my dad about it…”

Now there was a gross thought. For all the money he had, Henry Laurens valued frugality. Or—he valued being economical and efficient and not buying things on a whim. If you buy something, it should be an investment that you’ve thought long and hard about. Burning through your money is disrespectful to all the work you and others put in to earn it, his dad would say. Not just John’s work, but his dad’s and his grandparents and the Laurens name and whatever. The Laurens name would surely never survive John buying a sandwich.

It still put a twinge of regret in John’s chest, though, even though he’d decided a while back that the whole thing of preserving his family’s “legacy,” or whatever was fucking stupid. That didn’t mean John was proud of the fact that he spent so much money without thinking about it. His dad was trusting him with his money, first of all, and that did mean something to him—and beyond that, the ridiculous heights of privilege John had to even be able to blow through money without thinking about it was… not lost on him, and he always felt vaguely guilty every time it occurred to him.

“That’s what every exchange student does,” Petrie said, pulling John out of his thoughts. Petrie was already sitting on his bike again, waiting impatiently, and John hurriedly pulled his backpack over his shoulder to follow suit. “Trust me. Like, literally every single one doesn’t budget enough for food. You’d think they know that France is known for its food, but they never seem to.”

John breathed out a half-relieved, half hysterical laugh. “You like it here, though?”

It didn’t come across as casual as he wanted it to be.

Petrie glanced over at him, then away, as they pulled off. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a good… you know, it’s nice here. It’s been nice.”

The awkwardness of his answer probably meant that Petrie had picked up on John’s tone.

Back when John had been living in London, for those months when he was a teenager—he and Petrie had gotten close, because Petrie was living with John’s uncle, who was a friend of his family, to go to school in London. The high school Petrie was going to at the time was pretty shit—or, well, it might’ve been a nice enough school, but it wasn’t good for Petrie. He’d been bullied relentlessly there, and John had been powerless to stop it.

Petrie had spent a lot of his time begging his parents to go home, back then, but his parents had told him to stick it out. Or, that was what John picked up, through bits and pieces.

So John was… protective. In a way. Petrie was like a little brother to him, and he wanted to see him doing well. Especially since Petrie was living with his parents, now.

“That’s good,” John said mildly, trying to seem like he wasn’t prying. Trying not to pry.

Petrie didn’t pick up the thread of the conversation from there, which for Petrie was a clear enough statement. We’re done talking about this now. And John knew how much he hated it when people asked him about his relationship with his family, so he didn’t push it.

Instead, John breathed. And watched the buildings go by.

It almost reminded him of New York, in a weird way—you could bike around New York, and John had done it a lot in warmer months. It was nice, to have some semblance of nature. The architecture was different, obviously, and Rouen was a lot smaller and less stacked than New York, but the same vague sensation was there. Wind against skin, flying through a pleasant crowdedness without having to mingle or engage. It was some sort of detached and present at the same time, just observing everything, which John liked. It was like a little meditation, shutting your mind off for a while.

Eventually the buildings tapered off, emptying out into the countryside. The countryside surrounding Rouen was gently hilled and checkered with farmland, with the River Seine a ways off to the right, sparkling in the sun. The sky seemed to stretch out forever in the country, that was why John loved it. It made you feel small, trying to look at the entire sky at once. You couldn’t look at it all at once, you had to crane your neck to see the whole endless thing. It was calming, to feel small.

John sped up, here, because there was room to move. The wind picked up counter to his movement, throwing itself against him, chilling the heat against his skin and lifting his ponytail. His hair would be frizzy and unkempt after this, and he’d probably be flushed and out of breath and hot, but it was so worth it. He didn’t look back to see if Petrie was following—if he was going slower, that just meant John would have a few minutes to himself. He laughed into the wind, breath being swept away. He loved going fast—when he’d had his motorcycle, a few years back, he’d take it out to country roads like this just so he could speed. Not the curvy country roads—he wasn’t that inconsiderate—but he loved the feeling of it. The adrenaline rush.

Sure enough, when he slowed to a stop at the spot he and Louis and Martin had visited last weekend, the air felt more oppressively hot than before, and his heart was racing. He laughed to himself, steering his bike off the road and bumping over the grass to stop in the shade, propping his bike up against a tree. “Fuck,” he mumbled, swinging his backpack off his back and grabbing his water bottle. His back was sweaty, now, because he’d been wearing his backpack.

He drank some of the water and poured some of it on his head, feeling it trickle cold through his hair, before Petrie pulled up, squinting at John in the sunlight with a judgmental expression.

“You’re a very strange person.”

“So are you,” John said. “Humans are built to like the outdoors. You’re weirder than me.”

“I don’t think they were,” Petrie said, dismounting from his bike and leaning it against the other side of the tree. “Humans have been building shelters for ages. It’s one of the human impulses, to get indoors.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a bioengineering student?” John said. “Don’t you need to interact with the bio part of it?”

“I’m mostly into the theory,” Petrie said, eyeing the ground warily as John sat down on the grass. “I don’t like bugs. Or the heat.”

“It’s not that hot.”

“You should see yourself.”

“Rude.”

“I bet you were, like, one of those wild childs,” Petrie said, giving in and sitting down on the grass reluctantly. “I bet you climbed a tree.”

John made a face at him. “Climbing trees is normal?”

“I bet you played outside and came back all covered in dirt.”

“That’s also normal. Holy shit, what kind of a childhood did you have? Did you just, like, sit in a perfect white room not touching or doing anything ever? Glass bones and paper skin?”

“I played video games. Like a normal kid.”

“I mean, I also did that,” John said. “It’s all about balance, though, isn’t it?”

“Ew.” Petrie wrinkled his nose. “Stop having your life more together than mine.”

John honest-to-goodness laughed at that.

They pulled out the sandwiches and ate slowly—well, John ate slowly, Petrie ate fast and threw his wrapper at John because a bee took an interest in his food and he freaked out. But John ate slowly and talked with Petrie about random things—bioengineering, London, John’s uncle James. It was almost nice, in a way, to slow down and be calmer for a while. It wasn’t like a lot of this week had been, slow and not-calm and weird and stressful. It was actually nice-slow.

“You should really be the one going into bioengineering,” Petrie said thoughtfully as John packed away the sandwich wrappers in his backpack. “You love nature.”

“What, do you not want to go into bioengineering?” John carefully didn’t touch the other way to interpret that sentence.

“No, I like it,” Petrie said. “I like the way everything connects into everything, you know? But I think you would like it too.” he tilted his head, scrutinizing John. “It’s hard to imagine you being a lawyer. Going in courtrooms. Wearing a suit.”

“You could imagine court cases as bar fights, if that helps,” John said dryly. Petrie snorted.

“Will they let you punch the judge?”

“God willing.” John rummaged in his bag again, pulling out his mini sketchbook. Might as well take advantage while he was here, and he hadn’t brought it last time.

“Seriously, though,” Petrie said. “I can’t imagine it. You’d be, like, a hippie lawyer. That’s not a thing.”

“I’m not a hippie,” John said. “Fucking rude. And besides, maybe that’s what the legal system needs.” he dropped that thread, picking up another one as he opened his sketchbook. “Better than being a businessman. Imagine if I was a rich kid stereotype and my dad raised me to take over his business and shit? That would be awful.”

“It’d break your poor socialist heart.”

“Socialism and capitalism aren’t, like, the only two options,” John said automatically—this was something Petrie teased him about a lot.

“But anyway,” Petrie said. “Don’t tell me that a rich kid becoming a lawyer isn’t a stereotype. Didn’t you say that like half your class was rich kids?”

John had said that, a while ago in the fall, when classes had just started and John was in a complaining mood about it. “I think that has more to do with the deficits in the education system than actually being a lawyer. Besides, if you’re gonna go to an Ivy League school you gotta go into a field that pays well.”

“Still a stereotype.”

John ignored him, not really willing to face that reality, and turned to his sketchbook, flipping through the pages. Fuck, he’d forgotten how many drawings of Alex he had in here.

“Who’s that?”

John froze internally, groaning loudly inside his head. “Nunya.”

Petrie scrutinized him. “What,” he said. “Do you have a crush? Who is it?”

John sighed, turning the pages faster. Alex’s form stared up at him, uncomfortably domestic and detailed. He looked softer like this, unmoving, curled up in the corner of John’s couch or sitting criss-cross on a stool at the kitchen counter. “It’s not a crush. And you wouldn’t know him if I said his name, anyway.”

“Well, who is it if it isn’t a crush?” Petrie said. “If it’s a friend, you’re kind of creeping on him, not gonna lie.”

“It’s an ex,” John said. “These are… old pictures.”

They weren’t, exactly. 

Old was relative.

Petrie frowned. “You never told me you were dating someone, did you?”

“Well, it didn’t go on very long,” John said. “I probably would’ve, but… we broke up. Anyway. Let’s talk about anything else.”

Petrie was quiet for a moment. John didn’t look at him, flipping through pages until he found a blank one.

“Are you okay?” Petrie said finally.

“I’m fine.” It was automatic.

“Is this why Martin said to be nice to you?”

“Did he say that,” John said mildly. “I’m fine. Really. It’s just a breakup, it’s a normal thing that happens to everyone.”

“Breaking an arm is a normal thing too,” Petrie said.

John sighed, catching his breath in his throat before he told Petrie to shut up. “Can I pay you to stop talking about it? I don’t want to talk about it, Petrie.”

“You can’t buy my silence,” Petrie said. “You couldn’t afford me.”

“Ew, gross.”

“Not like that.”

They were both quiet, then, and John pretended to draw—well, he did draw. He was drawing. But his mind wasn’t on it and his heart wasn’t in it. He was busy thinking—Martin had told Petrie to be nice to John, which was probably the only reason Petrie had agreed to go out biking with him today, which was an uncomfortable thought. John hated the attention being on him, in a strange way—he hated being treated like glass by everyone around him. If everybody just pitied you, it meant… it meant you had nothing to offer. You were just fucked up.

John was fucked up. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that. But he didn’t want… if people were going to care about him, he wanted it to be for his merits, not his problems.

Ugh, he sounded like Alex. Hadn’t he had this conversation with Alex all the time when they were dating? But John had been on the other end, then, telling Alex that maybe people cared about his problems and wanted to help because they saw his merits, or because they just cared about the whole of him without having to separate it out into sections.

He got it, though.

Maybe that was another reason why—

John took a deep breath, snapping his sketchbook closed. The drawing was done, and he’d used up all the calm he could take for the day. Okay. Shit.

“Let’s go back,” he said, standing and stuffing his things back into his bag. “You can go play video games or something.”

Petrie snorted. “No, I’m a man now. I do homework. Like a man.”

John laughed, but grimaced slightly on the inside. He had homework too, that he was putting off.

“We should go out tonight,” he heard himself say, without thinking. “We haven’t been out since we met your girlfriend.”

“That wasn’t that long ago?” Petrie said, swinging a leg over his bike. 

“Yeah, but I’m only in France for a limited time,” John said. “We need to pack everything in close.”

“I just said I have homework,” Petrie said half-heartedly. John hummed. They pulled back out onto the path.

“Well, you don’t have to go, I guess. I’m gonna go, though.”

Petrie shook his head. “You are crazy,” he said. “I don’t know how you just do everything, all the time, always.”

John pedaled faster, and didn’t answer.

“Okay, so look, like—like—” John dissolved into a fit of laughter.

The bar they were at—or had been at, and were now standing outside of—had karaoke, and it was late late, but he hadn’t convinced anyone to do karaoke with him yet, and he was going to before the night was over. Even if the bar was about to close.

“Listen,” John said, trying to compose himself. “If you went up there and sang, then I—” he broke down in laughter again at the thought: Martin singing dramatically, with John there hyping him up—or hyping up the crowd, like it was a concert.

“I am not singing,” Martin said, but he was laughing too. He tried to put on a stern face, but it broke after like half a second and he ducked his head, giggling.

“You’re both drunk,” Louis deadpanned. “Time to go home. You’re not doing fucking karaoke.”

“You’re drunk too,” John said.

“Not as much as you.”

John stuck out his tongue at Louis. “You’re so lame. Let loose. Be wild—” Martin, standing next to him, broke down in laughter again at that. John started laughing too, listening to him, though he wasn’t sure what was funny.

John had laughed more tonight than he had in… probably a while. Since he was with Alex—but bad thought, not that thought. Always believe in the power of positive thinking.

“I should buy a self-help book,” John said out loud. “Or write one. Maybe. Maybe not, actually, that might be shit.”

“Self-help books are shit,” Martin said. John made a wounded noise and looked over at him.

“I just said—”

“No, look,” Martin said, gesticulating maybe more than he would if he was sober. “The thing about it is—people who buy self-help books are vulnerable. Easy to trick. Because their lives are shit. Which means, the, the conmen—”

John laughed. It wasn’t funny, but Martin’s delivery was. It was like they were in a spy movie, explaining the conspiracy, and he hardly noticed when Louis hauled him to his feet, off the cold concrete of the sidewalk. Louis let go, though, and John nearly toppled—put his hand against the wall for support, and nodded confidently. Crisis averted.

“And besides,” Martin said. “It’s all, like, blanket bullshit—like, they’re not gonna—advice isn’t good for everyone. So they just write for themselves, but it’s these rich people, being like, oh, don’t buy coffee—”

“I’m rich and I buy coffee,” John said, lost.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re rich.” Martin said it like it made sense. John frowned at him, trying to puzzle it through in his mind.

“...So that’s why I shouldn’t write a self-help book.”

“If you’re gonna put that in there,” Martin said.

Louis managed to flag down a taxi at that point. “You’re paying,” he warned John as the taxi slowed to a stop by the curb, and John gave him a puzzled look.

“...Okay.” he wasn’t really sure what was going on anymore. But he was having a good time. He was pretty sure.

Louis herded them into the taxi, cursing under his breath the whole time, which was rude but funny. John got a window seat, and stared out onto the street while Louis gave directions to the driver. John wasn’t sure his French was… good enough right now.

“The taxis in New York are expensive,” John said to Louis as the taxi pulled away from the curb. “I still like them, though. It makes you feel like you’re in a movie.”

“How expensive?”

John made a face. He didn’t want to do math. “Like, two fifty, then… fifty cents per fifth of a mile or fifty cents per minute when there’s lots of traffic. But there’s always traffic, so.”

“I don’t know American money or American miles,” Louis reminded him gently. “Is that more than ten euros a kilometer? Because that’s what taxis here are, usually.”

“Ten euros a kilometer is expensive,” John said, leaning his head up against Louis’ shoulder. He was tired, all of a sudden. “I don’t know if it’s expensiver… more expensive.”

“Depends on how slow the traffic is, I guess,” Louis said. John hummed, closing his eyes.

John had to pick his head up when Martin got out, because Louis walked him up to the door of the dorm building, and then Louis got in not the middle seat but the opposite window seat, so John couldn’t put his head against him anymore. He huffed, and put his head against the window instead, but that was bumping his skull and probably giving him brain damage so he picked his head up again and just sort of… stared at nothing until the car pulled up at Louis’ house.

The lights were off, which was good, because he didn’t want to have to play normal in front of Louis’ parents right now. Not that they didn’t know they were out getting drunk—Louis was allowed and stuff, but it was awkward. And John didn’t want to do it. So.

“I can go to bed on my own,” he tried to whisper when Louis started walking him to the guest room—which was on the first floor, thank you very much, it wasn’t hard to get to. The whisper didn’t sound as whispery as it could, and Louis winced, but held his hands up in surrender.

“I’m still gonna walk you to the door,” Louis actually whispered.

Such a gentleman, John wanted to joke, but he didn’t trust himself to whisper, now.

They made it to the guest bedroom (victory, ha ) and Louis turned on the bedside lamp and left him alone, and John flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling for a minute. The room was swaying.

It was pretty hot, in this room. Because it was hot outside. Not now, it was night, but… yeah. John had gotten a fan.

He pushed himself up (with some great effort) after a minute of contemplation and went to turn on the fan. It was the type that turned back and forth to cool down the whole room, and John stood in front of it for a second, reveling in the cold. He hadn’t been cold since… well, since it had been cold. But that didn’t sound that dramatic, though.

After a slight bit more contemplation, he went to brush his teeth in the tiny bathroom off his bedroom. He’d thought maybe he wouldn’t, because he was tired and actually really drunk, but… good habits, positive thinking. He really should buy a self-help book. He should google self-help books. After he brushed his teeth.

John brushed his teeth in the mirror with one hand and with the other tugged his hair tie out of his hair. He had to yank a few times—that was what he got, because it was hot out and his hair was frizzier than usual. He usually had stuff for that, but… bottles weren’t allowed in the airport, so he’d left it behind. Maybe he should buy some more curl gel in France. French people were fashionable, right? So it would be good. Or something.

He dropped the hair tie on the floor—he’d get it tomorrow—and spat and rinsed and turned off the light in the bathroom, too tired to do anything else to get ready for bed. He stumbled back out into the main room and kicked off his shoes, smiling slightly at the rush of cold air that passed over him for a moment as the fan turned.

He flopped back onto his bed—again—and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. That wasn’t… comfortable to sleep in.

John turned on his phone, on a whim, and pulled his legs up onto the bedspread, turning on his side. He should go to sleep. He was tired. But he wasn’t sure he was sleep-tired yet, and he didn’t want to just lay there staring at nothing.

The phone was bright, and he turned it down, wincing and squinting until it was down.

He shouldn’t go on twitter. Twitter was where he went to start fights. He was too drunk, his fighting would be… embarrassing in the morning, probably. With his luck he’d turn into a meme, and then his dad would disown him for being a disgrace.

Instagram.

John liked instagram because he liked taking pictures and, like… making an aesthetic. He had lots of pictures of different stuff, nature mostly, and people. His friends. Alex was there, in some of them. Mostly Alex had been on his story, but that was gone now. Petrie would’ve known about Alex if he had an instagram.

And, as if summoned by his thoughts, Alex appeared.

It hadn’t actually occurred to John that he hadn’t unfollowed Alex. If he thought about it—maybe he figured Alex blocked him? It seemed like the type of thing Alex would do, after a breakup. Alex was always… tough, that way. Strong and independent.

Or John had just never noticed because Alex barely ever posted on instagram. It was easy to forget he had one, most of the time.

But there he was, looking the same as John remembered him, to the degree that it was jarring. He was treading water in a pool that John didn’t recognize—Alex wasn’t a huge fan of public pools, John remembered, ‘cause they were too crowded and it felt unsanitary—but this didn’t look like a public pool. Anyway, Alex was treading water in a green pool, hair melting like ink into the water, and giving the camera a shy incredulous smile.

He was wearing John’s shirt. John remembered that shirt, the Eagles one. He must have left it at Alex’s apartment.

The caption read: 

@angelica.sch @elizabethans.eliza @peggyfschuyler modern-day sirens and local menaces

John didn’t recognize any of those names.

He turned off his phone and thumped it face-down against his blanket, harder than he needed to.

He wasn’t looking. He wasn’t going to look. He was drunk, he was drunk, he was drunk.

He could feel his heart beating. The room suddenly felt too quiet.

John sucked in a shaky breath.

He wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t— he was the one who broke up with Alex. Alex could—he could do what he wanted.

“Go to sleep,” he mumbled to himself, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes. The picture of Alex in the pool, wearing John’s shirt, seemed seared into his eyelids. The shy smile lingered, and he couldn’t push it away.

He rolled onto his side. Picked up his phone again. Lit up the screen.

God, he’d missed Alex’s face.

That was the first thing that came to mind, looking at the picture again. He’d missed Alex’s face. The soft curve of his nose, his dark downturned eyes with long lashes and almost always present eye bags like smudges of dirt on his lower eyelids. His hair. John was struck with the thought, out of nowhere, that Alex’s hair would dry wavy—after the photo was taken. Unless he did something to it. Alex was always blowing out his hair to get it as straight as possible, but if he let it air dry, it would get soft and wavy near the ends—his curtain bangs wouldn’t lay flat, they’d curve into an s shape at the ends, especially if he wore his glasses while his hair was drying. Alex always hated it. John loved it, though.

He missed Alex.

John grabbed his pillow, lying just above his head, and pressed his face into it, making a small pathetic sound like a whimper.

He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want… how was it that no matter what option he chose he always ended up sad?

Passion, a voice whispered inside him, conjuring up ideas of Joan of Arc, standing tall in a suit of armor and carrying a white and gold banner.

Fuck.

John let out a broken sob, pressing the pillow to his eyes to soak up the hot tears that sprang up. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

But he still loved Alex—but he’d ruined everything—

John took a shaky breath, then let out another sob.

His life was… so fucked up.

His life was so fucked up that he had to distract himself from it constantly so that he wouldn’t fall into a bottomless pit of despair. That he had to work overtime to rationalize things to himself. That when he actually got a good thing he was so scared of it that he ruined it. And there was only one person who could make him feel better, now, but that person was off-limits and halfway around the world, and John was alone. And it was his own fault.

But he needed— he didn’t need. But—

He just really wanted to talk to Alex.

Alex would… if Alex was here, Alex would kick his butt into gear. Nicely. He’d tell John, well, you’re the one with the most power to make your life better if it sucks. But you can do it, if you just focus on what kind of life you want for yourself. Keep reminding yourself how good it’s gonna be, if you put the work in now to fix your problems. And he’d tell John that nobody could do it but John himself, in the end, but then Alex would go off and do like half the heavy lifting for John anyway. Alex was like that. He was… motivating. He wanted John to have a good life.

Maybe that was why John had—anyway.

John took a shaky breath, pulling his head out of his pillow again. His phone screen had gone dark, and he lit it up again, averting his eyes and clicking out to the home screen before he saw the picture again.

He barely let himself think about what he was doing, only going on autopilot. He just… he needed to talk to Alex. So.

He was aware it was maybe stupid. But it was… he needed to do it.

The phone rang, loud in the night quiet, and he pushed himself up with the sudden thought to step out onto the porch for this. So he didn’t… wake anyone up, or something? Or so he could calm down.

The phone kept ringing, vibrating in his hand, as he stumbled across the room to the curtained porch doors, tugged one open, and stepped out, closing the door behind him. It was cooler outside, and he could hear the nightlife—bugs humming and chirping. No bugs on the porch, though. He switched on the porch light, then winced at the way bright light spilled into the backyard and turned the light down to its dimmest setting. He put the phone to his ear, listening to it ring, and sat gingerly in a patio chair, pulling his knees up to his chest.

What if Alex didn’t pick up? What time even was it, in New York? This was stupid, shit—

There was a clunk, then a muffled fumbling sound on the other end of the line, then—

“John?” Alex’s voice filtered through the phone, the sounds of the subway in the background. His voice was raw and rough, as if he was upset. Or as if he’d been crying. “What the fuck—isn’t it, like, three in the morning in France?”

John’s throat was squeezing tight, eyes pricking hotly. He swallowed. “Hi,” he whispered, voice hoarse.

There was a silence on the other end of the line. “Why are you calling?” Alex said after a moment, voice… less panicked. More measured. Wary.

“I… I don’t know,” he said. All the thoughts he’d had in the lead-up to calling seemed to have flown from his mind, now. He felt like he was holding a livewire. “I… I needed to talk to you.”

A long pause.

“Why,” Alex said flatly from the other end of the line, at the same time that John said, “I miss you.”

“You miss me,” Alex said, then gave a strange laugh. “Um, okay, sure. I can’t really deal with this right now—”

“You have my shirt,” John said. Alex paused.

“What?”

“My Eagles shirt.”

Alex laughed again, strange and hysterical. “Sure. Fucking—you want it back? I’m not shipping it to Paris or wherever the fuck you are, that’d probably cost more than the actual fucking shirt—”

“No,” John said. “I don’t want it back. You can keep it. I—”

Then it was John’s turn to pause for a long time. Alex was quiet, uncharacteristically patient.

“I think I really fucked up,” John said finally, in a whisper. Confessional. “I don’t—I wasn’t happy in New York. But I’m not happy here, either, and I think I just—I think I’ve just been distracting myself forever but now I don’t know what to do. ” He took a shaky breath, sniffling and scrubbing at his eyes.

Alex was quiet for a long time—there was a robotic voice echoing in the background, then the sound of shuffling. “My train is here,” Alex explained into the phone quietly. “I—” Alex blew air out into the phone, making a fuzzy sound. “I don’t know what you want me to do about that, John. I’m also not really sure it’s my problem, but—” he stopped for a moment, and John bit his lip, holding his breath. “Yeah. I don’t know why you’re not happy, John, ‘cause you never, like, fucking told me anything. Are you drunk?”

John squeezed his eyes shut, hot tears welling up in his eyes. “I know why I’m not happy,” he mumbled. “That’s not—that’s not the thing. Or, I don’t, but I do, I just. Kind of do—”

“Are you drunk,” Alex repeated, more forcefully this time.

“Yeah,” John said. “But I mean it, though. I mean—” he took a shaky breath. “I was so scared ever since—ever since—we broke up that I made a huge mistake but—and—I still think… I fucked up,” he finished, unsure if the message was coherent. “I wasn’t happy and I felt like I was… I don’t know, but you didn’t… you didn’t make me feel that way.” He was more sure that that was incoherent, but he wasn’t sure how to rephrase it. The whole thing was murky, in his mind.

Alex was quiet, over the line. John thought he heard a sniff, but that might’ve been his imagination.

“Why did you break up with me?” Alex finally said. John made a small noise, and Alex cut him off. “No— fuck you, John, you can’t just dump me and then drunk-dial me after months so I can be your therapist. I’m not—I don’t know what you think of me, John, but I’m not some invulnerable punching bag that you can just dump your problems on ‘cause you think I can handle it. Do you know how much—” a shaky breath sounded over the line. “If I’m not gonna hang up on you now, I want something out of it. So. Why did you break up with me.”

John was quiet, digesting that. He was pretty sure… he didn’t get all of it. Too drunk, right now. But he got the gist.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. His voice came out small. “I—”

“I don’t need you to be sorry,” Alex cut him off, voice hard. John took a shaky breath.

“I get it,” John said. “I…” stay simple, you’re drunk. “I just felt empty. And sad. All the time. And I… felt bad about… I wasn’t able to be who you needed. Or who you… knew. And I didn’t want to… to—I thought maybe— fuck,” he cut himself off. “I’m really drunk. Sorry.”

There was a silence over the phone. A shaky breath, then a sniffle, and then a distinct sob. John sat up straighter, feeling like shit. “Are you—”

“Fuck,” Alex choked out. “This is the second time you’ve made me cry on the subway, you know.”

John didn’t know, actually. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Alex cry. Other than—other than the time he broke up with him.

“When you are sad and empty all the time,” Alex said, voice measured through his shaky breathing, “You get help. You don’t… you don’t leave. I—” he cut himself off with a jagged intake of breath. “Did you ever—”

The line was silent for a moment. John squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to cry. He pressed his lips together.

“I really loved you,” Alex said, voice watery. “And I—I was planning—on us being together for a really long time, and then you—broke up with me out of nowhere and—and I thought everything was fine, and I thought you loved me—” he let out a choked sob. “And then you just left, do you know how that feels? I—I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but I—it’s not like you didn’t hurt me,” he finished, voice soft and wobbly. John drew in a breath, blinking tears out of his eyes. The porch was blurry. Not because he was drunk.

“Did,” Alex started. Stopped. “I—so you weren’t happy,” he said. “But did—did you love me? Or—”

John drew in a wobbly breath, more tears falling. “Yeah,” he said dully. “I—I think I still do love you. So.”

Over the other end of the line, Alex let out a shuddering noise.

The line went dead.

John sat there on the porch, alone again, feeling much worse than he had before he’d called.

Chapter Text

Alex remembered sitting crosslegged on an air mattress, in a small room surrounded by moving boxes that hadn’t been unpacked yet—they’d only arrived in Saint Croix a week ago. His brother was sitting next to him, and his mom was standing in the doorway, lips pursed and eyes steely, while his dad explained that he was going away for a while.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” his dad said. He was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, crosslegged as well, shirt unbuttoned. It was hot. “Until things settle down here, and people get used to this. I don’t want you two to cry, all right? It’s not sad. You’ll have your mama and a whole new island to explore in the meantime.”

Alex glanced at Jamie, fidgeting with the strap of his sandal. Their dad going away for a while wasn’t unusual. He didn’t need to tell them if he had a business trip or whatever.

Something was different.

Alex was ten, but he was smart, okay, and he knew his dad didn’t need to reassure them. And he knew that his mom didn’t glare like that when his dad left normally. And—and he knew that people weren’t explaining things.

“Who’s people?” He chose his question carefully, trying to cut to what he was pretty sure was most important. He was practicing that.

His dad frowned at him. “What?”

“You said,” Alex looked down, unable to meet his gaze, and instead focused on the velcro of his sandal, which he was pulling off and on. “Uh, you said that you’ll come back when people get used to this. What people?” and then, as it occurred to him, “And get used to what?”

His dad glanced at Jamie warily—like Jamie was the one asking the question, just because he was older. His dad did that a lot, and it pissed Alex off. But he wasn’t allowed to use that word. Anyway, Jamie was just sitting there.

“The people around town,” his dad said, “and your mama’s boss. It’s just complicated adult stuff, Jano.”

Alex hated when people said that. And he hated his dad using his nickname, like he wouldn’t notice he was being treated like a baby. “I could get it,” he protested, rocking back on the mattress. “I know lots of adult stuff. Just tell me.”

“You do not know adult stuff,” Jamie said, interjecting for the first time in the conversation. His voice had an edge to it, the same edge that was in the rest of the room, and Alex felt very suddenly that he was the only one being left out. He didn’t like it.

“I do too,” he said loudly, and turned to kick at Jamie, hard. Jamie grabbed at his leg, though, and Alex made a loud noise of protest, kicking and shaking his leg trying to get free. And to kick Jamie again. He pulled up his other leg to try and kick Jamie’s arm and get him to let go.

“God, you’re such a brat,” Jamie said, at the same time their mom said, “Boys,” in a warning tone.

“He just called me a brat,” Alex protested to his mama. Usually she was on his side, but she just seemed mad today.

“If you’re going to fight, go do it outside,” she said. “If you break the wall or something in here, we lose our security deposit, remember?”

Alex did remember—she’d explained to him last week when they first came to the new apartment what a security deposit was. He flopped back against the mattress, going limp, mood soured considerably.

“Stop keeping secrets,” he whined. “I wanna know too. You’re not being fair.”

“Life isn’t fair, Alex,” his dad said, getting up from the floor. Alex stuck his tongue out at him when he turned around, so he didn’t see. Alex’s mama saw, though, and gave him a warning look.

“Well, I’m going outside then,” Alex announced loudly. “Cause everyone in here is stupid!” He yelled the last part, rolling off the mattress—Jamie let go of his leg, and Alex clambered to his feet, storming outside and slamming the front door of the apartment, cutting off his dad’s sharp words without listening to what he was saying.

They lived on the ground floor, next to the road—Alex wasn’t allowed to play next to the road, not like he wanted to. It smelled like gasoline and it was loud. But he could play in the back, which was mostly a parking lot but there were some trees and plants in a dip.

A few islands ago, they lived next to a park with basketball, and Jamie would bring Alex and teach him how to play basketball. Alex wasn’t really good yet, but only ‘cause he was short, otherwise he would be, Jamie said. Alex wished they still lived on that island. Saint Croix was stupid.

It was hot outside. Alex kicked the gravel, watching a cloud of yellowish dust kick up. His sandal got a rock in it for that, but he didn’t care. That kind of stuff didn’t hurt him, ‘cause he wasn’t a baby.

His eyes stung, all of a sudden, and he blinked hard, mad at himself for it. Mad at everyone.

It wasn’t fair.

They always did this, doing stupid things without telling him why, and then he had to deal with it, like he wasn’t there too. It was really rude. But usually he could ask his mama about it and she’d tell him. She didn’t lie to him. But not this time.

He kicked the gravel again. His feet were dusty.

He took a big breath and rubbed at his eyes. Even if they didn’t tell him things, didn’t mean he wasn’t a big kid. He was. They just were stupid and they didn’t know. He could do things on his own.

They went to the library, the other day. It was a really little library and they didn’t have a lot of kids books. But it was better than standing around in a parking lot dying of heatstroke. And they had a water fountain. Alex remembered the way—he could go there for himself. As a treat, since everyone else was being a jerk and he didn’t want to go back inside.

It was left, and then turn at the stop sign, and then walk until you were almost at the pier, and then turn left again. He remembered. He was smart.

He ended up being there for only, like, an hour before his mom and Jamie came and found him, mad and upset, because they didn’t know where he was. His dad had left already. He got a long angry lecture on the way home, where his mama said don’t ever do that again and you could’ve been kidnapped or hurt or lost and we wouldn’t know where you were, and Alex tried to defend himself and remind her that he was a big kid, but she snapped at him that it didn’t matter.

“Parents need to know where their kids are, no matter how independent you think you are,” his mom said. Alex kept quiet. He didn’t know what the word independent meant, but he didn’t think his mom would really like him asking.

He blinked hard, trying not to cry, and his mama sighed, squeezing his hand once. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t want her to see him cry and think that he was actually a baby.

It wasn’t until much later that Alex started to put the puzzle pieces together of why people were so weird about his dad leaving—his mama sighed into her coffee one morning, weeks later, when he asked her when she thought dad was coming back, and said, “I don’t really think he is, Alex.”

This was surprising, because she never said that before. He frowned, sitting there at the kitchen table, trying to puzzle through logic that he suspected was mostly stupid.

“He could’ve just said that?” Alex said finally, annoyed. “He didn’t have to make it a secret. Why’d he leave?”

“That’s a complicated question,” his mom said, looking very tired. She looked tired a lot, lately, and sad. It was really annoying. Alex didn’t get it. “Sometimes… things just don’t work out with people,” his mama said slowly. “Sometimes someone isn’t… the right fit.”

Alex didn’t understand what that meant, but he didn’t say that, because his mama was telling him adult stuff and he wanted to seem like he got it. So he just nodded. He did know that sometimes things didn’t work out. A lot of his dad’s jobs didn’t work out. So it was something about that, probably.

It wasn’t until he was a teenager, looking back on the whole thing, that Alex actually got what she meant.

Alex’s blanket was tossed to the side, and he was haphazardly sprawled across his bed, shaky and hot. Bright sunlight streamed through the open window and spilled across the floor, the sounds of the street a constant background noise. Loud music drifting by, car horns and sirens sounding in the distance, and a steady low chatter of conversation that Alex could only hear snippets of when they passed by under his window. Talking about rising prices, gossip, a little girl asking her dad something—someone explaining the subway station. Some girl yelled for her friend to get out of the street, it wasn’t time to cross.

There were some people whooping and yelling in the distance, too far away for Alex to know what they were saying. Somebody was blowing a whistle, shrill and high. Those two things might’ve been related—maybe not.

Alex shut his eyes. Back in his room, he heard the low rustle of a breeze moving the curtains.

He had a headache.

It had gone away for a bit. He’d been hoping it was gone for good, but it was back again. There was a glass of water on top of his dresser, condensation beading against the glass, along with some ibuprofen. But sitting up seemed like… so much work.

He’d been this way since yesterday. Moping.

Well, it wasn’t moping if anybody asked. He was actually sick. He just wasn’t doing his regular routine of trying to do a toned-down version of his normal schedule until he felt better or got bad enough that he physically had to lay down. Normally he would just power through if he was feeling a little under the weather—a lot under the weather, yeah, he’d lie down.

But it wasn’t that bad. Alex was just shaky and feverish and worn-out, mostly. Normally he wouldn’t skip classes for this. Or his actual work. He’d emailed Washington to let him know he’d be out, though.

Mostly, Alex had been alternating between sleeping and watching a random psychology docuseries he’d found, along with the occasional Drag Race episode. He had his iPad propped up against the side of the dresser that touched against his bed so that he could watch it lying down. 

John’s voice kept echoing in his mind.

I wasn’t happy. I don’t know what to do. I think I still do love you.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He’d missed his fucking stop because of that phone call, and he’d had to get off and then get on another train and it was a whole hassle…

The problem was, he couldn’t even be mad.

Well—he was mad. He was furious, really, at everything. Not just John, but at the whole situation. At life. Everything. He didn’t know. But the problem was, he still… he still cared about John too much. Hearing him falling apart— I think I made a mistake, I’m so scared I fucked up, I think I’ve just been distracting myself forever— it was… something. Alex still cared about John’s problems, as furious as that fact made him. He wanted… he wanted to help. He had some batshit insane urge to call John back, make him explain everything in more detail, lay everything out and make an action plan with him—to fix John’s life, John’s problems.

But Alex had meant it, over the phone, when he said he wasn’t just a dumping ground for John’s issues. John had broken up with him, they hadn’t spoken in like… months? Was it months now? …That just wasn’t how it was going to work. Alex wouldn’t let it.

He knew that was the right thing to do, intellectually. To protect himself. To not be taken advantage of.

But John had just sounded so scared.

It was a strange feeling. Alex hated him, maybe, a little bit. He was furious at him. But he was also worried. Or something. Sad for him, maybe.

But he was also sad for himself. Alex had to hold onto that, cling to it, otherwise he’d do something stupid.

He had a few texts from Angelica and Peggy—not Eliza. It made sense, he reasoned. She’d filled up her confrontation quota for the year with him. Ha.

Of course, it wasn’t like he’d responded to the other Schuylers either. He wasn’t doing much else, so. He didn’t really have an excuse.

Alex sighed, rolling onto his side again, where his iPad was propped up, screen dark. He’d lost the effort to watch TV maybe an hour ago, but being alone with his thoughts was starting to be too much again.

As soon as he lit the screen up, another notification from Peggy flashed at the top of the screen. He groaned loudly, rolling over.

He just wanted the world to go away.

He took a shaky breath, abruptly feeling like crying—another thing he’d been doing a lot of the last two days.

But where the fuck did John get off—ugh, Alex hated him.

He pushed himself up, fueled by adrenaline and rage. His arms were shaky, and he was lightheaded, but he took a sip of water and an ibuprofen and swung his legs off the bed, moving carefully and quickly for the kitchen. Before his strength was used up.

He collapsed onto a stool at the kitchen island and put his forehead down on the table, exhausted by the short trip. But he needed to do something, or else everything burning inside him would incinerate him from the inside out.

Hercules was out right now—that was good. He’d been trying to get Alex to have a talk about his feelings, which was the last thing Alex wanted. Normally Herc was good about that kind of thing, but apparently not now, when Alex needed it the most.

He wanted chips. They didn’t have chips. Alex had been planning to go grocery shopping, before he got sick and that plan went out the window.

Defeated, Alex picked his head up wearily and took an apple from the bowl at the end of the table. He barely even liked apples. Crunching it felt good, though. He could imagine he was crunching someone’s bones. Or head.

Alex blinked, eyes hot, and sniffed, still chewing on his piece of apple. He pushed his glasses up to wipe at his eyes, but more tears sprung up as soon as he took his hand away. He was pretty sure it was just routine, at this point. He’d already cried about everything he could cry about, but it just kept happening.

From down the stairs, Alex heard the front door open and slam shut. He closed his eyes, lowering his head to the palm of his hands in exasperation, then pushed himself up.

Mulligan appeared at the top of the stairs just as Alex reached the living room. His eyes lit up, surveying Alex neutrally. Fuck.

“You’re up,” Herc said. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I’m not up, I’m going back to bed,” Alex said, ducking his head to avoid eye contact and shuffling into the hallway. Well, trying to shuffle. Herc blocked his path. And normally Alex would’ve ducked around him or something, but standing upright was already taking enough of his energy.

“Seriously?” Alex said.

“You’ve been moping,” Herc said. Alex cursed internally. Leave it to Herc to pick up on everything Alex didn’t want people to pick up on. “Look, normally I would leave you in relative peace and pretend I didn’t notice anything, but I’m actually worried. You’re missing class for this, which means it’s serious.”

Alex sighed, looking around Herc, down the hallway. He didn’t have the energy for this, emotional or physical. “I don’t want to talk about how I’m missing class.”

“Alex, whatever happened Saturday—”

“I don’t want to talk about what happened on Saturday, either,” Alex said, voice louder. “God, can nobody mind their own fucking business for a change?” He shoved past Herc, stalking down the hallway. “Everybody’s like, oh, Alex, you’re so smart, you’re such a good worker, help me out with this and this and this, but whenever they don’t need something from me they act like I’m some obnoxious idiot that doesn’t understand how the world works, and I am so sick of it! Would you just shut up!”

He slammed the door to his room, much harder than he needed to, cutting off Herc’s blank face from view.

He stood there for a second, hands shaking, breathing heavy measured breaths.

Spots blinked in his vision, and he sucked in another, shakier breath, stumbling the two steps to his bed and collapsing onto it.

He closed his eyes, breathing deep. He kind of felt like he was going to throw up.

He was, overwhelmingly, tired of everything. It was like trying to start a fire in a downpour, or driving on the wrong side of the street and hoping that nobody would come from the other direction.

Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for… this. Everything. Life, society. The way things were structured. Maybe he just wasn’t wired right for it, and that was why he always seemed to fall behind so much more than everyone else he knew. Why hard things seemed simple for everyone else. Why nothing went right in his entire fucking life. He was tired of it.

Maybe he was scared—maybe he believed it. What he’d been yelling at Hercules about. That maybe he was an obnoxious idiot who didn’t understand how life worked. It would explain his track record. But fuck, he tried so hard not to be. He tried so hard to be nice and fair and self-aware and helpful and he just couldn’t do it.

That was one of his worst fears. That maybe he was just a bad person. That something was irrevocably, inherently fucked up about him that just made him… bad. That made him hurt people without trying, burn relationships to the ground, not notice when someone was miserable and it was his fault. And he could never fix it.

Alex breathed out a shaky breath, opening his eyes. The popcorn ceiling was blurry. Herc hadn’t come after him, and Alex didn’t know whether to feel guilty or grateful.

He should… watch TV.

There was nothing he could do about—well, about any of this. And he’d been down this train of thought before, he’d already worked through it. There was no point in doing it again, sitting there being needlessly upset.

He scooted further up his mattress wearily, rolling onto his side, and resolutely ignored the notifications as he turned on his iPad, flipping to Drag Race. He didn’t have the mental capacity for anything educational or clever right now. And it was cathartic, in a way, to watch this kind of cheap drama. Let someone else get into stupid arguments for a change.

He picked an episode at random and settled his head on the edge of the pillow, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath as it started up. 

Everything would be okay. It would be fine.

It felt like a lie, but he kept telling himself that.

Alex woke up hours later, disoriented and with the light from his window dimmer and redder, falling in a more pronounced way across his desk instead of filling the room. Golden hour, John called it. His iPad had tipped over onto the mattress at some point while he was sleeping, leather case on display. He propped it back up with a vague sense of frustration. The case had been a gift from John, way out of Alex’s price range. He wasn’t getting rid of it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to look at it.

The smell of something was drifting through the apartment, familiar and savory. Alex closed his eyes, breathing deep. Hercules was cooking.

It was cooler than it had been earlier. Alex, still feverish, decided to call it a small mercy from the universe. Or God, or whoever.

He laid there for a few minutes, trying to hold onto the quietude of the moment instead of spiraling back into his thoughts.

Then there was a knock on the door.

“Alex?” Hercules’ voice was hesitant. Soft in a way that didn’t usually spring to mind when Alex pictured Hercules Mulligan. Yeah, Alex had gone a tiny bit ballistic on him earlier, but he’d kind of been hoping it wouldn’t… stick. Selfish thinking, maybe.

“Yeah,” Alex croaked out, voice creaky with sleep and old pent-up tears.

A pause. “Can I come in?”

Honestly, Alex had been expecting Herc to offer him food or something. But it wasn’t like Alex didn’t owe him, a bit, so. “Sure.”

He sat up, scooching back to sit against the wall as Herc came in. Lying down felt too… deferential.

Hercules sat down on the edge of the mattress. There was a strange sense of deja vu about it; or maybe not deja vu, since Alex remembered exactly what felt familiar to him. The last time they’d been here was when John had just broken up with him. Of course, everything was reminding him of John right now. Alex didn’t look Herc in the eyes.

“How are you feeling now?” Herc said after a moment. Alex knew this side of Herc, the patient slow one that convinced you to talk just to fill up the silence, and he noted it in the back of his mind.

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “I still feel sick.”

Hercules took this in with a nod. Alex rolled his eyes internally, burning some of the tension with a forced blasé attitude.

The moment stretched. A dog barked somewhere outside, and a siren wailed in the distance. Inside, Alex picked at his nails, trying not to bite them. He’d forced himself to quit that nervous habit back in the fall, and he didn’t want to mess it up again. Having his nails bitten to the quick made him look like a child.

But the moment still stretched, and the words rose up in his throat until he couldn’t keep them down— 

“Sorry for blowing up at you earlier.”

Alex glanced up, almost nervously, at Herc. Hercules was studying him—not surprising, still unnerving.

“It didn’t seem to have much to do with me,” Hercules said, brushing off the apology. It was his form of I forgive you, Alex was pretty sure. “You’re dealing with a lot, and you had to get some release somewhere.”

“It shouldn’t have been you, though. You didn’t do anything.”

“I picked the wrong time to talk to you,” Hercules offered.

“That’s not an excuse.”

Hercules didn’t say anything to that for a long second, and at first Alex thought he was waiting for more—and Alex was building it in his head, the full explanation of why he was wrong and why he was sorry, some attempt to exonerate himself by laying out his reasoning—but then Hercules spoke again.

“We could hash it out,” he said slowly. “Or we could move on. Long story short, correct me if I’m wrong—you were stressed, I was concerned, I tried to talk to you, you didn’t want to talk. Is that enough said about it?”

Alex wasn’t sure what to say to that. He had the sense that it wasn’t enough said, but he wasn’t sure exactly what was missing from Herc’s recap, what thread his mind was still tugging at, and he thought he might be too tired to unravel it right now.

“I’m not trying to say you don’t know anything about life,” Herc said. “And I don’t know who told you that, ‘cause I’m sure I’ve never said it—but I think you know that part of a healthy life is having people who support you when you’re going through shit.”

“I know,” Alex said. His voice was embarrassingly small. “I know that, I just—I didn’t want to talk, I was…” he stopped there, unsure what the next words could be. He didn’t know what he was. Whatever mental state he was in—it was too much at once to actually understand.

Hercules didn’t pick that thread up for him, though. “All I’m saying is that I think you need to talk to someone. Even if you don’t want to. If it’s not me, your fancy school has mental health services—”

“I’m not talking to fucking mental health services,” Alex interrupted, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. “They’re a joke. And besides, you think they’re really equipped to handle real issues—I mean, they’d probably tell me to learn how to organize my time better or try counting back to ten when I get mad or something. That’s what the counselor I saw in high school told me. She had no fucking idea what to do with me.”

“Okay,” Hercules said. “Not them. You have other friends, though. And if you don’t want to talk about it to people at school, Eliza doesn’t go to your school.”

For fuck’s sake. “I’m not talking to Eliza. She’s not talking to me, either, anyway.”

Hercules didn’t say anything.

Alex didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to look at Hercules, or have to avoid his gaze. But he didn’t like the blank darkness, either, with no distractions. He felt distinctly trapped, and distinctly unsure whether he was right to feel that way, or whether he’d just struck an old nerve against something by accident.

There was a reason he didn’t tell people he was bisexual, why he just let people assume he was gay or straight or whatever based on what evidence they had. He already sort of fit into enough stereotypes about bisexual men, and he didn’t need people to take that and turn it up to a thousand. He didn’t want to only be seen as flirty, and hypersexual, and hot but not trustworthy or relationship material or smart or rational or… respectable. He didn’t want to be seen as… some kind of con artist, cashing in on what was popular or whatever.

People already saw him that way… too much for his comfort. He liked it, sometimes, when it was—under his control, in a way—but only in small doses. It wasn’t like he was uncomfortable being bisexual! He was just… uncomfortable with the idea that other people could be uncomfortable with him being bisexual.

Hercules knew Alex, and Alex knew Hercules. And Alex was pretty sure Herc wouldn’t see him that way—wouldn’t think anything was wrong with it. But he didn’t know. And he lived with Herc, Herc was one of his best friends, one of the first people he ever met in New York. If Alex was wrong—

Alex took a breath.

“I got a call from John,” he heard the words come out of his mouth, hanging in the still air of his bedroom. “On Saturday night, I mean.”

Herc released a breath slowly. Alex opened his eyes, only glancing at Herc quickly before looking back down at his blanket. He really did need to buy a new one sometime. “Did you pick up?”

“Yeah.”

A pause, and Alex could hear the unasked question. “I thought he might be, like… stranded in Paris or something,” he said, shrugging at his blanket. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“But he wasn’t stranded.” It was a prompt, not a question.

“No.”

More silence. Alex didn’t register it as uncomfortable this time, too lost in his head, replaying the same snippets of conversation he’d had on repeat in his mind the past two days. His face twisted against his will, and he took a shaky breath to ward off the tears. Not now.

“I’m worried about him,” Alex said, voice hushed. He couldn’t speak at full volume, throat too tight to let him speak clearly. “He seemed…”

Hercules, to his credit, did not state the obvious. He didn’t say you really shouldn’t take the responsibility of worrying for your ex or you’re the one that’s been lying in bed crying the past few days, not him, or even the simple dude, what the fuck.  

Instead: “What did he say?”

Alex had to stop and think about it, even though the conversation was burned into his mind. It was there in cluttered bits and pieces, the important parts standing out in a jumble that he suspected would sound like gibberish if he only named them—he needed to pause to sort, think through step by step about the thread of the conversation.

Also, he just needed to gather his strength.

“I—he was drunk,” Alex began, voice only wobbling a bit. “More than me, I mean. He said…” he said he missed me, Alex wanted to say, but he couldn’t force the words out.

He took a shaky breath. Skipped over that part. Kept going. “He said I had his shirt and I said he’d have to pay for shipping fees if he wanted it back, and he said I could keep it, and then he said…” he closed his eyes, trying to conjure the exact wording. And also avoid eye contact. “He said he thought he fucked up. Because he wasn’t happy in New York, but he’s not happy in France now, either. And he thinks…” deep breaths. “He thinks he’s just been… distracting himself, and he doesn’t know what to do.”

“That’s a lot to put on someone you broke up with two months ago,” Herc said mildly, faintly judgmental. Alex almost smiled. Almost.

“I told him that,” he said. “I mean—I told him I wasn’t his therapist, or something like that. I don’t remember. I just… he said that he felt empty all the time when he was in New York,” Alex said abruptly. Like dunking yourself in ice water. “He said that’s why he broke up with me, because he couldn’t be happy, and he—shit, I don’t remember, like… he couldn’t be the person I needed? But he thought he made a mistake.”

Herc didn’t say anything. Alex didn’t have the patience for silence. “I mean, he’s depressed, basically,” Alex said, forceful and blunt. “He didn’t say that. I don’t know if that’s what he thinks, but that’s what he was describing.”

“Yeah,” Hercules said, sounding distant. “That is what it sounds like.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Alex pulled up his knees, resting his chin on them and hugging them with his arms. “You’re not going to tell me it’s not my problem, are you?”

Hercules frowned. “It’s your problem if you make it your problem, I guess. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to make it your problem,” he added, giving Alex a warning glance. “But I’d be a hypocrite if I told you to not care. I know him, too, you know. Not as well as you—but I care about him too. It’s normal to worry about people you care about.”

“You’re worried too,” Alex said, not sure if it was a question or a statement.

“I’m not sure there’s much you can do,” Hercules said. “He’s still in France, and I wouldn’t recommend calling him again. If only for the sake of your phone bill.”

Alex huffed, smiling faintly. The smile faded quickly as the reality of what Herc had said sank in. Alex knew he couldn’t do anything—intellectually—but.

But.

“He said he still loved me,” Alex said. He didn’t know what on earth possessed him to say it, but now it was out there, hanging in the air. “I asked him if he loved me—when we were dating. And he said he thought he still loved me.”

He drew in a shuddering breath and ducked his head down, hiding it in his knees and blinking away hot tears. The desire to hide away from the world was back, stronger. Too much at once, Alex thought clinically, cold analysis in contrast to his white-hot feelings.

“That’s a lot to deal with,” Hercules said softly. His voice was gentle, as if Alex were a small kitten he’d found in an alleyway, or a little kid that was right about life being unfair. For once, strangely, Alex didn’t have the energy to fight or snap or take it as an affront. The spark of indignation was there, but weak, and it flickered and died without anything to fuel it.

Alex took another shuddering breath, trying not to cry.

“I’m fine,” he said into his knees, voice teary. “It’s fine.”

Hercules was quiet for another moment. “Sometimes things just suck, you know,” he said. “That’s life. It’s okay to not be fine.”

“That’s stupid advice.”

“You’re a bit rude, Hamilton. It’s great advice. The world isn’t going to crumble around you if you let yourself be sad.”

“It could,” Alex sniffed. “You never know.” And then, before Hercules had an answer to that, “I’m missing classes.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not ahead. Anyway, Alex—so maybe you get a B in your classes. So maybe your plans get messed up. That’s how things work out sometimes. There’s a gray area between everything going perfectly and total ruinous failure, and it’s a fine place to be. Actually, it’s where everyone is, most of the time. If not all of the time. You don’t need to freak out, okay?”

Alex took a shaky breath and picked his head up again, to prop his chin up on his knees. “That’s like what Eliza said to me on Saturday,” he said. “She said I… fuck, I don’t remember. She said I need my life to be perfect, and I make it everyone’s problem. Or something.”

Herc frowned at him. “You two had a fight?”

“It wasn’t really a fight,” Alex said. “She just… said some shit. I think she was trying to be nice about it. She’s always—” he cut himself off. Took a deep breath. “She’s too nice, I think. She doesn’t stand up for herself enough.” Which reminded him— “She said I only like her because she’s nice to me,” he said, more heated now. “Which is such bullshit, ‘cause first of all, why would I like someone who’s a dick to me, and second of all no I don’t.”

Hercules smiled at him, amused for a reason Alex couldn’t place. “You had a pretty crazy night.”

Which only reminded Alex of the kiss, which reminded Alex that he’d have to explain a bunch of shit to Hercules if he wanted to tell him about that, which didn’t do wonders for his mood, which had been feeling a bit better but now quickly soured again.

“It’s because I kissed her.” 

The words were out of Alex’s mouth before he could really think about it, fueled by some spiteful rage towards… whatever. The situation. The idea that this could go badly.

Herc paused. He’d already been looking at Alex, but Alex got the sense that if he hadn’t been he would’ve done a double take. His face was unreadable, and all the spite-fueled recklessness Alex had a moment ago dissolved into something tense and unnerved.

“I wanted to, I mean,” he fumbled, trying to go for the same brash confidence he’d had and managing a sort of bravado. “I like girls too. And she—I don’t know, we—it’s not like she thought,” he said, finding firm footing with that thought. “I don’t just like her for some… weird power fantasy, it’s like I said, I think she should speak up more of the time, it’s not like I tell her not to. I take my relationships seriously,” he said, the last sentence coming out a bit more defensive than he wanted it to.

Hercules was still watching him, though he wasn’t frozen. He’d raised his eyebrows during Alex’s little rant, and now he leaned back, stretching and then putting his arms down. “Alright,” he said. “That was… a lot at once.”

That didn’t exactly settle the tangle of nerves in Alex’s throat, but at least Herc was talking.

“So you like Eliza—in a serious way?”

Alex blew out a breath. “I… I dunno. I would be serious about it. If she reciprocated. You know?”

“You don’t think this is a rebound.”

Alex tensed, face hardening, and Hercules put his hands up. “I’m not saying it is ,” he said. “And there’s no judgment if it is. I’m just clarifying. ‘Cause just a minute ago we were talking about John and you seemed pretty hung up on him.”

Alex forced himself to relax. “I don’t know,” he said. “I still… I feel a lot for John, right, but—I think Eliza and me would be a good couple, if—if we tried, and it’s not like I should be hanging onto a relationship that ended two months ago.”

Hercules frowned, taking this in, eyes focused sharply on Alex. “And… to clarify, you’re… bisexual?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, pushing down the urge to say kind of or a little or I guess. He pressed his fingernails into his arms as subtly as he could manage, trying to stave off some of the adrenaline. “Yes.”

“Alright,” Herc said. “Thanks for telling me. I guess I just assumed you were gay.”

Alex didn’t look at him. “I just kind of let people assume. It’s easier than, you know, having to defend it all the time.”

A pause. “Sure,” Herc said. Not sarcastically. “So do you not want me to tell anyone, or…”

Alex gave a jerky shrug. “Um—yeah. I guess. Don’t tell anyone.”

He felt stiff and shaky and relieved, and oddly like he wanted to cry, although he supposed that was the norm for him these days. He wasn’t sure what to do or where to go from there, though. When he’d done this with John—well, he didn’t have the same type of relationship with Hercules.

“I’m sorry about Eliza, though,” Hercules said. The same gentle tone of voice he’d used earlier was back. “That’s really rough.”

Alex took a shaky breath, vision blurring. He was already drained, he didn’t really want to talk anymore, but—he wanted to know. “Do you think she was right?”

“...About what?”

“Do you think I’m—I mean, I am a control freak,” Alex said. “I just—do you think—I mean, everyone wants to have things under control, right, it would be weird to just not care what happens?” He cut himself off with a deep inhale, more words crowding his mind. He didn’t say them. He really was flagging, too tired to go into the whole thing.

Hercules frowned at him, scrutinizing him like he didn’t understand what he was saying, or maybe like he didn’t understand how to answer.

“I… guess,” Hercules said. “I think it is normal to want to have things under control. But…” he frowned, looking away and staring into the distance.

“I’ll tell you this,” he said abruptly, still staring into space. “A few years back—before you came to New York—me and my girlfriend at the time broke up. It wasn’t bad,” he said, glancing back at Alex. “She got a job offer out-of-state. Boston, of all the places—I told her she better be making good money if she’s moving to fucking Boston, but oh well.”

Alex smiled thinly. He was vaguely aware of the rivalry between Boston and New York’s sports teams. None of it lined up with what Alex was interested in, but John and Herc talked about it enough that Alex had picked up on the basics.

“Anyway,” Herc said. “So she moved to Boston. Which isn’t that far, but far enough that it would’ve been long distance, especially with our two different jobs and crazy schedules. So we broke up. And we had a good thing going, yeah? We hadn’t been dating for that long—a few months, I guess—but we had potential, like you put it.” he gave Alex a teasing grin that showed what he thought of that wording.

“I guess…” Herc frowned, looking back off into space again. “My point is, it was a good thing, and we did everything ‘right,’ and it didn’t work out. And that’s just life, you know? You might want total control, but you’re never really going to have it. Sometimes you just need to accept that there are things out of your control, and that’s just how it is. If I spent my time agonizing over what I could’ve done, or believing that I could make things perfect if I just tried harder—I’d be torturing myself. Because that’s not how it works.”

Alex blinked, looking away towards the wall, abruptly resentful. His eyes were watering, vision blurry. “Well then what’s the point of anything,” he whispered.

“I’m not saying give up,” Herc said. “I know you have a lot of drive, kid, I’m not saying stop doing that. But in my mind—the point of life isn’t to try and make things perfect, it’s to learn to be comfortable with things not being perfect. Resilience, yeah? You can still work to keep them good— but perfection is setting the bar a bit too high, I think.”

Alex closed his eyes, the tears spilling over, and thought of John, empty and sad and trying everything to pretend he wasn’t.

Jesus.

It was almost funny.

Chapter Text

Life had fallen into a frustrating and easily-recognizable static.

The world around him kept going, in a way that John didn’t think he was fully processing—he was forgetting things, apparently, because he’d ask a question in the middle of a conversation and get concerned looks from his friends, and they’d tell him gently that they’d already answered that—which was awkward and frustrating, because they were worried about him and he couldn’t act normal around them.

Anyway. The world kept going. That was the issue, that was the… discrepancy, really, because John couldn’t feel it—it was like losing your sense of touch, or taste; he kept trying to sense things that he knew were there logically, but they just… weren’t. There, that is. Or he wasn’t there, or something. It was as if his emotions were a dead corpse that he was poking at with a stick, trying to get them to twitch or move or do something. But there was nothing he could do to bring a corpse back to life. No matter where he went or who he talked to or what mindset he tried to have—it stayed dead.

He could fake it, more or less—people knew something was going on, but John knew from past experience that transferring the poking of the corpse to outside sources mostly freaked them out. And then frustrated them, eventually, when they figured out that nothing was working. So he could carry his body through the motions. Like a puppet, kind of.

His homework was piling up, though. And his room was messy. He’d shoved a lot of it under his bed so that Louis wouldn’t get worried when he came in—not that Louis wasn’t worried anyway.

He could hear Alex’s voice in the back of his head, I thought we were good and then you just left. I don’t know why you’re unhappy, you never told me anything.

He didn’t know what else to do, though.

He’d tried, okay, when he was younger, he’d taken the meds and went to the therapy and all that shit, and he was still depressed—the drugs made it worse, so he’d had to go off of them, and the therapy had helped some, but he was still—back here, and he wasn’t stupid. Depression wasn’t something that got cured. And he didn’t want to try and fix it and then ruin everything and make it worse, like with the meds or—yeah.

He went to classes and sat there not listening. He went to lunch and ate and left, telling his friends he was tired. He went to bed and laid there in the dark, staring at the ceiling and debating taking a melatonin. Melatonin didn’t always work. Sometimes it just made him more tired and still awake.

He talked to his dad, on a call, later in the week. He didn’t remember what he said, or what it had been about, other than the normal bullshit he talked to his dad about, except that his dad had asked him if he was alright near the end of the call. Not in so many words—it was a feeling-things-out type thing, fishing for information, but his dad almost never took an interest in his personal or emotional life, so John suspected that his dad thought something was up. Which was a low point, because his dad was not good at noticing that shit. But he didn’t say anything.

None of John’s friends said anything, either. For a while. Things just… stretched out, building tension.

John was lying in bed. The fan was blowing over him, rhythmically rustling the papers he had scattered around every time it curved to the left.

It was late.

Not that late—about midnight, maybe, but he was tired.  

Outside, bugs hummed in the backyard. The occasional car passed by. John could hear the fridge running from the kitchen. None of it was novel, it was what he heard every night, and none of it was enough to feel okay. It was just… there.

He took a measured breath.

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and sat there for a moment before forcing himself to get up and cross the room to open the door to the porch. It wasn’t that he wasn’t tired, but. A change of scenery could be good. His old therapist used to say that even a small change of scenery could boost your mood, scientifically, so you should go do things even if you felt like laying in bed all day.

She also said that it was important to get enough rest when you had depression and not try to pretend like the fatigue didn’t exist because it did, but there wasn’t much he could do about that at the moment.

He stepped out onto the porch—the air was cooler out here, but more humid. He left the door open. Maybe it’d be cooler in there whenever he went back in. If he went back in.

He sat down, quietly, on the couch. The springs creaked beneath him, the only noise he made at all. If he tried, he could imagine he was nothing but a ghost who’d been haunting the town of Rouen this whole time.

He closed his eyes, feeling hot tears burning against his eyelids.

He just wanted to sleep.

He took another measured breath, pressing his hands into his eyelids. He couldn’t break down now, it had only been like a week.

He wanted to talk to someone—to Alex, but some kind of magic version of Alex that wasn’t mad and hurt—like rewinding to two months ago. Or his old therapist. He just didn’t know what to do on his own.

That wasn’t fair—it wasn’t, to always lean on other people so much, to never know what to do with his own life and his own problems. But that was the way John was built, the way his brain was wired. He couldn’t carry himself. No matter how much everyone else needed him to. No matter how good he thought he was doing. He’d always crash again.

John buried his head in his knees. You couldn’t escape from your life problems when you were the problem.

There was a creaking noise from the door, and a shuffling, and John picked his head up. Louis was hovering in the doorway between the porch and the guest bedroom, watching John uncertainly.

John summoned some last drops of energy to speak. “You’re up late.”

“I…” Louis frowned. “I can leave you alone if you want. I just… psyched myself out, I guess.”

It took John a moment too long to understand what that meant—Louis was scared for him—and when he did figure it out he blew out a sigh, looking away and feeling immeasurably drained.

“You can stay,” John said. “If you want. But I’m not going to be a good conversationalist.”

As he said it, he realized they’d been speaking in English—proving John’s point, he supposed.

“You don’t have to be,” Louis said, sitting down criss-cross on the floorboards. “I brought granola bars.”

John didn’t respond to that. He wasn’t sure he wanted one, but Louis was being nice. Or just weird. John didn’t really trust his own judgment right now, which kind of cut down on the amount of things he was confident saying.

“So why are you awake?” Louis said, jiggling his leg. He wasn’t looking at John—trying to make himself feel less threatening, John suspected. He knew Louis, and he was a mother hen. It didn’t work—it wasn’t Louis’s fault, it was just that John hated talking about this kind of stuff—hated people trying to fix him, because he knew it wouldn’t work.

“Can’t sleep,” John said. Then, “You can just ask what you want to ask, you know. I’m not stupid.”

He wasn’t looking at Louis, so he didn’t know how he reacted to that—probably better that way.

“Ah—” Louis’s voice faltered, as if he was catching himself. “I didn’t say you were stupid,” he said. “I… I’m your friend, John, I know something’s up with you.”

He was choosing his words carefully, and John felt a stab of guilt—he’d created that discomfort, he’d made Louis feel responsible for this.

Louis was too nice to try to make John uncomfortable on purpose, and John knew it. He’d let John vacillate and evade answers for the rest of his life if John wanted to. But that was… the thought of it was tiring. The thought of talking about it was also tiring. Trying to explain himself, get out all the jumbled abstractions in his mind—nearly impossible.

If he decided to not talk about it, he’d know what to say right after he blew his chance to say it. He knew that from experience.

“I have depression.”

The voice that came out sounded flat and strange, as if it wasn’t his own. Louis didn’t say anything for an agonizing moment. John could picture the map of Louis’s feelings with perfect clarity—surprise, fear, concern, alarm at having jumped into water that was deeper than he realized. He could, apparently, find it in him to regret speaking. The exhaustion of the conversation he knew they were going to have now loomed in front of him, more daunting than it had seemed a moment ago.

“...Have you,” Louis started, then switched. “—Is this a recent development?”

Recent was relative. John shrugged, trying to sort through his thoughts to find a proper answer that wouldn’t be too long. “Remember when Francis broke up with me,” he said, meaning it as a question but not hitting the proper inflection for it. “It was around then. Not because of that, mostly.”

Louis knew what had been going on with John around then—he’d connect the dots, and John didn’t want to have to say it again.

“Do you ever feel like your life is completely off track?” John said. “And you don’t know how to fix it.”

It was partially a bid to keep the conversation moving, not dig too deeply into old wounds and things that couldn’t be fixed, and partially a rare moment of emotional clarity, surprising rawness filtering through the numb fog in his brain.

Louis was quiet for a moment. John glanced over at him and found his face about how he’d pictured—distant, intense, puzzling through some complex system in his mind. Louis was an analyst, especially when it came to these kinds of things—type A. He wanted to do it right.

“I guess I…” Louis frowned. “I’ve felt like my life was off track before. But I knew how to fix it. I was just… afraid to do what was needed. Afraid of the possible consequences, yes? I wanted there to be another way. You remember how I was going to be a lawyer.”

John tucked his head into his knees, a sudden wave of grief washing over him. It was the largest thing he’d felt all day, acute and despairing, like he’d suddenly woken up from his numbness and taken a look around.

“Hey.” Louis’ voice came from reality. The couch creaked and dipped next to John, and he had to shift to keep his balance, and then Louis’s arms were wrapped around him, holding him tight. His body heat contrasted against the cool night air filtering through screen windows, and John took a shaky breath, leaning up against Louis. Giving up.

“I’m just tired,” he said, voice coming out wobbly and small. “I’m tired of everything, Louis, I don’t want to be a lawyer. I feel like I’m ruining my own life for it.”

“I know,” Louis said, voice hushed and gentle. He did know. John knew—he remembered, back when they were both in pre-law. Lots of shared complaints, up until Louis had switched majors and John hadn’t.

“I broke up with my boyfriend for it,” John said, voice quiet and broken, throat tight. There it was: the truth, the truth that he hated to admit because it felt so—so cruel.

A pause. “...Francis?”

“No,” John said. “Back in New York, Alexander—he was—he was too supportive and he would’ve made me face it, but I was scared— but he just wanted me to have a good life, it’s so fucked,” he took another shaky breath, “I can’t date someone who just wants the best for me because I know I’m not doing the best for me but I can’t change.”

Louis, above him, blew out a slow breath. One of his hands was in John’s hair, gently twisting and untwisting a curl. “That name does sound familiar,” Louis said. “I—” he stopped again. “You can change, John. It’s just harder than people want it to be.”

The words were probably meant to be helpful, but all they brought up was a frustrated swampy shame, murky and difficult to detangle. Something—something about feeling like he had it too easy. Like it should be easier.

“It’s not like I want to be miserable,” John said, latching onto the flickering frustration that was stirred in with the shame. “Everyone wants to be happy.” And then, guilty, “I don’t want to drag you guys down either. You know that.”

Louis was gentle. “I know.”

He was quiet for a moment, and there was nothing but John’s shaky breaths and the sounds of the night, the hum of insects and wildlife and the fan whirring inside John’s room, which he could still hear outside. The night air was shadowy and humid, a slight breeze prickling John’s skin.

John shifted, pulling out of Louis’ arms and avoiding his eyes. It felt too intimate to stay like that, pressed up against his chest. John wrapped his own arms around himself instead, staring out at the yard. What he could make of it, anyway.

“If you really want to stay in law, I won’t bother you about it,” Louis said, voice loud in the quiet night. “But I—” he was quiet for a moment, deliberating. John could see it in his face. “The reason I switched from law is because I thought about my future. And I had to face it, that… things wouldn’t magically change if I stayed the way I was. I’d go on and become a lawyer and be miserable my whole life. I was afraid to switch… I was afraid to disappoint the people I knew, but I thought—in fifty years, I’ll wake up and my parents will be dead. And I’ll realize that all I did to make them happy is useless now, and I’ll be stuck in a life I hate for no good reason.”

John pushed down the burning in his eyes. “You make it sound easy.”

Louis didn’t say anything, which said something.

“I can’t think that straight right now,” John said, finally, after a long bated silence. “I can’t—I don’t have the energy for this.”

“It is past midnight,” Louis said, sounding vaguely relieved for the out, though that might’ve just been John’s imagination. “Do you think you can sleep, then?”

John shrugged. “I should probably lie down.”

“You don’t have to have everything figured out right now,” Louis said. “Nobody does, at our age, right?”

John mustered up a weak smile. “Yeah.” It was a comforting thought, or as comforting as anything could be right now.

Louis stood, and held out a hand to John to help him up. He watched John as John stood, in a way that felt all too familiar. He was worried.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” John said. “I’m not—it’s fine. It’s not that bad. You don’t need to put me on suicide watch or anything.”

“You’re not suicidal,” Louis said. A question, that he seemed afraid to phrase as a question.

“No.” Not right now. He didn’t want to scare Louis.

Louis lingered, hovering awkwardly. John sighed, trying not to sound annoyed. “Go to sleep, Louis. I’m fine.”

“If you need anything,” Louis said, studying John’s face. “I’m here, okay?”

“I know you are.”

Louis seemed… as satisfied with that as he could be, because he turned and left, John following him back into the guest bedroom. It was warmer in the room, which gave John a spike of annoyance—he’d forgotten about that.

He left the porch door open, hoping that some of the night air would come in. Louis, going back to his own room, closed the bedroom door with a soft click, and John was alone.

He was exhausted.

He moved over to his bed and sat down, then flopped back on the mattress in a wearily familiar position, the resigned feeling of being awake starting to creep back.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Stop that, he told himself sternly. No thinking right now. You’ll be okay.

No, I won’t, John’s mind responded—immediately, as if he’d just been waiting for an opportunity to say it. I can’t do this anymore.

It was a strange, final realization: he really couldn’t do this anymore.

It was almost comforting, the surety of it. It felt solid, an unchanging fact—if he kept going the way he was going, it would kill him. 

Something needed to change.

The last time he’d felt this way, he hadn’t changed anything, and it had gotten worse until he’d ended up in the psych unit of a hospital in London for attempted suicide.

John took a measured breath, trying to relax his muscles. We’re not doing that again, he told himself.

He really, probably… needed to do something.

John did manage to get to sleep that night, even if it was a kind of restless sleep, drifting in and out with his circadian rhythm. When he was awake, his mind was keeping up a steady flow of thoughts, one blending into the next, too restless to really be useful—but they were all along the same general vein. Something needs to change.

The thought sounded exhausting, but hey, so did staying the same, John figured. He felt half-hysterical. The other half was mostly dull and empty and tired.

Morning came, slowly, and John wanted to sleep in. He wanted to lie there forever, numb to the world, and not have to deal with anything ever again.

He didn’t.

He gave up on sleep at sometime near five-thirty in the morning, dragging himself out of bed to sit on the floor, next to his backpack and his suitcase, which were both a disorganized mess. He was shaky and tired, but too wired to rest, and he wanted to capitalize on the slight spark of motivation talking with Louis had inspired. Before it disappeared.

So. He sat on the floor, fan blowing somewhere above him, in the lowlight of the morning, and pulled out a pen and a notebook from his backpack. His thoughts were too scattered to pin down in his head, so… he would write them down. Action plan, Alex would call it.

He breathed out a sigh, tipping his head back to lean against the side of his bed. It would be easier if Alex were here. Alex was levelheaded about these things. Practical. John had never been practical in his life.

Well, Alex isn’t here, he told himself sternly. He had to do it himself. No giving up, no wallowing. What would Alex do?

“Identify the problem,” John whispered out loud, feeling slightly stupid for it. But he needed his thoughts to be… out of his head. “Figure out the reason why you’re struggling, then address the reason.”

He closed his eyes, trying to think. It didn’t work, and he opened them, looking down at the open notebook in his lap, empty blue lines staring up at him.

He clicked the pen.

Reasons why I am not happy, he wrote. It felt like a concrete step, at least. Even if the main reason felt like something he couldn’t really deal with.

Write it down anyway, he told himself, trying to channel Alex. He wrote it down in a bulletpoint under the header: depression.

He clicked the pen absently, chewing on his lip, then wrote down a second reason: hate law school.

Third: guilty abt hurting Alex.

Guilty about a lot of things, actually, but that felt too complicated to tackle right now, the twisting in his chest too murky and undefined. He needed things simple.

Okay. That was enough. For now. Things don’t need to be perfect, he reminded himself. Just better.

He moved halfway down the page, starting a new list: How to address reasons.

Subheader: depression.

John’s knee-jerk reaction was the same as always: you don’t fix depression. It was incurable. He’d always be dealing with this bullshit, for as long as he lived, and the bitterness of the thought wasn’t one he liked to dwell on. Other people didn’t understand, they only understood being sad, and you could fix sad. You could cheer up a sad person, you couldn’t cheer up a depressed person. But that was a reality no one liked to face, much to John’s disadvantage.

He took a deep breath, trying to push the bitter betrayed sting away. He couldn’t fix depression. But he could cope with it. He needed a better way to… cope.

His therapist had told him things, years ago, and he wrote down the ones he remembered.

Exercise, he wrote in a bulletpoint, raises endorphin levels, and underneath that, changes of scenery, and beneath that support system/socialize.

He bit his lip again, tapping the pen against the edge of the paper absently.

Sit outside and vegetate, he wrote down. He remembered that conversation vividly—he’d told his therapist that he didn’t have the energy for exercise, and she said, well, go a step down and just sit outside for a while, for vitamin D, and he’d told her that he’d feel like a vegetable, just… marinating like that. She’d laughed at that.

Speaking of vegetables: eat fish and green things. It was more specific than that, but he didn’t remember the specific foods that were good for depression—his therapist had given him a printout, but he was pretty sure it was long gone by now. Whatever. Fish, at least, he could do. He was in France.

Sleep schedule, he added. Wasn’t sure that wouldn’t be useless, but either way. It was supposed to help.

That was enough. He almost felt overwhelmed looking at just that short list—too many steps requiring altogether too much energy, and they all felt like stupid toxic-positivity platitudes. He pushed away the feeling— deal with it later— and moved onto the next subheader.

Hate law school.

This one was, unfortunately, simpler. He knew what he had to do—he just didn’t want to do it. It was probably what he wanted to do least in the world, because he’d have to deal with his dad’s manipulation and guilt trips and grilling him on his logic and his plans and his opinions—

Deep breath.

He wrote it down: drop out of law school, find something you’re passionate about instead.

He didn’t let himself dwell on it. Third subheader.

Guilty abt hurting Alex.

He couldn’t turn back time. So. Apologize/make it up to him, he wrote, and left it at that. He didn’t know what else he could do.

He stared at the list. It stared back at him.

Something felt looser in his chest, even though he was tired and anxious and one bad thing from breaking into hysterics. Still. Having it laid out… it gave him some sort of peace of mind, if nothing else.

He put the notebook, open, on top of the mess of clothes in his suitcase, so he’d be forced to look at it sooner rather than later, then climbed back into bed, flopping down on top of his blankets.

That was enough, for now.

John woke up disoriented in the middle of the morning, hours later, bright sunlight filling the room as if last night was nothing more than a dream.

It wasn’t, he knew; the spiral notebook was still sitting on top of his suitcase, disjointed thoughts filling the page methodically in messy cursive.

The short burst of motivation he’d felt had drained away by now. He didn’t want to look at what he’d written down—if he saw it and decided it was too hard, it would make him feel worse, and he’d either wallow in that feeling or have to actually go out and do stuff—both unappealing options.

The pull of familiarity ran deep. Uprooting his life, changing everything he’d been scared to change for so long, sounded less necessary and more extreme in the light of day, even though he felt like a coward for thinking it. For not going through with everything he was so sure of just a few hours ago.

Didn’t he have class today? He sat up reluctantly, casting around for his phone, which was tangled in the blankets. It was eleven sixteen.

So he’d skipped class, probably. Great. John flopped back and stared up at the white wood slats of the ceiling, trying not to drown in abject misery. Trying not to think that he couldn’t do anything right or that he’d never be able to be normal. Bad thoughts, ignore those thoughts.

It took a minute for his thoughts to wind down enough for it to occur to him that Louis probably wouldn’t have let him skip class. Probably—he didn’t remember if Louis had classes today, actually, so maybe he hadn’t noticed. But maybe things were fine?

“Stay positive,” he muttered to himself wryly under his breath, pulling a face.

He didn’t want to get up. If he stayed in bed he’d feel worse.

He sighed and pulled himself out of bed.

The idea of running into Louis’ mom didn’t occur to him until he was in the living room, and it was enough to make him almost backtrack straight into the bedroom. He didn’t—he stopped, listening for signs of life, and when he heard none he cautiously moved forward towards the kitchen.

Louis was sitting at the kitchen island, idly scrolling through his phone. There was a banana peel on the table. He looked up when John appeared in the doorway (unfortunately).

“Hey,” he said, in English. John pursed his lips.

“Salut,” John said pointedly, taking a seat across from Louis. Louis gave him a look, but went along with it, switching to French.

“How are you feeling?” he said, glancing down at his phone again. A buffer, or a shield, because John was being prickly.

“Fine,” John said, still in French. “Were classes canceled?”

“No,” Louis didn’t look up. “I called you in sick because you weren’t getting up. I figured you could use sleep,” he glanced up at that, hesitant. “You seemed tired last night.”

John bit his lip to keep from saying something stupid, but he couldn’t help the annoyance, and he knew it probably showed on his face. Still— “Thank you,” he said begrudgingly.

“Should I not have?” Louis said. Then, unrelated, “Are you hungry?”

“I should probably eat,” John said, making no move to get up. The idea of food sounded… boring. Exhausting, maybe. “...I just don’t want to fall behind in classes. More than I am already. It’s stressful.”

Louis gave him an examining look. John recognized it: the I don’t know what to do with you look. And that was what he meant, when he said—well, he didn’t say it, he just thought it—but that was where his opinion came from, that it was so frustrating when people who didn’t get it tried to make everything okay for him. There wasn’t a way to make everything okay—there were no good solutions, because it wasn’t a good situation. Something always had to give.

“Don’t look at me like that,” John said, looking away, hands fidgeting on the granite tabletop. “I’m not made of glass, Louis.”

The words came out quieter and sadder than he meant them to, which he hated. It didn’t help prove his point at all.

“I know you’re not,” Louis said. “I just… I wish I could help you.”

Don’t, John wanted to snap. Don’t say that. Don’t feel that. It scares me.

He didn’t say that. He didn’t have the words or the energy to explain.

Instead, he took a measured breath.

“Actually,” he said. “I should make a call first, since my morning is free now.”

“You’re not going to eat?”

“After,” John promised, not sure if he was planning on keeping that promise. He wasn’t lying— it just depended on how much energy this phone call would take, which was… always hard to measure. He stood. “I’m gonna be on the porch.”

Louis didn’t force him to stay, even though John could tell he wasn’t sure about it. John blew out a breath as he entered his room again, plucking his phone out of his bed. He loved Louis, and a part of him was grateful for the support, but a larger part was exhausted by it.

He shut the porch door behind him, stepping barefoot onto the painted wooden floor of the porch.

Most of him wanted to sit down and scroll through social media for an indefinite amount of time. He really didn’t want to make this call.

You need to, John reminded himself, and the words felt slightly more true than they did when he woke up. Guilt-tripping himself, or maybe it was some adrenaline kicking in. Either way. He stayed standing while he tapped through his contacts and found his dad.

Deep breath. He pressed the call button.

It wasn’t that he was energized, exactly. He was pacing, one hand playing with the hem of his shirt while the other held the phone to his ear as it rang, but he didn’t feel alert. He was still more or less in some sort of dream-state, just… restless. All nervous adrenaline, but too tired to channel it anywhere productive.

Except make a call, he supposed.

He was contemplating hanging up and pretending he’d never attempted this when the staticky noise of the call picking up came through the line. “Jack?”

Fuck, this was a terrible idea. Fuck fuck fuck. Okay. Deep breath. “Hey, dad.”

“This is… out of the blue,” his dad said. “I have a meeting in a few minutes, John. Are you alright?”

“I—” I’m fine, John wanted to say. But that would negate any argument he made afterwards, and the words stuck in his mouth, paralyzed.

“John,” his dad said, with a different tone. Sterner, or maybe more taken aback.

Rip off the band-aid. “I want to drop out of Law School,” John blurted out, then immediately cringed, physically, staring out at the backyard and imagining his dad’s face across the ocean.

“I mean,” he said, digging his nails into his arm, “Not, like—out of school entirely, but, like, changing majors or career paths or something, I…” his explanation dwindled.

They sat there in the heavy silence. 

When John’s dad did speak, it almost made John jump.

“What’s brought on this idea?” his voice was heavy in the phone, and John squeezed his eyes shut, energy burning under his skin. He wished he could do, like, jumping jacks or something while they talked, just so he could feel a bit saner. “You committed to Law School a long time ago, John, I thought you were set on it.”

You were set on it, John wanted to say. The words burned in his throat like the lump you got before you started crying. He didn’t say it, because his dad was, technically, right. John had made a decision.

He took a shaky breath. “I just… I don’t like it.” the words hung in the air, sounding pathetically flimsy. He added, “It makes me miserable.”

His dad was quiet for a beat. “You’ve never acted like you didn’t like it before.”

Yes, I did, John wanted to scream. But it was old news that his dad couldn’t read his feelings if his life depended on it. It was partially John’s fault, for hiding them from him—but, fuck, he’d done that for a reason. “I tried to have a good attitude about it,” John said, choosing his words carefully and trying not to waver. “I thought—maybe it’d get better—but I can’t… I just can’t do this anymore. I need to switch, okay?”

The words were bold. Blunt and more demanding than John usually dared to be with his dad. He felt slightly sick. But it was the truth. And if—if his dad cut him off and he was stranded in France, Louis would at least let John stay with him for a while. It’d be okay.

There was a pause over the line, then a long breath, blown out measuredly. “What is it that you want to do, then,” his dad said.

Fuck. John squeezed his eyes shut, tears burning against them. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, and that should be a fine option, but he knew it wasn’t. His dad—always pragmatic, to the point of being cruel. But it was just pragmatism. Hard to argue with.

“I don’t know,” he forced out. The lump in his throat made it hard to talk, and it came out as more of a whisper. “I’d figure something out.”

The sad part was that John could have predicted the lecture before it started. “I worry about you sometimes, John,” his dad said. “So many talented young men end up with wasted potential because they let themselves drift aimlessly through some of the most critical years of their life—or they don’t have the work ethic to follow through on what they chose to dedicate themselves to—”

“I do have work ethic,” John cut in, sharp and hot. “When it’s something I’m actually passionate about.”

“I know you can be disciplined,” his dad said, a hint of steel creeping into his tone. “John, work ethic—discipline—isn’t about how you feel about what you’re working on, it’s about deciding to buckle down and do the work anyway.”

Why would I do that? John wanted to scream. His dad kept talking. “I’ve seen you have discipline before, John, but it’s fickle. You start projects and you drop them, and you bounce around from one thing to the other. You’re talented, John, but you’ll only reach your potential if you apply yourself consistently.”

“Well, I need to apply myself consistently to something that’s not law,” John snapped. “I’m not you, dad, things don’t work for me the way they do for you, if I hate something I need to stop or it’s going to kill me.”

Fuck. That was… bad. He shouldn’t have said that. He took a shaky breath and rushed to fix it. “I just—I really hate this, dad, it’s not about my work ethic, I—” he took another shaky breath, trying to quell the tears welling up in his eyes. Not a good time. “I know myself and I know what I need, and I need this,” he said, hating how pleading he sounded. He didn’t know how to make his dad understand. Couldn’t speak his language. “I just—I hate doing this, it’s—it’s crushing my, my soul—” he took a shuddering breath, tears starting to fall in earnest.

“John,” his dad cut in. “Take a breath.”

John did.

“If this is important to you, we can work something out,” his dad said. “My concern is that you’re rushing into this without evaluating. If you don’t like law just because it’s hard work, or because the teachers are rude, or anything along those lines, that’s a different situation than if you truly think it’s ‘crushing your soul.’”

John’s words sounded melodramatic in his dad’s mouth. John didn’t say anything—he couldn’t, with his throat closed up from crying.

“I need to go to my meeting,” his dad said. “This isn’t a good time to talk about this in full. But here’s what we’ll do, quickly: I want you to stick it out until the end of the school year and think about this, and think about whether this is the right choice. If you decide to drop out, I need to know you have a different plan in place for what you’re going to do. So think about what else you might do while you finish the year out, and we can reconvene then.”

Till the end of the school year wasn’t long, now. Only about two weeks. It felt like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. “Okay,” John said shakily.

“Alright,” his dad said. “I need to go. Call me later at our usual time, and we can talk more then.”

The line went dead before John could agree.

He stood there, breathing shakily in the silence and feeling like he’d just run a marathon.

He sucked in a deep shuddering breath and sat down on the hardwood floor of the porch, shellshocked. He had a dull headache, he realized vaguely, but his body felt ten thousand miles away.

Shit. Okay. He’d really just done that.

He closed his eyes, taking another shuddery breath, and laughed, half-hysterical. He was half-hysterical. It was like he’d managed to claw his way out from being buried alive, breaking through heavy dirt to finally see the open sky above him. He felt like crying (or—keeping crying), and he wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or a bad way. Both, he thought.

“Holy shit,” he murmured to himself, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

Everything is going to be so much better now, said a voice in the back of his mind. He let a grin spread across his face, eyes still closed.

Holy shit.

The future stretched out ahead of him like the open sky in the middle of a plain, and it was actually his.

He wasn’t stupid—it was going to be shit, with his dad questioning him, and he was still depressed—he could feel the brainfog lingering, only—further, now, receded for the moment. Just two weeks, and he’d be free, and things were going to be a million times better, and easier, and he could do whatever he wanted.

He didn’t know what he wanted. But he’d figure something out. He wasn’t sure the feeling would last, but in the moment at least he felt stronger, more solid, than he had been in a long time.

Chapter Text

Angelica: can we talk?

Alex: Busy. Also why

Angelica: you know why.

Angelica: look I really do just want to talk ok? not chew you out or anything

Angelica: eliza told me what happened.

Alex blew out a breath, turning his phone all the way off and putting it face-down on the table.

He really needed to just block her or something.

He was busy, okay—it was finals week at Columbia. He had his final paper due for his Legal Research and Writing class on Thursday, and his Civ Pro final on Wednesday, which was closed book, three hours and two sections (the first section was short answers, the second section was two essays, so you could argue three sections). He’d already had his Criminal Law and Procedure final, which he thought he did okay on because it was just an essay, but he could’ve probably been more thorough. John used to say he was sometimes too thorough, though, or too wordy, so he’d tried to streamline it—but he wasn’t sure, and he was trying not to think about it.

His Real Property final was also on Thursday, and he hated Property Law, but he’d been trying to prepare himself by rereading his copy of Mastering Property Law, which was already marked up from the first time he’d read it, but it could be useful to go through and annotate again now that he’d actually taken the class and knew better what was important. He’d also found an audiobook version, which was useful for when he was doing other stuff, like eating, or riding the subway to class.

Probably the worst one was going to be Contracts. That was on Friday—the worst for last. He wished it had been first, but he didn’t pick the schedule. The professor had said there’d be three contracts at issue on the test and to break it down by obligation, breach, damages, so he’d been doing that to study. He knew he could do it—the question was whether he could write down the entire argument thoroughly enough for it to make sense in time. Contracts was complicated. Lots of moving parts.

There were also OCIs to think about—On-Campus Interviews, where different law firms came and interviewed the best law students for a summer position. His final grades counted on whether he got an interview. If he didn’t get an interview, he could always apply for jobs himself, but he probably wouldn’t get in, because they’d have already picked someone else—so he really needed to do well, so he could get hired, so he could make connections and get a foot in the door. He had his top picks for who he wanted to work with, but all that depended on even getting offers. So there was something—especially since all the rich kids in his classes probably already had spots lined up with uncles or family friends or whoever —he had to work twice as hard to get in.

The moral of the story: fucking rich people.

He sighed again, leg jiggling under the table, staring at the screen of his laptop without seeing it. Around him, the library was rustling with students who looked about as stressed as he felt. It didn’t help his stress levels, to be out in the open like this—he wasn’t in the mood to be around people—but the private study rooms were all booked up. He would’ve signed up for his slots earlier, but, well… he’d been busy having a mental breakdown.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

The library smelled like cleaning products and paper. The sound of a printer whirring and people talking in hushed tones to each other hung in the broad empty air. There hadn’t been a printer in the library back in Saint Croix—the library there was a much smaller collection. The church Alex had gone to sometimes had had a printer, in the room adjacent to the room they met in for youth group. Father Knox had let Alex use it, pretty regularly.

It was nice to be in a big library. It was like an arsenal. A fortress that he could hole up in for as long as he wanted. And he didn’t have to ask to use the printer.

“Hey.”

The voice was soft. Alex looked up, and—oh, fucking hell. Angelica was standing in front of his table, hands stuffed in the pockets of a dusty orange windbreaker that probably cost more than half of Alex’s wardrobe.

Alex glared, incredulous. “What are you, a stalker now?”

Angelica’s face didn’t change from its unreadable expression. “You literally told Peggy you were in your school’s library.”

He had, hadn’t he. But— “Not to get you to show up,” he said, glancing back at his laptop. It was dimmed, about to fall asleep, and he tapped the touchpad to wake it up. “I thought it was pretty obvious that I didn’t want to talk to you.”

Angelica rocked back on her heels, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. Alex wondered if anyone had ever told her no before.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said bluntly. “I think I hurt your feelings, before. I didn’t mean to.”

Alex frowned at her warily, concentrating on not jittering his leg under the table. “...I don’t need a pity friendship.”

Angelica sighed, looking off into the distance for a moment with pursed lips. “Neither do I. That’s not why I’m here. Are you gonna listen to me?”

Alex stared at her, unmoving. In his chest, a heavy rage pounded against his ribs. You’re in a library, a voice in the back of his mind whispered, too weak to overpower the anger burning under his skin.

“...Do you even listen to yourself? ” He snapped his laptop closed, bending over to shove it into his backpack roughly. “You’re one of the most entitled people I know, and that’s saying something, ‘cause I go to an Ivy League school. What the fuck makes you think I should listen to you? We’re not friends, you tracked me down in the middle of finals week, and now you’re making it sound like I’m the asshole for not listening to you.”

He stood, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “I have things to do. Fuck off and leave me alone, your company isn’t the gift you think it is.”

Angelica blew out a controlled breath, face stony. “Okay. Are you done?”

Alex pushed his chair in roughly, turning on his heel. “Yeah.”

“Look, I’m trying to apologize ,” Angelica said, moving to follow him. “I didn’t track you down to be creepy, dumbass, I just don’t like having unfinished business.” 

Alex groaned internally. This was about her. Ugh. 

Angelica kept going. “You were right, at the club, that I don’t know you, and I didn’t trust you, and I didn’t mean for it to come across as personal. I’m sorry that I was acting entitled.”

“ Are, ” Alex gave her a biting glance, picking up his pace a bit. “You are acting entitled.”

“I’m sorry that I’m acting entitled, then,” Angelica said. Alex rolled his eyes. “Look—I’m sorry for what Eliza said to you, okay?”

Alex, despite himself, slowed down, curbed by the sudden bombardment of thoughts in his mind. 

“...That’s not your apology to make,” he said slowly, Angelica drawing up beside him. Implicit: is that your apology to make? What did you say to her?

“I… know it’s not,” Angelica said. “I just—I don’t think she was right. I mean, it was her right to turn you down—and you shouldn’t have assumed—” Alex rolled his eyes. Angelica kept going. “But it was… she didn’t have to get so personal about it. It’s kind of… Eliza’s own personal brand of cruelty.”

“Eliza’s not cruel.” Automatic.

“I know she’s not,” Angelica said. “That’s… that’s the problem. You told me in the bar that she could stand up for herself, but this is—this is the thing, she doesn’t. Unless she’s backed into a corner. And she doesn’t mean for it to be mean. She’s the sweetest person I know. But sometimes… sometimes it’s worse, you know? To act like everything’s fine until it blows up.”

Alex didn’t look at Angelica. He agreed. Too much. “I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t think you want me to criticize your sister.”

Angelica paused. “I’m… protective of her,” she said. “I mean, someone’s got to stand up for her, and it’s not gonna be her, you know? And it’s not—she’s not trying to be cruel. Her only mistake is that she’s too nice sometimes. She just… she’s been taken advantage of before, by guys. Every girl has a story, you know? Me not trusting you wasn't personal—and I'm not sorry for that, by the way—but I'm sorry for the way it came across. That's all.”

Alex bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, rocking on his heels and not looking at Angelica. Jesus. Okay. Okay. It was almost funny, the irony of it. There was something, for Eliza to think about with the nature of humankind: everyone was just afraid of being taken advantage of. Everyone, all the time, always.

He blew out a breath. “Okay. Fine. Apology accepted. For that.”

“For that?”

“Yes, for that.”

“Has anyone ever told you that talking to you is like talking to a brick wall?”

“Yes. Fairly often.” He shot her a quick, strained smile. Usually when I’m having a breakdown, he added in his head, but there was no reason to volunteer that information.

Angelica gave him a deadpan look. “Okay. Smartass. Is there anything else I need to apologize for?”

He looked away. He didn’t know how to explain it, without sounding crazy. “No.”

He took a deep breath. “I should apologize too. I guess. I’m sorry for. Calling you an entitled trust-fund baby who treats people like dirt.”

Angelica hesitated coolly. “Well, I can… see how you’d see me as entitled.”

Alex tried not to bristle. It wasn’t her fault he had hairpin triggers about this sort of thing. “Yeah, well, I think a lot of people are entitled,” he muttered.

“A lot of people are entitled,” Angelica said. “Or at least clueless.”

Alex took a measured breath and tried not to see it as ironic. “I’ve known a lot of rich entitled people,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I’m very good at… propping up better-off people from behind the scenes while they take the credit and the money for it. Okay? So it’s not… necessarily you. I just get… defensive.”

Alex had the uncomfortable sensation of being laid out on a dissection table, chest pried open and wires exposed. Angelica standing over him with clippers. If he could leave the conversation as soon as possible, that’d be great.

Angelica was quiet for a beat. “Yeah, rich people suck,” she said finally. Alex gave her an incredulous look, and she held up her hands in surrender. “Look, I know I am a rich person. I can’t see from the perspective you have. But I’ve been rubbing elbows with rich white people since I was a kid, and it’s… it’s frustrating. They see me as one of them when they want to prove how progressive they are, but at the same time they’ll brag about their amazing ancestors that built an empire from the ground up, and it’s like—I think your amazing ancestors enslaved mine, thanks. You know? It’s what they stand for and they don’t even realize it.”

Alex gave a small laugh, pleasantly surprised. “You know, my ex used to tell me the same thing.”

“Your ex was a rich brown girl?”

“Rich brown guy,” Alex said, and tried not to hold his breath or examine Angelica’s face too closely. “He went to some rich-ass boarding school and he always said it was the worst place he’s ever been.”

Angelica hummed, studying him closely. “Hey, maybe I know him.”

“Maybe,” Alex said. “He grew up in South Carolina, though.”

“A Laurens?”

Alex did a double take. “...Yeah. How—”

“There’s only so many rich non-white families in South Carolina,” Angelica said. “I don’t know them, really, though. My dad was never good friends with them.”

Alex huffed out a laugh, looking away. “Well, I think you’d like him.”

“Maybe,” Angelica hummed vaguely, eyes off in the distance before her gaze snapped back to him. “Anyway, I’m glad we talked. And to be clear, I think Eliza feels bad about the way she handled things. If you were wondering.”

Alex gave the customer-service smile he’d perfected back in high school. “That sounds like her. Thanks for the apology, but I really do have work to do.” A thought occurred to him. “Don’t you? Is it not finals week at NYU?”

“Oh, no, it is,” Angelica said. “I’m up to my ears in it. But I’m on track, so I’m not worried. But if you need to leave…”

She let her sentence trail off courteously. “Yeah,” he said, hefting his backpack up his shoulder a bit more. “I do.”

He didn’t.

Need to leave, that is, but he left anyway, out into the heat of late spring, with polite waving-goodbye to Angelica as she turned to walk the opposite way.

Eliza, now there was a landmine. Especially when it came to Angelica. He wasn’t naive enough to think that whatever fragile peace Angelica was trying to build would survive his entirely honest thoughts and feelings about her sister.

Not that he hated Eliza. He just… didn’t really want much to do with her. She’d been potentially trustworthy, potentially safe, and now she wasn’t. Whatever slight romance they’d had wasn’t one he wanted to take back up again.

It was almost nice, being lonely. Almost.

…He’d been in strange moods lately.

TO: Reverend Knox <[email protected]>

FROM: Alexander Hamilton <[email protected]>

SUBJECT: Stop Telling Me To Write You Back

Reverend:

Sorry for not emailing you back. I’ve been busy with things that I doubt are interesting to you (law school, begging people for internships, &c), so this will be short. There hasn’t been much that I think would be interesting to you, which is another reason why I haven’t written, so don’t send me emails scolding me for not writing. You would be bored. You don’t want to know about the weather and you know it, so stop teasing me about it.

Re your last email, if you want my advice: hire somebody to update the church website, I just looked at it and it’s terrible, and probably half your problem. The nice news is that since it’s half your problem fixing it will fix a lot. I think you know how important having a clear and navigable website is, even if your coworkers don’t (?). It might be hard to convince them, but tell them that when tourists are looking up local churches, having a good attractive website will increase foot traffic, and tourists have money in their pockets that they like to donate to local causes like the church (I know what you’re thinking. Don’t judge me for being pragmatic). Also, tell them to pay special attention to responsive web design.

Your other problem is parking, unless you’ve gotten a better parking lot since I was last there, but that’ll take more time and money to fix. Don’t worry about it so much, though. There are churches doing a lot worse than yours and you’ve got a good sense of outreach. You’re not in any sort of dire straits.

What are your thoughts on when to let go of a person? By which I mean, if somebody hurt you because they were struggling, at what point does it become unhealthy to forgive them/keep trying to help them? Don’t give me the Christian answer unless it’s also your personal answer. I figure you have opinions on this because you knew me when I was very high-maintenance.

A.Hamilton

TO: Alexander Hamilton <[email protected]>

FROM: Reverend Knox <[email protected]>

Re: Stop Telling Me To Write You Back

Alex,

You’ve always had an interesting way of writing. I hope you aren’t offended by my saying your email made me laugh. Do you know that most of the things people consider important are the things you choose to omit, or sneakily tack onto the end faux-casually? This isn’t a scolding. However, I am respectfully disagreeing with your saying that I wouldn’t like to hear about the weather. You are a writer, you could make it sound interesting.

But if you are too busy, I understand that. Just remember your poor old Rev back in St Croix from time to time while you’re off in the Ivy Leagues.

Your advice is as good as always. The main problems with updating the website are reticence from certain individuals (as you correctly guessed) and the cost of updating the website itself—transferring everything we have onto a new system (which we would likely have to do) can become very complicated very quickly, as I’m sure you know. If it were a priority, we would likely find space in the budget for it—but as I’ve said, it is very much not a priority for many people, so getting the money is like pulling teeth. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

The concern with updating the website, other than general curmudgeonliness, may be that many people don’t want tourists to flock to our church—I’m sure you remember complaining about them a fair bit yourself. You know how it is. If there are too many tourists, people feel on display, and they don’t want that when they’re attending a church service. I do agree with you, though, that having tourists come through would be an overall good thing, though not for your “pragmatic” reasons. It is simply that everybody needs some spiritual nourishment, even tourists (often especially tourists).

I agree that the parking lot is also a problem. Glad that it’s the part of our church that’s ingrained in your memory… 😬

As for your question on “letting go.” You’ve given me a lot to think about with this one. This is a very general question for what I’m assuming is a more specific situation, so I’ll preface by saying that it depends on the type of hurt that someone inflicted, how intentional the hurt was, and what kind of response they have to your help. There is a difference between someone struggling to improve and not becoming perfect right away (or ever) and someone taking advantage of a good-hearted person who is trying to help them.

As always, what I would personally do in your situation is pray for clarity. And as always, I know that is not your favorite advice to receive, so here is what I have thought up for you: in a general sense, it becomes unhealthy to help another person once you start living your identity through them and how they view you, instead of through yourself and through God. If your helping a loved one is hurting you, it is likely that you are viewing your worth through what you can do for them, and how they react to you. When you fail to help them, it is a blow to your self-worth, when they push you away, it is a blow to your self-worth. Yes?

I am able to give my support freely to so many people because my sense of self and my sense of worth do not rest on the people I help. I rely on my identity as a child of God. Loving others and wanting to help them is a beautiful thing, and self-sacrifice, when done for the right reasons, can be a beautiful thing—but too often, we try to help others because we want to assuage the hurt within ourselves. To be clear: this does not work.

I think you would gain some comfort and clarity from The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen. It’s written specifically for this sort of struggle, and I think it might speak to you. You’re meant to read it in small pieces over a longer period of time, so it wouldn’t get too in the way of your work schedule. I have an extra copy, so let me know if you’re interested and I could mail it to you. If not, I’ll leave you with a final piece of a quote from the first few pages that I think you might like:

“You have to let your father and father figures go. You must stop seeing yourself through their eyes and trying to make them proud of you. For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily.”

Would you like me to pray for the situation?

Reverend Hugh Knox

P.S. I would not call your teenage self “high maintenance.” You were a great kid. The youth group has a much weaker grasp of 8-ball now that you’re not around to explain it anymore.

TO: Reverend Knox <[email protected]>

FROM: Alexander Hamilton <[email protected]>

Re: Re: Stop Telling Me To Write You Back

The weather is currently 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or 21.1 degrees Celsius. It is partly cloudy.

If that’s what you find interesting.

I’m sure you could guilt-trip any reticent church workers into updating the website by reminding them that God calls you to minister to all, including tourists. Not really—I don’t think that’d work—but it would back them into an uncomfortable corner of their own hypocrisy, which would be fun. But on a more serious level, I understand the sense of not wanting to be “on display,” as you put it. Maybe if you could find a way to separate out information (and therefore groups, to an extent)—I know you have a bulletin in the front of the church that gives out more specific scheduling and local information, so that could be more for the locals. I still say you should update the website to be navigable and actually display the correct hours of worship. If nothing else, at least that.

I remember more than the parking lot. But I do remember tripping over one of the bigger cracks in the parking lot and nearly knocking a tooth out. Those kinds of things leave an impression, I’m just saying. It’s no offense to you.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to know how intentional someone’s hurt is. I think he’s just kind of a mess. But he’s a good person. He cares a lot, when he’s not a mess.

How do you stop viewing your self-worth through the way other people react to you? It’s the most concrete data I have. And humans are social animals. Don’t take this too badly, but I don’t think I could rely on my identity as a child of God.

Another thing: are you saying that if I can’t stop viewing myself through the way other people react to me, I shouldn’t engage with those people? I think that’s what you’re saying, but I’m asking for clarification.

I googled reviews for The Inner Voice of Love. It looks interesting. I’m surprised you’re recommending a Catholic (no offense to Catholics, but you know). It would be nice of you to send it, since you’re offering. Based on the islands’ usual shipping speed, hopefully it’ll be here by Christmas. Thanks for the advice.

You can pray for the situation if you want. My opinions on prayer haven’t changed since we last talked about it, but I appreciate the intention.

Thanks,

Alex

P.S. I absolutely was high maintenance, don’t lie. And they’re lucky I didn’t try to teach them Billiards.

TO: Alexander Hamilton <[email protected]>

FROM: Reverend Knox <[email protected]>

Re: Re: Re: Stop Telling Me To Write You Back

Alex,

See, you’re making fun of me, but your describing the weather made me laugh, so in the end I was right. I did find it interesting.

Backing people into a corner of their own hypocrisy is not a favorite pastime of mine unless it forces them to think productively on their own beliefs. That said, I appreciate your more pointed methods. I imagine they’ll get you far in life.

The issue, again, with dividing out the information in the way you describe is that it’s simply not a priority for many other people. I know it’s frustrating, but you begin to understand why things are so slow-moving in our church. Bureaucracy is never the most efficient thing to deal with. I will try to get them to update the service hours on the website, but we’ll see how quickly it happens. There’s a lot of technical issues and snags going on there.

I hope you weren’t too badly injured by the parking lot. You should’ve told me when it happened, we could’ve made a case about it to someone to get the crack fixed. But all’s well that ends well. I’m glad you weren’t seriously injured.

You’re right that there’s no real way to know someone’s true intentions—only God can do that. But you can observe their behavior and make a judgment call (without being too hasty) on what the likely motivations behind that type of behavior are. I don’t know the person you’re talking about, so I’ll take your assessment of him as “kind of a mess, but a good person” as accurate. In that case, I’d imagine he’s not intentionally trying to hurt you. Of course, I could be wrong, and to be clear that doesn’t negate the fact that he did hurt you.

How to stop viewing your self worth through others? This is a very big question. I think the first thing to do is to stop thinking of it as “concrete data.” It is not. The way other people react to you tells you things about them and their internal state. You may have engendered that internal state within them, and you may have not. It may be a reasonable reaction, it may not. Your actions play a part, yes, but other people are not empty mirrors that reflect your essence. They have their own personality, past, perspective, and issues that color the way they are going to interact with you.

Look at yourself and your own actions as your own concrete data. You have the span of your life to look at: what patterns show up? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Don’t judge yourself for them, but accept them as reality. Don’t doubt them. The more you know yourself and trust yourself, the less reliant you’ll be on others to tell you who you are.

If you can’t stop viewing yourself through other people, it may mean you need to disengage, yes. Not necessarily—it depends on the situation. As you said, humans are social animals, and cutting off everybody in your life because you’re not perfect at interacting with others is not feasible or healthy. You’ll need to use your own discretion here, I’m afraid.

Don’t be mean to Catholics, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ 😉. I’ve packed up the book for you, and I’ll send it tomorrow morning. Hopefully it’ll arrive a little before Christmas. If you want at all to talk more in depth (or more specifically) about what you’re dealing with, you have my number. Just give me a call. You’ll be in my prayers either way.

I’ve met much more high-maintenance kids than you. Trust me on this.

Reverend Hugh Knox

Alex’s leg bounced, frantic, under the table. He flipped through the stapled-together pages of his Real Property final, scanning and methodically rescanning his answers.

He couldn’t find anything out of place, but that didn’t calm him down.

There was about ten minutes left, and a fair amount of people had already left, so it was nearly silent in the room, save for the professor rifling through her paperwork at the front of the room and the awkward shuffling of the few students left. Including Alex.

He was hoping he didn’t look too neurotic. He could never tell how he came across to other people.

But God, he had a headache. And he felt sick. Not literally sick, anxiety-sick. His brain had been too active for too long. And he still had his Contracts final tomorrow. And he needed to respond to Reverend Knox’s latest email, with something like what the fuck are you talking about “look at yourself as concrete data.” But probably more politely worded. It always felt awkward to swear in front of his old youth group leader.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Okay.

He closed the stapled-together papers and arranged them neatly, picked them up, and walked up to the front of the room to hand them to the professor. It was something like doing the walk of shame, even if there was nothing to be ashamed about in his final. He’d feel better once he was out of the room entirely.

She took it with a pursed-lip smile—fairly neutral for Abigail—and he doubled back to get his things, feeling a burning under his skin and hoping he didn’t look like it. Sometimes when his anxiety got bad his face got flushed, and he wasn’t sure if the heat on his face was real or mostly in his head.

He walked out of the exam room at a very normal pace. A normal pace for a normal feeling person.

Out in the empty hallway, he took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Only a moment, because someone could turn the corner at any time and he didn’t want to seem weird. He wished he were a robot, so he could have some kind of “recalibrate” button that he’d just have to press—he couldn’t do this shit himself.

Speaking of. He tugged out his phone as he started walking, actively not picking at the sticker that was starting to peel off the case. This was why he needed to email Rev. Knox back. It might be different for other people, but Alex was not a good person to rely on to analyze himself. His brain was… not really wired for that, at this point. Maybe before all of the life-altering childhood trauma it would’ve been good advice.

He stopped in the middle of the stairwell, staring at his phone.

One new email, from a Schuyler Law Firm. A Schuyler Law Firm. About potential internships.

He blew out a measured, shaky breath. Okay.

He shut his phone off roughly and shoved it into his pocket. That would be a problem for another time, when he wasn’t feeling half-hysterical.

Maybe there was no relation to the Schuylers. Maybe it was a common name. But— holy shit, if he ended up having the Schuylers’ mom or dad as his boss —he would actually vomit, probably.

He imagined Angelica, stopping by the office, casually striking up conversation about societal power dynamics as if he wouldn’t be obliged to be nice to her—or, worse, Eliza, who would want to pretend that there wasn’t a divide between them at all, while simultaneously walking on eggshells around him.

Gag. Okay. Deep breaths.

He actually felt nauseous, in the familiar anxiety-attack way, and his headache was still there—it was almost enough to make him actually want to call the Reverend, just so somebody else could organize his own scrambled thoughts for him. But he wouldn’t. Ever. Reverend Knox was nice, but they weren’t close enough that Alex wanted to do that.

If he and John were still close, Alex would talk to him.

John was good at this type of thing. He went into this… calm, patient, put-together mode that was so unusual from his normal personality. Well, it was unusual until you got to know him, at least. John took things more seriously than he seemed to. It was one of the reasons Alex trusted him so much.

Well. Until.

He pushed out the front doors of the Law building and into the sunlight, shirt rippling in the breeze. He squinted, eyes adjusting.

He just needed to go home.

From this point on campus, John’s apartment was closer, and Alex’s legs wanted to turn that way. Some unhinged, oblivious part of his brain pushed forward the idea of arriving at John’s apartment, and John being there, and they’d sit in the kitchen or on the couch and Alex could talk it through.

He turned the other way. Towards his own home.

It had been months. He shouldn’t still be… whatever.

Whatever! Life wasn’t perfect. Like everyone kept telling him. So he was still a little bit in love with his ex-boyfriend. So he was having an anxiety attack. So he was on a million scholarships, so he might be an employee of his rich friends’ family. Whatever, whatever, c’est la vie. Didn’t matter what he did, or how hard he worked. Life wasn’t perfect!

A laugh bubbled out of him, half-hysterical.

At least he still had glow-in-the-dark stars on his bathroom ceiling, right? And at least he was still in Law School. At least he was still a genius at taking shit situations and making the best of them, even if he was a mess and his life was a mess. At least he was—alive. At least the weather was warming up, even if he didn’t have an internship lined up for the summer.

He laughed again, his eyes stinging. The whole thing was stupid, and crazy. C’est la vie.

He pulled out his phone again with a shaky breath, still walking towards home, so he could text Lafayette. 

He needed a night out.

Chapter Text

It was early.

Beyond the airport’s floor-to-ceiling windows was a view of a broad parking lot littered with airplanes, landing strip across the tarmac, with the lights of Paris beyond that warming the night sky in a hazy yellow. John would’ve tried to sleep, if he thought there was any chance he could, but he could barely sleep in bed. Sleeping on the stiff airport-gate chairs wasn’t going to happen.

Louis had been the one to drive John the two hours to Paris, despite John’s saying (multiple times) that he could just use public transport or a taxi or something. He was still… mother-henning, since John had told him about his depression. But that was Louis. And it was helpful, sometimes, to have someone picking up his slack, even if it was slightly infuriating at the same time that he needed someone to do that.

Anyway. Louis had driven him here.

There was a restless, exhausted buzzing in his mind that didn’t let him do anything for long—looking at his phone didn’t hold his interest, he was too tired to sketch (hand-eye coordination was not great when you were tired), and his bones felt too heavy to get up and walk around. He’d been kicking around the idea of buying food from one of the nearby stores for like half an hour now, and he had yet to muster up the energy to do it.

He was trying not to fall into a thought-spiral, but it was hard when all he could do was sit and think. Ugh. One point to depression.

He still didn’t know what he was going to do with his life. Louis said that’s fine, that’s normal. His dad said figure it out in time to sign up for classes next year, after a long and exhausting conversation trying to explain himself.

He was very tired of having to explain himself.

He should go buy a bagel.

He leaned back against the blue seat, closed his eyes, and tried to think of something that would make him feel better at all.

Sleep. Obviously. Couldn’t do that one.

Talking to someone. His chest twisted in a familiar way as Alex came to mind—he was the automatic answer, and the one John couldn’t reach out to. Because he’d ruined it.

Not ruined, he snapped at himself. Just… broke it a little bit. They were the same thing, but things that were broken could be put back together, with glue. Or with that gold stuff that Japanese people used on their broken dishes, to make it more beautiful. Right?

He’d been trying to tell himself that things don’t get ruined, just different. His brain pushed back against it because it didn’t sound true, but it was something he needed to believe because—because if he believed that things could be ruined and then were just entirely bad and worthless for the rest of their existence, he’d start thinking that he was like that, or that he made everything like that. So he needed to think this way, that things could be salvaged even if they wouldn’t be the same as before. That things weren’t so black-and-white.

He could strike up a conversation with someone else in the terminal. He’d done that before, and sometimes they were really interesting conversations, especially if he was talking to someone from a different culture than him. But he didn’t know what he’d say right now, and he felt too empty to be interesting.

He just wanted to talk to someone he knew, mostly.

He blew out a tired breath, opening his eyes. He could do that… soon. Just not now.

He could watch a therapy video on Youtube. It sounded stupid, watching videos instead of just going to therapy, but it was helpful, for the last couple of weeks he’d been in France, when he hadn’t wanted to go through the effort of finding one. His dad was already talking about setting him up with a therapist again when he got back to New York. Yay.

But he didn’t want to cry in the middle of the airport, so probably… not a great choice. For the moment.

Get up, he told himself. You’ll feel better doing something. Get up.

He sat there, staring at nothing, for another good long minute. He put his duffel bag over his arm. He stood up.

Great. Okay. Now what, genius, there’s still nothing to do.

This was the tenth circle of hell.

Just… put one foot in front of the other. One step at a time. And figure something out.

He wandered slowly past stores, wishing he were sitting down at his gate again. Designer handbags and fast food places. Alex liked fast food, but he was embarrassed about liking it, which John always found kind of… sad, endearing—something. He didn’t know the word for it. He’d just always kind of wanted to… protect Alex, maybe, from feeling embarrassed or ashamed about anything. And being embarrassed about liking fast food was a particularly confusing one, because what was even embarrassing about that? Like, objectively?

He fiddled with the strap of his duffel bag. He really wanted to talk to Alex. He really wanted to be okay with Alex again. And he was… he was going to do that, or at least, he was going to try to do that, to apologize and stuff, but—he just—didn’t know how, at all.

How do you say yeah, I burned our relationship to the ground because I was afraid of facing my own issues, take me back please in a way that sounded… not entirely selfish?

Not selfish, you’re not selfish, John told himself. He did not try to think about evidence to and against the contrary. It would start a spiral and his thoughts would get twisted and he just… couldn’t do that right now.

He should buy Alex something. Or—should he? He didn’t want to seem like he was throwing money at the problem, especially ‘cause Alex didn’t have much money so it wasn’t a fair way to act towards him, but—Alex did like presents, sometimes. He liked the thoughtful, practical shit.

Was anything practical in an airport? What would Alex want?

He liked those glow-in-the-dark stars. Those weren’t practical, but they were thoughtful. But John had already bought him some, he couldn’t buy him more.

John glanced to the side, doubling back. A liquor store. Could you even take that shit with you on a plane? Were you supposed to drink the whole thing waiting for your flight? What a terrible idea.

But.

Alex did take his wine, the last time they spoke—when John broke up with him.

John stood there, in front of the liquor store, for a long time, torn between thinking that wine would be the funniest gift ever or the absolute worst, most insensitive gift he could get. Or a mix of both.

Alex probably wouldn’t be in the mood for funny. But… this was exactly the type of thing that Alex found really funny—a kind of dark ironic humor, making light of things that were serious. And he did like fancy stuff, and—French wine was fancy in Alex’s eyes, right? Even if it was coming from the airport. It was still French.

But John was the one who hurt Alex, so also he was probably the least -qualified person to be making light of the situation.

But if Alex didn’t want anything to do with John, at least Alex would get another consolation prize. That was funny, right? In a sad way.

Ugh, he was thinking in circles. He didn’t know what Alex thought of him anymore, what Alex was comfortable with him doing, that was the whole problem . And he wouldn’t know where they stood until he actually went and talked to Alex.

The thought did not sound appealing, but then, nothing really did.

He imagined showing up at Alex’s place—that is, if Herc even let him in—with a bottle of wine, hey, this is gonna be a shitty conversation, but at least I’m providing the wine on purpose this time, so… hear me out?

He pulled out his phone, glancing at the time. His flight was leaving soon.

He started towards the liquor store.

A middle-aged woman was behind the counter, flipping through a large book that looked like some kind of instruction manual. There were a couple of tourists standing in the corner, an older woman with a visor and short hair mulling over options with a blonde girl in running shorts. They seemed like they were arguing over something, but the store itself was quiet, only murmurs and music too soft to hear the words. John headed for the counter awkwardly.

“Excusez-moi,” he said in a low voice, leaning forward against the counter. He didn’t want to break the quiet. The woman at the counter stopped flipping through her book and looked up at him. “If I buy here, will I be able to take it with me on the plane?” he asked her, still in French.

She put a pen down in the fold of her book. It looked like a drivers’ manual, though the words were in French and upside down, so he could be wrong. “You cannot open the drinks until you reach your final destination,” she said in heavy French. “And you cannot exceed the weight limit for carry-on luggage or there will be a fee. If your journey has many legs, there may be different rules there—it may be confiscated. But here, they will allow you on board, yes.”

“Okay,” John said. His flight was straight all the way to New York, and he wasn’t worried about the weight limit. “Do you have any good local wines?”

They did have good local wines, or at least semi-local. Made in France. She was patient while he waffled over what type of wine said can we please talk— not champagne, despite the irony of that being Alex’s choice last time. Alex didn’t even like champagne, John didn’t know why he took it.

He eventually bought a bottle of Chardonnay—he had no idea if it said can we please talk, but it was the type of shit that Alex actually liked, so that had to count for something. Right? Besides, it was France, France was famous for Chardonnay, so it was a novelty if nothing else.

He didn’t know if he’d ever actually give it to Alex, or if this whole thing was the most stupid idea he’d ever had.

He’d figure that out when he was less… brain-dead.

So he returned to his gate, sitting there with a new bottle of wine in his bag and watching the minutes count down on the screen until his flight was boarding. Outside, the sky was lightening slowly, coloring the clouds.

The restless buzzing wasn’t quite as bad as before. It left a bad taste in his mouth, the knowledge that getting up and doing things actually did help him feel less depressed. Mostly because it was the hardest thing to do.

But hey, maybe he’d be able to sleep on the plane.

Just as the restlessness was starting to creep back in full-force, a cool crisp voice came over the speakers, announcing the boarding of his flight. It startled him out of—not a doze, exactly, but an unawareness, and he looked around at the other people scattered around his gate packing up and picking themselves up. They all looked tired, but put together, human in a way he didn’t feel.

He pushed that thought away. He was a human. He was just like them. More or less.

More or less. Yeah.

Get in line, get ticket scanned, walk through the weird temporary-hallway without thinking it’s going to fall to pieces and crash down onto the tarmac, get on the plane. Find the right seat. Pack carry-on bag away.

Okay.

John leaned back against the dark blue fabric of his seat, staring out the curved little window at the tarmac. It all felt very clinical, for something that should feel emotional. Or—for something that usually made him feel something. Something… different than this, anyway.

You won’t have to go back to Law School when you get back, he reminded himself. Even though it had been two weeks, that thought still brought a bit of happy relief. And—and something. The reminder that he had some modicum of control over his life.

That was another thing he needed to believe. That he had some modicum of control.

He closed his eyes, pressing back against the headrest, and thought of New York.

For some reason, the plane ride knocked him out. He was awake until after they brought breakfast through, and then he slept almost through the entire eight-hour flight, only waking up a couple times, fuzzy and disoriented, and then they were landing in New York. It was something to be grateful for, he guessed, since being alone with his thoughts for eight hours would have very much not been productive, but it was somewhat surprising. He didn’t usually sleep well on planes.

That means you needed the rest, dumbass, a voice that sounded vaguely like Alex’s said in his mind.

JFK did not take the wine away from him, which was good, and he stumbled in a bleary sort of haze through the airport and to the baggage claim. Through the airport windows, the sun was just risen, and the early morning light was annoyingly bright. Lafayette had texted him while his phone was on airplane mode, and he’d probably be here soon if he wasn’t already.

John joined the crowd of people staring at the luggage moving in circles on the conveyor belt, in and out from the openings in the wall. His suitcase was black, which meant he actually had to pay attention to see which one was his. There were a lot of black suitcases. Not for the first time, he thought that he should’ve bought a suitcase that was neon green or something. Patterned, maybe, that would be a lot easier to spot. He always meant to go looking for new luggage, but it usually seemed less important once he was out of the airport, and he forgot it.

There it was.

He didn’t move fast enough to get his suitcase off the conveyor belt, and he had to step back to wait for it to come around again, trying not to feel awkward about it.

He got it, the next time, because he was paying attention and embarrassment was a good motivator. At least in this case (ha, case ).

His phone vibrated with a notification as he pulled up the handle of his suitcase to wheel it away, and he pulled it out to glance at it—oh, Lafayette was here. Good timing.

Lafayette was easily recognizable as the one waving with his entire arm. Thankfully, he hadn’t brought some kind of giant welcome-home poster, likely because John had told him not to a couple days ago. It was… strange, to see Lafayette again, looking so much the same after so long. Like a less painful version of seeing that instagram post Alex made. He was familiar, so nothing caught John off guard per se, but he was in more detail and high-definition than John’s memories of him.

John tried to smile back.

“How is my homeland,” Lafayette demanded as soon as John got close enough to talk. “Has it burned down entirely in my absence?”

John rolled his eyes. “I think it would be more likely to burn down in your presence, Laf. Knowing you.” He paused, looking away. “It was good. I don’t know what to say about it.”

“You must be tired,” Lafayette said, not looking tired in the slightest. “From the flight? We’re going this way.” He took John’s arm, steering him in a different direction than the one John was headed. “Speaking of which, you owe me something. I woke up at six thirty to be here.”

“Tough. I woke up at two in the morning.”

Lafayette huffed, shooting John a deadpan glance. “There’s the cruel kindness I’ve missed.”

Cruel kindness sounds more like Alex, John almost said, but caught himself at the last moment.

“How have you been?” John said as Lafayette pulled him into an elevator. Not because he wanted to keep talking, exactly, but he didn’t want Lafayette to think he was mad at him or something.

“Oh, you know,” Lafayette said, waving a hand. “Classes, classes, classes, but finals are over now. Alex was working himself into the ground—” he cut off sharply, glancing at John with a mildly alarmed look. Lafayette was never exactly subtle.

“That sounds like him,” John said, before things could get too awkward. The elevator doors opened out to the parking garage. Lafayette took John’s luggage from him, for no discernable reason, and started walking. The wheels of the suitcase rumbled loudly against the concrete. John hurried to keep pace.

“How have you been?” Lafayette said. “I—” he cut himself off again, frowning. “Alex said you called him.”

“Ooh.” John winced. He should’ve thought of that, but it hadn’t occurred to him that people in New York would probably know about his little breakdown from halfway around the world. “Yeah. That. What’d…”

“I don’t think Alex would’ve told me, but he was drunk at the time, and we hadn’t seen each other in a while,” Lafayette said. “We were… catching up. But he didn’t tell me much—he was very quiet about it.”

“Quiet?”

“There is my car,” Lafayette murmured, pointing ahead. “I don’t know how to explain it. I was drunk too, you know. But he seemed… concerned. In his Alex way,” he added on, drawing to a stop at  the trunk of his car and popping the lid open. “You know. He didn’t say he was concerned, he just seemed… less harsh, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” John said, trying not to look like he was drinking in the details too desperately. Lafayette couldn’t see his face anyway, loading John’s suitcase into the trunk as he was. “Less harsh is a good way of putting it.”

“I still don’t understand what happened with you two,” Lafayette said, standing up straight again and shutting the trunk. “But he didn’t seem mad at you, which was very strange, and makes me think that something must have happened with you.”

John sighed. Lafayette was giving him an expectant look. He was too tired to deal with this.

But he still had to deal with it.

He avoided Lafayette’s gaze, walking around him to get into the passenger side of the car. After a long moment, Lafayette slid into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. The glowing controls lit up the gloom of the parking garage softly.

“In my defense, I was very drunk when I called him,” John said. “I wasn’t in a good… decision-making headspace.”

Lafayette only hummed, pulling out of the parking space. John stared out the side window, trying to think of a way to put it… delicately. A way to say I’m a mess without insinuating that he was, you know, a mess.

“I’ve been… things have been… weird,” John settled on. “I mean, they were weird before I left, too.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said. “You were acting strange.”

Strange how? John wanted to demand, seized by a sudden—paranoia, or discomfort. He didn’t want to be so transparent, it felt pathetic. He drew in a deep breath, reining himself back so he didn’t seem… entirely crazy.

“Things get… difficult for me, sometimes,” he said. “Because I have depression.” he pushed past the confession, wanting to explain before Lafayette drew conclusions. “I mean, I get—it gets—hard to… function, like a normal person, and—but, some things help with that. Like—getting a change of scenery, you know, so—being in France, it helped, for a while. But then it, you know, didn’t. So that was… what I called Alex about. Again, super drunk. So it was… not great. But I’m not surprised it… threw him off.”

The words worried him seemed too big to say, somehow. Too serious.

Lafayette was quiet. They pulled out of the parking garage and into the sunlit streets of New York.

“How are you now?” Lafayette said.

“I’m…” Lafayette’s tone was concerning to John—too hesitant, too worried, and it made John want to sugarcoat things. He wasn’t sure if Lafayette would like the truth of his depression, or if he knew much about it at all. “I’m fine. Still depressed, but that’s life. It’s not the end of the world; I’m dealing with it.”

Lafayette hummed, not taking his eyes off the road. “You could have told us, you know,” he said. “We’re your friends. We would… support you.”

“I know,” John said, not sure if it was true or not. He believed that Lafayette believed it, at any rate, which was nice of him. “I just… I don’t like it when people walk on eggshells around me. It’s… hard to explain.”

“Tell us what you need and we will do that for you,” Lafayette said with a final sort of tone. John didn’t say anything, thoughts too complicated to articulate. Especially with how foggy his mind was.

Traffic crawled forward.

“I could go for breakfast,” John said, just to break the silence.

Lafayette gave him a confused glance before looking back at the road. “Did they not give you breakfast on the plane?”

“Yes, like seven hours ago,” John said. “So—more like lunch, by my internal clock, but same difference. I could go for some breakfast food. Unless you’re doing something.”

“Nobody does anything this early but you,” Lafayette said. “You’ll have to choose a place.”

John took Lafayette’s phone from the cupholder to look through Google Maps. “How is Alex?” he said, both trying to steer the subject further away from his depression and trying to be more casual than he felt. “And—everyone. Herc.”

Lafayette snorted. “Alex is fine,” he said. “We haven’t seen much of each other. He hasn’t been in a socializing mood, and he’s had a whole drama with some people I don’t know. Herc told me about it.”

“Drama?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said. “New… frenemies, or something. I don’t know. You know how secretive Hercules can be, but something’s going on. Of course, when is Alex not at odds with someone,” Lafayette added pensively. “It is a hobby, for him. I think that his new friends were insensitive to class issues, or something—based on the way Herc talked about it. I’m not sure.”

“That would do it,” John murmured, tapping on a semi-nearby Vietnamese restaurant that he’d never been to before on Lafayette’s phone. Phở was always good, and it was one food that he hadn’t had in France so much. “Did Alex tell you anything about it? You said you went out for drinks with him the other day.”

“No,” Lafayette said. “You know how Alex is. He was giving me advice on what classes I should take next year, based on what he read on Rate My Professor. And he was talking about politics, and philosophizing. And he talked about you. He doesn’t just say his life events.” Lafayette rolled his eyes, but it was fond.

“In fifty feet, turn left,” a robotic voice said through the car speakers. John startled, moving to turn the volume down.

“You picked something?” Lafayette glanced at the phone.

“Yeah. I want Vietnamese.”

Lafayette shook his head, smiling. “For breakfast?”

“First of all, there’s Vietnamese breakfast foods,” John started.

“Is that what you’re getting?”

“No. Second of all, categories like breakfast and lunch are largely made up.”

Lafayette rolled his eyes again. “I’ve missed your oddness,” he said. John thought about telling him that eating non-breakfast foods for breakfast was not at all uncommon and also Lafayette had definitely done weirder things, but he chose to stay quiet instead. Conserve his energy.

“You are… better, now,” Lafayette said after a moment. John frowned over at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Not perfect, I mean,” Lafayette said. “But… you seem happier. Yes?”

John considered. More or less, he supposed. At least he didn’t have the weight of Law School bearing down on him, which Lafayette had never seen him without. “Yeah. Not perfect, though.”

“Good,” Lafayette said. “We’ve missed you.”

It was strange to fall back into his life in New York again. Tallmadge and Meade dragged him out for coffee on Wednesday, which was nice of them, because he was mostly drifting through things a bit aimlessly. Well, no, not— aimlessly, just—trying to figure things out. Pensively, maybe.

His dad was still on him about finding a therapist in New York (“If you don’t do it I’ll do it myself,”) , so a fair amount of his time and energy was dedicated to that, because he didn’t want his dad commandeering what therapist he went to. Or what life path he chose next year, because he’d managed to extend that timeline, too, by talking about how it was important to not rush these kinds of decisions or whatever. His dad still kept nagging him about it, but whatever, it had worked. Temporarily. 

It was tempting to stay in bed and sleep, now that he didn’t have classes keeping him busy, but he knew from experience that giving into that urge too much would lead to feeling worse and the days blending together in a sort of… endless dead feeling. The apartment would get messy, and he would just eat trail mix or something… which would not be great. So he forced himself out of bed at least sometime before twelve and made himself do… something. Shower. Go out to Central Park, a lot of the time. Make food. He didn’t do a lot, by normal standards, but it was still… it was enough. So it was fine.

The strangest thing was probably Alex.

He hadn’t seen Alex, physically. It was a big city, and it wasn’t like John was going out to parties or anything with their friends, so. But the possibility stayed in his mind, and for all that New York was big, it was also very small—very condensed, and John still went to all the same places that he and Alex and their friends did, and he kept just… expecting to see Alex around every corner. He would get a flash of long dark hair in the corner of his eye, or hear a familiar accent, or see a familiar jacket, and do a double take, scanning the crowd. Like a crazy person. It was familiar, in a sense, to being in New York for the first time, when he hadn’t really known anybody here. The city made him feel lonely back then too.

He didn’t know if he wanted to see Alex. Well—he did. He’d made up his mind about it, back in France, and it was still in his mind and the wine was still in his carry-on bag that he hadn’t unpacked yet. But if he talked to Alex and Alex wanted nothing to do with him… John didn’t know how he would react to that, or whether he’d be able to take it, in the state that he was in. Alex wasn’t the type to soften the blow of the truth. Oftentimes, John liked that about him. But now, being on potentially opposing sides, it scared him.

He was a phone call away, a text away, or a subway ride away, but John just… couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He first saw Alex the Friday after he got back, in the bodega near Alex’s place—which he should’ve seen coming, in retrospect, but maybe he was so used to looking over his shoulder at nothing that he didn’t expect Alex would actually be there. Everything in the city seemed to point back to Alex, and this was just another place, and whether or not Alex frequented it hadn’t registered in his mind as relevant. So he hadn’t gone there to look for Alex. He’d gone there because he’d forced himself on a walk and it was around lunchtime and he didn’t want to make anything at home and this was there. And so was Alex.

He looked so much the same it hurt, with tiny differences that hurt just as much—his skin was a shade or two darker than it’d been in the winter, and his hair was different, somehow. It was still dark, but less brown at the ends, more of a cool tone that John couldn’t identify from where he was hiding in the freezer aisle.

Not that he was hiding . Just that if Alex saw him here he’d assume John was stalking him, and that would be super awkward and probably not useful towards the goal of actually having a civil conversation.

But then Alex turned the corner. And saw him. And froze.

John was right—he’d dyed his hair, fading into a deep brown-green towards the ends. His green plaid jacket was tied around his waist like a half-skirt. The freezers next to them hummed, and music kept playing faintly from the speakers above their heads.

“Hey,” John said.

Alex seemed to break from a trance, looking from John to the glass freezer doors back to John. “...Hey. I didn’t… know you were back.” He stopped. “No, I did. I don’t know why I said that. You caught me off guard.”

“Sorry,” John said. “I, uh, I’m not stalking you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Alex gave him an amused suspicious look, leaning back and towards the freezer doors. “I wasn’t.” He stepped into his lean towards the doors, tugging one open to look inside. John watched him pick out a cranberry iced tea without so much as a glance back at John. He couldn’t figure out if Alex actually felt this casual or if it was an act.

“Can you—would you—” John said, and then it was too late to back out because he’d said something. Fuck. “Can we talk? Sometime?”

The question sounded desperate, and entitled, and John wished he’d never gotten out of bed that morning. Alex straightened up, holding the freezer door open, to frown at him.

“I mean—I was an asshole,” John said, not sure if he was backtracking or blundering forward. “And I, I wanted to—I don’t know. Apologize, or… I don’t know.”

Get back together? Fix this? It all sounded too presumptuous, in the face of reality.

Alex was giving him that look—it was a familiar one, Alex’s piercing analytical stare. It had never felt so uncomfortable before. The look held for a long five seconds before Alex closed the freezer door with a thunk , cranberry iced tea in hand.

“I have leftover pasta salad in the fridge back home,” Alex said. “Herc’s out. Walk back with me and I’ll split it with you and we can talk.”

Right now? John didn’t say. Okay. Okay, he could do this. Because—because Alex was extending an olive branch, and Alex didn’t do that often, and John wasn’t in a position to be negotiating. So. “Okay. …Sure.”

He followed Alex up to the register, hovering awkwardly as Alex paid for his iced tea. The person behind the register was someone he didn’t recognize, and he was grateful for that, because the only thing that could make this more awkward was striking up a conversation about how he was and where he’d been. She was eyeing him with something like suspicion, though, and he figured that even if she’d never seen him before, she recognized him from descriptions. Maybe from the other employees, maybe from Alex himself. John didn’t know which he wanted.

Alex seemed too calm about the situation as they stepped out onto the street. The sidewalk was shadowed with the scaffolding that was always there, even though John had never seen anyone doing construction above it. The shadowed parts were noticeably colder than the places the sun had reached, and Alex (as per usual) drifted towards the warmer sun-heated parts closer to the street.

“What’s it like in France?” Alex didn’t stop walking and didn’t look at John as he asked the question. John recognized something about it as familiar—an unintentional vulnerability. Alex wasn’t as collected as he was trying to be.

“That’s a broad question,” John said, going along with Alex’s pretending that things were normal. “Just in general?” He looked down at their moving feet, trying to muster up the mental energy to give a good description. “A lot of the buildings look older. More Gothic. Cobblestone streets—maybe brick, actually,” he corrected himself, frowning. “It all smells like cigarettes, though. The nature looks softer—different, I don’t know. Lighter, maybe? A lighter green, I mean. It’s…” he looked over at Alex, trying to gauge how he was taking it. “A nice place to visit,” he said finally. “I don’t know if I’d like to live there. I think New York is nicer. Don’t tell Lafayette.”

Alex smiled, a bit strained. “I think Lafayette might agree with you. Did you find what you were looking for there?”

Straight to the point. That was Alex. John almost laughed, except it wasn’t entirely funny. “No. I don’t know. …No.” John glanced at Alex as they turned the corner onto Alex’s street. “I figured you would figure that.”

Alex shrugged, looking vaguely put out. “You can have a theory and still want to prove it.”

They went up the steps of the brownstone and Alex shoved the door open—it still stuck a bit before opening, and John remembered thinking about getting a repairman or something to fix it every time he used to come over. The old-carpet smell was familiar too, and John blinked in the darkness of the stairwell as his eyes adjusted.

He really missed this. All the mundane details that made up his old life seemed different now, something that it hurt to be separate from. He was here, but it wasn’t the same—he was an imposter, a threat, a foreign substance instead of being a part of the regular rhythm. He followed Alex up the carpeted stairs and felt dirty for it, like he was some sort of conman.

Alex invited you here, he reminded himself.

Alex had clearly been working on something, his things scattered across the coffee table in the living room, but he moved past it into the kitchen. John followed, hovering awkwardly near the kitchen island, unsure if he should sit down or if that would be presumptuous.

Alex pulled a tupperware out of the fridge, setting it on the island with a thunk. “So did you want to talk about the breaking up thing, the phone call thing, or the depression?”

Alex. Always blunt. John appreciated it, kind of—it gave him a sense of direction, helped him find a slight detachedness to organize his thoughts with. “...They’re all kind of related,” he said, hesitating before sitting down at the island robotically. “I—I’m sorry that I left you without explaining anything. And I’m sorry I called you for… I mean, I don’t know what I called you for. I was pretty drunk.”

Alex frowned at him, analytical and sharp. “Do you remember it?”

It took a second for John to realize he meant the phone conversation. “I—yeah. I didn’t mean, like, I don’t know don’t know. I just… I had a lot of kind of half-baked reasons. I just—I saw that instagram post of you and I… couldn’t really avoid how miserable I was anymore. And I—the reason I—left—in the first place,” he was choosing his words carefully, not looking at Alex but at the countertop, “Is because I—you would make me better.” 

He didn’t know what form of the word “better” he meant— you would heal me or you would force me to improve. It didn’t matter either way. “I was afraid of that. Of… being better. And I was a dick to you and I really hurt you and it wasn’t fair and I’m sorry.” He said it all in a rush.

And… there. Now it was out in the open. Now Alex could do what he wanted with it.

Alex looked down at the table with raised eyebrows and an unhappy smile, rocking a bit on his feet. “You… how long have you been back?” he asked the table.

“Since Monday,” John said, trying not to sound… eager. “I… was trying to build up to talking to you. In my head.”

Alex snorted, grinning mirthlessly, still looking at that same spot on the table. He turned away, towards the cupboards, to pull out a bowl and two forks. He was tense, and John watched him closely for the moments that his back was turned.

“So why are you here?” Alex said, turning to set his dinnerware on the table. He pried the tupperware open with some difficulty, still talking. “Done running from your problems? Is this, like, a self-improvement kick? You want me to forgive you? I’m not being mean, these are real questions,” he clarified, glancing up at John with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “Why do you want to talk to me, for real?”

Alex finally succeeded in popping the lid off of the tupperware container, and he made a little noise of victory before dumping half of it unceremoniously in the bowl he’d pulled out. He pushed the bowl towards John, along with one of the forks, and took the other fork for himself, hopping up to sit on the counter and eat out of the tupperware.

“My dad’s on my ass to find a therapist in New York,” John said, instead of answering the true question right away. “He says if I don’t, he will. I told him I was switching career paths.”

Alex jerked, startled, to stare at John with wide eyes. “What? For—really?”

“Yeah,” John said. For some reason, this felt like safer ground—probably because he knew how Alex felt about John’s father and about John’s… lack of passion for Law. It was something good that he could tell Alex, that had a fairly high chance of not accidentally pushing the knife in deeper. “That was a fun conversation. But it’s… yeah. That’ll—that’ll help, I think.”

He frowned over at the fridge absentmindedly. Alex had scribbled all over the whiteboard, vaguely frantic notes that looked like they were from finals week. It was so Alex it hurt. “I… I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m on a self-improvement kick or something. I just… I felt guilty the whole time I was in France. I couldn’t be happy.”

Alex stared at him, digesting this with furrowed eyebrows and a frown. There was silence for a long, drawn-out beat. “Why would you feel guilty?”

John gave him a look. It was… obvious, or it should be, and the fact that it wasn’t seemed… concerning. Okay. “Because I hurt you,” John said, trying not to feel what he was saying too hard. “And I knew it. And I did it so I could avoid my problems and distract myself to try and be happy. Not that it worked,” he muttered. “So. You know. It was kind of a… I don’t know. A wake-up call. I couldn’t… handle it. Hurting you.”

He looked down at his pasta salad, cold and pristine in one of Herc’s nice white patterned bowls. A dark green rectangular plant pattern circled near the inside of the rim. He stabbed a noodle, not really because he wanted to eat, but because he didn’t want to look up. He might cry. Just get it over with. He had to do this. Just… he had to do it. Don’t cry.

Alex made a small noise. John glanced up, against his better instincts, and Alex ducked his head, hiding behind his hair and the angle John was seeing him from. John only caught a sliver of a flushed-red face and lips pressed together, like Alex was trying not to cry.

He’d already made Alex cry enough. Why did he think this was a good idea, again?

“I’m sorry,” John blurted out, not realizing it was redundant until he’d already said it. “I was an asshole, okay.” His voice wobbled a bit at the end, and he swallowed his words and looked down at his bowl again, blinking back tears and trying not to hate himself. All the carefully curated perspective and nuance he’d built up about making mistakes and self-forgiveness and all that shit seemed far away now, in the reality of sitting in Alex’s kitchen while he cried.

“It’s not that,” Alex said, voice tight. He sucked in a shaky breath, composing himself. “It’s not that,” he said again. “I just—I—okay.” He took another deep breath. “How are you doing now? Are you—I mean, you didn’t deny that you have depression, when I said it?”

Alex’s voice sounded oddly hopeful, and John couldn’t place what for. “...Yeah,” he said. “I… yeah. I do. I’m sorry I never told you—”

“Are you okay now?” Alex cut in, impatient.

“I’m…” John risked a glance back up at Alex, then looked down again, throat tight at the expression on Alex’s face. “It doesn’t just go away, Alex. But I’m—I’m… dealing with it.”

The words were bitter in his mouth, like drawing poison out of a bite wound. He wished he could say something else, anything else, than it won’t go away. He wished he could be someone else, someone who wouldn’t have to hurt Alex like this with inevitabilities and listless almosts.

“You should have told me before.”

“I know.”

“I could’ve helped.”

“You couldn’t have fixed it.”

“Is that what you wanted from me?”

“No.” A beat. “It just… didn’t feel fair to you.”

“Ironic.”

“Yeah. I know.” John took a bite of the pasta salad. It was good. Alright, anyway. He didn’t really like pasta salad, per se, but Alex’s was better than the store-bought stuff. “I just… you don’t see yourself like I see you sometimes,” John said, after he chewed and swallowed and Alex still hadn’t said anything. “Saw you. Anyway.”

Alex frowned at him, looking… wary, nervous. Confused. John kept going. “You… I mean, you’re like—a force of nature, sometimes? And you’re so… like, sometimes it feels like you can do anything. I don’t know how to describe it. And I… next to that, I just… I felt like I was going to… ruin you, maybe.”

His throat was closing up, and he swallowed, looking down at his food again. This seemed like the most important thing to convey all of a sudden. He needed to say it, and say it now, or he’d regret it forever. The iron was hot. “Like, I thought—I knew you loved me,” he said, trying to go numb to the words that were spilling from his mouth. “And I—I knew how much you’d do for me, and I—I just kept thinking, Oh my God, you’re going to waste your life trying to fix me. And that was—I was—that was what it was,” he fumbled. “I was scared. That everything would fall apart like that. If I let it.”

The kitchen was quiet. Outside, a car horn honked, and somebody yelled. The fridge started humming. John looked at his food, trying to wrestle down the… the everything. He was hyperaware of being fully on display, of the likelihood of Alex staring at him right now, watching his micro-movements.

“If I spent my entire life trying to fix you,” Alex said, voice intentionally measured and only wobbling a little, “that wouldn’t be a waste. You’re—you’re good people, John.”

John dropped his fork into the bowl with a clatter and put his head in his hands, elbows resting on the table. 

He felt like he couldn’t breathe through the tightness of his throat. His eyes were stinging and hot, wet against his hands. “Fuck,” he said, instead of sobbing. “Don’t— fuck. Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. I wouldn’t—” Alex broke off. “I was worried about you.”

John took a deep breath, shuddering. He didn’t say I didn’t want you to be worried, because he couldn’t speak without sobbing.

There was a long silence, tense and quiet, while John tried valiantly to compose himself and Alex… well, John didn’t know, wasn’t looking. Alex waited, maybe.

“Do you still love me?”

Alex’s voice was small, but he was trying to make it sound clinical. Just another question on the questionnaire. It wasn’t. Alex was more transparent than he seemed to most people, when you really got to know him.

John took a measured breath, not taking his head out of his hands. “Of course I do.” Alex didn’t say anything, and John kept going. “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I just—I keep wishing I could go back to spring break, before I broke up with you, and I never would—I—I hate not dating you. I miss you. All the time.”

Alex, from the counter, took a shuddering breath. “I hate not dating you too,” he said, voice thick and wobbly. “I miss you all the time too. I—I couldn’t even hate you when I wanted to.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, scrubbing at his eyes. “I—I’m glad, though. Part of me. That you never hated me. Is that selfish?”

“No. I wouldn’t want you to hate me either.”

Alex sounded matter-of-fact again. It occurred to John that Alex probably thought John hated him for the past few months, at least until he drunk-dialed him.

This did not make him feel better.

“I bought you wine,” he said, trying to change the subject. “I was gonna bring it.”

“...Why did you buy me wine?”

“You took my wine. Last time. I thought you might think it was… funny, or something,” John said. “Or it’d be a consolation prize for talking to me again. ‘Cause it felt really presumptuous to wanna try and fix things without, like—a gift or something. I don’t know. Sometimes I do stupid things.”

Alex let out a sharp, shaky breath, and John thought he was crying again. But then the shaky breathing gave way into bubbling laughter. 

John picked his head up to stare at Alex, who was hunched over where he sat on the counter, face beet-red, laughing. It did something funny in John’s chest—like the moment he’d recognized Alex back in the bodega, or when he’d seen him in that picture on instagram. A strange… being hit in the chest with fondness. It hurt less this time.

“That’s—so— stupid, ” Alex gasped out. He wiped at his eyes, grinning. “Fucking dumbass. Okay.” He paused, collecting himself, then snorted, falling into another wave of laughter.

John, despite himself, started laughing too, just a little bit. It was hard not to, with Alex cackling the way he was. The sound was contagious.

Alex finally calmed down enough to speak again. “Was it—” he quirked a smile and fought it back down— “Was it good wine?”

John hesitated, having no idea where Alex’s standards for good wine fell in this situation. “I mean, it’s from France?” he said. “Well—a French airport, anyway.”

This sent Alex into hysterics again, leaning forward as he cackled and nearly falling off the counter.

“Okay—okay,” Alex gasped out finally. He took a deep breath, still smiling. “You’re something else, John Laurens. Okay.”

John couldn’t help but smile back, and something that’d been tight and heavy in his chest for the last few months seemed to fizzle away, just by a little bit. The air felt heavier, like he could breathe again. He didn’t remember when it had become thin.

“So, we…” John said, riding the relative high for courage. “I mean, I—I know I can’t take back breaking up with you. But—are we—where are we?”

Alex’s smile faded a bit, and he looked away from John, off into the distance. Not uncomfortably—Alex wasn’t avoiding John’s gaze as much as he was staring at nothing, calculating variables John couldn’t see.

“I don’t know,” Alex said finally. “I—I don’t know.” he glanced over at John, looking almost guilty. “I just—give me time, okay? Let me think about it.”