Alex woke up that night screaming again. He immediately clapped a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, praying.

Please let John not hear, please let John not hear, pleasepleaseplease-

"Alex?"

Fuck.

"I'm fine," Alex whispered, "it was just a bad dream." You sound like a 4 year old.

"M'kay," John murmered groggily, and rolled over. He started snoring softly again in a few minutes.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at his alarm clock. It read 1:30 AM. He could still try to sleep for a little bit.

Alex opened his eyes. The gray morning light filtered through the stillness. It was quiet. Really quiet. He sat up and looked around. There was nobody in sight.

Alexander got up and started walking. The ground was littered with objects, fragments of people's loves scattered everywhere. Branches and leaves were among the belongings; the hurricane had not been gentle.

His foot came down on something...soft. Alex glanced down-

A scream ripped from his throat.

Staring back at him was the blank eyes of a young girl. Her lips were blue; her skin, gray and purple.

Isabel. He knew her.

They had been friends at the orphanage. Alex had given her the nickname Izzie and helped her with her schoolwork, they had sat together at mealtimes.

And now she was dead.

Alex stared back at her body, her neck at an unnatural angle. Her eyes gazed past him. Those eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life.

This time when Alex woke up, he felt bile rising in his throat. He threw back the covers and rushed to the bathroom, gagging.

He pushed up the toilet seat, held his hair back and threw up, his eyes watering. When he was finished he rested his forehead on the lip of the toilet, the porcelain cool against his skin.

He curled up on the bath mat, fighting waves of nausea. Isabel's eyes seem to be seared into his retinas, and Alex winced. Guilt rushed over him; he shouldn't have been the one to survive. He deserved to be dead.

He was weak.

What kind of eighteen year old do you think you are, Alex? You still have nightmares like a toddler.

He stood shakily and dug around in the cabinet, trying to make as little noise as possible. He didn't want John to walk in on him.

He found the bottle of sleeping pills and slowly turned them over in his hand; he had been trying to slowly wean himself off of them, but that obviously wasn't working.

He shook two pills out into his palm.

What if you didn't stop? What if you just kept going until the whole bottle was gone?

The world would be better off without you.

Alex dropped the bottle as though he had been burned.

He wasn't supposed to still be thinking like that.

And yet...Alex was comfortable thinking that way. It was what he was used to, as sad as that sounded.

He slowly picked up the pill bottle and put it back, then turned off the light and walked back to his bed. John was still sleeping, snoring softly under the pile of blankets he was cocooned in.

Alex sighed quietly; if only he could be normal for once. He hated what he had become, yet it was the only way he knew how to be.

He rolled over, wrapping the blankets around himself, and closed his eyes.

He still didn't sleep.

The next morning when they walked into history class, Jefferson wasn't there yet. Alex breathed a small sigh of relief, hopefully he and John had picked seats far enough away from the homophobic bigot so that there wouldn't be anything instigated.

He sat down and started organizing his papers; he already had started an essay for Mr. Washington based on the syllabus information of thier first essay assignment. John sucked in a breath next to him and Alex immediately knew what that meant before he looked up.

Jefferson's coat was reminiscent to that of a brightly colored frog from the rainforest; a warning of something incredibly dangerous and lethal. No wonder the magenta code on oil rigs symbolized the highest level of danger, Alex mused.

The two boys locked eyes across the room and glared at each other for a moment before looking away to prepare for the class that was about to start.

The lecture seemed to go by in a flash, with Alex enraptured the whole time, and before he knew it, he was packing up his stuff. "Let's get out of here," John whispered, and Alex followed his gaze to where Jefferson was making his way through the crowd of students, his eyes locked on the two boys like a target.

Alex started shoving his books more forcefully back into his bag; he was tired and just wanted to go back to his dorm and take a nap, not argue with some jerk.

"You're not getting away that easily, Hamilton."

Alex swore under his breath and turned around.

"Just leave us alone, Jefferson." He glared at the taller student, then turned back around to zip up his bag. A hand clapped onto his shoulder and he whirled around. "Don't touch me," he snarled, and whacked the hand away. Jefferson sneered. "I was wondering, Hamilton, how did you even get into this country? Crossing borders illegally, I supposed?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "I was wondering, Jefferson, are you clinically insane, or just incredibly annoying?" A few people still leaving snickered as they walked past, and Jefferson went red.

"You're going to regret you ever talked to me," he growled, then turned and stalked away.

John looked like he was about to die from shock. "What did you do to make him that mad?" He exclaimed. Alex shrugged. "I think by breathing," he muttered, then grabbed his bag. "Let's just get out of here."

X

Back at the dorm, Alex threw his bag onto his desk chair, then flopped onto the bed. "Ugh," he groaned, and pulled a pillow over his head.

"I'm going out with Herc and Laf, you want to come?" John raised his eyebrows. Alex shook his head under the pillow. "I'm going to stay here, I'm tired," he said, his voice muffled, then rolled over.

John sighed. "If you need anything, jsut text me, okay?" Alex gave a thumbs up. "Will do."

A few minutes later he heard the door shut. Alex sat up. He has so much to do, and he loved John, really he did, but still. The guy was about as quiet as a herd of elephants.

He pulled out his laptop and started writing, something on the symbolism of To Kill A Mockingbird. The words felt like they always did, perfect and flowing, and Alex was reluctant to stop when he realized that he still needed to eat lunch.

He could skip, but...He knew where that would lead. It was a slippery slope, and Alex knew that he would eventually end up passed out somewhere, underweight again, his brain unable to function because the only thing he thought about was food.

Setting his computer down, he cast one more longing look at it before heading out to the coffee shop. He could grab a sandwhich and a latte there before heading back and finishing his essay.

When Alex got to the coffee shop, he was already anxious. He hated crowds, and there was still some people left over from the lunch rush. He dug his nails into his palms before ordering, creating the familiar half moons.

Done with ordering, he pulled out his phone and started playing with it, scrolling through Twitter and rolling his eyes at Trump's latest rage filled comments. Seroiusly, didn't the guy have some sort of PR team to control his social media outbreaks?

Alex heard his named being called and headed up to grab his sandwhich and coffee, accidently bumping into someone as he went to get his order.

"Sorry, I didn't-" Alex stopped short when he saw who he had run into.

Jefferson grinned down at him, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Alexander," he crowed, and Alex involuntarily flinched. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting my food, obviously." Alex's voice was cold as he watched Jefferson, trying to figure out what he was planning. Jefferson continued to smile at him.

"Coffee with that as well," he asked, and Alex nodded, still suspicious. "Let me help with that," Jefferson said, and he looked over Alex's head. His smile grew even bigger.

That was when he realized that something was incredibly wrong.

Alex suddenly felt something cold and wet being poured over his head, instantly drenching his hair and clothes. Jefferson howled with laughter as Alex stood there, his mouth stuck open in shock, frozen in an ever-growing puddle of iced coffee that was dripping down his body.

"What? No snappy comments?" Jefferson asked, feigning surprise. "I thought you were smart. Guess not." He raised his eyebrows, then turned and walked out of the shop.

People were now staring at Alex, who was still frozen in shock and embarrassment. He slowly began to realize something: this was in public. This was in front of real, live people.

Alex grabbed his phone off of the table and fled, once again leaving his coffee and shoving students out of the way. He sprinted across the lawn, slowing only when he neared the dorms. It felt like the walk of shame as he trudged back to his room after leaving a puddle of coffee in the elevator up to the third floor. He grumpily shoved his key into the lock and pushed open the door to reveal a laughing John, Lafayette, and Hercules all sitting on the floor. They froze as they looked up at Alex.

"What happened to you?" John was the one to break the silence. "Jefferson," Alex muttered, then slammed the door and made his way to the bathroom, pulling off his jacket and throwing it into the hamper. He closed the door and turned on the shower.

When he had finally succeeded in washing the coffee out of his hair, Alex shut off the water and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, ignoring the way his healing cuts tugged when he reached his arms up.

Alex stepped back into main room and sat on the floor, putting his head on John's shoulder.

"Alex, what happened?" John repeated. "Jefferson threw coffee on me," Alex said, and his friends stared at him.

John sighed and shook his head. "I warned you, didn't I?" Alex shrugged. "It could have been worse," he yawned.

"Are you still tired-" John broke off with a small smile as he realized the other boy had fallen asleep against him.

X

"Did you get the note I left you?"

"Yes, Alex, I got it. How could I have not gotten it, you stuck it to my forehead!"

"Well sorry, I didn't want you to freak out like you always do," Alex sighed into his phone. He had just gone to college store to get a few new notebooks for class, and since John tended to worry whenever he went missing, so when he went out Alex had resorted to sticking a Post-It somewhere on John's face if he didn't wake up.

"Well, I'll be back soon, then we can go out for breakfast, okay?"

John agreed and Alex hung up. He walked to the college shop, pulling his jacket tighter around him to ward off the slight chill in the air. The jacket still smelled faintly of coffee, and whenever it got washed, the clothes it had been washed with smelled like coffee too. John liked to joke that Alex smelled like his own cafe.

He bought two new notebooks, and then trudged back through the crunching leaves. It was now late September, almost October, and the leaves in New York were all sorts of colors, ranging from a rich amber to deep red.

As soon as Alex walked into their dorm and sat down, Jonhn crawled into his lap. "Hi, I need affection."

Alex laughed. "What happened?"

"Laf said that dogs were better than turtles." John frowned. "He disparaged Charlemange."

Alex rested his chin on top of John's head and sighed. "I mean, to be honest, Laf's got a point. You can't really cuddle with a turtle."

"I will fight you."

"Okay, get off," Alex announced. "I have work to do."

John curled up into a tighter ball. "You can multitask."

"The only time I'm not multitasking is when I'm sleeping."

"You don't sleep."

"Exactly."

John squinted decisevely. "If you give me that coffee flavored chocolate that you've been hiding I'll get off."

"How did you know that was there?!" ALex's mouth dropped open.

John shrugged. "You're not as good at hiding things as you think you are."

Alex self-conciously pulled his sleeves farther down his wrists. Oh, John. If you only knew.

X

"We're going out," John announced later that day. Alex looked up from his laptop. He had been writing a scathing essay criticizing President Trump for his views on LBGTQ+ and was almost finished, 18,000 words and all.

"Out where?"

John shrugged. "We need something to do. It's the end of the week, we're done with class until Monday."

Alex frowned, "John, I don't really think that's a good idea. I have so much to do, and you need to get your law class essay done. It'll be due soon."

John snorted. "Alex, that essay isn't due for two months. Only you would think of getting started on it this early. Besides," John sprawled onto Alex's lap, knocking his computer out of the way; Alex caught it right before it hit the ground, "you need to let loose a little."

Alexander rolled his eyes and bit his lip, mentally debating. One night couldn't hurt-right?

"Fine."

"YES!" John leapt off of Alex, flung open thier door, and bounded into Laf and Herc's room. "You guys, he agreed!"