Alex woke up trapped in blankets.

It wasn't that bad of a situation, actually, other than the fact that someone was knocking on his door.

He struggled into a sitting postion, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. They got tangled in more blankets, and he fell to the floor with a thump.

Kicking off his attackers, Alex fumbled for his glasses and opened the door. Laf and Herc were both standing there, fully dressed, and Alex turned and looked at the clock on his desk.

It was 10 a.m. Oops.

"We were just checking to see if you were alive," Hercules said. "We haven't seen you come out of your room at all."

Alex yawned, "For the most part I was writing. And sleeping, surprisingly."

Laf frowned a little at the sleeping part, but didn't say anything about it. "Have you heard from John at all?"

"Yeah, he got in yesterday afternoon. Didn't he call you guys?"

Herc and Laf both shook their heads. "Non, he didn't," Laf said. "But we already had orders to check and see if you had killed his turtle yet," he added jokingly, and he peeked over Alex's shoulder to look at Charlemange, who was relaxing underneath his heat lamp.

"Nope, the turtle is alive and moving, the last I checked," Alex reassured him. "Now I just have to keep it that way." Laf and Herc both smiled.

"Well, we were thinking about kicking off break by going to Perkins, what do you think?" Herc asked, and Alex struggled to keep his face passive. "Yeah, sure. Just let me get dressed." Laf was watching him closely, and Alex made an effort to smile before he closed the door.

He got dressed in what he usually wore: jeans and a sweatshirt, converse, with his hair in a careless bun. After once again checking to see if Charlemange was indeed breathing, he grabbed more lettuce out of the mini-fridge and put in into the tank, then pulled on his coat and made sure he had his keys and wallet, along with his phone.

Alex met Lafayette and Hercules downstairs at the doors to the dorm, where the sun was shining brightly, glinting off of the two inches of snow they had gotten. It was warm out, though, so Alex was sure that it would melt soon. At least, he hoped it would melt soon.

They all piled into Hercules' truck ("Why do you need a truck?" Alex asked, and Herc shrugged), and Laf and Herc bickered over what to change to the station to on the radio. Alex didn't care, as long as it wasn't country music. He despised country music.

Herc ended up winning the argument ("My truck, my rules," he said, and Laf had scoffed. "This isn't a truck, it's a rusting piece of metal held together with duct tape!"), so now there was classical music being blared over the speakers, and the only thing Alex knew about it was that it was by Bach.

They pulled into the Perkins parking lot, and Herc jumped out, grinning. "Pancakes," he said, "I love pancakes." Laf rolled his eyes but smiled.

They got a booth, and Alex fiddled with his phone while Herc and Laf decided what to get. No texts from John. They hadn't talked since last night.

"Alex?"

Alex looked up. Their waiter was standing there, with her pencil poised over the notepad. He stammered something about a Belgian waffle and a water, and then she left, leaving a laughing Herc and Laf in her wake.

"Distracted?" Herc asked gently, and Alex shrugged. "Just worried about John."

They chattered mindlessly while waiting for their food, but Alex wasn't really paying attention. He felt like everybody was watching him, judging him.

Eventually the waiter was back, and Alex picked at his waffle half-heartedly, feeling Laf's eyes flicker back and forth to him the entire time. He ate enough to satisfy his friends, then pushed the plate back. He couldn't wait to just go back to his dorm and write, where there wasn't people pressing in on him from all sides.

They paid, and then got into Herc's truck, where it was Laf's turn to pick the music. He switched the station to something that was some type of hip-hop, and Hercules refused to turn the music up, proclaiming that he wasn't going to turn his car into "a beat-bopper."

Laf offered to let Alex pick the station, but he politely reclined, saying that he didn't really care about what song they were listening too. He rested his head against the window, and the cool surface felt nice against his forehead. He could feel the beginnings of a headache forming, like a storm brewing inside his skull.

They got back to the dorms, and Laf let Hercules go into their room first, pulling Alex aside.

"Hey, vous allez bien?" Hey, are you okay?

Alex shrugged, "Ouais, juste fatigue. J'ai mal a la tete." Yeah, just tired. I have a headache.

Lafayette's eyebrows came together in concern. "D'accord, eh bien, va dormir. Se sentir mieux." Okay, well, go get some sleep. Feel better.

Alex nodded and smiled tiredly. He felt bad for Laf-he was so worried about Alex.

You're just another burden for people-another chore for them to take care of.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut. He really needed to stop thinking like that.

He got out his keys and unlocked his room, hanging up his coat and making sure that Charlie was still breathing. He checked his phone.

And then he went into the bathroom, feeling like a failure.

X

John was lounging around on his bed, stuck in his room, when Henry Jr. came running in. He was white, freckles standing out against his skin, breathless from the sprint up the expansive staircase.

"Dad's at it with Martha again."

John was up and off the bed in an instant, leaving his brother standing in his room, racing down the stairs so fast he almost fell on his face.

Sure enough, Henry's low growl could be heard from his office down the hallway. John opened the door to reveal his dad standing at his desk, red in the face, staring down a cowering Martha.

"Why can't you just do what I ask of you Martha?" Henry exclaimed, and Martha seemed to draw into herself. "I do, Dad, I just can't-"

"Don't you dare talk back to me!" Henry snarled.

"Dad-" She pleaded.

Henry raised his hand and John flung himself between his father and sister, reaching up and grabbing Henry's hand. Henry glowered down at his son, then wrenched his arm away, flinging John against the wall. The back of his head caught on the corner of a painting, sending a stabbing pain through his skull.

John pushed himself to his feet blindly, grabbing Martha's wrist and dragging her with him into the hallway, not failing to notice the half-drunk glass of Scotch sitting on his father's desk.

His sister was crying, tears slipping down her face as she tried to keep quiet. John pulled her into a bathroom and shut the door, locking it behind him.

"It's gotten worse, huh?"

She hiccuped and nodded. Crying wasn't permitted by John's dad; in his eyes, it was seen as a weakness.

John sighed and brought his hand to the back of his head. He could already feel a bump forming, and it hurt like hell.

When was this ever going to stop?

"Has he hit Mary yet?" John asked, and Martha hesitated before nodding again. John gritted his teeth-tiny Mary, who barely weighed ninety pounds and was about four-foot-eleven, who trapped spiders in cups and released them back outside, who had once convinced John to climb up the thirty-foot pine in the front yard to put a fallen baby bird back into it's nest; gentle Mary, who was getting beaten for nothing.

John ran his fingers through his hair, trying to come up with a game plan. He had nothing-he was about four hours away at school, and no one would believe that Senator Laurens, whose autobiography crooned about how much he loved his family, was beating his kids.

"John, it's okay," Martha said shakily. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. "It's only a few more years until I go to college, and then Henry, and then Mary. It'll be okay."

She shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be the one comforting John, it should be the other way around.

John pulled his sister into a hug. "Only a few more years," he promised.